Composers to visit WSU, EWU

Few classical composers in America are as well known as John Corigliano and Libby Larsen. And both are visiting the Inland Northwest for appearances at public universities.

Corigliano will be in Pullman for Washington State University’s Festival of Contemporary Art Music, which begins today.

Larsen will come to Eastern Washington University’s Cheney campus for a daylong residency Tuesday.

Both visits will conclude with concerts of their works.

Corigliano’s best-known work is his Oscar-winning score for the 1997 film “The Red Violin.” His opera “The Ghosts of Versailles” was premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 1991 and is scheduled to return in the 2009-10 season.

He was born 1938 in New York City, where his father was the longtime concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic. He studied at Columbia with Otto Luening and at the Manhattan School of Music with Vittorio Giannini.

Corigliano’s compositions have been widely performed and have garnered a string of awards including several Grammys and a Pulitzer Prize in addition to his Academy Award. He is Distinguished Professor of Music at City University of New York and a member of the composition faculty at Juilliard.

“By nearly universal acclaim among the professional community, John Corigliano is judged to be the dean of American composers in the 21st century,” says Charles Argersinger, WSU composition professor and the founder and director of the festival.

Among the Corigliano works to be performed in a Bryan Hall concert Saturday at 8 p.m. are his early Sonata for Violin and Piano, “L’Invitation au Voyage” for choir, and “Gazebo Dance” for wind symphony.

The WSU Festival also includes a program of student compositions today at 11:10 a.m. in Kimbrough Concert Hall and a concert of faculty compositions tonight at 8 in Bryan Hall Theatre, along with other concerts and classes.

All events are free; for details see http:/libarts.wsu.edu/artmusic.

Larsen was born in 1950 in Delaware but grew up in the Midwest, where she studied at the University of Minnesota with Paul Fetler and Dominick Argento.

Her compositions cover many genres, from works for solo flute to opera. She has served as composer-in-residence for several U.S. orchestras including the Minnesota Orchestra, the Charlottesville (Va.) Symphony and the Colorado Symphony and has received awards from the Library of Congress, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and recently a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Institute of Arts and Letters.

“She is one of the few classical composers who does not have, or want, a university teaching position,” says Eastern Washington University composition professor Jonathan Middleton. “She just composes.

“We’ve been eager to have her here for our Composer’s Forum for a couple of years, and this year our funding and her schedule worked out. I think she is great at reaching out to all audiences with interesting ideas that are engaging – ideas that provide entertainment and yet give the listener something to think about.”

Tuesday’s events at EWU include a 9 a.m. colloquium with composition students in the Music Building Recital Hall, and a performance of Larsen’s music at 7:30 p.m. in the same location.

The evening program will include “Four on the Floor” for piano and strings, “Margaret Songs” for voice and piano, “Introduction to the Moon” for wind ensemble, and “Brazen Overture” for brass quintet.

Tickets are $5. For more information, call Middleton at (509) 359-6116.