A concert celebrating the music of West Virginia composer George Crumb will be held at the West Virginia University Creative Arts Center on Tuesday, Nov. 6.

The event begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Bloch Learning and Performance Hall (200A) and is free and open to the public.

Performers include Crumb’s daughter, soprano Ann Crumb, along with baritone Patrick Mason and members of Orchestra 2001 of Philadelphia including: Director James Freeman; Marcantonio Barone, piano; and percussionists
William Kerrigan, David Nelson, Brenda Weckerly and Greg Giannascoli.

The concert features songs from Crumb’s “Voices from the Heartland” (American Songbook VII, 2010), including “A Cycle of Hymns, Spirituals, Folksongs, and American Indian Chants.”

Songs include “Softly and Tenderly,” “Ghost Dance” (Pawnee Tribal Chant), “Lord, Let Me Fly!” “The Kanawha River at Dusk” (An Appalachian Nocturne), “Glory Be to the New-Born King” (A Christmas Spiritual), “Come All Ye Fair and Tender Maidens” and “On top of Old Smoky” (The War of the Sexes), “Beulah Land,” “Old Blue,” and “Song of the Earth” (Navajo Tribal Chants).

Born in Charleston, W.Va., in 1929, George Crumb is one of today’s most frequently performed composers, with festivals devoted to his music held the world over. Orchestra 2001 is honored to bring some of his extraordinary music back to the places where he grew up and first experienced the sounds and moods and landscapes that later became such integral aspects of his music.

Crumb has received many honors, including the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his “Echoes of Time and the River” and in 2001 a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Composition for his “Star-Child.” Crumb is currently Walter H. Annenberg Professor Emeritus in Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania.

Ann Crumb, like her father, was born in the hills of West Virginia. An internationally known actress and singer, she has created numerous leading roles on Broadway and London’s West End. She starred in “Aspects of Love,” “The Goodbye Girl,” “Nine,” “Les Miserables,” “Chess” and “Anna Karenina,” for which she received a Best Actress Tony nomination. Ann is also the recipient of a Barrymore Award, has a Broadway National Theater Award nomination for Best Actress, and an Arts Recognition Award. She has appeared on numerous television shows including “Law and Order,” “One Life to Live,” and “Criminal Intent.” Her recording of her father’s “Three Early Songs” was on the Grammy Award winning “George Crumb’s 70th Birthday Album.”

The distinguished American baritone, Patrick Mason, has performed and recorded an astonishingly wide range of music spanning the last ten centuries. In the fall of 2007 he premiered a major new work by George Crumb, “Voices from a Forgotten World,” with Orchestra 2001 in Philadelphia, and he was a Grammy finalist in the category of Solo Vocal Performance in 2006 for his recording “Songs of Amy Beach” on Bridge Records. In March of 2008 he was heard in the New York premieres of operas by William Bolcom (Musical America’s 2007 Composer of the Year) and John Musto at New York’s Weill Hall. He is currently a Berton Coffin Faculty Fellow at the University of Colorado.

Orchestra 2001 is dedicated to performing and promoting the music of the 20th and 21st centuries, premiering new works, providing a major focus for the best new music of our time, introducing unknown older works, and reaching out to regional and international audiences through recordings and tours. Orchestra 2001, which will celebrate its 25th Anniversary concert season in 2012-13, is the preeminent interpreter of George Crumb’s music and has brought his music worldwide. Orchestra 2001 will perform “Voices of the Heartland” at the Library of Congress in 2013.

James Freeman is Daniel Underhill Professor Emeritus of Music at Swarthmore College. He was trained at Harvard University, Tanglewood, and Vienna’s Academy for Music. As conductor, pianist, and bass player, his performances in America and abroad have won critical acclaim.

For more information on the event, contact the College of Creative Arts at 304-293-4359.

-WVU-

cl/11/01/12

CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, College of Creative Arts
304-293-4359, Charlene.Lattea@mail.wvu.edu

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