Award-Winning Composer Joseph Schwantner Comes to KSC

From Joe Darby, Music Department:

Pulitzer Prize winning composer Joseph Schwantner comes to the Keene State College Music Department on Thursday, February 11, 2010, at 2 p.m., for a free public lecture on his orchestral work, Chasing Light…, commissioned by Ford Made in America, a partnership program of the League of American Orchestras and Meet The Composer. The work is receiving its New Hampshire premiere by the Nashua Symphony Orchestra & Chorus on its “Made in New Hampshire” program, on tour around the state in February 2010, including a February 28 performance at the Colonial Theatre in Keene. The “Made in New Hampshire” program will also feature the Keene State College Concert Choir, directed by Diane Cushing.

Mr. Schwantner’s lecture will take place in Room 112 of the Redfern Arts Center on Brickyard Pond.

About his Chasing Light… Mr. Schwantner writes:

One of the special pleasures of living in rural New Hampshire is experiencing the often brilliant and intense early morning sunrises, reminding one of Thoreau’s words, “Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me” (Walden). Chasing Light… draws its spirit, energy and inspiration from the celebration of vibrant colors and light that penetrate the morning mist as it wafts through the trees in the high New England hills.
Like a delicate dance, those images intersected with a brief original poem that helped fire my musical imagination. The four-movement work, about eighteen minutes in duration, proceeds from one movement to the next without pause.

Recipient of the 1979 Pulitzer Prize in Music, Joseph Schwantner is one of the most prominent American composers today. He has served on the faculties of elite American universities and conservatories (Yale, Eastman, Juilliard), and has written commissioned works for the nation’s great orchestras (New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra) and leading concert organizations (Lincoln Center, Naumburg Foundation).

The Nashua Symphony “Made in New Hampshire” tour is sponsored by Citizens Bank, with additional major support from the National Endowment for the Arts, New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, and Putnam Foundation. Ford Made in America is made possible by Ford Motor Company Fund, the philanthropic arm of Ford Motor Company. Major support is also provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional funding from The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, and The Amphion Foundation.