New music, new play, new place for art

New work by Columbia composer at USC Symphony

A snowstorm in Hickory, N.C., and a musical instrument with deep roots in Jewish history collided to create an orchestral work by Columbia composer Meira Warshauer.

“Tekeeyah" (A Call) for orchestra, trombone and shofar - ram's horn - will be played by the USC Symphony Tuesday, Nov. 17.

The Western Piedmont Symphony was preparing to play her "Symphony No. 1 - Living, Breathing, Earth" in 2007 when  a snowstorm shut down the town and left Warshauer and a guest trombonist, Haim Avitsur, who was playing another work at concert, with time on their hands.

Avitsur is from Israel, Warshauer is Jewish and has written music with Jewish themes.

"He told me I should write something for trombone," she recalled recently.

They started talking and she found out Avitsur, left, played shofar at Jewish services in New York.

Symphony No. 1 was about taking care of the earth and the day before it was premiered a huge report on global warming had been released.

"I was like, 'Now what?'" she said. "We need a wake up call."

"Tekeeyah” had its world premiere with the Wilmington (N.C.) Symphony Orchestra in October and is also being performed Nov. 15 by the Brevard Symphony.

It is the first concerto written for shofar/trombone soloist and orchestra and was commissioned by a consortium of orchestras including those in Wilmington, Brevard, at USC, the Western Piedmont Symphony and Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra.

 The piece is for orchestra, shofar and trombone with the shofar played about one-third of the time.

"The sound is very intense - I had to cut some of what I originally had in the score," Warshauer said.

The 26-minute piece starts quietly ("before the soul enters the body") and moves into a dynamic and sometimes calamitous middle section. The middle makes reference to Biblical story of the Israelites bringing down the walls of Jericho by sounding horns. Listening to the call on the shofar is a requirement for the Jewish holy day Rosh Hashana. The ending is a lighter, uplifting dance.

The USC Symphony will also play Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 in b Minor (Unfinished) and “Marche Slav” by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.Tickets to the 7:30 concert at the Koger Center are $25. (803) 251-2222 or capitoltickets.com

Thursday, Nov. 12

Music of the east and west meet in middle

Wu Man, who plays the pipa (a Chinese lute) performs a concerto by Tan Dun with the S.C. Philharmonic tonight. The orchestra will also play “Verge” by John Fitz Rogers of Columbia and Modest Mussorsky’s “Pictures at An Exhibition.”

 It’s at 7:30 at the Koger Center. Tickets $12 - $42. (803) 251-2222 or capitoltickets.com

For a full story on Grammy-winning Wu Man and the concert, as well as the concert she’ll give Friday night at the USC School of Music see the Sunday, Nov. 8 story below.

By the way there will be a big and important announcement at the concert.

(Update Nov. 12 . 10 p.m. This was a great concert. The announcement was that the Philharmonic has commissioned Rogers to write a piece for the orchestra and pianist Marina Lomazov and Joseph Rackers, a husband and wife duo who live in Columbia. The concerto for two pianos (it doesn't have a more formal name yet) will be premiered in almost exactly a year in Columbia.)

Don't miss this great art show
You should really make it to "Ceramics: Southeast" at the USC art department gallery. For the most part it is a show filled with great art, I'm particularly taken with the strange porclean pieces by Lauren Gallaspy (left) that look like both some sort of lichen growth and machines and the fat, sensual works of Jerilyn Virden. It is up through Nov. 19. The gallery open weekdays. Call (803) 777-4236.

Friday, Nov. 13

Did we mention she plays with Yo-Yo Ma and Kronos Quartet?

Ah, it’s Wu Man again, this time doing a solo concert at the USC School of Music as part of the Southern Exposure series. 7:30 p.m. Free. http://www.music.sc.edu/ea/comp/southernexposure/

A dangerously illuminating play

In the early 20th century one of the factory jobs women had was paintings the dials of watches so they would glow in the dark. They painted them with radium – which as the name implies is radioactive – which they had been told was harmless. The women often

licked their paintbrushes to make a better point for the delicate work – a technique encouraged by their supervisors.

