MIT Announces Visiting Musicians for Spring 2007

For Immediate Release: January 30, 2007

Contact:
Mary Haller
Director of Arts Communication
MIT Office of the Arts
20 Ames St., Rm E15-205
Cambridge, MA 02139
e-mail haller@media.mit.edu
(617) 253-4006

Cambridge, MA... The Audubon Quartet, Magali Souriau, Kenneth Amis, Kenny Werner, Joe Lovano, Judi Silvano and Matt Glaser will appear as guest artists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Spring 2007, the MIT Concerts Office has announced. The Audubon String Quartet will perform with violist Marcus Thompson, Professor of Music at MIT. The other guest artists will appear in concerts with the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble and the MIT Wind Ensemble, both directed by Frederick Harris, Jr., Director of Wind Ensembles. In addition, Kenny Werner will present his solo piano Boston debut.

On Friday, Feb. 23 at 8 p.m. the Audubon Quartet will join Professor Marcus Thompson, viola, in Kresge Auditorium (48 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge) in a concert featuring Mozart's C Major Viola Quintet. The concert is the finale of a series of six Guest Artist concerts over the last two years in which Thompson has celebrated the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth by performing all six of Mozart's viola quintets with visiting string quartets. The program will also include Mozart's "Hunt" Quartet and Shostakovich's Quartet No. 5.

The Music of Magali Souriau

On Friday, March 9 at 8 p.m., in a rare Boston-area appearance, French pianist and composer Magali Souriau will co-conduct and perform with the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble (FJE) at MIT’s Kresge Auditorium. The concert will feature some of her own works, including the premiere of a jazz ensemble version of "The Lady with the Hat," Souriau's expansion of her trio composition. The concert also features the music of Mingus, Ellington and Thad Jones. Souriau will be Composer-in-Residence with the MIT Music Section March 6-9. Tickets are $5 at the door or from zaptix.com.

MITWE Celebrates Its Own

On Saturday, March 17 at 8 p.m., the MIT Wind Ensemble (MITWE) will feature new compositions by and soloists from within the Ensemble. MITWE Assistant Conductor and tuba player of the Empire Brass, Kenneth Amis will give the world premiere of his "Concerto for Tuba," and senior music and biology major Lori Huberman, MIT Class of 2007, will give the Boston premiere of "Concerto for Flute and Wind Orchestra" by Mike Mower. Graduate student Scott Stransky will conduct the premiere of his "Suite from an Imaginary Movie." Copland's "Outdoor Overture" and Mendelssohn's "Overture for Winds" are also on the program. Tickets are $5 at the door or from zaptix.com.

World Premiere of Kenny Werner's work for piano, tenor saxophone, voice and wind ensemble, entitled "Voices"

On Friday, May 11 at 8 p.m., pianist and composer Kenny Werner, saxophonist Joe Lovano, and vocalist Judi Silvano will be featured with the MIT Wind Ensemble and Festival Jazz Ensemble in MIT’s Kresge Auditorium. The concert will feature the world premiere of "Voices," a work by Werner with Lovano, Silvano, and Werner as soloists. All three artists will also perform with the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble. Matt Glaser, violinist and chair of the String Department at Berklee College of Music, along with Lovano and Werner, will perform the Boston premiere of "Moonsculptures" by MIT Professor Peter Child. The concert is presented in honor of the 80th birthday of Bradford Endicott, MIT Class of 1949, a founding member of the Council for the Arts at MIT. Tickets are $5 at the door or from zaptix.com.

On Tuesday, May 8 at 8 p.m., in MIT's Killian Hall (Rm 14W-111, 160 Memorial Dr.), Werner will present his Boston solo piano debut. This performance celebrates the release of "Lawn Chair Society," Werner's new CD on Blue Note Records. "I'm very proud of the music I composed for this CD," says Werner, "and I am also quite proud of this collection of brilliant musicians performing on it: Dave Douglas, Chris Potter, Scott Colley and Brian Blade. This is one of my best works and I want everyone at the concert to have it." Copies will be available for $10. Admission to the concert is free.

Werner, Lovano and Silvano will be artists-in-residence at MIT from May 7-11, conducting master classes and attending rehearsals of their works.

Complete listings of MIT arts events.

For more information on these MIT concerts, call (617) 253-2826.

Guest Star Bios:

Audubon Quartet

Renowned for their "strikingly beautiful, luminescent" sound (The New York Times), the Audubon Quartet has won acclaim throughout the world for nearly 30 years. Founded in 1974, the ensemble quickly achieved international recognition by winning top prizes in three major competitions in their first four years together: The International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France (1977); The String Quartet Competition at the Festival Villa Lobos in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1977); and in 1979, The International String Quartet Competition in Portsmouth, England. They were the first American string quartet ever to win a first prize in international string quartet competition. The Audubon has just been named the first quartet-in-residence at Shenandoah Conservatory in Winchester, VA.

