Tuscaloosa, AL – The University of Alabama College of Arts & Sciences School of Music and The Birmingham Art Music Alliance present The Amion Quartet on Monday, June 4, 2012 at 7:30 p.m. in the Recital Hall of the Moody Music Building on the campus of The University of Alabama. This will feature newly composed string quartets by members of the Alliance. In addition to the quartet, the concert will also include Adam Bowles on piano and violist Michael Fernandez.
The Amion Quartet was founded in 1994 by Craig Hultgren. It functions both as a professional ensemble for occasional events and as an artistic entity for the performance of newly created works. The group has had many personnel combinations leading to its present configuration of violinists Yulia Sakharova and Sarah Nordlund, violist Zakana Enikeev and cellist Craig Hultgren. The quartet players are all members of the Alabama Symphony.
The program includes string quartets by Brian Moon – Lines and Curves, Andrew Raffo Dewar – String Quartet (2003), Monroe Golden – Twine ‘mid the Ringlets, Bryan Page – Bloodsongs and Cynthia Miller’s – Music for Endgame. Also on the program will be Matthew Scott Phillips’ Shadow and Self for violin, viola and piano and Bill Denton’s China Sonata for cello and piano.
Monroe Golden, who lives in Pell City, uses a nineteenth-century parlor song as the basis of his Twine ‘mid the Ringlets. The work was completed this year. Andrew Dewar is a saxphonist who teaches at University of Alabama’s New College of Interdisciplinary Arts. His String Quartet (2003) was first performed by the Flux Quartet in New York. Bryan Page is Minister of Music at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama. His Bloodsongs is an ultramodern vision of three traditional Christian hymns. Brian Moon is President of the Alliance and works and teaches at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His Curves and Lines is the first of his two string quartets. Cynthia Miller is a librarian at UA. Her Music for Endgame is a brand new reworking of music from a theatrical production. Matthew Phillips is pursuing a doctorate in music composition at the University of Georgia in Athens. Bill Denton is Assistant Principal Trumpet of the Alabama Symphony. He wrote China Sonata for Wei Liu who plays cello in the ASO.
This program is made possible through the support of the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the University of Alabama. The Birmingham Art Music Alliance is an autonomous nonprofit organization dedicated to presenting concerts of recently created art music by member composers and guest composers. Members include composers, professional performers, students of new music, and community members interested in preserving and maintaining the long tradition of music as a living art form. For more information, please visit www.artmusic.org.
This event is FREE and open to the public. For more information visit http://music.ua.edu/calendar-of-events/ or call 205-348-1477.