The play “Radium Girls,” by D.W. Gregory, tells the story of the woman who suffered from radiation poisoning from the work and their fight for justice. Their legal action set a precedent that allowed employees to sue employers for injuries. The play opens tonight at Longstreet Theatre at USC.  
Shanga Parker, who has extensive acting experience on stage, movies and television and who teaches at the University of Washington, directs. Ten actors will portray 37 characters.
The play continues through Nov. 22. Show times are 8 p.m. except Nov. 14 when it will be performed at 7 and 11 (with half-price tickets for the late show), 7 p.m. Nov. 21  and 3 p.m. Nov. 22. $16.  Call (803) 777-2551.

A new place for artists and art lovers

Artists at Work Studios in downtown Lexington has been operating for several months and will have a grand opening an exhibition by resident artists from 6 to 9 p.m. Work Studios is home to eight artists including Don Zurlo, ("Critter," left), Allan Whitacre, Stacey Morgan and Lee Swallie.
The center 112 East Main St. and will also be open from 6 to 9 Saturday and Sunday. Call (803) 719-1340.

Saturday, Nov.  14
Singer and flautists
Get an ear full of opera during the Metropolitan Opera auditions. About 20 young singers will be giving voice to their hopes and dreams from 10 a.m. to about 3 p.m. at the USC School of Music. Three will go on to regional auditions in Atlanta.

That evening things change from voice to flute for a concert by Brooks DeWitter-Smith, a professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, who has played concerts around the world and done extensive research on the flute. (There's a lot of research to do since the flute was invented about 35,000 years ago.)

His 7 p.m. concert, part of the South Carolina Flute Society fall seminar,  will include works by Bela Bartok, Paul Schoenfield, Mike Mower and other 20th and 21st century composers.  
Both concerts are free.

See a play

This would also be a good night to attend one of the many plays running. It's the last weekend for "Extremities" at Trustus and you can see "Same Time Next Year" at Workshop with "Moon Over Buffalo" at Town Theatre. (See arts calendar at right.) 

This just in (Friday, Nov. 13): Workshop Theatre has hired a new executive director. His name is Joe Reuter and that's all we know right now.

Tuesday, Nov. 17

A new American songbook
Kevin Bush and Tom Beard, who you already know if you go to any musical theater in town, open a new Great American Songbook for a concert "Evolution: 21st Century Songbook" at the Columbia museum of Art. The duo and two more musicians will interpret songs by Suzanne Vega, Leonard Cohen, Stevie Wonder, Rickie Lee Jones and (!) Jimi Hendrix.

The project came out of Bush's desire to perform in a cabaret setting, but he didn't want to do the standard standards.

"My interest has not surprisingly been in performing the songs that have meant something to me and 'my generation' to continue the cliché - the 'new standard,'” he said. "I’ve been a music addict my entire life, and have always wondered whether the songs that have meant so much to me would one day be considered a 'standard' for future generations."

You can find out at 7 p.m. $10 and $8 for museum members. (803) 799-2810.

 

Wednesday, Nov. 18

New play takes flight

For the past few months, they’ve been building an airplane in the scene shop at USC. The plane is for the play “Flight,” an exploration of early women aviators,

The flyers in this case are two French actresses planning to make it from Paris to Moscow in 1913. The play by USC professor Steven Pearson and Robyn Hunt runs through Nov. 22 at Hamilton Gym, a new performance space. This work, which Peason calls a "theatrical poem," is one of three he has done connected to Anton Chekhov's plays - this one to "The Seagull."
"There were a whole group of woman flying before World War I and people don't know a thing about them," Pearson said.  And although the women aviators in "Flight" are fictional a number of the real ones were connected to the theater as critics, actors and filmmakers (one of the characters in the play is a filmmaker as well.)
And that plane the theater department built?
"We plan to fly it," Pearson said.

