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Ad astra per aspera, the third movement of Judith Lang Zaimont’s “Solar Traveller” Concerto for Piano and Wind Orchestra will be presented by the Indiana State University Wind Orchestra, Dr. John Boyd, Conductor, on Tuesday, November 17, at 7:30 pm in Tilson Auditorium, North 7^th and Chestnut Streets on the campus of Indiana State University in Terra Haute, Indiana.

This ISU Premiere will be presented as part of their Contemporary Music Festival. Also on the program are works by Steve Reich, Andrew Boysen, Jr, Joshua Shank, Jon Washburn, Daniel Powers, Brian Balmages, Brett William Dietz and Roger Cichy. For more about the Festival, visit http://www.indstate.edu/music/cmf/CMF/Welcome.html.

The composer has written about the new Concerto, “Inspired by the vastness, wonder, and beauty of sky and space, the “Solar Traveller” concerto is in three movements: Outward Bound, Nocturne (Lunar), and Ad astra per aspera. We encounter music as desolate and unfamiliar as a lunar landscape largely expansive, as if in ‘stopped’ time. The name of the third movement, Latin for “To the stars through difficulties,” is reflected in cross-rhythms, chromatic clashes, and a prominent role for the percussion section. Across the three movements  both soloist and the ensemble experience the long-term compressive forces of space flight in  musical terms: The kernel of each movement is a progressively smaller musical interval, closing by movement from a third, to a second, down to pounding unisons in the final movement.”

The Wind Orchestra commissioned the work along with faculty members at the Peabody Institute, Eastman School of Music, Louisiana State University, Shepherd University, Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Southern Mississippi.

The November 17 event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 812-237-2743 or visit http://www.indstate.edu/music/cmf/CMF/About.html.

More information about Ms. Zaimont, including sound clips of many of her compositions, is available at her website http://www.jzaimont.com/ and at her MySpace page, http://www.myspace.com/judithlangzaimont.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 2:58 pm and is filed under Concert Announcement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.