1 | Sat | MIT Faculty Series presents music by MIT composer Elena Ruehr performed by Irina Muresanu, violin; Jennifer Kloetzel, cello; Sarah Bob, piano. The program includes Klein Suite for solo violin; Andrienne and Amy for violin and piano; The Scarlatti Effect for violin, cello and piano; Lift for solo cello (world premiere); Prelude variations for violin and cello; Second Violin Sonata for violin and piano (world premiere). 8pm, Killian Hall. Free.
Award winning Lecturer in Music at MIT, Elena Ruehr, was recently a fellow at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute and composer-in-residence with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, which performed her major orchestral works as well as the opera Toussaint Before the Spirits (Arsis Records). Three of her six string quartets were commissioned by the Cypress String Quartet, who recorded How She Danced: String Quartets of Elena Ruehr. Her quartets have also been performed by the Biava, Borromeo, Lark, ROCO and Shanghai string quartets. Her other recordings include Averno (Avie Records with the Trinity Choir, Julian Wachner, conducting), Jane Wang considers the Dragonfly (various artists on Albany) and Shimmer (Metamorphosen Chamber Ensemble on Albany). A graduate of the University of Michigan and The Juilliard School, Elena Ruehr’s compositions for chamber ensemble, orchestra, chorus, wind ensemble, instrumental solo, opera, dance and silent film are performed internationally. Her work has been described as “sumptuously scored and full of soaring melodies” (New York Times), and “unspeakably gorgeous” (Gramophone).
6-8 & 13-15 | MIT Theater Arts and Dramashop present Arcadia directed by Kim Mancuso. Written in 1993, Arcadia is Tom Stoppard’s mind and time-bending drive through the relative (un)certainty of the knowable. A veritable tour of determinism, order, chaos and intrigue. 8pm, Kresge Little Theater. Admission is free. Reserve tickets at dramashop.mit.edu. For further information, contact kirstenw@mit.edu.
12 | Wed | FiLmprov presents an evening of musical improvisation and the world premiere of Kate Matson’s film Silhouettes with improvised score. Mark Harvey, trumpet; Peter Bloom, flutes, woodwinds; Phil Scarff, saxophones; Dan Zupan, bari sax, clarinets; Bill Lowe, trombone, tuba; Rob Bethel, cello; John Funkhouser, bass, piano; Jerry Leake, percussion; Kate Matson, film. 7:30pm, Killian Hall. Free.
13 | Th | MTA Composer Forum presents: Either/Or featuring selections of music by Alvin Lucier to be performed in concert at the MIT Chapel on 2/15. 5pm, Lewis Music Library, 14E-109. Free. A reception will follow.
15 | Sat | Either/Or Concert of music of Alvin Lucier: Chamber music for instruments and sine waves. Anthony Burr, clarinet, guitar, electronics; Jennifer Choi, violin; Wendy Law, cello; David Shively, percussion, guitar, electronics. 8pm, MIT Chapel.
Alvin Lucier has pioneered in many areas of music composition and performance, including the notation of performers’ physical gestures, the use of brain waves in live performance, the generation of visual imagery by sound in vibrating media, and the evocation of room acoustics for musical purposes. His recent works include a series of sound installations and works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, and orchestra in which, by means of close tunings with pure tones, sound waves are caused to spin through space.
Since 2004, Either/Or has been at the forefront of New York’s contemporary music scene, programming new and recent works for unconventional ensembles or soloists that are rarely heard elsewhere. Equally informed in American experimentalism and in the European avant-garde, Either/Or collaborates with emerging and established artists from a broad aesthetic spectrum. Performances throughout the Northeast, including Philadelphia Museum of Art, ICA Boston, Miller Theatre, The Kitchen, and venues across NYC. Recordings for Starkland and New World Records. Visit: www.eitherormusic.org.
23 | Sun | Harpsichord Recital by Peter Sykes on the newly rebuilt Music and Theater Arts Dowd harpsichord.
Bach, Prelude and Fugue in C Major, BWV 846 and Partita in D Major, BWV 829; Duphly, La Forqueray, Chaconne, and Médee; Scarlatti, Sonatas, K. 52, 491, 87, and 492. 3pm, Killian Hall. Free.
Peter Sykes is Associate Professor of Music and Chair of the Historical Performance Department at Boston University, where he teaches organ, harpsichord, performance practice, and continuo realization. He is also Music Director of First Church in Cambridge and director of the Keyboard Day segment of the Boston Early Music Festival. He performs extensively on the harpsichord, clavichord, and organ, and has made ten solo recordings of organ repertoire ranging from Buxtehude, Couperin and Bach to Reger and Hindemith and his acclaimed organ transcription of Holst’s “The Planets.” Newly released is a recording of the complete Bach harpsichord partitas on the Centaur label; soon to be released will be an all-Bach clavichord recording and the complete Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier. He also performs and records with Boston Baroque and Aston Magna. A founding board member and current president of the Boston Clavichord Society, he is the recipient of the Chadwick Medal (1978) and Outstanding Alumni Award (2005) from the New England Conservatory, the Erwin Bodky Prize (1993) from the Cambridge Society for Early Music, and the Distinguished Artist Award from the St. Botolph Club Foundation (2011).
24 | Mon | It’s Alive!, play readings directed by Anna Kohler. Jean Cocteau, The Human Voice, and other one-act plays, in collaboration with Bozkurt Karasu. 7:30pm, Killian Hall. Free.