The gym/theater is at the corner of Pickens and Pendleton. Performances are at 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. Nov. 22. $10.  (803) 777-4288.

See the artists of Benedict College
"The Changing Times - Changing Views" shows what the Benedict College art faculty has been up to. The exhibition includes works by sculptor Alex Wilds, Wendell Brown, who creates mixed media works of fabric and other materials (left, "Unknown Slave Woman"), Tyrone Geter, working in drawing, painting and collage, and Gina Moore, who is best-known for her abstract mixed media pieces. 
An opening reception, at which the artists will talk, runs from 5 to 7. The show, in the Ponder Fine Arts Center, runs through Dec. 11. Benedict is located at 1600 Harden St. (803) 705-4768.

More classical music - for free

The university cranks up its second orchestra in two days - this time the Campus Orchestra. The group will play Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Mein Jesu,” John Rutter’s “Suite for Strings,” “Adagio” by Tomaso Albinoni and Wolfgang  Mozart’s “Symphony No. 29 in A-major.

The free concert is at 7:30 in the USC School of Music. And this concert will actually use that big pipe organ you've seen but almost never heard.

 

Nude Tuesday

Drawing done in a recent three hour session by Ellen Cartee of Columbia.

Columbia and the world come together in music

Several of the world’s musical highways converge in and with Columbia this week.

The S.C. Philharmonic is hosting Wu Man, who plays the pipa, a Chinese lute, as guest soloist. Then Wu Man performs on the Southern Exposure new music series at USC.

“I knew that Southern Exposure had inquired about getting her to Columbia before, so I thought the Philharmonic playing a leading role in bringing her could be a catalyst," said Morihiko Nakahara, Philharmonic music director (below right.) "I hope we can do more collaboration like this.”

Wu Man plays “Pipa Concerto” by Tan Dun with the Philharmonic Thursday and does a solo concert for Southern Exposure Friday.

Southern Exposure director John Rogers, a composer, has for several years tried to book Wu Man. Now not only will she play for the series, but the night Wu Man plays with the Philharmonic, the orchestra will also perform Rogers' "Verge."

Some art news worth noting

 

"Snow Angels," a collection which contains a novella by Janna McMahan of Columbia, is number 29 on The New York Times paperback best-seller list.It will also appear on the USA Today best-seller list.

McMahan is also the author of the novels "The Ocean Inside" and "Calling Home," both published by Kensington Publishing. The novella "Decorations," about a woman who decorates people's homes for the holidays and finds romance (although it is not a romance.)

She'll give a reading and sign books at Ed's Editions in West Columbia Nov. 21.

 http://www.jannamcmahan.com/new_site/

Columbia pianist Joseph Rackers has been named a Steinway piano artist. 

Rackers, who teaches at USC, joins his wife Marina Lomazov in that honor. Lomazov was named a Steinway artist earlier this year. The couple are one of two musician-couple Steinway artists in the nation. Earlier this year a group of supporters purchased the couple a Steinway grand piano.

Rackers and Lomazov will perform at Trinity Episcopal Catherdal in Columbia at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 11.

Virginia Scotchie of Columbia just opened a solo show "Objects Near and Far" at the Clay Art Center in Port Chester just outside New York City. It is on display through Nov. 25.

The USC library recently received a gift of paintings of John Milton and his mother.  The portrait of Sara Jeffrey Milton was done around 1621; the Milton painting is a 1792 copy of an earlier portrait.

The university has a 6,000-volume collection of work by and about Milton, best know for his epic poem "Paradise Lost."

The portraits were donated by Peter and Carolyn Koblenzer of Philadelphia. The artist is unknown.

