"Sax in the City," a music festival co-hosted this weekend by the Department of Music and the student group Brown New Music, will encourage collaboration between music students and established professional musicians through a series of events centering on new music.
Trio Saxiana, a Parisian music group, will perform tonight at 8 p.m. "Sax and the City" is also bringing to campus several composers who have written pieces for Trio Saxiana.
"This is a tour of premieres," said Gerald Shapiro, professor of music. "They are performing pieces written especially for them by three American composers." These composers - Neely Bruce, Mark Phillips and Shapiro - will conduct workshops, rehearse and perform with students. In addition, French composer Thierry Pecou will also be in residence for the weekend.
The effort to educate students through direct collaboration with professional musicians underlies the festival. One of Brown New Music's goals has been to bring more professional musicians to campus, said Whit Bernard '07, head of Brown New Music, which promotes the performance of new compositions as a way to support student composers.
"We're emphasizing more experimental things," Bernard said. "There are a lot of composers who think they are doing a continuation of an old craft. Some (others) think of it as a way to challenge the genre and do something new," he said. "We've seen the value on both sides and we're trying to bring both together with edgy but crafted compositions." The festival's Saturday night concert - in which students, the composers in residence for the weekend and professional musicians will perform new music together - exemplifies this dialectic.
Students will also have their compositions discussed and then recorded with professional musicians. "People will have a chance to get work recorded, which is the most important thing for composers," Bernard said.
Trio Saxiana will conduct an open discussion regarding its new pieces and the collaboration process more generally. The emphasis on collaboration brought Trio Saxiana to Brown in the first place.
"They heard some music of mine and wanted to arrange my piece," Shapiro said. "I wrote them a piece and become involved in a lot of other pieces for saxophones in Paris."
"Sax in the City" kicks off Trio Saxiana's American tour. They will be heading to Wesleyan University, Ohio University and University of Indiana.
"It's a nice example of the University making the arts happen," Shapiro said. The festival is mostly funded through the Creative Arts Council and the music department. "Universities in this country are really the only place that has support for the arts," Shapiro added.
