Message from the President
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Dear Friends,
The support of the Friends of Music is enormously important in helping create the beautiful music we all love at Emory.
Your contributions make a real difference for the activities that we fund, which include music students and the programs that support them. We hope you will enjoy reading below about some of the programs to which FoM contributes.
These newsletters also aim to highlight music programs featuring our students, music faculty, and artist affiliates. As most of you know, these concerts are free, and the performances are amazing. November offers the opportunity to hear euphonium and saxophone quartets, piano duets, rarely-performed pieces for oboe and English horn, as well as percussion music that includes the drummer for John Legend! What a feast!
We welcome your feedback!
Just hit reply to the email that brought you this newsletter and let us know what additional articles or features you would like to see in the newsletter, how you would like to participate in Friends of Music, or any other suggestions you might have.
Many thanks to June Scott for help with editing this newsletter.
With best wishes,
Gray
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Stephen Crist FOM Grant Report
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An FoM grant provided funds for a visit by Dr.Jennifer Bloxam (Herbert H. Lehman Professor of Music, Williams College) to give a lecture to Dr. Crist’s class as well as to present a research roundtable. Professor Bloxam's scholarly interests include early music and its cultural context, interactions between plainsong and polyphony, narrative and exegesis in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century sacred music, musical borrowing, and composition. On March 27, she conducted a research roundtable in a packed seminar room at the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry. This was attended by undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty from Emory, Georgia State, and other area institutions, in music, theology, art history, and related fields. (See the above flyer.) In her class visit on March 28, Dr. Bloxam led a lively and impactful session on "The Catholic Origins of Christian Hymnody: Texts, Tunes, Transmission". In this presentation she made use of rare musical items from the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries obtained from Emory's Special Collections.
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Thank You from Emory Students
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Emory music students are able to take lessons from world-class professionals. Those of you who have heard our students perform can hear the results--our students are amazingly accomplished.
However, the cost of these lessons presents a formidable burden for many. FoM is pleased to be able to offer scholarship support for some students. Below are thank you notes from a few recipients.
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I am writing to express my utmost gratitude to you and the Friends of Music organization for providing a scholarship for my applied music lessons. I am extremely grateful to have received this award as music has profoundly shaped my life story.
Piano lessons were the most memorable thing during my first year at Emory. Not only did my teacher help foster my musical skills and technique but I also developed important skills like respecting different opinions and listening to others. Moreover, I developed a curiosity and appreciation for new things.
However, most importantly, I have gained more confidence not only in my ability to create beautiful music but also to succeed in my academic coursework. I am now less afraid of asking for help from my professors as well as competing in national/international competitions. This scholarship has helped me become a more confident and skilled musician and student. Thank you, and I hope this organization profoundly and positively impacts musicians like me.
Sincerely
Jason Lin
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Thank you for providing the Friends of Music award! To me, this scholarship does not only ease the financial burden of my family, but also gives me a motivation, or, in other words, inspiration, to keep on my pursuit of music studies.
This is my second semester in Emory, and I am working on a lot more pieces compared to last semester. Looking back, I don’t know if I could even start without a scholarship. I couldn’t be more grateful!
Sincerely,
Sara Wang
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Thank you so much for awarding me the friends Scholarship! It takes away much financial concern and emboldens me further down the path of music.
When I first entered Emory as a student, I thought I could only be a music minor. But after being in the great musical community at Emory for a semester, I decided to be a music major, still with slight uncertainty of my ability. The award is an affirmation of my work throughout the year and greatly encourages me to work harder and contribute to the Emory music community.
Thank you!
Sincerely,
Jennifer Zheng
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Sunday, November 10, 4 pm Emory Chamber Ensembles
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The Emory Chamber Ensembles Concert on November 10
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will feature a varied mix of student groups from the Emory Music Department. Chamber Music, a term used loosely to define music for a group as small as a duo to as large as a small orchestra, encourages musicians to hone their communication skills while exploring unique and intimate instrument timbres. Some of the groups feature different members of one instrument family, like the Emory Saxophone Quartet, which will be playing
Tango Virtuoso
, by Thierry Escaich. Others are a more traditional combination of instruments, such as the Emory Piano Quintet (string quartet+piano), playing the first movement of Dvorak’s
Piano Quintet in A major
. The Emory Euphonium Quartet will offer a transcription of Haydn’s
Achieved is the Glorious Work
and the program will finish with selections performed by the Emory Tango Ensemble. All groups meet regularly and are coached by Music Department faculty members or Artist Affiliates.