An extraordinary weekend and beyond

 

When I go to the Spoleto Festival in Charleston each spring I usually jam in about 15 performances over five to six days. Some of these are hour-long concerts, some three-hour operas. 
The next few days in Columbia feel a lot like that. I've been busy re-arranging my schedule and I'm still going to miss quite a few things.
Just be obnoxious I've listed just about everything I could find. I'd suggest that instead of going to what you were pretty sure you were going to you should go to something you weren't planning to attend.

Thursday, Nov. 5
Creating YOUR art collection

Want to know why the S.C. Arts Commission collects what it collects? (Please check the YES box.) A panel discussion by current and former art acquisitions committee members (at least it’s not art-making by committee) and Arts Commission visual arts coordinators takes place at 6.
That’s followed by a reception for the second part of “Contemporary Conversations: The S.C. State Art Collection.”

This 60-work show was selected from the 500-work art collection started in 1967.“Contemporary Conversations 2” includes pieces by Tarleton Blackwell, Edmund Lewandowski, Carl Blair, Blue Sky, Sydney Cross, Philip Garrett,

Deanna Leamon, Peter Lenzo and about 35 others.

All of this is free and open to the public at the 701 Center for Contemporary Art at 701 Whaley St. The exhibition runs through Dec. 6. The center is open 11 a.m. -8 p.m. Wednesday; 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. Call (803) 734-8696 or (803) 779-4571.
(From top: "Game," 1983 by William Halsey; "The Hog Series XXII -Nosedive," 1986, by Tarleton Blackwell; "Blast Furnace Cooling," 1975 by Edmund Lewandowski.)

Mixed media, music, musing on Main

 After a long search it has been found – life on Main Street after 5!

Frame of Mind and others are providing another full Thursday night of the arts.

You’ll find mixed media works (charcoal, layered paper) inspired by nature, Chinese painting and singing by artist Evelyn Wong of Columbia inside FOM. The Carolina Ballet, right, dancers SherryWarren, Ashley Bennett, Miriam Barbosa, and Columbia City Jazz will distract drivers out front.

That’s from 6 to 8:30 p.m. 1520 Main St. (Wong’s show is on display to Dec. 1.0 Call (803) 988-1065.

A block south Anastasia Chernoff’s figurative and abstract sculptures move into the Sheraton Hotel. An opening reception for the show, “ex true sions,” runs from 5 to 10 and the show is up to Dec. 5. (We hope they’re getting a special rate.) (803) 665-6902

And on either side of Frame of Mind, at Gotham City Bagel and the White Mule, you’ll find music.

And more art shows

“DIVAS and More...” is populated by those funny singing women paintings by Bill Davis. An opening reception takes place from 5 to 8 at The Frame Shop, 3100 Rosewood Drive. (803) 256-1601. Through Saturday.

Friday Nov. 6 

More by Previn – with a lot of help from choreographers

Columbia native, USC instructor and former principal ballerina at the Boston Ballet Kyra Strasberg, right, will dance for the first time since she retired in 2000 in a work created for her and set to her friend Andre Previn’s “Tango Song and Dance.”
“If At First We Dance” was choreographed by Thaddeus Davis, another USC dance instructor. The piece is part of a program that includes a new dance by Luis Dominguez, Artistic Director of Kentucky's Lexington Ballet, to Bach’s cello suites and George Balanchine’s 1934 modern ballet masterpiece “Serenade.” 7:30 p.m. today and Saturday at the Koger Center. $16. Call (803) 777-5112 or (803) 251-2222.

Is it an opera? Is it a musical? Why not both?

Opera at the University of South Carolina takes on the beautiful and difficult “The Light in the Piazza” for a performance tonight at 7:30 and at 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 8.

The musical, er, opera, is set in Italy during the 1950s when Clara, a young American woman, falls for a young Italian man. Clara’s mother though shows inordinate concert about the budding romance.

“Light,” by Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel, won the 2005 Tony Award for Best Original Score and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical.

