Brown New Music will present its first concert of the year, "Brown Newd Music," today at 8 p.m. in Grant Recital Hall. The title refers to the minimalist theme that ties together the concert's pieces.
Featuring avant-garde and contemporary pieces from 20th century composers, the concert will foster a forum "geared toward the energy of contemporary concert music," said co-chair Whit Bernard '06.5. The group will perform pieces by John Cage, Olivier Messiaen, Luciano Berio, Arvo Pärt, Iannis Xenakis, Eric Satie and Steve Reich.
"The most important thing about Brown New Music is that we are bringing contemporary modern music that speaks to us as a modern culture to Brown and Providence," said co-chair Alex Kotch '06.
Brown New Music, a student-run contemporary music group, was founded in 1999 and has grown substantially since then. Last fall's concert filled Grant Recital Hall to capacity and featured works by contemporary composers, three of whose names began with the letters "Sch." The concert was aptly titled the "Schitt Concert."
The group has plans to expand its role in the community in the future. Bernard said that featuring more concerts oriented around specific themes would give Brown New Music a more "rigorous cultural purpose." The group also hopes to bring in guest performers, such as the cello and percussion duo "Odd Appetite."
The idea of expanding their role and offerings works in tandem with a broader goal: They hope to work more extensively with other University departments - such as visual art; theatre, speech and dance; and modern culture and media - in order to "be able to show each other different ways to express our aesthetic values," Kotch said.
The featured music is meant to move "more and more away from the listener and more and more toward the composer," Bernard said. It is meant to reflect a "trend back to music as a sound object and music as something that can challenge us."
Additionally, Kotch said, the concert will give the Brown community the opportunity to be exposed to "music that's stripped of more traditional aspects."
What the music lacks in commercial appeal, then, it makes up for in the sensory experience of the concert itself. Both the eyes and the ears are forced to tune themselves differently for the "Brown Newd Music" concert. The music relies less on chords and melodies, questions our perceptions of music and produces new understandings of what we think music is and what it has the potential to be, Kotch said.
