Music department offers full slate of concerts in March

The Department of Music will present a full slate of concerts this month, ranging from UB faculty recitals and performances by innovative percussion and interactive media groups, to the final three concerts of the Slee/Beethoven String Quartet Cycle.

The first faculty recital, by organist Roland Martin, will take place at 7:30 p.m. March 7 in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall, North Campus. Martin, who teaches organ, harpsichord and piano at UB, will perform works by Christoph Wolfgang Druckenmüller, Johann Kuhnau and Erik Satie on the Fisk organ.

Tickets are $10 for the general public; $5 for UB faculty/staff/alumni/seniors/non-UB students; and free for UB students with ID.

The UB Symphony Orchestra will present works from the classical symphony repertoire at 5 p.m. March 9 in Lippes Concert Hall. Admission is free.

The UB Symphony is a full-sized symphony orchestra composed of UB students of a variety of majors and select community members. It is conducted by music director Daniel Bassin.

The interactive media duo pincushioned will perform the 2014 Black Box Electroacoustic Music Concert at 7:30 p.m. March 12 in the Black Box Theatre in the Center for the Arts, North Campus. Pincushioned will perform original works, as well as pieces by Robert Esler, Glenn Hackbarth, Casey Daniel Lentz, noted computer composer and UB faculty member Cort Lippe, and John Luther Adams.

Since 2007, the Phoenix-based pincushioned — featuring Doug Nottingham and Barry Moon, a graduate of UB’s PhD program in composition — has been, according to its website, “melding digital sounds and images with their analog counterparts: beating drums, destroying guitars, spinning dials, sliding faders, writing software, building instruments and projecting bizarre imagery.”

“These garbage-pickers of music and art exploit anything/everything: Jay Z, Xenakis or Rembrandt are no safer than Shostakovich, the Butthole Surfers or Bill Viola from their synthesizing/thieving hands. They go beyond post-modernism and into pre-‘whatever,’ creating an abstract body of interactive millennial media art.”

The duo frequently appears in festival, gallery and concert settings. The UB concert is part of pincushioned’s 2014 tour featuring more than 25 concerts at venues across the country.

The concert is sponsored by the Hiller Computer Music Studios of the UB music department. Admission is free.

Faculty members Jonathan Golove (cello), Eric Huebner (piano) and Yuki Numata Resnick (violin) will perform an all-Brahms program at 7:30 p.m. March 13 in Lippes Concert Hall. They will be joined by Virginia Barron (viola) for a program consisting of “Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108,” “Piano Trio in B Major, Op. 8” and “Piano Quartet in C minor, Op. 60.”

Admission is $10 for the general public; $5 for UB faculty/staff/alumni/seniors/non-UB students; and free for UB students with ID.

The internationally renowned Arditti Quartet, a frequent performer at UB, will return on March 19 for a concert of works by Hilda Paredes, Harrison Birtwistle, Conlon Nancarrow, and György Ligeti.

Co-sponsored by the Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music, the concert will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Lippes Concert Hall. Advance tickets are $12 for the general public; $9 for UB faculty, staff, alumni and senior citizens; and $5 for students. At the door, tickets are $20, $15 and $8.

Earlier that day, the quartet will hold a composer workshop with graduate student composers from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Baird Recital Hall, 250 Baird Hall, North Campus. It is free and open to the public.

The Morris center also will sponsor a concert by Third Coast Percussion at 7:30 p.m. March 24 in Lippes Concert Hall.

The group will perform Augusta Read Thomas’ “Resounding Earth” and other works for percussion ensemble. Advance tickets are $12 for the general public; $9 for UB faculty, staff, alumni and senior citizens; and $5 for students.  At the door, tickets are $20, $15 and $8.

While at UB, the ensemble will conduct a master class from noon to 2 p.m. March 25 in B-1 (basement) Baird Hall. It is free and open to the public.

Founded in 2005, Third Coast Percussion “explores and expands the extraordinary sonic possibilities of the percussion repertoire, delivering exciting performances for audiences of all kinds.” The musicians, called “vibrant,” “superb” and “hard-grooving” by The New York Times, are known for groundbreaking collaborations across a wide range of disciplines. These include concerts and residency projects with architects at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, astronomers at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago and engineers at the University of Notre Dame, where the group is ensemble-in-residence.

The UB concert schedule will wind up for March with the Alexander String Quartet performing the final three concerts of the 2013-14 Slee/Beethoven String Quart Cycle. The concerts will be held at 7:30 p.m. March 28 in Lippes Concert Hall; 3 p.m. March 29 at Buffalo Suzuki Strings, 4 Webster St., North Tonawanda; and at 7:30 p.m. March 30 in Lippes Concert Hall.

The quartet will hold a master class from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 29 in Baird Recital Hall. It is free and open to the public.

Advance tickets for each of the three concerts are $12 for the general public; $9 for UB faculty, staff, alumni and senior citizens; and $5 for students.  At the door, tickets are $20, $15 and $8.

The Alexander String Quartet, which celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2011, is considered among the world’s premiere ensembles, widely admired for its interpretations of Beethoven, Mozart and Shostakovich. The musicians’ recordings of the Beethoven cycle and the Bartók and Shostakovich cycles have earned international critical acclaim.

Tickets for all UB concerts can be obtained by calling the Slee Hall box office at (716) 645-2921, in person at the Center for the Arts box office, or online at tickets.com.