This production is directed by Ellen Douglas Schlaefer, director of opera studies at USC. Tina Milhorn Stallard, USC assistant professor of voice, will play the role of the mother, with Denise Boylan and John Callison as the lovebirds.

Performances are at 7:30 tonight and 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 8 at Drayton Hall Theatre, Sumter and College streets. $18. Call (803) 777-0058.

"Moon" rises again

After a decade Allan Fulmer, Jr., and Kathy Hartzog are reprising their roles in “Moon Over Buffalo” a comedy at Town Theatre. Also returning is Allison McNeeley, who made her directorial debut at Town with the show.

Fulmer and Hartzog play a husband and wife who run a touring theater company in the 1950s. The constantly-bickering couple, who are doing “Cyrano de Bergerac” and a Noel Coward play, think movie director Frank Capra is in the audience looking for actors to replace the stars of his new movie. It’s one of many comical misunderstanding in the play written by Ken Ludwig.

The theater is also throwing an anniversary party for the director Saturday, Nov. 7 at 7 p.m. at the theater.

Through Nov. 21. Tickets are $16 with discounts for seniors and young people. 1012 Sumter St. (803) 799-2510 or www.towntheatre.com 

Same time, different story

Another couple, Doris and George, with their own set of problems, are at the center of "Same Time Next Year." The couple has a one-night stand and fall in love, but stay married to their respective spouses. They maintain by meeting once a year and the play at Workshop Theatre chronicles 25 years of these trysts. Chip Stubbs and Vicky Saye Henderson play the couple and Jocelyn Sanders directs. It runs through Nov. 21. Tickets are $18.(803) 799-6551 or www.workshoptheatre.com.

From Russia to the world with art 

Painter Nikolai Oskolkov may be from Russian, but he celebrates the rest of the world, from people playing country music to life in the Caribbean. “Laughter in the Sky,” a solo show by the artist, opens at Portfolio Art Gallery from 4-9 p.m.
The artist will play some music tonight as well on and off all day Saturday. (Bring your banjos and balalaikas.) 2007 Devine St. (803) 256-2434.  It's up through November.

Big ideas, abstract art

 Liisa Salosaari Jasinski tries to get way below the surface with her paintings.

"These paintings explore themes related to the history of universe and the earth, and they also reflect the artist's ongoing study of historical pigments and their attributes,” according to the artist, a native of Finland who lives in Newberry. Gallery 80808/Vista Studios opens with a reception from 5 to 9 and continues through Nov. 10. 808 Lady St.

Local film hits the big screen

Columbia resident Matthew William Jordan’s film “My Sweet Misey,” shot in Columbia and on the coast, opens today. Among the local actors in the movie are Christopher Cook, Steve Harley, Linda Posey, Richard Jennings and many, many others. The stars are Zach Hanks, Anna Chlumsky and Thomas Jay Ryan. The dark comedy follows a man whose past has come around to haunt him. It opens today at Carmike 14 theater and continues with two shows a daily Nov. 7, 10 and 12.

Art in the (Sand)hills

Artists Barbie Mathis, Lori Starnes-Isom, and Rachel Parker have a group show at Village Artists Gallery, 631 Promenade Place. (803) 699-8886. Opening reception 6 – 8. On display through November.

Poet with a big title
American Book Award winner and Pushcart Prize nominee Matthew Shenoda reads his poems at 6:30 at the USC Humanities Buildings. When he isn't writing poetry he is assistant provost for equity and diversity in the School of Critical Studies at the California Institute of the Arts. (We hope he has some poems that use his title as a jumping off point.) (803) 777-54

Dutch poster design

Don’t you occasionally wake up thinking, ‘I sure would like to know more about Dutch poster design?’ It’s your lucky night.

Boston University professor Alston Purvis will give a talk titled “Dutch Poster Design: 100 Years of Innovation” at the Columbia Museum of Art at 6:30. $5.
And the whole museum is open until 8 p.m. because it is the first Friday of the month. Mark that on your calendar for the rest of the year. Well actually for the rest of the year and also next year.

