Music Events
Dozens of performances featuring guest artists, music students and our music faculty occur every year; most are free and open to the public. We would love for you to join us! To receive our Events Calendar in the mail or via email, please fill out the form below.
- Spring 2008 Calendar of Musical Events
- Join Our Music Events Calendar Mailing List
- Steinway Dedication Concert
Composers Visit Meredith
Chen Yi and Emma Lou Diemer, two quite different yet equally renown composers, were part of our celebration of the Tenth Anniversary of the Center for Women in the Arts in spring 2007. Their residencies included recitals, lectures, workshops and readings of their works with various choral groups.
Emma Lou Diemer Inspires Music Students and Faculty
Guest composer Emma Lou Diemer came to Meredith on March 26-27, 2007 to conduct masterclasses, to rehearse with students and faculty, and to attend concerts each night. Monday's concert, in Jones Chapel, featured her organ and choral compositions. Organ students Kathryn G. Webb and Marian Davis performed her challenging works, followed by W. David Lynch, head of the Department of Music, also an organist, who played a unique piece, Ragtime, an organ pedal ragtime solo. Then the composer offered an impromptu performance on the organ, playing Fiesta, a work with a Latin slant and a tango rhythm. The concert began with a performance of the Capital City Girls Choir, under the direction of Fran Page, and concluded with Diemer's choral works performed by the Meredith Choirs and the NC State University Varsity Men's Glee Club. Of particular note was the vocal series Hope Is the Thing, based on the poetry of Emily Dickinson.
A concert and masterclass on March 27th in Carswell Concert Hall featured Emma Lou Diemer's piano composition, Homage to Ravel, Schoenberg and May Aufderheide, a four-hand piece performed by Meredith faculty Kent Lyman and Donna Jolly, and vocal works interpreted by Meredith voice students Jessica Jernigan (Comment), Rebecca Sealey (One Perfect Rose), and Laura Williams (Shall I Compare The to a Summer's Day?).
Chen Yi Integrates Chinese and Western Musical Traditions
A native of Guangzhou, China, Chen Yi was born into a family of doctors with a strong interest in music. When the Cultural revolution overtook China
in the 1960's, she tried hard to continue her music studies, practicing violin at home (with the mute attached). She was sent for forced labor into the
countryside for two years and took her instrument along. A positive aspect of this experience was the knowledge she gained of the wider life and music of her motherland and its people.
When she was 17, she returned to her home city. When the school system was restored in 1977, Chen enrolled in the Beijing Central Conservatory. She also began an eight-year systematic study of Chinese traditional music. She became the first woman in China to receive the degree of Master of Arts in composition. In 1986, Chen Yi went to the United States for further musical studies. She is presently the Cravens/Millsap/Missouri Distinguished Professor in Composition at the University of Missouri at Kansas City Conservatory.
In her compositions, Chen Yi distills the essential character and spirit of Chinese and Western traditional music and develops materials abstractly in accordance with new concepts. That, and the desire to create "real music" for society and future generations, is her main goal.
-- Text from Chen Yi's website
Meredith's 22nd Concerto/Aria Concert
Meredith College's 22nd Concerto/Aria Concert on Saturday, March 17, 2007, featured Meredith voice and piano students Phyllis Toothman, Casey Coats, Laura Williams and Jill Palchinsky, the winners of the Meredith Concerto/Aria Competition. The winners of the competition were accompanied by the Raleigh Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Dr. Jack Roller, Meredith Director of Instrumental Activities. Performances included Phyllis Toothman singing Rusakla’s Song to the Moon by Antonin Dvoràk; Casey Coats performing the recitative What a Curse for a Woman and the aria Steal Me Sweet Thief from Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief; Laura Williams singing What Good Would the Moon Be from Kurt Weill’s Street Scene; and Jill Palchinsky, who played Mendelssohn’s Concerto in G minor for Piano, Op. 25.
