Drawing inspiration from archival exhibition catalogs of the Shiraz Festival in the Penn Libraries collections, this concert features music by contemporary Iranian composers. Throughout its run from 1967 to 1977, the Shiraz Festival was host to an array of contemporary classical and avant garde composers from Europe and the United States. Among them were Karlheinz Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis, Olivier Messiaen, Bruno Maderna, John Cage, David Tudor, and Morton Feldman.
With dragons, demons and heroic quests, the Old English epic poem Beowulf has captivated the masses for centuries. Now, in a “double tour de force of scholarly excavation and artistic dynamism,” (San Francisco Chronicle) renowned performer Benjamin Bagby uses his voice and the Germanic harp to present the medieval text, evoking an entire ancient world on stage. Seldom seen in Philadelphia, Bagby makes his Penn Live Arts debut and “comes as close to holding hundreds of people in a spell as ever a man has...That is much too rare an experience.” (The New York Times)
SanDance! celebrates the ancient dance and musical culture of San/Bushman peoples in southern Africa, focusing on the trance healing dance at the core of San cultural expression. The award-winning film features San dance groups rehearsing in remote areas in the Kalahari in preparation for performance at the annual Kuru Dance Festival in Botswana, and follows them to performance at the festival. Richard will discuss the making of the film itself, and San dance culture, in the context of the historical oppression and ongoing marginalization of San culture across southern Africa.
Penn Samba, an ensemble open to the entire community at Penn and comprising some 100 members, performs a wide variety of rhythms from many different regions of Brazil. Instruments, used in the ensemble include the surdo, caixa, repinique, tamborim, gaiza, and agogo, among others.
The Penn Symphony concludes the Fall semester with a magnificent, wondrous journey to Finland and the music of Jean Sibelius. The ever so familiar and well-known Finlandia opens the concert along with his 2nd symphony finishing off the evening, showcasing PSO's amazing array of orchestral colors. In the middle of the program is Tchaikovsky's delightful Rococo Variations, featuring cellist Hun Choi as soloist. Mr. Choi has won many awards including first prize in various competitions overseas and is currently a student of Peter Wiley at the Curtis Institute of Music.
A “double-bill concert” that will first feature undergraduate students Eric Wang, Daniel Gerhardt, and Lance Sy Lato performing and reimagining works by Mozart, Brahms, Schumann, Scarlatti, and Faure. The second half of the program will include music by graduate composer-performers Brendan McMullen, Max Johnson, and Andrew Burke, as well as by undergraduate composers Gabrielle Gillen, William Stewart, and Eric Wang.