Aaron Copland's Masterwork Featured in Faculty-Student Joint Concert

The University of Arkansas Department of Music will hold a side-by-side performance showcasing faculty and students from the department. The concert will take place in the Jim and Joyce Faulkner Performing Arts Center at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, Feb. 9. The public is invited and admission is free. Please email faulkner@uark.edu to reserve tickets.  

"Giving our students the opportunity to play world class music alongside their faculty is at the heart of this concert" said Jamal Duncan, director of the Arkansas New Music Ensemble. "We have an outstanding faculty that we want to celebrate, but we also have incredibly talented students who need the exposure of performing great works with other great musicians."p

The concert will feature Aaron Copland's masterwork, Appalachian Spring. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1945, the music was written to accompany the choreography of famed dancer, Martha Graham.

"Copland's Appalachian Spring is a towering work in the repertoire" said Duncan. "When it comes to American classical music, Aaron Copland is the foremost composer of the twentieth century. His ballet music captured the essence of the American spirit and defined a genre for a century."

The Arkansas New Music Ensemble, part of the Department of Music in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, is focused on performing music by current composers that tap into the events and happenings of today. The ensemble membership varies in size and makeup from solo performers to mixed chamber ensembles of winds, strings and percussion.