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Composer William Pfaff, the 2010 Allen and Wendy Pesky Artist-in-Residence, is working with professors and students this year on several projects. A professor at SUNY Plattsburgh, Pfaff has composed a piece of music for the music department and will take part in several events on campus, including two performances of his work on Friday, April 23 and Saturday, May 8.
Pfaff will give the lecture, “Place as Inspiration: The Petrified Forest National Park” at 3:30 p.m. Friday, April 23 in Skillman Library room 206. The talk will focus on Pfaff’s time as 2009 artist-in-residence in the Petrified National Forest and the multimedia collaborations it inspired.
At 8 p.m. Friday, April 23 in the Williams Center for the Arts, the New Music Lafayette Concert will feature chamber music composed by Pfaff and Kirk O’Riordan, assistant professor of music and director of Concert Band. The music will be performed by Lafayette students and faculty and guest artists including cellists Sarah Somach ’13 (Shaker Heights, Ohio), Lawrence Stomberg, and Betty Tang, part-time music instructor; flutist Susan Charlton, director of the chamber wind ensemble; and pianists Alexis Fisher visiting instructor of piano and Holly Roadfeldt-O’Riordan. The Contemporary Music Ensemble will also give its inaugural performance.
A pre-concert talk will be given at 7 p.m. April 23 by Pfaff and O’Riordan in the Williams Center room 108.
A commissioned work by Pfaff will be performed at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 8 in the Williams Center. Concert Band, directed by O’Riordan, will also perform works by master composers Giuseppe Verdi, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, and Igor Stravinsky. Pieces by major contemporary composers Norman Dello Joio and Dana Wilson will also be included.
Tickets for both concerts are free of charge and may be obtained by calling the Williams Center box office at (610) 330-5009.
In 2006, Pfaff created the annual SUNY Plattsburgh Guitar Festival to showcase explorations in the genre. In 1994, he co-founded the electric guitar duo, Trapeze. The ensemble is dedicated to free improvisation and interdisciplinary collaboration.