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MTA Music Highlights from 2022-2023
A Celebration of Aardvark’s Half-Century and Mark Harvey’s Retirement from MIT. Music by Mark Harvey and Duke Ellington on themes of social consciousness, spirituality, and Boston’s history & culture, with the premiere of a new work entitled “American Agonistes”
ADAM K. BOYLES, Director.
A beautiful concert by the MIT Symphony Orchestra featuring faculty members Marcus Thompson and Natalie Lin Douglas.
Special guests: MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble
LAURA GRILL JAYE, Director
Iva Bittová celebrated the power and urgency of coming together in her 2022 Distinguished Visiting Artist residency performance.
ANDREW CLARK, MUSIC DIRECTOR
The MIT Concert Choir gathers for their annual Family Weekend Community Sing.
DR. FREDERICK HARRIS JR. - Music Director
KENNETH AMIS - assistant conductor
Celebrating Musical Ingenuity
A special program of diverse, reflective, and innovative music. MITWE performs music by American and British composers and MIT FJE performs music by Monk, Charlie Parker, and Fernando Huergo, among others.
ANDREW CLARK, Director
KAREN HARVEY, Accompanist
The MIT Chamber Chorus marks the 350th anniversary of the death of composer Heinrich Schütz in a program that features his funeral masterwork, “Musikalische Exequien” alongside beloved works of the German choral tradition, including pieces by Hildegard von Bingen, J. S. Bach, Clara Schumann, Johannes Brahms, and others. The concert will also feature the North America premiere of “Virgen de la Nieves” by Michael Ostrzyga.
DR. FREDERICK HARRIS JR. - Music Director
This annual event honoring Herb Pomeroy (1930-2007) MIT’s “Father of Jazz,” featured flutist Elena Pinderhughes, who has performed with major artists including Herbie Hancock, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Hubert Laws, and Common, among others.
ADAM K. BOYLES, Director
ANDREW CLARK, Music Director
The East Coast premiere of The Listeners by Pulitzer-Prize and GRAMMY®-award winning composer Caroline Shaw. This work for chorus, orchestra, and vocal soloists is a response to Carl Sagan’s Golden Record, launched into space within a NASA Voyager probe in 1977. The Listener’s libretto spans five centuries of poetry in English as well as recorded excerpts from the record as well a speech by Sagan. The Concert Choir will also present Baroque gems by Handel, Purcell, and Zelenka.
KEALA KAUMEHEIWA, INSTRUCTOR
IAN HATTWICK, Director
FaMLE’s cutting edge electronic performance featuring live coding using gibber.cc and our ever growing collection of modular synthesizers.
DR. FREDERICK HARRIS JR., Music Director
KENNETH AMIS, Assistant Conductor
Special guests: Iva Bittová & Evan Ziporyn
A unique amalgam of music and special lighting performed by the MIT Wind Ensemble, featuring works for full wind ensemble & brass, percussion, and woodwind chamber ensembles. Music spanning the 16h century to the 21st by Merulo, Beethoven, Gounod, Debussy, and others, including Percy Grainger’s landmark work Lincolnshire Posy. Special guests include vocalist-violinist-composer Iva Bittová & clarinetist-composer Evan Ziporyn, and students of the Groton Hill Wind Ensemble. Lighting design by Cici Mao, ’22, of MIT E33 Productions.
GUSTI KOMIN, Artistic Director
An afternoon of music and dance from Bali, featuring Gamelan Galak Tika, the MIT Gamelan Class, both under the direction of Gusti Komin, as well as the Cambridge Youth Gamelan, under the direction of Emeric Viani.
MIGUEL ZENÓN, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Student jazz concert, presented as part of the Emerson/Harris Program for Private Study.
LAURA GRILL JAYE, DIRECTOR
LAMINE TOURÉ, DIRECTOR
Rambax MIT is an ensemble dedicated to learning the art of sabar, a vibrant drum and dance tradition of the Wolof people of Senegal, West Africa.
DR. FRED HARRIS JR., Music Director
Celebrating great jazz innovators past and present. Music by Ellington, Mingus, Monk, Jobim, Thad Jones, (his classic arrangement of Groove Merchant by Jerome Richardson), and fresh music by Guillermo Klein and Miguel Zenón.
Featuring the world premiere of Amazônia Sem Lei (“Lawless Amazon”) by Grammy-nominated Brazilian-American composer Clarice Assad, this special concert continues the Hearing Amazônia—The Responsibility of Existence project launched in the fall of 2021 and came weeks before MITWE’s, MIT FJE’s, and MIT VJE’s tour of Manaus, Brazil. Assad’s new work will feature violinist and MIT professor Natalie Lin Douglas and Assad herself. The concert also includes Antônio Carlos Jobim’s Passarim, Hermeto Pascoal’s Hermanos Latinos, Chiquinha Gonzaga’s Corta Jaca, and Drill by composer-bass clarinetist, Evan Ziporyn.
