Violinist Macomber to join UB’s Kopperud, Huebner for Slee concert

Longtime Juilliard faculty member and violinist Curtis Macomber will join UB faculty members Eric Huebner and Jean Kopperud on Oct. 21 for an evening of Bartok, Messiaen and more.

The concert will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall, North Campus.

Tickets are $15 for the general public, $10 for UB faculty/staff/alumni, seniors and non-UB students, and free for UB students with ID. Tickets may be purchased at the Center for the Arts box office, online at www.tickets.com and one hour before concert time at the Slee Hall box office.

The contemporary program features Davidovsky's “Synchronisms” and other works for solo violin by Moe, Kurtág and Sciarrino. Clarinetist Kopperud and pianist Huebner will join Macomber for performances of Bartók’s “Contrasts” and the last movement of Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time.”

The concert is co-sponsored by the Department of Music and the Robert & Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music.

Macomber’s playing recently was praised by The New York Times for its “thrilling virtuosity” and by The Strad magazine for its “panache.” He enjoys a varied and distinguished career as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher, and has for several decades been recognized as one of America’s foremost interpreters and proponents of new music.

He is a founding member of the Apollo Piano Trio and a member of the Da Capo Chamber Players, the Manhattan String Quartet, the Walden Chamber Players and the New York Chamber Soloists. He was for many years the violinist of Speculum Musicae and also has appeared with the New York New Music Ensemble, Group for Contemporary Music and in chamber music series across the country and in Europe.

As first violinist of the award-winning New World String Quartet for 11 years, Macomber performed the standard repertoire, as well as numerous contemporary works in performances in major halls throughout the United States and Europe. While a member of the quartet, he was artist-in-residence at Harvard University and also recorded 14 discs and performed numerous times on National Public Radio and television, and on the BBC.

Kopperud, a graduate of The Juilliard School and former student of Nadia Boulanger in France, has toured the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, China, the Caribbean and Australia as a concert soloist and chamber musician.

She performs with The New York New Music Ensemble, Omega, Ensemble 21, Washington Square Chamber Players and UB’s Slee Sinfonietta.

A professor of music at UB, she teaches a class called “On the Edge” — a course to practice performing — both at UB and in the evening division at Juilliard, as well as in workshops around the country.

Huebner has drawn worldwide acclaim for his performances of new and traditional music since making his debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at age 17. In January 2012, he was appointed pianist of the New York Philharmonic and has been featured in works by Lindberg, Stravinsky, Ives, Milhaud, Carter and R. Strauss, among others.

A devoted teacher as well as performer, Huebner is an associate professor of music at UB, where he maintains a studio of graduate and undergraduate piano majors and minors, and teaches courses in 20th-century piano music and piano literature. 

Since the fall of 2014, he also has been a member of the adjunct faculty at Juilliard, where he teaches a course in orchestral keyboard performance.