New Music at Kent State presents the final concert of the 2017-18 New Music Series on Sat., April 28 at 7:30 p.m. in Ludwig Recital Hall. This free concert will feature the music of composer and faculty member Frank Wiley who is retiring after 39 years at Kent State. Ludwig Recital Hall is in the Center for the Performing Arts, 1325 Theatre Drive on the Kent Campus. Free parking available.
Audience members will be treated to works by KSU faculty members Frank Wiley, Joan Tower and Cleveland-based composer Jeffrey Mumford. Opening the concert will be Mumford’s “2 Rhapsodies,” featuring graduate cellist Viviana Pinzón and the Kent State New Music Ensemble. Next on the program will be Joan Towers “Island Prelude” featuring Kent State’s faculty wind ensemble the Black Squirrel Winds. The concert will continue with several works by Frank Wiley, including the world premiere of “Violet Spirals of Twilight,” “Rituals of Earth and Fire,” “Some Hope Upon the Sky: Songs on Sonnets by James Agee,” “Horizon,” and “Earth Dances.” In addition to the New Music Ensemble, directed by Frank Wiley, performers of these works include KSU faculty members Noa Even, saxophone, and H. Gerrey Noh, piano and theory; Kent State alumnus Jameson Cooper, violin, and Susan Fletcher, soprano; and the Kent Percussion Ensemble, led by KSU Director of Percussion Studies Matt Holm.
Winner of the Cleveland Arts Prize in 1986, Frank Wiley has been a member of the Hugh A. Glauser School of Music faculty for 39 years. During his tenure, he has served in many capacities, including running the composition program, directing the Kent State University Orchestra, founding the New Music Ensemble, and teaching courses in music theory and composition, conducting, and 20th century music, among others. A highly distinguished composer, his music has been performed around the world and has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, the Bascom Little Fund, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, and more. His work encompasses a broad range of genres, including solo, chamber, orchestra, vocal, choral, multimedia and electronic music.
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