Archive: Arts & Entertainment

The Cornell Contemporary Chamber Players present Unheard-of//Ensemble, a contemporary chamber group dedicated to the development and performance of new music by living composers. The concert on Saturday, September 28 at 8:00pm in Lincoln Hall room B20 will feature new works by Miles Jefferson Friday, Joshua Biggs, John Eagle, Corey Keating, and Daniel Sabzghabaei, plus a piece by Christopher Stark.

Ford Fourqurean (clarinet), Matheus Souza (violin), Issei Herr (cello), and Cornell alumnus Daniel Anastasio (piano) form the core of Unheard-of//Ensemble. Past seasons included over 50 premieres performed as part of their tours presenting performances, workshops, and master classes at universities and colleges across the United States, including the Manhattan School of Music Composition Studio, the University of Texas-Arlington, Georgia State University, a guest residency at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, the Art Institute of Chicago, and more.

The Cornell Symphony Orchestras present their first concert of the year on Sunday, September 29 at 3:00pm in Bailey Hall. The program includes Josef Suk's Serenade for Strings, Respighi's Pines of Rome, and A Tramp in the Assembly Line by Cornell doctoral composer Jihyun Kim.

The Cornell Orchestras are led this year by conductor Katherine Kilburn, who maintains a regular schedule of guest conducting, adjudicating, and serving as a festival clinician around the U.S. She has been Assistant Conductor of the National Repertory Orchestra, the El Paso Opera, the Hot Springs Music Festival, the Bowling Green State University Philharmonia, and the St. Louis Symphony Chorus, among others. Kilburn was previously Interim Director of Orchestras at Kent State University where she also taught conducting and conducted the operas, and was on faculty at Baldwin Wallace Conservatory. In setting the programming for this year, Kilburn says she selected pieces “that audiences would love to hear and that the orchestras would love to play. This concert features an exciting historical journey to Italy to witness moments in Roman life through the backdrop of centuries-old pine trees; the Josef Suk Serenade for Strings that is perhaps less known, but certainly no less resplendent and compelling than those of Tchaikovsky, Elgar, and Dvořák; and chockful of driving rhythms, pulsing beats, and even inspiration from Duke Ellington, Kim's short concert opener will have everyone tapping their toes!”

A Tramp in the Assembly Line was inspired by the Charlie Chaplin film Modern Times and was premiered by the Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra with an additional performance by the American Composers Orchestra. Before studying at Cornell, Jihyun Kim previously earned an MM degree in Composition from the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University while serving as an Associate Instructor in Music Theory, and a BM degree in Composition from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea.​ Kim’s music has been performed in prestigious venues including Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum, and National Sawdust; by ensembles including the American Composers Orchestra, JACK Quartet, and Aspen Contemporary Ensemble; and has won numerous awards, including the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award.

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