An open-to-the-public festival, from Oct. 24 to 27, will highlight Brown’s Lindemann Performing Arts Center as a premier site for orchestral music performance, experimentation and recording.
A three-day 21st Century Orchestra festival will welcome a Grammy Award-winning orchestra and Providence-based Community MusicWorks to Brown University’s campus for a series of performances, artist presentations and debuts of a range of new music composed by University faculty members and graduate students.
The open-to-the-public festival will highlight the University’s year-old Lindemann Performing Arts Center as a premier site for orchestral performance, technological experimentation and recording.
The festival, which will take place from Oct. 24 to 27 as part of the Brown Arts Institute’s IGNITE series, aims to explore what orchestras mean to individuals and communities in the 21st century. The festival includes ticketed panel discussions and performances, several of which are free to attend.
“Brown has really grown its research focus in orchestral music, and there’s a strong interest, both among the faculty and graduate student body, in writing for orchestra and experimenting with the instrument that is the orchestra,” said festival co-organizer Eric Nathan, a composer and associate professor of music.
The Lindemann’s state-of-the-art capabilities have significantly enhanced the on-campus performance experience for the Brown University Orchestra, for which Nathan is the interim conductor. The space has also welcomed a wide array of other Brown-affiliated musicians and invited guests during its inaugural year.
“The sound in The Lindemann’s main hall is so clear,” Nathan said. “It has a brilliant, crystalline quality to it that is great for the audience to hear the detail of the sound. What’s also critical is that the players on stage can hear each other so well while performing. The level of performance has increased, and it’s a wonderful place to be inspired in.”
The festival will kick off at The Lindemann on Thursday, Oct. 24, with a performance by the Grammy Award-winning Boston Modern Orchestra Project. In an open-rehearsal style event, the orchestra will play five compositions written by Brown graduate students Isaac Barzso, Inga Chinilina, Nicholas Bentz, Sofía Rocha and Adeliia Faizullina. On Friday, Oct. 25, the Boston Modern Orchestra will return to The Lindemann for a concert of new works written by Cheung, Nathan, Rovan and Wang.
