Recital, January 20, 2010: "What To Play?"

The Fine Arts Center's eight-member Instrumental Chamber Music (ICM) Class is currently rehearsing and will perform, on its January recital, a composition by Dartmouth College masters degree student Alex Wroten. The second collaboration between Wroten and FAC music faculty member Dr. Gary A. Robinson, "What to Play?" was designed to suit the instrumentation of the ICM and to introduce members to contemporary composition born in the digital and realized in the acoustic domain.

Alex graduated from the Fine Arts Center, where he studied composition with Dr. Jon Grier and music theory with Dr. Gary A. Robinson, and from Travelers Rest High School, where he was Class Valedictorian, in 2004. He is a recent graduate of the University of South Carolina, Columbia, where he majored in music composition, studying under both Dr. John Fitz Rogers and Dr. Reginald Bain. "What to Play?" reflects the recent decision of the Dartmouth College Masters Program in Digital Musics to emphasize both electronic and acoustic sound sources and performance. It is a five-movement, rigorously structured work that explores the extremes of color offered by an ensemble consisting of percussionists, woodwinds, French horn, keyboard, and double bass. (Double bassist Tony Abdelmalek, from FAC's Strings Chamber Music program, will join the ICM class in their performance.)

According to the composer, 'What to Play?' is a piece composed for the sheer pleasure of musical expression, but while I was writing it, I decided to structure it around a slightly theatrical concept," with players variously leaving and returning to the stage, playing with cell phones, reading books, and otherwise amusing themselves while other of their colleagues carry on the performance. To assist them in their theatrical roles, students from the Fine Arts Center's theater program (Teri Parker-Lewis, Instructor) will coach and direct ICM musicians.

The ICM will perform "What to Play?," along with other works and in conjunction with FAC percussion classes on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 7:00 PM.