CELEBRATING MESSIAEN'S CENTENNIAL
The Shepherd School honors musical great with free-admission concerts

Office of News and Media Relations
Jessica Stark
Media Relations Specialist
Email: stark@rice.edu

With six free-admission concerts spanning October and November, Rice's Shepherd School of Music will honor the centennial of the birth of Oliver Messiaen, universally regarded as one of the greatest musical figures of the last century. The concerts will be held in Alice Pratt Brown Hall.

Brian Connelly, artist teacher of piano, selected the six rarely heard pieces for piano solo, two pianos, organ, chamber orchestra and voice. Connelly selected pieces that represented Messiaen's unique musical language with influences from Romanticism and Impressionism, Renaissance polyphony, Gregorian chant, Asian music (especially the gamelan traditions of Indonesia), rhythms derived from Greek poetry, Indian music, the sounds of nature and particularly the varied and exuberant sounds of birdsong.

Connelly will perform the first concert, "20 Meditations on the Christ-Child," at 8 p.m. Oct. 15 in Duncan Recital Hall. A pinnacle of the virtuoso piano repertoire, this 20-movement masterpiece depicts the imagined ruminations of various spiritual entities -- such as the angels, time, the creation, silence, the heavens -- as they contemplate the union of the human and the divine.

At 8 p.m. Oct. 20 in Duncan Recital Hall, Connelly will be joined by soprano Camen Pelton to perform "Songs of Heaven and Earth," "Three Melodies" and "Poems for Mi."

Other concerts will be held:

Saturday, October 25, 2008
Messiaen – Music of Heaven and Earth
Concert 3 of 6
James Winn, piano (guest)
Brian Connelly, piano
and Shepherd School students, Cristian Macelaru, conductor
Program: “Visions of the Amen” (for two pianos); and “I Await the Resurrection of the Dead” (for chamber orchestra).
8:00 p.m., Stude Concert Hall

Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Messiaen – Music of Heaven and Earth
Concert 4 of 6
John Meier, organist
Program: “The Glorified Bodies”
8:00 p.m., Edythe Bates Old Recital Hall and Grand Organ

Sunday, November 16, 2008
Messiaen – Music of Heaven and Earth
Concert 5 of 6
Susanne Mentzer, mezzo-soprano
Brian Connelly, piano
Program: Harawi – Songs of Love and Death.
7:00 p.m., Duncan Recital Hall

Sunday, November 23, 2008
Messiaen – Music of Heaven and Earth
Concert 6 of 6
Brian Connelly, piano
Program: The Alpine Chough, The Golden Oriole, The Blue Rock Thrush, The Short-Toed Lark, The Curlew, and The Reed Warbler from the Catalogue of the Birds.
4:00 p.m., Duncan Recital Hall