MUSIC

 This concert explores the Third Stream in its historical and present-day status. When musical visionaries Gunther Schuller and Ran Blake founded the groundbreaking Third Stream Department in 1972, they inaugurated a rich conversation between multiple musical styles and communities. Tonight's concert traces the cutting edge at NEC, from the earliest days of the Third Stream department to present-day innovations under the department's current name, Contemporary Improvisation.

The CI program trains musicians to broaden their musical palettes and develop unique voices as composer/performer/improvisers. Compositions—selected by Gunther Schuller—trace a nearly hundred-year history of stylistic crossings and radical innovations. Current CI students show how a departmental tradition of innovation continues today in a program of original compositions and re-compositions developed in weekly workshops directed by Tanya Kalmanovitch and CI faculty.

Program to include:

Ran Blake performs an improvisation on Gunther Schuller's Magic Row

Charles Ives In the Inn for Theater Orchestra directed by Eden MacAdam-Somer

Gunther Schuller Transformation directed by Ken Schaphorst

Scott Joplin Solace (A Mexican Serenade) for ragtime orchestra directed by Hankus Netsky

Anthony Coleman performs Jelly Roll Morton's "Grandpa's Spells"

Tal Zilber performs his recomposition of Gunther Schuller's Of Reminiscences and Reflections for solo piano and electronics

Fiddler Rachel Panitch directs a large ensemble inspired by Gunther Schuller's Country Fiddle Orchestra

Violinist Yasmine Azaiez performs a transcription of a piano solo by Cecil Taylor '51 DP

Hui Weng leads a re-composition of a modern Chinese composition for guzheng, violin, and cello

Student compositions premiered by Survivor's Breakfast ensemble, coached byAnthony Coleman

Ilya Portnov performs African-American prison songs recast on harmonica, clarinet, and fiddle