TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The University of Alabama’s School of Music is proud to announce its Celebrity Series concert schedule for 2003-04. This season’s three offerings of Empire Brass, pianist Olga Kern – sponsored by the Gloria Narramore Moody Foundation – and Kronos Quartet will offer a variety of styles to delight audiences.

All concerts begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Concert Hall of the Moody Music Building on the UA campus. Celebrity Series subscriptions are $60 for main floor and first balcony and $40 for second balcony and main floor Rows A and B. Single ticket prices are $22 and $15 for general audiences and $7 for students with valid IDs. For ticket information, or an immediate credit card purchase, call the School of Music Box Office at 205/348-7111.

The School of Music is a department of the College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest public liberal arts college in the state, with approximately 5,500 undergraduates and 1,000 graduate students. The College has received national recognition for academic excellence, and the College’s students have been selected for many of the nation’s top academic honors, including 13 Rhodes Scholarships, 14 Goldwater Scholarships, seven Truman Scholarships, and 15 memberships on USA Today’s Academic All-American teams.

This year’s Celebrity Series performances will include:

Empire Brass

Empire Brass
Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2003

Empire Brass enjoys an international reputation as North America’s finest brass ensemble, renowned for its brilliant virtuosity and the unparalleled diversity of its repertoire. The five musicians – all of whom have held leading positions with major American orchestras – perform more than 100 concerts a year in cities like New York, Boston, Chicago, Washington, London, Zurich and Tokyo.

With their best-selling recordings on the Telarc label, the group has introduced an even larger worldwide audience to the excitement of brass music ranging from Bach and Handel to jazz and Broadway. They are equally at home with the majestically antiphonal works that Gabrieli composed for St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice as with the exuberant show-stopping tunes that Richard Rodgers and Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote for Broadway.

In addition to playing across the United States, Empire Brass has toured the Far East 16 times and performs regularly in Europe. The group has played to standing-room crowds in the former Soviet Union, where their concert was broadcast on television. The ensemble has performed with major symphony orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony and Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchester.

Empire Brass has been awarded the Naumburg Prize and the Harvard Music Association Award. It is a frequent guest on nationally syndicated radio programs including “Saint Paul Sunday Morning,” “Traditions,” and “NPR Performance Today,” and has been televised on “Good Morning America,” the “Today Show” and “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.”

Olga Kern

Olga Kern, piano
Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2003
Sponsored by the Gloria Narramore Moody Foundation

Olga Kern has been captivating fans and critics alike with her passionately confident musicianship and vivid stage presence for years. She has performed in many of the world’s most important venues, including the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Symphony Hall in Osaka, La Scala in Milan and the Salle Cortot in Paris.

A Russian native, Kern was born into a family of musicians (her great-great-grandmother was a friend of Tchaikovsky and her great-grandmother sang with Rachmaninoff) and began studying piano at age 5. She won the first Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition when she was 17, is a laureate of 11 international competitions and has toured throughout her native Russia, Europe, and the United States, as well as in Japan, South Africa and South Korea.

In June of 2001 Kern was awarded the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Gold Medal at the 11th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition – the first woman to have achieved this distinction in more than 30 years. She was featured in “Playing on the Edge,” the Peabody Award-winning documentary about the 11th Van Cliburn Competition, which has aired on PBS stations across the United States.

Her final round Cliburn Competition performances with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and Maestro James Conlon are showcased in the new PBS series “Concerto.” Kern recently recorded the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Christopher Seaman, which will be released in the fall of 2003 by harmonia mundi usa.

About the Gloria Narramore Moody Foundation: The Moody Foundation was founded in 1990 by Gloria Moody and her husband, the late Tuscaloosa businessman Frank McCorkle Moody, to support the arts and music. In addition to bringing world-class performers to Alabama, the Moody Foundation has endowed scholarships at UA and has supported arts organizations elsewhere in the United States.

This is the 15th year that the Moody Foundation has brought an internationally acclaimed talent to Alabama. Previous Moody Foundation sponsored artists have included bass Samuel Ramey, New York Metropolitan Opera soprano Benita Valente, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Emanuel Ax in a joint recital, violinists Itzhak Perlman, Gil Shaham and Leila Josefowicz, and flutist Ransom Wilson.

Kronos Quartet

Kronos Quartet
Tuesday, March 9, 2004

Synonymous with musical innovation, the Kronos Quartet is known for its unique artistic vision and fearless dedication to experimentation. Since its inception in 1973, Kronos has assembled a body of work unparalleled in its range and scope of expression and, in the process, has captured the attention of audiences worldwide.

Kronos has been commissioning new work since its earliest days and more than 450 pieces have been written or arranged for the group. The group performs annually in many cities and tours extensively with more than 100 concerts each year in concert halls, clubs and at jazz festivals throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, Mexico, South America, Russia, Asia and Australia.

Recent tours have included appearances at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Kennedy Center, University of Iowa’s Hancher Auditorium, Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival, Moscow’s Conservatory of Music, Prague Spring International Music Festival, Sydney Opera House, Southern California’s Eclectic Orange Festival, London’s Royal Festival Hall, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, La Scala, Theatre de la Ville in Paris and Vancouver’s Chan Centre.

Kronos has won numerous international awards, including three Edison Awards (Netherlands), Jahrespreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik (Germany), Rolf Schock Prize in Music (Sweden), eight ASCAP/Chamber Music America Awards for Adventurous Programming (United States), Australian Broadcasting Company Classic FM Best International Recording of the Year (Australia), Le Diapason d’Or de Mai (France) and others.

The Quartet records exclusively for Nonesuch Records and their recorded performances have been heard throughout the world on radio and television, in films and in live dance and theater performances. Of the 30 records released on Nonesuch, six have been Grammy nominees.