The University of Toledo Department of Music will welcome two guest composers for its 42nd annual Spring Festival of New Music.
The festival celebrates the music of modern and living composers. This year’s guests are Adam Schoenberg and Elaine Hagenberg. Both are internationally recognized contemporary composers. Festival concerts will feature their music and that of other modern composers.
Twice named among the top 10 most performed living classical composers by orchestras in the United States, Grammy-nominated Schoenberg’s music is “invigorating” (Los Angeles Times) and full of “mystery and sensuality” (The New York Times). His works have received performances and premieres at the Library of Congress, Kennedy Center, New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Hollywood Bowl.
Schoenberg’s notable recordings include orchestral works featuring the Kansas City Symphony, an arrangement of “When You Wish Upon a Star” for Anne Akiko Meyers and the London Symphony Orchestra, and a compendium including his keyboard works by pianist Nadia Shpachenko.
Hagenberg’s choral music “soars with eloquence and ingenuity” (American Choral Directors Association’s Choral Journal). Her compositions have been performed by universities, community choirs, schools and church choirs throughout the United States and abroad. Her music has been featured at All-State festivals, national and regional American Choral Directors Association Conferences, the National Youth Choir at Carnegie Hall, the Melbourne International Choral Festival in Australia, and the International Children’s Choir festivals in Canterbury and London.
She has more than 40 commissioned works, including new music written for the American Choral Directors Association Women’s Choir Consortium, colleges and universities, community choirs and churches.
In addition to composing, Hagenberg has been the guest artist and clinician for numerous conferences and festivals, including the Heartland Youth Choir Meet the Composer Festival, the Alleluia Conference at Baylor University, the Voices Unite Festival, the Birmingham First Composer Festival, the Savannah Sacred Music Festival, and the In Canto Mediterrano International Choral Festival in Milazzo, Italy.
The 2019 Spring Festival of New Music schedule is:
• Friday, March 15 — Chamber Concert at 7 p.m. in the Center for Performing Arts Recital Hall — free event;
• Saturday, March 16 — Discussion, “Finding Visual Art in Music,” at 3 p.m. in the Center for the Visual Arts Haigh Auditorium on the University’s Toledo Museum of Art Campus — free event;
• Saturday, March 16 — University High School Honor Choir at 7 p.m. in Doermann Theatre — ticketed event; and
• Sunday, March 17 — Large Ensembles Concert at 3 p.m. in Doermann Theatre — ticketed event.
Tickets to the Saturday and Sunday concerts are $10 and $5 for students, children and seniors. They are available on the School of Visual and Performing Arts’ website. Tickets also will be available at the door or by calling the Center for Performing Arts Box Office at 419.530.2787.
