NEW MUSIC Circle 50th Anniversary SEASON

Chris Brown and Guillermo Galindo River of Voices Sunday, May 31, 2009 – 5 p.m. Co-sponsored by Laumeier Sculpture Park Laumeier Sculpture Park 12580 Rott Rd.Admission:Free with a portable radio, or purchase radio at door.

I hope some of you will be able to attend our annual New Music Circle benefit this year: It will be held at Laumeier Sculpture Park on Sunday, May 31st. Sparing you too much detail here, the event will be divided into two parts: A) An interesting and stimulating,  performance art – audience participation project by Chris Brown and Guillermo Galindo which will start at 5:00pm and be FREE of charge. It will, however, require that you bring your own portable radio or buy one there for $20.00 (For more details on this, click on our website http://newmusiccircle.org/)

B) The performance will be followed by our traditionally fabulous dinner for which the ticket price is $50.00 (It’s our 50th Anniversary Season!) or, since we are in the depths of a recession, I’ll quote the original invitation for possible variations: “If you’re a starving artist, divide by 5; If you’re a little short, subtract $5.00; If you have some to spare, add $5.00; If you love new music, mulitply by 5,4,3, or 2”.

The dinner will be held on the tented deck behind the Education Center.

In any case, if you haven’t already received an invitation for the benefit, you can still phone in your reservations, (314)567-5384, or reserve by e-mail (alumrod@gmail.com), before May 22, if possible and then pay at the dinner.

See you there!

Let me tell you about one really terrific concert I attended last Tuesday, 5/5, presented by The St. Louis Low Brass Collective (http://www.stllbc.org/). It featured a working group called The Trombones of The St. Louis Symphony, led by principal trombonist, Timothy Myers and had to be one of the most well balanced, varied, yet musically challenging programs I’ve enjoyed in some time. Music by Claude Debussy and Jacques Charpentier was answered by modern composers (St. Louis’s own) Robert Wykes and brass specialist, Anthony Plog.

You may know something about Anthony Plog, because his full album of brass music, “Colors For Brass”, features the St. Louis Brass Quintet on one piece, and overall, an amazingly broad range of  brass techniques and color effects. (Just go buy it!).

I loved Robert Wykes’s piece, also. It was short enough to be played at the beginning and at the end of the concert (also a clever programming device), yet it was more than just a fanfare. It ended with an exciting flare, yet developed through a wide range of melodies and harmonic colors in the process of getting there.

So…… keep an eye out for their next event, and I’ll do the same.

Hi All, I have just picked up a notice about an amazing art project (right here in our town), called Wander Full, produced by the Chautauqua Art Lab,
focusing this week on a wildly eclectic festival of events from May 3 – 7. I’ll say no more, because I’m just learning about it as we go along, except to say…..CLICK ON THIS LINK, ASAP, http://artwanderlust.blogspot.com/ and then scroll down to the “calendar of events”.
If you can come out on one or more of the evenings, GREAT, but in any case, be sure to click on all the links from that site to individual artists and arts organizations. You’ll be amazed, as I was, at the range of creativity we have here in St. Louis, from music to painting to theatre to film making to architecture.