NEWS

Meridian Arts Ensemble to take brass music to new and different levels Oct. 27 at UNC

CHAPEL HILL -- Mention the Meridian Arts Ensemble around classical musicians and eyebrows rise.

"They're virtuosos," said Allen Anderson, a composer and associate professor of music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "In the brass players' world, their music, their style and their attitude are well known."

Local audiences will have their first chance to hear the ensemble when Meridian performs at 3 p.m. Oct. 27 in UNC's Hill Hall Auditorium. Music from the 16th century to the present will be part of the concert, the third in this year's William S. Newman Artists’ Series presented by the music department.

The series, now in its 10th year, is dedicated to the memory of William S. Newman (1912-2000), a music professor at UNC for three decades.

Meridian's selections will range from three Psalm settings by German composer Johann Hermann Schein (1586-1630) to the ensemble's own arrangements of music by the late rocker Frank Zappa.

"What makes this group unusual, and different than other brass quintets, is that they also have a percussion player," said Anderson. "When they play a concert, they usually include music from standard brass quintet literature, but soon enough, they head out into waters not normally charted by a brass quintet. And they often have pieces written for them."

The ensemble members delight in arranging, for brass quintet, all kinds of music originally composed for very different types of groups, from string quartets to rock bands, Anderson said. Meridian has performed worldwide, recorded numerous compact discs and appeared on television in the United States and Europe.

At UNC, the ensemble also will play two fanfares by Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971); "Madrigals" by Carlo Gesualdo di Venosa (1560-1613); "Corpus" by David Sanford, an assistant professor of music at Mount Holyoke College; "Slim in Beaten Dreamers" by contemporary composer Nick Didkovsky and two works by Don Van Vliet, a musician who worked with Zappa, better known as Captain Beefheart.

Among critics to have reviewed Meridian's performances, a New York Times reviewer was taken by "the virtuosity of the ensemble's brass players. Even the tuba lines, often the source of muddy intonation in brass groups, were cleanly and precisely articulated."

A Washington Post reviewer found their work impossible to categorize, writing that some of it would have been at home in a jazz or rock club. "The one constant in the ensemble's performance at the Kennedy Center … was extraordinary command of whatever they happened to be addressing at the moment. … The performances were bright and clean, the music-making was intense and laced with good humor and the introductions to each piece were entertaining and helpful."

All six ensemble members teach music at colleges and universities across the country:

• Jon Nelson, trumpet, a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, with degrees from The Juilliard School of Music;
  
• Brian McWhorter, trumpet, of Princeton University and the Greenwich House Music School in Connecticut, with degrees from The Juilliard School and the University of Oregon;
  
• Daniel Gravois, horn, of Princeton University and the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford in Connecticut;
  
• Benjamin Herrington, trombone, of Princeton, with degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music and The Juilliard School;
  
• Raymond Stewart, tuba, of SUNY-Fredonia College, with degrees from the University of Miami; and
  
• John Ferrari, percussion, William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J., with degrees from Paterson and SUNY-Stonybrook on Long Island.

Tickets, are on sale in 105 Hill Hall (962-1039) and the Carolina Union box office (962-1449). are $15 for adults, $12 for senior citizens and $5 for students. Free parking will be available in the Swain lot off Cameron Avenue, behind Hill Hall.

- 30 -

Series contact: David Arons, 384-2720

News Services contact: L.J. Toler, 962-8589