Release Date: February 4, 2009
TIPSHEET: Grammy-winning artists will work with area students this Friday
Who:
2008 Grammy-winning ensemble, eighth blackbird, and Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker
What:
A day of lectures and discussions about contemporary classical music for college students from throughout metro Atlanta
When:
Friday, February 6, 2009
11 a.m.-4 p.m.
11 a.m. Discussion group for musicians led by members of eighth blackbird
12 p.m. Lecture/demonstration by eighth blackbird
2 p.m. Chamber ensemble master class for KSU student musicians
3 p.m. Lecture on 20th century music by Alex Ross
Where:
Performance Hall, Dr. Bobbie Bailey & Family Performance Center
Kennesaw State University
1000 Chastain Road, Kennesaw
Why:
Sponsored in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the chamber music ensemble eighth blackbird and music critic Alex Ross are in residence this week in the Kennesaw State University School of Music. As part of their residency, they are offering their unique insights and advice to college-level musicians from several colleges, including KSU.
Background:
Described by The New Yorker as “friendly, unpretentious, idealistic and highly skilled,” the Grammy Award-winning eighth blackbird promises its ever-increasing audiences provocative and engaging performances. It is widely lauded for its performing style—often playing from memory with virtuosic and theatrical flair—and its efforts to make new music accessible to wide audiences. A New York Times reviewer raved, “eighth blackbird’s performances are the picture of polish and precision, and they seem to be thoroughly engaged…by music in a broad range of contemporary styles.” The sextet has been the subject of profiles in the New York Times and on NPR’s All Things Considered; it has also been featured on Bloomberg TV’s Muse, CBS’s Sunday Morning, St. Paul Sunday, Weekend America and The Next Big Thing, among others. In 2008 the group’s recording of “strange imaginary animals” won the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance. The ensemble is in residence at the University of Richmond in Virginia and at the University of Chicago.
Alex Ross has been the music critic of The New Yorker since 1996. From 1992 to 1996 he wrote for the New York Times. His first book, “The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century,” was published in 2007 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, becoming a bestseller; it won a National Book Critics Circle Award and the Guardian First Book Award, was a finalist for the Pulitzer and the Samuel Johnson prizes, and appeared on the New York Times's list of the ten best books of 2007. Ross has received a Letter of Distinction from the American Music Center, fellowships from the American Academy in Berlin and the Banff Centre, and three ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards. In 2008, he was named a MacArthur Fellow.
Contact:
Cheryl Anderson Brown
KSU College of the Arts Public Relations Director
cell: 678-438-7601