SYZYGY MARKS 30 YEARS WITH TWO NIGHTS OF 'NEW' MUSIC

Office of News and Media Relations
Jennifer Evans
Media Relations Specialist
Email: jevans@rice.edu

Since 1976, the faculty music ensemble Syzygy has been introducing Houston audiences to cutting-edge, new music. As part of a yearlong 30th-anniversary celebration, Syzygy is honoring the heritage of the Shepherd School of Music by featuring the works of some of its founding members at two concerts this month.

March 28, Syzygy will remember the late Paul Cooper, a prolific composer who joined the Shepherd School faculty in 1974. His composition “Requiem,” written in 1978, will be performed by Shepherd School faculty members Clyde Holloway, the Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Organ, and Richard Brown, professor of percussion.

This concert also will serve as the Southwest United States premiere of a new work, “Synchronism No. 11,” by Mario Davidovsky, written while in residence at the Shepherd School last fall.

Rice is one of 10 U.S. universities that joined together to commission the new work for bass and electronic media from Davidovsky, a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer. The national premiere of the work was earlier this month at the conference of the Society of Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States.

Other music to be performed are works by composers and Shepherd School faculty members Karim Al-Zand, Richard Lavenda and Pierre Jalbert. Performers at the concert will include the Fischer Duo (Professor of Cello Norman Fischer and Artist Teacher of Piano Jeanne Kierman); Paul Ellison, the Lynette S. Autrey Professor of Double Bass; Leone Buyse, the Joseph and Ida Kirkland Mullen Professor of Flute; Michael Webster, professor of clarinet; guest soprano Karol Bennett; and students of the Shepherd School.

The March 29 concert will feature a work written by founding Dean of the Shepherd School Sam Jones, “A Parliament of Owls.”

Other works to be performed are John Cheetham’s “Keystone Celebration for Brass Choir and Percussion,” Morton Gould’s “Concertette for Viola and Band” and works by Shepherd School faculty and composers Anthony Brandt and Arthur Gottschalk. Performers will include Kenneth Goldsmith, professor of violin; James Dunham, professor of viola and chamber music; Marie Speziale, professor of trumpet; Webster; and Shepherd School students.

The concerts, which are free and open to the public, will be in Alice Pratt Brown Hall at 8 p.m.

The first half of the March 28 concert will be in Edythe Bates Old Recital Hall and Grand Organ. The second half will be in Duncan Recital Hall. The March 29 concert will be in Stude Concert Hall.