Department of Music Blog

132 Music Building, free
Rhapsody in Blue, George Gershwin

Nick Stamatakis, piano
Naomi Latorraca, piano

Tango, op. 165, no. 2, Isaac Albéniz

Shana Fowler, trumpet
Wes Ward, piano

Sonata in c minor (1824), Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
Adagio-Allegro

Wei Zhao, viola
Andrew Head, piano

German Songs, Louis Spohr
1. Sei Still Mein Herz (Be Still, My Heart)
2. Sehnsucht (Longing)
3. Das Heimliche Lied (The Secret Song)
4. Wach Auf (Awakening)

Sarah Phillips, soprano
Paul Shepard, clarinet
Nicholas Emmanuel, piano

Salut d’Amour, Edward Elgar

Danielle Rager, violin
Roger Zahab, piano

Tango, Isaac Albéniz

Emily Wheeler, piano

Military March, op. 51, no. 1, Franz Schubert

Kayla Wands & Kevin Hrebinko, piano, four-hands

Sunday, November 22, 2009
Heinz Memorial Chapel, 3 p.m.
Admission: $5 at the door

Legends, Songs and Dances
a concert in support of the Heinz Chapel Building Fund

Roger Zahab, violin
with Alicia Bekeny, violin

The music
J.S.Bach : Partita in d minor (BWV 1004, ca. 1720)
Béla Bartók : Sonata for Solo Violin (1944)

with short works by
Judith Weir: Rain and mist are on the mountain, I’d better buy some shoes
and
Roger Zahab : Battery Park, New York Harbor, The Fens, & commonwealth

132 Music Building

The Program

Sonata II in a minor, BWV1003 J.S.Bach, Grave-Fuga
Joshua Greenberger, violin

Sonata op. 10, no.1 Ludwig van Beethoven, Finale: Prestissimo
Impromptu, op. 142, no. 2, Franz Schubert
Qui-dong Chen, piano

Simplicity, Dexter Gulick
Dexter Gulick, piano

Shades of Gray, Mark Penn
Mark Penn, piano

Fantasy in C minor, W.A. Mozart
Kaitlin Mitchell, piano

Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Music Akin Euba and Music Department alumni, including George Dor (PhD 2001), Anicet Mundundu (2005), Sister Marie Agatha Ozah (PhD 2008), and Jason Squinobal (PhD 2008), will participate in UCLA’s Africa Meets North America Conference (AMNA) taking place October 22-25. Professor Euba will make remarks at several sessions and his opera Chaka will be discussed during a scholarly session. Sister Marie Agatha Ozah will chair a scholarly session on Music Performance and Technology in University and Studio Environments and give a paper titled “Understanding the Pre-Compositional Resources in Joshua Uzoigwe’s Egwu Amala.’” George Dor will give a paper titled “West African Drumming and Dance in U.S. Universities: The Resurrection of a Suppressed Genre” and lead a workshop on “Observations on Ghana50 at Ole Miss in Oxford Mississippi.” Anicet Mundundu will chair a scholarly session titled “Melding Traditions: West Africa, USA, China, and Cuba” and give a paper titled “Diversity and Unity in African Music Performance Practice in the U.S.” Jason Squinobal will perform original compositions, including a song he composed for Dr. Euba, with his jazz group Horizon Band. Squinobal’s compositions feature intertwined ostinatos and polyrhythm, and many utilize West African traditional melodies. He will be joined for this performanc. by Ghanaian master drummer J. S. Kofi Gbolonyo (PhD 2009).

Mark Peters (PhD 2003) will give a paper at the conference Poets, Mothers, and Performers — Considering Women’s Impact on the Music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Peters’ paper is titled “A Woman’s Poetry in Leipzig’s Churches: Mariane von Ziegler as Cantata Librettist.” The paper grows out of Peters’ ongoing research on J. S. Bach’s sacred cantatas to texts by Leipzig Poet Christiane Mariane von Ziegler, research he published in his monograph A Woman’s Voice in Baroque Music: Mariane von Ziegler and J. S. Bach. The conference, which takes place October 16-18, is chaired by Prof. Markus Rathey (Yale) and sponsored by the Yale Institute of Sacred Music in collaboration with the Music Department and the Program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale.

