Culture
OU Ampersand Fest to Premiere New Works by Alumni Musicians
< < Back toThe Ohio University School of Music will present a concert by the Wind Symphony on Thursday, March 24 at 7:30 p.m. at Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium, featuring alumni composers and performers in world premiere performances.
Two guest ensembles will be featured with the Wind Symphony. Radar Hill, founded in Athens and now active in the Columbus area, is comprised of five alumni musicians who play jazz fusion. The group composed “Lucidrome” for this particular concert, which combines Radar Hill with the Wind Symphony.
The progressive rock trio Triangulus, also alumni, will premiere a piece called “The Space Between the Broken Bone,” by D. Turner Matthews. Matthews, who graduated from Ohio University in 2015 with a bachelor of music in composition and percussion performance, is a graduate student at Rutgers University, where he is pursuing a master of music degree in composition.
Both Radar Hill and Triangulus will also perform solo sets and take part in an informal pre-concert talk at 6:45 p.m. Patrons are encouraged to arrive early.
The concert will also feature American composer Steven Bryant’s “Ecstatic Waters,” which combines computer-generated electronica with the Wind Symphony to make a commentary on humankind’s continued reliance and coexistence with machines.
The event title “Ampersand” refers to the festival’s ongoing commitment to combine or “pair” the Wind Symphony with other artists, performers, styles and aesthetics. Last year’s concert featured big band jazz and world premieres by faculty composers. The intention is to foster opportunities for collaboration beyond conventional partnerships that are the norm for each genre.
The Ampersand Festival is coordinated by Director of Bands and Associate Professor of Conducting Dr. Andrew Trachsel, who also conducts the Wind Symphony, an ensemble selected from among the finest wind and percussion performers in the university.
This event is free and open to the public.