January 19, 1995: Vol26n13: New directions for North American New Music Festival

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
News Bureau Staff
The North American New Music Festival at UB has taken a new direction
this year - one that weds Latin, Native-American, jazz and blues forms
to contemporary music of a classical vein.
	The festival will run from Feb. 10-19 in the Center for the
Arts, Slee Concert Hall and Baird Recital Hall, all on the North
Campus.
	Founded in 1983 by the late pianist Yvar Mikhashoff, the
celebrated festival explores the relationship between musician,
composer and score through public discussion, master classes, intimate
evenings of cabaret, orchestral concerts, ensemble performances and
solo recitals of new and old works.
	Composer Robert Chumbley takes over this year as festival
director, and his first program represents a marked preference for new
music rooted in many North American cultures. This year's program also
favors the melding of new music with theatrical, operatic and
performance-art forms.
	Guest composers and performers include Diamanda Galdo will
perform work by several contemporary Mexican composers, including his
wife, Gabriela Ortiz.
	Iroquois Nation drummers, flutists and singers will join
bassist James VanDemark and the Rackham String Quartet in a
performance of "Circle of Faith," composer Alton Clingan's widely
admired celebration of the words and spirit of 19th-century
Native-American Chief Seattle.
	The avant garde purloins history for a festival production of
Judith Weir's 13-minute unaccompanied mono-opera about the adventures
of medieval Norway's King Harald the Ruthless. Mezzo soprano Virginia
Dupuy will offer a solo performance in eight roles, including that of
the Norwegian army.
	A performance of Dominick Argento's mono-opera, "A Water Bird
Talk," by the distinguished tenor Richard Estes is on the same
program, along with several operatic transcriptions by Mikhashoff.
	The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra will present the work of
contemporary American composers Colgrass, David Felder and Chumbley,
and there will be performances by the New York New Music Ensemble and
guest violinist Curtis Macomber, clarinetist Joaquin Valdepeickets,
call the UB Center for the Arts, 645-ARTS.