Magali Souriau

French pianist, composer, arranger, and educator Magali Souriau is a 1986 honor graduate (Diploma de Jazz) from the Conservatoire National de Marseilles. She took the Conservatoire's Medaille d'or Jazz in 1988. She received a scholarship to Berklee College of Music and won the College's 1990 Woody Herman Jazz Master Award and the 1993 International Association of Jazz Educators' Gil Evans Fellowship in big band composition. Over the past several years, Souriau has led her own jazz orchestra at a variety of jazz venues in New York City including Smalls, The Jazz Standard, and Birdland. Souriau has composed, arranged, and conducted for the Village Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, The Big Van, directed by Guillermo Klein, and The Clifford Jordan Big Band. "Magali Souriau Orchestra: Birdland Sessions," her first CD, was released in 2000 on Koch Jazz. Her second CD, "Petite Promenade," featuring her trio, was recently released by Fresh Sound Records. Ben Ratliff of the New York Times said Souriau was "One of the most original orchestral jazz composers of our time -- astonishing music.

Ken Amis Kenneth Amis

Composer and tuba player Kenneth Amis, currently assistant conductor for the MIT Wind Ensemble, is a long-time member of the Empire Brass Quintet and holds the International Brass Chair at the Royal Academy of Music in London. A former member of the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra, the New World Symphony and soloist with the English Chamber Orchestra, he has served on the faculties of Boston University, B.U. Tanglewood Institute, the Conservatory of Music at Lynn University, and the Pacific Music Festival in Japan. In 2003, he received New England Conservatory of Music's "Outstanding Alumni Award." Amis is an active composer, and has been commissioned to write for Symphony Hall, N.E.C. Wind Ensemble, and the University of Scranton, among many others. Amis has received commissions from the Boston Classical Orchestra, the New England Conservatory of Music, the Massachusetts Instrumental Conductors Association and Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, among many others.

Joe Lovano

Joe Lovano, a premiere tenor saxophone player since the 1970s, has received numerous Grammy nominations for his recordings on Blue Note Records. His CD "52nd Street Themes" won the 2000 Grammy for Best Large Ensemble. Recent honors include "Tenor Saxophonist of the Year" from the 2005 Down Beat Critic's & Reader's Polls and the "2004 Jazz Album of the Year" from the New York Times for his CD "I'm All For You." Lovano's 1996 album "Quartets: Live at the Village Vanguard" was named Jazz Album of the Year by readers of Down Beat Magazine. He has performed and/or recorded with many major jazz artists including Hank Jones, Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, Gunther Schuller, Herbie Hancock, Charlie Haden, Michael Brecker, Bill Frisell, and Kenny Werner among many others. An artist who is constantly crossing genres, Lovano has recently performed a concerto composed for him by Mark Anthony Turnage, with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Helsinki Orchestra. His latest Blue Note CD is "Streams of Expression," a collaborative effort with Gunther Schuller featuring original compositions. In 1998, Lovano was named the first Gary Burton Jazz Performance Chair at his Berklee alma mater and was named Artistic Director of the acclaimed Caramoor Jazz Festival in New York.

Kenny Werner

Jazz pianist/composer Kenny Werner has been on the national and international scene for over 25 years. He has performed/recorded with such jazz giants as Charles Mingus, Ron Carter, Joe Lovano, Sonny Fortune, Lee Konitz, Bobby McFerrin, Joe Henderson, Gunther Schuller, Dave Holland, Charlie Haden, and Toots Thielmans and has led his own trio for over 20 years. A published author, he has written several articles and "Effortless Mastery," a book that has changed many musicians' conceptions about how to practice, play, and listen. The "Effortless Mastery" method takes concepts from Eastern philosophy, Christian and Jewish mysticism, and ancient disciplines such as yoga and Tai Chi in order to demonstrate how to remove creative blocks in our everyday lives. An accomplished recording artist, Werner's latest CD for Blue Note Records, "Lawn Chair Society," will be released this March in New York City. Werner has been commissioned to create extend works for major international ensembles, festivals and orchestras over the past decade.

Juki Silvano Judi Silvano

Jazz vocalist, composer and lyricist Judi Silvano holds a degree in music and dance from Temple University. She launched her career in New York City in 1976 as first an improviser of dance and later in jazz. An alchemist of music and movement, her career as a choreographer and dancer led her to NYC's downtown music scene and toward a long-term collaboration with saxophonist Joe Lovano that began in 1980. Since that time Silvano has performed nationally and internationally with such artists as Joe Lovano, Kenny Werner, George Garzone, Dave Douglas, Tim Hagans, Bill Frisell, Charlie Haden, Jack DeJohnette, Rufus Reid, among many others. "Vocalise", her 1997 debut on Blue Note Records, received wide critical acclaim. Her latest CD, "Let Yourself Go," was released in 2004. She has also released "Sound Garden," on Spirit Music, the first of a series of CDs of music for yoga, meditation and massage. Silvano sings and plays woodwind and percussion instruments on the recording.

Matt Glaser

Violinist and educator Matt Glaser has performed at Carnegie Hall with Stéphane Grappelli and Yo-Yo Ma, and at the Boston Globe Jazz Festival with Gunther Schuller. He has been featured on the Grammy Award-winning soundtrack for "The Civil War" and the soundtrack for "King of the Gypsies." Other notable performances include collaborations with the New York All-Stars, Bob Dylan, Lee Konitz, David Grisman, and the International String Quartet Congress. Glaser is the author of "Jazz Violin" and "Jazz Chord Studies for Violin." He served on the board of advisors for Ken Burns' "Jazz" documentary and appears as a narrator in the film. Glaser has taught at the Mark O' Connor Fiddle Camp, University of Miami, American String Teacher Association conferences, and he is currently the Chair of the String Department at Berklee College of Music.

--end--