Saturday, Nov. 7

Everything you missed yesterday
 See the various things that started earlier this week or check out the arts calendar to the right. And always remember, if you just went to the opening reception you probably didn’t really see the exhibition.
One special event: Mary Street Alinder, who was a long-time assistant to photographer Ansel Adams and his biographer, will give a talk at the Columbia Museum of Art at 1 p.m. in conjunction with an exhibition of Ansel's work.

Sunday, Nov. 8

From China – with music and dance

Those days when you don’t wake up thinking of Dutch poster design, don't you say to yourself “I could go in for some traditional music and dance from some of ethnic groups of China"?

This is your lucky day.Again.

The Folk Arts Ensemble of Guizhou University performs “Wind from the Plateau” which draws on the cultures of the Miao, Yi and Dong people of southwest China. It’s at 3 p.m. at the Koger Center. $10.  (803) 251-2222.

Tuesday, Nov. 10

Dancing for dollars

Delirium Tribal, a Columbia-based belly dance company, will be joined by musicians

Raquy and the Cavemen, from New York, and local dance group The Power Company. Raquy Danziger plays the kemenche, an Iranian stringed instrument, and has been featured on the Al-Jazeera Network and National Egyptian Television, and released six CDs. The music and dancing starts at 8 pm. The event is a fund raiser for Delirium Tribal and admission is $10. alternacirque@gmail.comalternacirque@gmail.com

Drinking for dollars

Trustus Theatre – the only theater in town where you can get drunk while watching a play – is having a fund raising wine tasting at 9 p.m. The event at City Art includes a wide selection of wines and lots of hors d’ouevres. $45. (803) 254-9735.

Co

Collecting art the Herb 
and Dorothy way

Herbert and Dorothy Vogel are a middle-class couple, who put together a world-class art collection. The couple recently donated 50 works of art to museum in each of the 50 states – the 50 that came to South Carolina recently went on display at the Columbia Museum of Art.
“Herb and Dorothy” is an acclaimed movie that tells their story.
You can see it at 6 p.m. at the Nickelodeon Theatre, 937 Main St. A panel discussion about art collecting follows. (803) 799-2810 or 252-3433.

Wednesday, Nov. 11 

Perfectly good guitars

Threefifty Duo may not be smashing guitars – just ideas about guitar music. The Brooklyn musicians will string together classical, rock and contemporary classical in a concert at 7:30.
The concert, put on by bigSphinx Productions and the Columbia Guitar Society, is at the Columbia College music and art building. $6. For info go to www.bigsphinx.com

Nude Tuesday!

A ceramic sculpture by Anastasia Chernoff. It will be part of a show of the artist's work at the Sheraton Hotel, 1500 Main St., opening Thursday.

Dancer's friendship with composer Previn brings new dance - and the dancer - to stage in Columbia

This week a new dance set to the music of Andre Previn and a full concert of his music will be seen and heard in Columbia. So what does  the composer, conductor, musician, and close associate of Hollywood, have to do with a city in the middle of South Carolina?

Kyra Strasberg, (top) a former principal ballerina with the Boston Ballet, Columbia native and USC dance instructor, met Previn through a mutual friend several years and struck up a friendship.

Early last year she attended a concert by Previn, left, and violinist Joan Kwuon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they played one piece she was very taken with.

“It was this little ditty- ‘Tango Song and Dance,’” Strasberg said. “I asked if he’d mind if I had someone work on a dance for it and he said, ‘Not at all darling.’”

The result is “If At First We Dreaqm” choreographed by Thaddeus Davis, who also teaches at USC. It will feature Strasberg in her first performance since she retired in 2000 after 15 years with the Boston Ballet. The piece has its premiere Friday.

