MUSIC

 Open For'm

Led by Stephen Drury of the NEC faculty, Callithumpian Consort is a loose aggregation of NEC students, alumni, and new music enthusiasts that performs locally, on the East Coast, and in Europe. Throughout the year, the group returns to its birthplace—the NEC campus—with performances of contemporary avant-garde music.

This season, Callithumpian Consort is using its concert appearances at NEC and other nearby venues to create a conversation within and between these events. Stephen Drury explains:

"Open For'm is an immersion, an encounter, a multi-dimensional experience. Callithumpian Consort focuses on a single piece of music in a free-form event made of equal parts teach-in, demonstration, free-form discussion, open rehearsal, Q and A session, pre-concert lecture, and post-concert reception. Sit next to and among the performers; experience the music, its history, challenges and beauties from the inside of the group!

Tonight's concert is an encounter with the music of NEC alumnus Lei Liang '96, '98 M.M., that will continue with a concert at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on February 21 that will include the premiere of a new work by Liang, one of several Callithumpian Consort premieres scheduled for the Gardner Museum in 2013.