Mark Peters is Associate professor of Music at Trinity Christian College (Palos Heights, IL) and Chair of the Department of Music. Mark has presented conference papers on Bach, Ziegler, and Johannes Brahms, and his publications include articles in BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute and the monograph “Claude Debussy As I Knew Him” and Other Writings of Arthur Hartmann (University of Rochester Press, 2003), with Samuel Hsu and Sidney Grolnic. He serves as Secretary-Treasurer of the American Bach Society and is currently pursuing new research on the German Magnificat from Martin Luther to J. S. Bach.

Heinz Chapel Choir Holiday Concert tickets are now on sale. Please visit www.proartstickets.org or call 412-394-3353.

Department of Music Ensemble in Residence IonSound Project will make its New York debut on Friday as  part of the Phoenix Concerts. The group will perform a program of works by Michael Torke, Libby Larsen, Jed Distler, Orianna Webb, and Eric Satie. The concert takes place on October 2 at 8 p.m. at the Church of Saint Matthew and Saint Timothy, so if you’re in the New York area, come hear IonSound on Friday night.

Chatham University will celebrate the Global Focus Year of West Africa at the Sounds of Africa Music Festival, Friday, October 2 and Saturday, October 3. Pauline Rovkah, professor of music and the festival director, has assembled Pittsburgh’s finest music scholars and musicians for an incredible weekend of free events in the James Laughlin Music Hall. For more information contact Pauline Rovkah at 412-365-1676 or rovkah@chatham.edu. The festival will include discussions and performances by Pitt Department of Music faculty including Akin Euba, Eric Moe, and Roger Zahab, alumni Anicet Mundundu and members of Alia Musica Pittsburgh, and current graduate students Oyebade Dosunmu, Charles Lwanga, and Ayo Oluranti. The complete schedule and list of participants is after the jump. (more…)

Composer Philip Thompson (PhD, 2002) created the score and produced the music for Will Zavala’s short documentary Virgil Cantini: The Artist in Public. The film is one of four documentaries commissioned by the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and funded by the Heinz Endowments. Each brief documentary celebrates a past PCA Artist of the Year and will be shown continuously in the Center’s video room during their opening to introduce current Artist of the Year, Tim Kaulen. The opening takes place at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts on Friday, September 25 from 5:30-8 p.m. There’s a suggested donation of $5 and PCA members get in free.

Will Zavala is a freelance media producer and an Assistant professor at Pittsburgh Filmmakers. He specializes in documentaries and has credits on productions for ITVS, PBS, MTV, and HBO. His films and videos have screened in festivals internationally and on public television.

Virgil Cantini founded Pitt’s Department of Studio Arts and created many pieces of public art including the sculptures on Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health (Man), in front of Pitt’s School of Law (Ode to Space), in Penn Circle behind East Liberty Presbyterian (Joy of Life), and many more. Cantini passed away in May of 2009.

Congratulations to Professor Deane Root who has just been appointed Editor in Chief of Oxford University Press’ Grove Music Program. Root’s appointment was announced today in the Pitt Chronicle. Sharon Blake reports that

“The content of Grove Music Online includes the full texts of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd Edition (2001), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992), and The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd Edition (2001). The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments and The New Grove Dictionary of American Music, both of which have their own separate editors and are being published as printed reference works, will become part of Grove Music Online under Root’s editorship. Overall, Grove Music Online includes more than 50,000 articles and 28,000 biographies contributed by more than 6,000 scholars from around the world.”

Deane Root’s appointment as Editor in Chief for Grove Music Online represents a tremendous milestone in a career with no shortage of impressive achievements.