Fans of new music have a lot to savor this week. At N.C. State, Rodney Waschka II offers another “ArtsNow” concert at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 19 in the ballroom of the Talley Student Center. The program consists of new videos with electronic (or computer-generated) scores. Tickets are $10.
Duke’s long-running new-music series, “Encounters … with the Music of Our Time,” gets its season underway in Baldwin Auditorium on the night of Friday, Oct. 20 with a flock of artists performing new chamber works by Duke graduate composers John Bower, Arístides Llaneza Sandoval and John Mayrose. UNC’s Michael Votta waves a baton over some of the music, and who knows? Attendees just might be in on the ground level for something that makes a long-term impression.
If “new” means “20th century,” and it often does when “classical” music is the subject, then Long Leaf Opera merits gratitude and our presence as the company presents Vanessa, by Samuel Barber (composer of the ubiquitous “Adagio for Strings”), in UNC-Chapel Hill’s Memorial Hall on Friday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $10-$35.
New and old are mixed in the first of the Raleigh Chamber Music Guild’s Masters Series concerts as the all-African-American group The Young Eight (whose early career got big boosts in Winston-Salem) plays works by George Walker, Michael Mikulka, Patrick Grant (“Hip Hop Experience”) and Mendelssohn’s celebrated “Octet” on Sunday, Oct. 21 at 3 p.m. The venue is Raleigh’s Fletcher Opera Theater. Series tickets are $85 and $35 for students. Single tickets are $22 and $8 for students.
And there’s still more in the new-old department on Sunday as the Raleigh Symphony Orchestra offers Sophia Pavlenko‘s Concerto No. 2, with the pianist-composer at the keyboard, plus Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 and excerpts from Act III of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger. Jones Auditorium is the place, and 3 p.m. is the time. Tickets are $10-$20.
Other noteworthy events this week include McCoy Tyner; Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique as led by William Henry Curry; a presentation by J. Randall Guptil on the serpent, an ancient wind instrument; a recital by Larisa Yesina, a pianist from Ukraine; violinist Hsiao-Mei Ku and pianist Ning Lu performing music by Ma Si-cong; and a “Bach’s Lunch” recital by organist Patrick Pope.
Unless otherwise specified, events begin at 8 p.m. For more information about these and other fine concerts, see the Independent‘s music calendar or CVNC’s Triangle calendar.
