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April 10, 2007
WILLIAM PATERSON UNIVERSITY TO PRESENT MUSIC OF THE ROARING TWENTIES
The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, a professional ensemble in residence at the University, and the William Paterson University New Music Ensemble will celebrate the music of the tumultuous 1920s on Monday, April 23, 2007 as part of the New Music Series on the campus in Wayne. The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Shea Center on campus. Admission is free.
Featured on the program will be American composer George Antheil’s pioneering Ballet Mecanique, a masterpiece of 1920s avant-garde music. Written for four pianos and a dozen percussion instruments, including an airplane motor, this large chamber work illustrated the composer’s mechanistic outlook and is considered a milestone in percussion literature. The concert will also feature a special screening of the short film Ballet Mecanique by the French artist and filmmaker Fernand Leger, for which Antheil originally wrote his composition.
The concert will also include French composer Darius Milhaud’s jazz inspired La Creation du Monde. The piece tells the story of the creation of the world based on African folk traditions and inspired by Milhaud’s 1922 trip to the United States, where he listened to jazz in Harlem dance halls. Rounding out the concert is Igor Stravinsky’s Octet for wind instruments.
The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, directed by Peter Jarvis, was founded in 1968 by former William Paterson University music professor Raymond Des Roches, who co-directed the group with Jarvis and Gary Van Dyke until 2004. The highly acclaimed ensemble is made up of professionals and students from William Paterson University, where it has been in residence since 1972. Because of an ongoing commitment to the proliferation of percussion repertoire, numerous pieces have been written for, premiered by and recorded by the ensemble. The ensemble has appeared in the United States and Europe as guests of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Group for Contemporary Music, the Composers Guild of New Jersey, the San Francisco Symphony, the Gaudeamus Foundation, Radio Denmark, and countless others. The group can be heard on Nonesuch, Composer's Recording Inc., Music and Arts, Koch International, Desoto, New World, NAXOS, the Composers Guild of New Jersey and Capstone recording labels.
Jarvis is active as a percussionist, conductor, educator, composer and administrator. He has premiered more than 100 works including pieces composed for him and the ensemble by Charles Wuorinen and Milton Babbitt, among others. Over the years he has played with and conducted many of the major new music groups in New York and New Jersey including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Group for Contemporary Music, and Talujon Percussion Quartet. His extensive touring has brought him to Asia, Russia, Canada, Mexico and throughout the United States presenting concerts and master classes. Jarvis is on the faculty of William Paterson University, Bergen Community College and Connecticut College where he teaches percussion and conducts chamber music.
For additional information, please contact the Shea Center Box Office at 973-720-2371.
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www.wpunj.edu
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