INFORMATION FOR
A two-day festival designed to celebrate the life and works of the German composer Paul Hindemith will be held at William Paterson University in Wayne on May 4 and 5 in Shea Center room 101. Admission is free.
The festival, titled "Hindemithon," will include performances exploring Hindemith’s musical ideas and contributions to American culture. William Paterson University faculty, students, alumni and guest artists will perform a wide selection of his works. Festival performers this year include Pedro Alvarez, Ronald Barron, Kyle Burnham, Ben Ciccarelli, Sarah Culp, Itay Goren, Inigo Hermann, Chris Hildago, Hobart Brass Consortium, Joseph Kimura, James Noyes, Frank Pavese, Lanny Paykin, Dylan Ricciardi, Ann Roggen, Ilyan Roitman, Caleb Rumley, Jordan Smith and Louise Stine-Thomas.
Ronald Barron, a principal trombonist with the Boston Symphony, will give a master class preceding the special gala evening concert at 4:30 p.m. on May 4.
Hindemith, who was born in 1895, was a leading exponent of the neoclassic movement. Considered a musical radical as a young man, from the mid-1920s onward he was acknowledged both as one of the key modernist composers of the 20th century and as a teacher and theorist whose influence on younger musicians was unmatched. In his middle years, he rejected atonalism, the form of musical modernism associated with Arnold Schoenberg, and later criticized non-tonal music. By the time of Hindemith's death in 1963, performances of his music were far less common than they had been even in the 1950s.
For additional information, contact Frank Pavese, artistic director of the event, at 973-720-3800, x1077.