Early in the process Strasberg connected the university school of music and Thursday it will do a full concert of Previn music including “Tango Song and Dance” played by USC faculty members violinist William Terwilliger and pianist Marina Lomazov. (For the dance performance the music will be played by Ashley Horvat, associate concertmaster of the S.C. Philharmonic and pianist Rosemarie Suniga, a graduate student at USC. Previn wrote the 2001 piece for violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, to whom he was married from 2002 to 2006. The two continue to work together.)

The original plan was for Previn, who has scored films, won Academy Awards, been music director of the London Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic, to attend, but a conflict arose and he has engagements in Japan this week.

“The whole idea was to get him here, but it just didn’t work out,” said Susan Anderson, USC dance program director.

Still, this year marks Previn’s 80th birthday and a number of concerts in his honor are taking place.

 “If At First We Dream” has a strong theatrical and narrative drive, Davis said. In it, Strasberg fills the role of the more experienced woman to a large company of younger women engaged in a dance of possible love with three men.

“There’s more pure theater pushing the piece along,” Davis said. In addition, the dance will have sets and the potential of having some set pieces directed him into a more theatrical approach, Davis added.

“Thaddeus is really, really good at doing really, really diverse contemporary choreography,” Anderson said.
And the dance could have a life beyond USC.
“We’ll get (Previn) a video of it and when he sees what Thaddeus has done with the piece, he’ll be interested,” Strasberg said. 

The others she’s interested in seeing her dance are her daughters who were born after she retired.
“More than anything else I want them to see it,” she said. “And I forgot how much I liked to dance. But it’s a lot different now – a lot more free.”

“If At First We Dream” is part of a performance that includes a new ballet by Luis Dominguez, artistic director of the Lexington (Kentucky) Ballet set to Bach cello suites and George Balanchine’s 1934 “Serenade.” 

The night before the dance 50 years of Previn’s music will be on center state. The concert ranging from contemporary classical to jazz launches the Chamber Innovista concert series at the USC School of Music.

The Trio for Oboe Bassoon and Piano from 1994 starts the concert and several jazz pieces from the 1950s wrap it up. In the middle is the 2000 piece for vocal and flute “The Giraffes Go to Hamburg” about a pair of giraffes taken from Africa to a German zoo, inspired by and set to a passage from the book Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen.
There’s even a piece for nothing but brass.

Among the performers are Peter Kolkay, bassoon, pianists Lynn Kompass, mezzo-soprano Janet Hopkins, (right) flautist Jennifer Parker-Harley and trumpeter Dick Goodwin.

“The way the program was selected was very simple – put a call out to faculty who would be interested and available,” said series organizer Joseph Eller, “then see what Previn wrote for instruments that we had available and go from there.”

More about Previn
Born in Germany, Previn and his family fled the rise of the Nazis in the late 1930s and settled in Los Angeles.  In the late 1940s and early 1950s he drew attention for his film score arrangements and scores for the movies “Elmer Gantry,” “Kiss Me Kate,” “Painter Your Wagon” and Gigi,” for which he won one of his four Academy Awards.

Previn has been music director of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Starting in the ‘50s, Previn toured and recorded as a jazz player. With drummer Shelley Manne and bass player Leroy Vinegar, he recorded the first jazz version of the score for “My Fair Lady” which was the first jazz album to sell a million copies. He began playing and recording jazz again a few years ago.

Previn’s 10 Grammy Awards are for everything from a jazz recording to chamber and choral music and movie soundtracks. 


He wrote the operas “A Streetcar Named Desire,” from 1997, and “Brief Encounters” which premiered in May this year.

He’s been married five times, mostly to high-profile women including jazz singer Betty Bennett, composer and musician Dory Langdon, actress Mia Farrow. (Pictured with Mutter.)

USC dance, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6 and Saturday, Nov. 7. Koger Center. $16. (803) 251-2222.

Chamber Innovista, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5. USC School of Music.  $15 or $50 for the series of four concerts. (803) 777-4280