New music groups schedule concerts

The shows will include seven world premieres.

the vindicator

YOUNGSTOWN — The New Music Society and the New Music Guild will hold their annual Pops Concerts with the Dana Composers Ensemble at noon Wednesday at the Butler Institute of American Art, and at 8 p.m. the same day at Bliss Recital Hall. Robert Rollin is director and Timothy Web is assistant director. Both concerts are free.

Guest artist for the evening concert will be Dana faculty member Corinne Morini, soprano, performing three American musical theater songs: “Dearest Mama,” from “Ballad of Baby Doe”; “What Good Would the Moon Be,” from “Street Scene”; and “Green Finch and Linnet Bird” from “Sweeney Todd.” Morini, an Ellwood City, Pa., native, is a Dana alumna, and holds a master’s degree in vocal performance from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. She will be accompanied on piano by Dana senior Meleah Backhaus.

Highlighting the concerts will be seven world premieres.

Graduate Natalie Sahyoun and senior Wendy Portis will premiere “November,” by graduate student Darci Kuhlber of Grove City, Pa.; and “Angst,” by graduate student Sarah Korb of Minnesota. Violinist Jenna Barvitski and violist Wendy Portis will premiere sophomore Daniel Brandt’s two sound studies for violin and viola titled “Gypsies in the Woods” and “Inner City Cop.”

Sophomore Brandon Loewit will have two premieres; a piano piece, “Opus 1, No. 1,” performed by Timothy Webb; and a flute duet, “Empty Forest Rain, Between Two Drops of Sun,” performed by Bryan Kennard and Adrienne Lehotsky. In the evening concert, Bandon Loewit will also perform two Scriabin piano preludes.

New Music Guild composer Richard Zacharias will have a premiere of the third movement of his work “Sonata for Oboe and Piano” during the evening show. The movement is entitled “Bounce/Pray/More Bounce.” Performers will be Nathan Welch, oboe, and Timothy Webb, piano.

Dana faculty members Gwyneth Rollin, violin, and Robert Rollin, piano, will perform Robert Rollin’s “Two Songs About the Rebbi,” a contrapuntal setting of two contrasting klezmer folk songs. The first is slow and expresses awe at the rebbi’s many abilities, including his ability to fly. The second is lively and depicts the blissful dance of a Chassidic rabbi.

Graduate Sarah Korb will perform two contemporary saxophone works: “Garden of Love” by Jacob ter Veldhuis for soprano saxophone, and “Emergence” by Dana faculty member David Morgan for baritone saxophone.

Dana junior guitarist Ryan Coffey will perform the “Usher Waltz” for solo guitar by Nikita Koshkin. Koshkin is a Russian virtuoso guitarist and composer. The piece is based on the Edgar Allen Poe story, “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Senior Mary Grosso Costello’s “The Highwayman,” based on poetry by Alfred Noyes, will be sung during the evening program by Laina Zack, soprano, accompanied by Meg Daniluk.

Graduates Sarah Korb and Timothy Webb will perform a premiere of Webb’s new version of the 1940’s klezmer song “Miami Beach Rumba,” by Albert Samse and Irving Fields. Webb’s “Romeo Lost” will be performed twice: at Butler by Mary Grosso Costello accompanied by Jerry Rezanka, and in the evening concert by flutist/vocalist Danielle Frabutt with Webb on piano.