Mills Performing Group - Braxton 75th

Music Event

Saturday, November 16, 2019, 8 – 10:30pm PST
Jeannik Méquet Littlefield Concert Hall, Music Building

The Mills College Music Department and the Center for Contemporary Music present

ANTHONY BRAXTON 75TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

Mills Performing Group

The Mills Performing Group celebrates composer/improviser Anthony Braxton’s 75th birthday with a concert of his compositions.

Program:

Composition No. 1 for solo piano

Brett Carson, piano

Composition No. 63 for chamber orchestra

Ben Goldberg: clarinet (soloist 1), Andy Strain: trombone (soloist 2), Tod Brody: flute,

Mitch Stahlmann: flute, Glenda Bates: oboe, Sophie Huet: clarinet, Karla Ekholm: bassoon,

Hall Goff: trombone, Hrabba Atladottir: violin, Kate Stenberg: violin, Ellen Ruth Rose: viola,

Crystal Pascucci: cello, Richard Worn: contrabass, Jennifer Ellis: harp, William Winant:

percussion, Scott Siler: percussion, Steed Cowart: conductor

Composition No. 247

Kyle Bruckmann: oboe, James Fei: saxophone, Matt Welch: bagpipes

Anthony Braxton (born 1945), the Chicago-born composer and multi-instrumentalist, is recognized as one of the most important musicians, educators, and creative thinkers of the past 50 years. He is highly esteemed in the experimental music community for the revolutionary quality of his work and for the mentorship and inspiration he has provided to generations of younger musicians. Drawing upon a disparate mix of influences from John Coltrane to Karlheinz Stockhausen, Braxton has created a unique musical system that celebrates the concept of global creativity and our shared humanity. His work examines core principles of improvisation, structural navigation and ritual engagement - innovation, spirituality, and intellectual investigation.

From his early work as a pioneering solo performer in the late 1960s through to his eclectic experiments on Arista Records in the 1970s, his landmark quartet of the 1980s, and more recent endeavors, such as his cycle of Trillium operas and the day-long, installation-based Sonic Genome Project, his vast body of work is unparalleled. His small ensembles of the 1970s through to the present day are considered among the most innovative groups of their respective eras, while his Creative Orchestra Music has brought together the varying streams of American jazz orchestras, marching bands, and experimental practices with the traditions of European concert music in a wholly individual compositional voice. His continuing and evolving current systems of the past 15 years, including Ghost Trance Music, Diamond Curtain Wall Music, Falling River Music, Echo Echo Mirror House Music, and ZIM Music, have served as the artistic incubators for some of the most exciting artists of the current generation. Braxton’s many awards include a 1981 Guggenheim Fellowship, a 1994 MacArthur Fellowship, a 2013 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a 2014 NEA Jazz Master Award, and honorary doctorates from Université de Liège (Belgium) and New England Conservatory (USA).

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