Michael Lowenstern, considered one of the finest bass clarinetists in the world, will perform a free concert at Grand Valley State University.
The performance is at 8 p.m. on Thursday, February 16, in the Sherman Van Solkema Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center, Allendale Campus. It is the second concert in the new Free Play Series at Grand Valley, arranged by Bill Ryan, a composition professor and a tireless advocate of contemporary music.
"I've designed this series to feature some of the most innovative performers and composers of our time," said Ryan.
From 1997-2005, Ryan founded and produced Open Ears, a quarterly new music concert series, which received national recognition as it won three Adventurous Programming Awards from Chamber Music America.
Lowenstern has performed and recorded with musicians and groups as diverse as The Klezmatics, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Steve Reich and the Musicians, The Chamber Society of Lincoln Center and John Zorn. Much of his repertoire involves the use of computers, props and electronic gizmos.
The Free Play Series will also feature renegade violinist Todd Reynolds on March 23 and new music specialist Daan Vandewalle on March 27.
Ryan is also director of the New Music Ensemble at Grand Valley, which performs adventurous music written during the past 20 years. Their inaugural concert is scheduled for April 4 at Grand Valley and will include the world premiere of a new work by Kurt Ellenberger, "Gormenghast Overture," commissioned to celebrate the event. Ellenberger is head of the jazz program at Grand Valley.
For more information about Lowenstern see his Web site www.earspasm.com. For more information about this concert or the series contact Bill Ryan, who is available for interviews at (616) 331-3087 or the GVSU Music Department at (616) 331-3484.
