Sonoma Musica Viva: Featuring Eight Composers From New England

Schroeder Hall
7:30 pm

Admission Fees:
$12 Admission, Free Parking, SSU Students FREE

Tickets:
Box Office

Join us on March 13 at 7:30 p.m. for an evening of chamber music by New England composers in Schroeder Hall at the Green Music Center. Performers will include members of Sonoma Musica Viva, a collective of music faculty, free-lancers and qualified students from Sonoma State University. Composer and founding director Brian S. Wilson will curate and conduct the event. 

Sonoma Musica Viva Digital Program

The Backstory

Located at the intersection of early American commerce and culture, New England has provided ideal conditions for music composition to flourish. Some of the most dynamic composers of the 20th century affiliated themselves with groups known as the Boston School and the Boston Six, while others, with true Yankee ingenuity, worked outside of the mainstream.

Amy Beach and Arthur Foote were affiliated with The Boston Six. Sometimes called The Second New England School, this aggregate is viewed as pivotal in the development of an American classical music that stands apart from its European ancestors. The composers of the Second New England School are considered the artistic ancestors of later "academic" and "conservative" U.S. composers such as Walter Piston, Howard Hanson, Douglas Moore and Carlisle Floyd.

Irving Fine and Harold Shapero were among the Boston School, a group of composers from Boston, Massachusetts who were influenced by the neoclassicism of Igor Stravinsky. Many from this group studied with the influential Parisian teacher Nadia Boulanger.  

The concert will also include works by Walter Piston; by the American maverick Carl Ruggles, considered a founder of the ultramodernist movement; and by Marilyn J. Ziffrin, a Chicago-born student of A. Tcherepnin who lived in New Hampshire and became the biographer of Ruggles.

The Music

Chamber works to be performed will include Harold Shapero's Sonata for Trumpet (Daniel Gianola-Norris, trumpet soloist); Irving Fine's Choruses from Alice In Wonderland ; Carl Ruggles' "Angels" for six trumpets (SSU Trumpet Studio led by Daniel Gianola-Norris); solo piano pieces from Amy Beach's "From Grandmother's Garden"; Piano Trio No. 2 by Arthur Foote and two works for mixed chamber ensemble, "The Season" by Brian S. Wilson and "Ten" by Marilyn J. Ziffrin.

For information, contact brian.wilson@sonoma.edu(link sends e-mail) or call (707) 664-2324

List of composers

Carl Ruggles (1876-1971)
Amy Beach (Boston Six) (1867-1944)
Arthur Foote (Boston Six) (1853-1937)
Walter Piston (taught by the Boston Six) (1894-1976)
Irving Fine (Boston School) (1914-1962)
Harold Shapero (Boston School) (1920-2013)
Marilyn J. Ziffrin (1926-2018)
Brian S. Wilson (b. 1962)