For Immediate Release
Contact:
Leslie Weddell
(719) 389-6038
Leslie.Weddell@ColoradoCollege.edu
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – March. 5, 2010 – The Bowed Piano Ensemble, Colorado College’s internationally renowned experimental music group, will present a preview concert at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, March 25, in Packard Hall, 5 W. Cache La Poudre St., on the Colorado College campus. The concert, held in advance of the ensemble’s 2010 tour to Boston; Cleveland; Santa Fe; and Burlington, Vt., is free and open to the public.
The Bowed Piano Ensemble performs using fish line, ribbon, mallets and brushes on the interior components of a grand piano to create haunting, beautiful music that is as interesting to watch as it is to hear. The group is directed by composer and CC Music Professor Stephen Scott, who was recently named the USA Simon Fellow by the United States Artists foundation. Scott founded the ensemble in 1977.
CC soprano soloist Victoria Hansen will perform with the ensemble, in a program features Scott’s newest work, “Aurora Ficta,” along with excerpts from his song cycle “Paisajes Audibles.” “Paisajes Audibles” which was first performed in 2002 by Hansen and the ensemble in San Francisco and the Canary Islands, and was recorded in 2004 for Albany Records. The online journal New Music Box said of this work: "...when (soprano Victoria Hansen) sings along with the Bowed Piano Ensemble expect the walls to melt down again as you return to the almost primordial atmosphere guaranteed to enrapture."
Completing the program will be “Lanka,” a short, colorful piece by CC senior music major Joseph Beach, and Scott’s 1996 work “Vikings of the Sunrise,” a well-known piece recorded for New Albion Records and heralded by Tom Manoff, of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” as “...brilliant...if you can sail these mythic waters, you’re in for quite a journey.”
The ensemble and Hansen will perform at the Stieren Orchestra Hall, Santa Fe Opera House; Cleveland Museum of Art; University of Vermont, where they will hold a workshop and pre-concert talk; and Tufts University. Previously they have performed at the Sydney Opera House; Jazz at Lincoln Center; Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels; the medieval Town Hall in Tallinn, Estonia; and Jameos del Agua, a volcanic lava-tube-become-concert-hall in Lanzarote, Canary Islands.
Scott, Hansen and the ensemble have earned many favorable reviews in such publications as Gramophone, The American Record Guide, Wired Magazine, Fanfare, High Fidelity, The New York Times, The Independent (London), The Financial Times of London, The Los Angeles Times and Keyboard, as well as appearances on National Public Radio and PBS and on film and network television. Major festival performances have been at Spoleto Festival USA, Berliner Festspiele, Almeida Opera Festival (London), ppIANISSIMO Sofia, Bulgaria), the Visual Music Festival (Canary Islands) and Other Minds (San Francisco).
For more information on the Bowed Piano Ensemble visit: http://bowedpianoensemble.com
For information, directions or disability accommodation at the event, members of the public may call (719) 389-6607.
About Colorado College
Colorado College is a nationally prominent, four-year liberal arts college that was founded in Colorado Springs in 1874. The college operates on the innovative Block Plan, in which its 1,975 undergraduate students study one course at a time in intensive 3½-week blocks. The college also offers a master of arts in teaching degree. For more information, visit www.ColoradoCollege.edu <http://www.ColoradoCollege.edu>