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Chamber music recital honors College's Centennial

The College's Centennial celebrations continue in 2012 with the Department of Music's "Centennial Chamber Music Recital - Then and Now." The performance is Saturday, Feb. 4, at 7:30 p.m. in Evans Hall of Cummings Arts Center.

The concert - by professors Thomas Labadorf (clarinet), Rebecca Noreen (bassoon), Daniel Lee (violin) and guest Annette Shapiro (piano) - will feature music written either in 1911 or by composers born in 1911 (the year the College was founded). Those criteria created an intriguing program for the concert.

"It gives an interesting perspective of the sound that 'cutting-edge' music had in that year and an aspect of its evolution," said Labadorf, an adjunct assistant professor. "A cross-section of nationalities provides for an interesting diversity in tonal and compositional styles. And as a visual effect, we also plan to wear the type of clothing that was typical for performances in 1911."

The concert is one in a series of music performances to honor the Centennial, a celebration enthusiastically embraced by the department's faculty, according to Midge Thomas, associate professor of music and co-chair of the College's Centennial committee.

"The early decades of the 20th century were incredibly rich for music," she explained. "They marked an exhilarating turning point for many composers of art music, as they moved away from traditional tonality and experimented with exciting new ways of organizing music, and they featured the emergence of new styles of American popular music, most notably jazz. These developments inspired Connecticut College's music faculty in their concert programming for 2011-2012, in many different ways."

The next Centennial concert is "The Centenarian Piano: Music Around 1911," a solo piano recital by Adjunct Assistant Professor Kumo Ogano, whom Thomas describes as a stunning performer. The concert is on Friday, April 13, and will include works by Ravel, Rachmaninoff and Bartok. Tickets are $10 for general admission, $5 for seniors and students and free to College staff, faculty and students.

For ticket information, call 860-439-2720.



December 16, 2011