Faculty and student musicians from Denison University's music department will put their skills to work at a concert of avant garde compositions that are based in some part on the principal of chance. The concert, titled "Chance Encounters: Music of Cage, Reich and Cowell," will be at 8 p.m. Wednesday (March 5) in Burke Recital Hall and is free and open to the public.

During the mid-20th century, composers were experimenting with works that have set parameters but are not "composed" in the usual sense. For instance, one of the works on the program for this concert is "Radio Music," written by John Cage. It has 12 radios playing, each for a set period of time on a set frequency. The music that plays during those times on those stations, however, is not controlled and so the "composition" is a "chance operation."

Associate Professor of Music Andrew Glendening will direct the concert. "Our students have learned about this form of music in class, but have not had the opportunity to perform it," said Glendening. "This concert will give them the chance to play with this experimental form." Another work on the program, Steve Reich's "Pendulum Music," has three pendulums with attached microphones swinging over loudspeakers creating feedback tones with the pitch and durations determined by the pendulums. The piece ends when the pendulums stop swinging, a chance that is determined by the length of the pendulums, their weight, the force of the initial pushes, and so forth.

The Chance Encounters concert will also include the following works: John Cage's "Water Music" for prepared piano and water jugs; Henry Cowell's "The Banshee," performed entirely on the inside of the piano; and the American premier of "Unexpected Encounters," composed in 2002 by Rouman Balysosov and Ching-chu Hu for the American Music Week in Sofia, Bulgaria. Hu is an assistant professor of music at Denison teaching composition.

About Denison:

Denison University, founded in 1831, is an independent, residential liberal arts institution located in Granville, Ohio. A highly selective college enrolling 2,100 full-time undergraduate students from all 50 states and dozens of foreign countries, Denison is a place where innovative faculty and motivated students collaborate in rigorous scholarship, civic engagement and the cultivation of independent thinking.

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