News & Events Amherst College New Music Ensemble to Present Tribute Concert Honoring Samuel Barber May 6

April 13, 2010                                 
Contact: Sara R. Leonard
Concert and Production Manager
413/542-2195

AMHERST, Mass. – The Amherst College New Music Ensemble will present a tribute concert marking the birthday of American composer Samuel Barber (1910-1981) on Thursday, May 6, at 8 p.m. in Buckley Recital Hall in the Arms Music Center at Amherst College. The college’s undergraduates will perform and the program will last approximately one hour. It is open to the public at no charge.

Barber, who was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music, is widely considered a “neo-romanticist” who bucked mid-century pressure to compose 12-tone music in the style of Schoenberg. His best-known work, the moving and eloquent Adagio for Strings, will open the program, conducted by Scott Smith ’09.

Also featured on the program in versions for soloist and piano are Barber’s musical setting of the James Agee poem Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Canzone for flute, “Must the Winter Come So Soon?” from the opera Vanessa, Summer Music for woodwind quintet and the first movement of his Violin Concerto. 

For more information, contact the Amherst College Concert Office at 413/542-2195 or concerts@amherst.edu.

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