Local Composers to be Featured at New Music Society Concerts

The New Music Society will open its 2009-2010 season with two Fall Concerts performed by the Composers Ensemble, directed by Dana faculty member Dr. Robert Rollin and featuring music by local composers. The concerts will take place on the Beecher Court Lunchtime Series at 12:15pm, Wednesday, October 7 at the Butler Institute of American Art, and at the Dana School of Music Convocation, 11:00am, Friday, October 9 in Bliss Recital Hall.

Daniel Brandt

Daniel Brandt, a senior composition major and member of the Ensemble, spent the summer in Philadelphia as a Composer Intern with NFL Films, where he assisted in the computer preparation of new film scores. He will have two works performed. These are Tuba Miniatures to be played by Dana Faculty members Brian Kiser, tuba and Jack Ciarniello, piano, and Synapses to be played by junior, Joseph Finkel, alto sax, and senior, Patrick Fulton, bass clarinet. The latter performance is a world premiere. Brandt's Tuba Miniatures gained widespread attention this summer, when it won First Prize in the Friends of Harvey Gaul Competition. Aside from the honor of winning, Brandt received a $2000 prize which will help support his graduate studies. Brandt was again honored with a prize from the Pennsylvania Federation of Music Clubs, also for his Tuba Miniatures.

Robert Rollin

The Dana Composers Ensemble will present the world premiere of an improvisatory work, Woodland Echoes, by Robert Rollin, based on a poem by South African poet Barbara Lane, whom he met a few weeks ago on his recent South African tour. The tour included several lectures and the world premiere of his Second String Quartet by the Odeion Quartet, the only full-time group of its type in residence at a South African music school. The personnel for Woodland Echoes will include Jacob Chevron, reader; Richard Zacharias, clarinet; Daniel Brandt, euphonium; Samantha Hogan, trombone; and Timothy Webb, piano. Dr. Rollin will conduct the ensemble in the performance. Despite its improvisatory nature, the piece will sound as if it was written out for the players.

www.robertrollin.com •

New Music Society

Freshman composition major, Samantha Hogan from Fredonia, New York, will hear the world premiere of her piano work, Squirrel Wars, played by Timothy Webb. Webb, a long time member of the ensemble and former assistant director, is completing a Masters Degree in Composition and Theory at Dana.

Dana School of Music

Also on the program will be Alexander Scriabin's Etude, Op. 8, No. 2 performed by junior Brandon Loewit, piano, and David Pope's Song of the Elephant performed by Dana graduate student Jeremy Bouteiller, baritone saxophone.