What: Pierrot Throughout the World – A concert tribute to 20th-century composer Arnold Schoenberg will be presented by the University of North Texas Pierrot Chamber Players with works featuring composers from three countries
Program: Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21; Arturo Marquez's Danzón No. 2 as arranged by UNT doctoral student Bobby Lapinski; and the world premiere of Richard Brook's L'Après-midi d'un Schoenberg
When: 8 p.m. Sept. 17 (Wednesday)
Where: Voertman Hall, inside the UNT Music Building at 415 Avenue C in Denton
Admission: Free. Evening parking is free in lot 26, southwest of the Music Building. The lot entrance is off of Highland Street.
Media: A dress rehearsal for the performance is at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 14 (Sunday). For details, contact Monique.Bird@unt.edu or 940-369-7782.
DENTON, Texas (UNT) – The University of North Texas Pierrot Chamber Players, a collection of UNT College of Music-affiliated instrumentalists and singers, will perform the challenging work of Arnold Schoenberg, an Austrian composer considered one of the most important musical contributors of the 20th century. The program will include a duo of related repertoire: the world premiere of L'Après-midi d'un Schoenberg and a UNT student arrangement of Danzón No. 2.
The free concert, titled Pierrot Throughout the World, takes place at 8 p.m. Sept. 17 (Wednesday) in Voertman Hall, located inside the UNT Music Building at 415 Avenue C in Denton.
Arnold Schoenberg's rarely performed Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 will close the program.A melodramashowcasing 21 poems translated into German from French, the piece was composed without a tonal center and does not center on a specific musical key. During the performance, vocalists allow the voice to rise or fall naturally as in speech and only the starting pitch of syllables is accentuated. The signature quintet of Pierrot Lunaire is known as a Pierrot ensemble.
The premiere of New York-based composer Richard Brooks' L'Après-midi d'un Schoenberg will precede the 20th-century masterpiece. Brooks wrote the mini-cantata in tribute to the Schoenberg family as a humorous but fictional tale of their lives based on four photographs featuring their patriarch. The Brooks selection will include the Pierrot ensemble alongside a small chorus.
UNT doctoral student Bobby Lapinski's arrangement for a Pierrot ensemble of Mexican composer Arturo Marquez's Danzón No. 2 will also be on the program.
Arturo Ortega, conductor for the ensemble and supervisor for music acquisitions and processing at the UNT Music Library, said the repertoire reflects UNT's connection to the Schoenberg family.
In 2012, 100 years after Pierrot Lunaire was completed, the composer's grandson, Arnold Greissle-Schoenberg, and his wife, Nancy Bogen, donated a vast collection of Schoenberg's original manuscripts, personal correspondences and photographs to the UNT Music Library. In 2013, Brooks also donated his archives, which consist of his original compositions and sketches.
The program will consist primarily of students in the UNT College of Music, including Lapinski (clarinet and bass clarinet), Christian Gonzalez (flute and piccolo), Veronika Vassileva (violin and viola), Eric Smith (cello), Eva Polgar (piano) and Daniel Myers (baritone), along with Michael Cervantes as technical director. Additionally, alumni Nathan Hodgson (tenor) and Katrina Burggraf-Kledas (alto) and former faculty member Heidi Dietrich-Klein (soprano) will serve as the chorus.
After the Denton performance, the ensemble leaves for New York City, where they will perform the concert again at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 22 (Monday) at the Austrian Cultural Forum.
About the UNT Music Library
The UNT Music Library is one of the largest academic music collections in the country with more than 300,000 volumes of books, periodicals, scores, dissertations and reference works, as well as nearly 900,000 sound recordings in a variety of formats. Other special collections in the Music Library include manuscripts of Aaron Copland; correspondence of Arnold Schoenberg; recordings and photographs from band leaders Duke Ellington and Stan Kenton and composers Don Gillis and Julia Smith; the George Bragg Boy Choir Music Library; sheet music collections from radio stations WBAP and WFAA; the personal archives of Leon Breeden (director of the UNT Jazz Program for over 20 years) and Willis Conover (jazz DJ on the Voice of America for over 40 years); and an ever-expanding collection of recordings and program books from the UNT College of Music.
About the UNT College of Music
The highly comprehensive programs of the UNT College of Music enroll the largest number of music majors of any university in the country. The UNT College of Music is the choice of more than 1,600 music majors from all over the world who are pursuing a wide variety of specializations, including classical music performance, jazz studies, music education, composition, musicology, theory and ethnomusicology. The college provides a rich musical environment with 100 full-time faculty members, 200 adjuncts and graduate assistants, a vast music library, and more than 40 student ensembles. UNT music alumni populate every corner of the profession in this country and abroad.