Click here to see the complete program
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Sunday, November 10, 7 pm, Emory Collaborative Piano
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What is Collaborative Piano? In a fundamental sense, it is the opposite of solo piano. When a person is playing solo, they are in charge. However, when two or more are playing together, the best music is made when the two collaborate: when they work together to make the best music possible. Collaborative Piano is a class, open only by audition, for students who are interested i
n performing chamber music literature, 4-hand, or 2-piano repertoire. You can hear the results in this program as these students play some of the best-known pieces in four-hand and two-piano repertoire.
Click here to see the program
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Friday, November 15, 8 pm,
Alexandra Shatalova Prior
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On Friday, November 15
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at 8:00pm Emory Oboe Artist Affiliate Dr. Alexandra Shatalova Prior will present a program of eclectic but enjoyable oboe and English horn music, featuring composers that are not often heard on conventional programs of classical music. Alec Wilder’s
Sonata for Oboe and Piano
is one such work, so rarely performed that it is now out of print! Wilder is better known for his contributions to popular music, including hits written for Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee, but he also wrote an impressive number of classical compositions, mostly for his friends and loved ones. His
Oboe Sonata
is an appealing blend of lyricism, jazziness, and a bit of the avant-garde. Seven of Charles Koechlin’s
14 Pieces
will open the program – another rarely performed set of music that reflects Koechlin’s brush with the French Impressionist school of composers. Koechlin was never famous in his day and still is not well known, especially compared to his teacher Gabriel Fauré and his student Francis Poulenc. His music communicates his various compositional inspirations, including folk music, nature and movies. Two of the seven pieces are written for English horn. Also on the program is Elliot Carter’s A
6 Letter Letter
and Antal Dorati’s
Duo Concertante
. In addition to teaching oboe at Emory, Dr. Shatalova Prior is the 2
nd
oboist and English hornist of the Atlanta Ballet Orchestra for the 2019-2020 season and plays principal oboe in the Georgia Symphony Orchestra and the LaGrange Symphony Orchestra. She will be joined by Choo Choo Hu on piano, who will be performing
Mahler 8
with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra that same week.
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Saturday, November 23, 8 pm, EUSO and EWE
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For this concert
entitled
“Fused”, the Emory Wind Ensemble will present two works by Cindy McTee, a Texas-based composer. The work features a unique fusion of twelve-tone harmony (made popular by Arnold Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School), with quartal and quintal harmony, as well as typical triadic figures featured in the Classical period and beyond. There is a lovely moment of musical comedy where McTee quotes the recognizable opening of
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,
and immediately layers it with harmony used centuries afterward.
It is sure to make you smile!
The cornerstone of the Wind Ensemble’s portion of the concert will be a performance of Yashuhide Ito’s
Gloriosa
. This extended work features fused musical material combining traditional Japanese themes from throughout the country with westernized Gregorian chant and other Christian liturgy. The inspiration for the work comes from the banning of Christianity in the country in the beginning of the 17
th
century, and the methods Crypto-Christians continued to disguise their sacred music to practice the religion in secret.
Our concert is shared with the Emory University Symphony Orchestra, performing Hindemith’s essential
Symphonic Metamorphosis
, as well as several selections from the Emory Percussion Ensemble, featuring Rashid Williams, our new 2019 Schwartz Artist-in-Residence. Williams is the drummer for R&B singer John Legend. It’s sure to be a wonderful evening, and I’m looking forward to seeing you there!
--Tyler Ehrlich
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Emory Friends of Music
Schwartz Center for Performing Arts
1700 N. Decatur Rd, Suite 206
Atlanta, GA 30322
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