The 21st century is starting off as a particularly productive, fecund period in American music as various types of music are combined and explored by composers and performers. Students in today's conservatories are coached in the classics as well as the contemporary. Today's artists may not only perform the traditional classical pieces but play in a jazz combo or a rock group. Vocalists, instrumentalists, and composers are not restricted to a particular genre but are open to new and novel challenges and ideas.
Composer Paul Moravec, the 2007 Westport Arts Center Artist in Residence, is the curator of the Composers Project, a series of lectures and concerts that feature new works in a variety of styles by modern composers and musicians.
On Friday, March 9, 2007, the Lark Quartet will perform The Soul Garden by the young composer and clarinetist Derek Bermel. Bermel is the 2006-2009 Music Alive Composer-in-Residence of the American Composers Orchestra and also the founding director of the Making Score program of the New York Youth Symphony. From his studies of ethnomusicology, he incorporates the inflections, melodies, and rhythms of diverse cultures into his musical works. He is the recipient of the Rome Prize, Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships, and awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Before attending the concert, stop at the library and check out the compact discs of the Lark Quartet playing Alexander Borodin's String Quartets #1 & #2, Aaron Jay Kernis' Quartet #2, or various contemporary composers in Klap Ur Handz. The sounds of Derek Bermel's clarinet may be heard on Aaron Copland's Chamber Music of Aaron Copland.