Media Advisory: June in Buffalo to celebrate 40th anniversary with sparkle aplenty

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Save the dates! June in Buffalo, the University at Buffalo’s pioneering — and much imitated — festival and performance institute for new music will celebrate its 40th anniversary May 29 to June 7 in a spectacular fashion, honoring its history, founder Morton Feldman, 30-year artistic director David Felder and the world-class members of its composition and performance faculty, many of whom have helped to define the spirit and excitement of the festival for decades.

The weeklong program will include master classes, seminars, lectures and 15 concerts, including those that will feature:

• “Les Quatre Temps Cardinaux,” Felder’s masterwork for two solo voices, electronics, and a 35-piece orchestra composed of Ensemble Signal and the Slee Sinfonietta.
• A solo recital by Irvine Arditti, the phenomenal and charismatic champion of new music, of work by members of this year’s composition faculty, accompanied by internationally acclaimed UB faculty pianist Eric Huebner.
• A Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra performance of “On Time and the Instrumental Factor,” the complex work by Feldman, said to “explore an atmosphere of suspended time, with the instruments acting like an orchestra of tolling bells.”

The festival also will present performances of additional work by David Felder and by members of the festival composition faculty:

• Pulitzer Prize winners Charles Wuorinen, Bernard Rands, Steven Stucky and Roger Reynolds, and Pulitzer nominee Augusta Read Thomas.
• Multiple award-winning composer, conductor and flutist Harvey Sollberger.
• Brian Ferneyhough, winner of the $220,000 Siemens Music Prize for lifetime achievement.
• Martin Bresnick, the highly influential composer of music “lit from within by a literate and indomitable humanism."

In addition to those cited above, the festival will include performances by such outstanding artists as the New York New Music Ensemble, Meridian Arts Ensemble, Talujon Percussion Ensemble, soprano Heather Buck, bass vocalist Ethan Herschenfeld and Brad Lubman, director of Ensemble Signal.

The second iteration of the June in Buffalo Performance Institute, with Eric Huebner as director, brings superb emerging performers from around the world to study and perform alongside distinguished performing artists including Jonathan Golove, Tom Kolor, Jean Kopperud, Jon Nelson, Yuki Numata-Resnick and Huebner — all UB faculty members.

Institute participants will be performing throughout the week in festival concerts and composer workshops.

A program with times, dates and locations of June in Buffalo events is available at http://music21c.buffalo.edu/june-in-buffalo/concert-schedule/.