Dana New Music Festival marks 25th anniversary

The Vindicator

Youngstown State University will mark the 25th anniversary of the Dana New Music Festival April 21-29, with two guest composers: Johnterryl Plumeri and Allen Vizzutti. Trumpet player Eric Brewer from Dallas will be the guest artist. All events are free to the public.

Plumeri, who has been Dana guest composer in the past, studied bass with Robert Brennand, who was principal bass of the New York Philharmonic, and composition and conducting with Hungarian conductor/composer Antal Dorati, a student of Bela Bartok’s. Plumeri has recently conducted the Moscow Philharmonic in a CD recording of Tchaikovsky’s last three symphonies and made a commercial video with the group featuring Tchaikovsky and Plumeri’s own “Pride of Baltimore” for oboe and orchestra. Plumeri lives in Santa Monica, Calif., where he writes music for films, and also has a home in Tampa, Fla., where he regularly performs with his professional jazz trio. For this year’s Dana Festival, Plumeri has composed a new work for faculty flutist Kathryn Thomas Umble, four clarinets and strings, which will be premiered at 8 p.m. April 22 in Bliss Recital Hall on the YSU campus.

Brewer will play Dana faculty member Robert Rollin’s Rondo Capriccioso for trumpet and strings at the Butler noon-hour concert April 22 and at the 11 a.m. convocation April 24 in Bliss Hall with pianist Anthony Ruggiero. The new version for strings, written especially for Brewer, will be performed at the April 22 evening concert.

Brewer studied with the Cleveland Orchestra’s James Darling. He holds a master’s degree from Yale University, where he studied with Allan Dean. He has served eight years as principal trumpet of the Utah Festival Opera Company, and as soloist with the San Jose Chamber Orchestra in California. He recently moved to Dallas where he is a member of The Imperial Brass Quintet, an active free-lance performer, and teaches trumpet. Brewer is originally from Northeast Ohio, where he was a professor at the Kent State Ashtabula Campus.

Also to be performed by the Festival Chamber Orchestra on April 22 is the premiere of “On a Rooftop” by senior composition major Ryan Coffey. The piece was commissioned by the New Music Society.

Richard Zacharias, local composer and member of the New Music Guild, Inc., will be on hand for two world premieres: the complete Sonata for Viola and Piano in three movements to be performed by senior violist Wendy Portis, and grad student pianist Timothy Webb; and “A Little Invention” for clarinet and euphonium, which he will perform himself with euphonium player Daniel Brandt.

Works by George Crumb and Arvo Part will form the centerpiece of the 2 p.m. concert April 26 in Bliss Recital Hall.

Guest composer Vizzutti will appear in the Dana Symphonic Wind Ensemble concert 8 p.m. April 29 at Stambaugh Auditorium. Vizzutti holds degrees from Eastman School of Music, where he was in the Eastman Brass Quintet, and received the only Artist’s Diploma awarded a wind player in Eastman’s history. He has performed internationally with artists such as Chick Corea, Doc Severinsen, Chuck Mangione, Woody Herman, the New Tokyo Philharmonic and the Budapest Radio Orchestra.

For more information, contact the Dana School of Music at (330) 941-3636.

SEE ALSO: Schedule: Dana New Music Festival.