Monthly Archives: April 2010

Final concert closes BGSU Philharmonia season

all, events

The Bowling Green Philharmonia will present its final performance of the 2009-10 season at 3 p.m. April 25 in Kobacker Hall of Bowling Green State University’s Moore Musical Arts Center.

The concert is titled “Paris” and will be conducted by Dr. Emily Freeman Brown, BGSU director of orchestral activities. The program will include Claude Debussy’s “La Mer” and Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.”

Debussy’s “La Mer” is a fantastical, Impressionistic vision of the Mediterranean Sea. Renowned as one of the great masterpieces of symphonic literature, each of the piece’s three movements explores the subtle and dramatic elements of the waves, the unexpected shifts in current and the natural forces inherent in the ocean’s movement.

“The Rite of Spring” is a ballet originally choreographed by the great dancer/choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky. The music’s innovative and complex rhythmic structures, timbres and use of dissonance have made it an influential 20th-century composition. The harmonically adventurous and complex music evokes strong images of pagan rituals.

Advance tickets for the event will be $10 for adults and $7 for students and senior citizens. If purchased at the door, tickets are $13 for adults and $10 for students and senior citizens. Tickets can be purchased at the center box office weekdays from noon to 5 p.m. or by calling 419-372-8171 or toll-free 1-800-589-2224.

BGSU alumna wins Pulitzer Prize in Music

alumni, composition-alumni

It’s been quite a year for BGSU alumna Jennifer Higdon. Just two months after receiving her second Grammy Award, Higdon learned yesterday (April 12) she was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in Music for her “Violin Concerto.”

The piece premiered on Feb. 6, 2009 with the Indianapolis Symphony. The Pulitzer committee called it a “deeply engaging piece that combines flowing lyricism with dazzling virtuosity.” Higdon will receive $10,000.

Back in January, Higdon’s “Percussion Concerto” won a Grammy for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.

After graduating from BGSU in 1986 with a bachelor’s degree in flute performance, Higdon received master’s and doctoral degrees in composition from the University of Pennsylvania and an artist diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she is now on the composition faculty. Her work has been commissioned and performed by orchestras across the country, and she has received many prestigious awards and fellowships.
Her teachers at Bowling Green included Dr. Marilyn Shrude, Dr. Burton Beerman, Dr. Wallace DePue, Judith Bentley and Robert Spano, who directed the Bowling Green Philharmonia from 1985-89.