Charles Griffin

On Sunday December 2, 2007 at 3PM at the McIntosh Theatre of the University of Michigan, The University of Michigan Percussion Ensemble, directed by Joe Gramley, will present their semester-end concert called American Tradition and Innovation, featuring seminal works that demonstrate the twentieth-century rise of percussion as a chamber-music art as well as the ever-more-global focus of American classical percussion in our time. Along with three works by John Cage and Lou Harrison that brought an array of never-before-heard instruments from around the world to the American stage, the Ensemble will perform a rock etude (co-written by Michigan’s own Michael Udow) that marries American percussion and the modern marimba to a range of vocal traditions spanning several continents. The program is rounded out with two other unique pieces: Steve Reich’s minimalist composition “Six Marimbas” and Charles Griffin’s “The Persistence of Past Chemistries,” written entirely for wood instruments.

PROGRAM: Cage/Harrison – Double Music; Cage – Third Construction;
Harrison – Concerto for Violin with Percussion Orchestra;
Udow/Douglas – Rock Etude No. 7;
Reich – Six Marimbas;
Griffin – The Persistence of Past Chemistries.

Free – no tickets required

Flutist Margaret Lancaster joins Ingrid Gordon’s ensemble Percussia, for an eclectic flute and percussion program featuring Asian and African compositions, my Kusanganisa (Mixing, for flute and marimba 4-hands, based in part on Zimbabwean mbira patterns), as well as other contemporary classical works.

The concert will take place on December 02 at 2:00 PM at the Hart Memorial Library in Shrub Oak, New York. Admission is free.

Liene Denisjuka will include my Fragmentary Rondo for unaccompanied solo flute on her concert of solo and chamber works at Rīgas Latviešu Biedrības Zālē (The Latvian Society Hall) at 7PM on November 24 in Riga.She will be joined by Liene Neija-Kalniņa (Violin) and Kristīne Paula (Piano). Other composers on the program include Artūrs Grīnups, Pēteris Vasks, Lowell Lieberman and Ian Clarke.

The Piano Duo Gastesi-Bezerra will be performing selections from my suite of pieces for piano four-hands From the Faraway Nearby, inspired by paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church on Florida’s Anna Maria Island on Friday, November 23 at 3:00 p.m. Other composers on the program include Mozart and Debussy, plus contemporary duets by Marlene Woodward-Cooper (Deceptions), and Ronaldo Miranda (Variações Sérias).

Gastesi-Bezerra’s upcoming season will take them to Las Vegas, Washington D.C., Miami and Gainesville, and a tour of Serbia in December and of Brazil in June 2008.

The women’s vocal ensemble Putni will give a repeat performance of my El Paso de la Seguiriya, a brand new setting of the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca, on Friday, November 23 at 7PM at The Dome Cathedral of Riga, located at 1 Dome Square (Doma laukums 1) in Riga as part of their program Music in the Cathedral (MÅ«zika katedrālÄ“).

Commissioned with funds from the Latvian Culture Capital Fund and having grown out of some workshops I had created for Putni last year that included an introduction to flamenco, the piece includes a substantial amount of clapping in the flamenco style where the two parts interlock, called the palmas and contrapalmas.

The piano duo Antra and Normunds Viksne will give a repeat perfomance of their program War and Peace, which includes the entire suite of my piano four-hand work inspired by paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe From the Faraway Nearby at the Bolderāja School of Music and Art in Riga (31 StÅ«rmaņu Street) on November 16 at 5PM. The other composers on the program are Juris Ä€bols, Arvo Pärt, and Arthur Benjamin.