CLARICE ASSAD, COMPOSER/PIANIST/VOCALIST;
NATALIE LIN DOUGLAS, VIOLINIST;
EVAN ZIPOYRN, COMPOSER/BASS CLARINET
DR FREDERICK HARRIS, JR., MUSIC DIRECTOR;
KE.NNETH AMIS, ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR
LAURA GRILL JAYE, DIRECTOR, MIT VOCAL JAZZ ENSEMBLE
Activities included cultural/scientific exchanges with indigenous Amazonians through Nobre Academia de Robótica and the São Sebastião community on the Tarumã River, the National Institute of Amazonian Research, the Cultural Center of the Peoples of the Amazon, and Fundação Amazônia Sustentável. Musically, students connected with local indigenous instrument builders, the Amazonas State Jazz Orchestra, and vocalist-composer Djuena Tikuna.
A major concert in the famed 19th century opera house, Teatro Amazonas, concluded the trip on March 31. The event featured the MIT Wind Ensemble, MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble, vocalist-composer Luciana Souza, clarinetist-composer Anat Cohen, clarinetist-composer and MIT professor Evan Ziporyn, local musicians from Manuas, and a special large-scale collaborative performance with Djuena Tikuna, the first Brazilian Amazonian musician to perform in the Teatro Amazonas (her debut there was in 2015).
Concert Featuring: MIT Wind Ensemble, MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble, vocalist-composer Luciana Souza, clarinetist-composer Anat Cohen, clarinetist-composer and MIT professor Evan Ziporyn, local musicians from Manuas, and a special large-scale collaborative performance with Djuena Tikuna
During the Institute’s spring break in March 2023, nearly 80 musicians became only the second segment of MIT students to ever travel to the Brazilian Amazon. They were based in Manaus, located in the center of the world’s largest rainforest and home to the National Institute of Amazonian Research, the most important center for scientific studies in the Amazon region for international sustainability issues.
ADAM K. BOYLES, Director
Bartok: Bluebeard’s Castle
Featuring Shannon Rose McAuliffe, soprano (Judith),
David Kravitz, baritone (Bluebeard).
Original visual artwork by Peter Tucker.
Yiddish Dreams & Futures, a portrait concert of composer Derek David, featuring new vocal and chamber works that reflect upon Jewish identity and Yiddish culture in a contemporary landscape.
ANDREW CLARK, Music Director
MIT Concert Choir and Handel & Haydn Society Youth Choruses Chamber Choir joined together as they presented Haydn’s famed oratorio, The Creation.
DR. WILLIAM CUTTER, CONDUCTOR
The MIT Concert Choir gathers for their
annual Campus Preview Weekend Sing.
DR. FREDERICK HARRIS JR., Conductor & Concert Curator
This special annual MIT event features performances by MIT Wind Ensemble brass and chamber ensembles, the MIT Chamber Music Society, and also a short program of music by the award-winning MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, performing music of Ellington, Monk, Jobim, and others.
ANDREW CLARK, Conductor
KAREN HARVY, Accompanist
An intimate and eclectic program of works reflecting on the nourishing role of music in our lives.
DR. FREDERICK HARRIS, JR., MUSIC DIRECTOR
KENNETH AMIS, ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR
This unique MITWE event included five soloists, a world premiere, two Boston premieres, and a cornerstone of the wind ensemble repertoire.
ADAM K. BOYLES, Director
Click here to learn more about this event!
KEALA KAUMEHEIWA, INSTRUCTOR
MIGUEL ZENÓN, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Student jazz concert, presented as part of the Emerson/Harris Program for Private Study.
IAN HATTWICK, DIRECTOR
A dynamic concert of electronic rhythms, textures, and altered states! Featuring our ever-growing collection of modular synthesizers, custom digital musical instruments, EEGs, and more.
LAMINE TOURÉ, DIRECTOR
Rambax MIT is an ensemble dedicated to learning the art of sabar, a vibrant drum and dance tradition of the Wolof people of Senegal, West Africa.
DR. FREDERICK HARRIS JR., Music Director
LIHI HARUVI, guest saxophonist-composer
KIRA DAGLIO FINE, guest composer-conductor
Tap dancer SABRINA DRAMMIS AND FRIENDS
Celebrating music composed for the MIT FJE over the years, and also feature music by Berklee College of Music assistant professor, MIT lecturer, and saxophonist-composer Lihi Haruvi, as well as music by local composer-band leader and NEC graduate student, Kira Daglio Fine.
GUSTI KOMIN, Director
An afternoon of music and dance from Bali, featuring Gamelan Galak Tika and students (from MIT and Harvard) in MIT’s gamelan class, both under the direction of Gusti Komin.
LUCIANA SOUZA, VOICE TEACHER & MIGUEL ZENÓN, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
LAURA GRILL JAYE, DIRECTOR