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03.29.2005

Contacts: Arts at Emory, Sally Corbett, sally.corbett@emory.edu, 404-727-6678
And Nancy Condon, nancy.condon@emory.edu, 404-727-1687

Emory Presents New York New Music Ensemble Program with World Premier of John Anthony Lennon’s “Red Scimitar”

The unparalleled New York New Music Ensemble performs at Emory’s Schwartz Center on Friday, April 15, 8:00 p.m. (tickets: $8; discount groups $5; Emory students free). As Emory Coca-Cola Artists in Residence, the ensemble will also present a Perspective on Performance Series lecture/demonstration, during which they will play excerpts from their next day’s concert (Schwartz Center, Thursday April 14, 2:30 p.m., free, open to the public). For tickets or more information, call 404-727-5050 or go to arts.emory.edu.
This 28-year-old ensemble, which has released more than 15 recordings, commissions new music, and performs, records, teaches and advocates for the music of our time. The New York Times, remarking on their longevity, says “their music making remains tight, strong, vigorous … these musicians are the musical equivalent of white-water rafters” (2002). The ensemble’s interests span music of the 20th and 21st centuries, the classics, emerging composers and music involving extended instrumental and electronic techniques, theater, interactive and live electronics and graphics. Sought out by composers and audiences interested in thoughtful and passionate performances, the ensemble has performed internationally, with concerts across Europe and at the Kennedy Center, the Festival of New American Music at Sacramento State and Avery Fisher Hall in New York City. They recently toured the Far East and Pacific, performing in Beijing, Tokyo and Hawaii.
The ensemble’s Emory program features a world premiere by Emory professor and composer John Anthony Lennon that was written specifically for them. The subject of the new work, titled “Red Scimitar,” refers to the recent beheadings of innocent victims in the war on terror and is dedicated to their memory. The composer found some inspiration for his new work in the 1884 poem “Beheading” by Albert Giraud:
“The moon, a gleaming scimitar
On a black silk pillow,
Spectrally large – sends down threats
Through the sorrow-dark night”
“Red Scimitar” is a one-movement work for flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, piano, violin and cello, with a theatric cameo part performed by a vibraphonist who brings the piece to its culmination while playing the instrument with a red-adorned bow. Interspersed through the music is the flute's speak-flute part that generates fragments of narrative text, some of which is in Arabic.
“The piece proceeds with a velocity and content of musical materials that lend an impression of emotions spiraling out of control while leading to a certain end,” says Lennon.
The evening’s program also includes Hiroya Miura’s “Open Passage – In Memoriam Andrew Svoboda” (2004), Wayne Peterson’s “New Work”, David Rakowski’s “Two Can Play That Game” and Andrew Imbrie’s “Pilgrimage.”
After premiering “Red Scimitar” in Atlanta, the New York New Music Ensemble will perform the piece at Merkin Hall in New York on May 23rd.
The ensemble is conducted by Jeffrey Milarsky, who also performs percussion, and includes the virtuoso performers Daniel Druckman, percussionist; Christopher Finckel, cellist; Stephen Gosling, pianist; Jean Kopperud, clarinetist; Linda Quan, violinist; and Jayn Rosenfeld, flutist.
Biographical Information on John Anthony Lennon
Composer John Anthony Lennon is director of graduate studies and professor in the Emory Department of Music, and teaches composition and orchestration. He has been commissioned by the John F. Kennedy Theatre Chamber Players, the Library of Congress, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, the National Endowment for the Arts Orchestral Consortium, the Fromm Foundation and many others. Recent commissions include two for the recent inauguration of the new president of Emory University and requests from the Yukimi Kambe Viol Consort (Japan), Benjamin Verdery (Yale University) and Bryce Dessner Guitar Quartet. Lennon premiered “Ars ex Spiritu” for brass and percussion and “Cor Prudentis” for brass and percussion at Emory in April 2004. His “Let It Rain” for marimba and voice premiered at the Percussive Arts Society International Conference, Louisville, KY. “Sabbath Dancers” for piano, violin, viola and cello by Lennon premiered at Florida State University.
In addition to the Prix de Rome, Guggenheim, Friedheim and Charles Ives awards, Lennon has been the recipient of numerous prizes and has held fellowships at Tanglewood, the Rockefeller Center at Bellagio, the Camargo Foundation, Villa Montalvo, Yaddo, the Atlantic Center for the Arts and the MacDowell Colony as a Norlin Foundation Fellow. He has received grants from the Southern Arts Federation, Valparaiso Foundation (Spain), Broadcast Music Inc. and the Emory Center for Teaching and Curriculum.
Lennon recently won second place in the Debussy Trio Foundation International Competition for “Serpent,” a piece premiered at Emory’s Schwartz Center in February 2004. The music will be published by Fatrock Press, a subsidy of Theodore Presser Music.
Lennon is published by C.F. Peters, E.C. Schirmer, Dorn, Mel Bay, Columbia University Press and the Oxford University Press. Recordings are with CRI, Bridge Records, Capstone and Open Loop.
Among his print publications are “Let It Rain: Studio 4” published by Alfred Music Co. and “Concert Etudes” published by Michael Lorimer Publications. Guitarist Oren Fader recently recorded his Another’s Fandango.
He is listed in the “Indiana University Press: A Guide to Pianist’s Repertoire” (edited by Maurice Hinson, Edition 3) and Baylor University: Biographical Dictionary of American Composers teaching in the United States (James Michael Floyd, editor).
His music has been performed frequently in the past few years at college and university venues such as Emory, Boston, Indiana, Baylor, Harvard and the University of Michigan, as well as at Penn State, Florida State, Louisiana State and Bowling Green State universities. Additional performances of his work have taken place in San Jose, CA; in Utica, NY; in Washington, DC (Cosmos Club); at the Belgium percussion festival; at the American Academy in Rome, Italy; in Corfu, Greece; at the Lisbon Superior School of Music, Portugal; at the 12th International Guitar Symposium, Iserlohn, Germany; during the World Saxophone Congress, Minneapolis, MN; during the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, Louisville, KY; at the North American Saxophone Alliance Region 3, Moorehead, MN; at the Mannes School of Music, New York Guitar Symposium; at Columbus State University, An American Potpourri; at Georgia State University, Neophonia; and at California State University at Sacramento, New American Music Festival.
His music broadcast listings include BMI USA and BMI International (Denmark, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, and Sweden).
Lennon has served as guest artist at Bar Harbor Music Festival, ME; Compose Yourself seminar, Hoff Barthelson School, Scarsdale, NY; and Florida State University.
As the Director of Graduate Studies he serves on the Emory Graduate Committee. He is the theory area coordinator for the Emory Music Department. He has served as a panel member for Emory’s Universal Research Council, Emory’s Winship Senior Lectureship, and the Music Teachers National Association.
He is listed in by Academic Keys in Who’s Who in Fine Arts Higher Education. He was chosen as delegation leader to South Africa for the People to People Ambassadors Program. He is a Gustafson Seminar member.
Brought up in Mill Valley, CA, Lennon earned a liberal arts degree at the University of San Francisco, and has a master's degree and doctorate from the University of Michigan (1968), where he studied with Leslie Bassett and William Bolcom.

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