- By Laurel Gilmer
- Entertainment
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The Cornell Department of Music presents the Glee Club's Sesquicentennial Concert on Saturday, November 3 at 7:00 pm in Sage Chapel. The Cornell Glee Club, founded in 1868, has become one of America's most highly regarded collegiate choirs. To mark their 150th anniversary, they are inaugurating a new fall concert under the direction of Robert Isaacs, presenting some of the most beloved repertoire of the male-voice tradition, including music of Franz Biebl, Benjamin Britten, Morten Lauridsen, and others.
Nods to the Glee Club's history (with mandolin and banjo) and to the present (with violin, cello, and piano) will feature multi-talented performers from within the Glee Club, and the program will conclude with traditional Cornell songs.
The Momenta Quartet returns to Cornell to collaborate with master Javanese musician Darsono Hadiraharjo; the Cornell Gamelan Ensemble, directed by Christopher J. Miller; and Cornell composers. The string quartet, comprised of violinists Emilie-Anne Gendron and Alex Shiozaki, violist Stephanie Griffin, and cellist Michael Hass, has an eclectic vision that encompasses music of all aesthetic backgrounds, and they advocate for emerging composers, premiering more than 150 works since their founding in 2004.
On Wednesday, November 7 at 8:00 pm in Barnes Hall, they will perform new works by Can Bilir, Miles Friday, and Piyawat Louilarpprasert that combine string quartet and gamelan. Each piece finds a unique solution to the challenge of reconciling and/or juxtaposing the timbral, procedural, and interactional aspects of two very distinct musical traditions. The program is funded in part by a grant from Cornell Council for the Arts. The day before, on Tuesday, November 6, they also perform as part of Bilir's DMA composition recital at 8:00 pm in Barnes Hall.
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