“Open again a turn of light,” written by Brown faculty members Eric Nathan and Sawako Nakayasu, will premiere on Saturday, Oct. 21, part of the inaugural public performance at The Lindemann Performing Arts Center.
By Jim Kimball
News from Brown
Eric Nathan and Sawako Nakayasu inside the lobby of The Lindemann Performing Arts Center.
Photo credit: Nick Dentamaro/Brown University
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — When leaders from the Brown Arts Institute and Brown University Orchestra asked Eric Nathan to compose a piece for The Lindemann Performing Arts Center’s public opening, Nathan jumped at the opportunity — but he knew he didn’t want to do it alone.
“Brown, and especially the BAI, so highly values interdisciplinary collaboration,” said the composer and associate professor of music at Brown. “So I thought, what could be better than to have a colleague write new poetry for the occasion?”
Over the last few months, Nathan worked with Sawako Nakayasu, a poet and assistant professor of literary arts at Brown, to create “Open again a turn of light,” a short fanfare for orchestra and chorus that celebrates the University’s brand-new performing arts venue, opening this fall after five years of construction and anticipation. With words by Nakayasu and music by Nathan, “Open again a turn of light” exemplifies the kind of creative collaboration The Lindemann’s state-of-the-art, flexible spaces will enable for students, faculty, local community members and globally renowned artists for generations to come.
The piece is set to premiere publicly on Saturday, Oct. 21, part of an inaugural public performance inside The Lindemann’s main hall. More than 200 musicians, including Brown students and Providence community members, will be involved in the concert, which also includes a performance of the finale from Beethoven’s “Choral” Symphony No. 9 and an appearance from famed violinist Itzhak Perlman.
Read News from Brown feature on "Open again a turn of light" in full here.
More About Eric Nathan Eric Nathan’s (b. 1983) music has been called “as diverse as it is arresting” with a “constant vein of ingenuity and expressive depth” (San Francisco Chronicle), and “thoughtful and inventive” (The New Yorker). A 2013 Rome Prize Fellow and 2014 Guggenheim Fellow, Nathan has garnered acclaim internationally through performances by Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Scharoun Ensemble Berlin, Dawn Upshaw, Jennifer Koh, Stefan Jackiw, and Gloria Cheng. His music has been featured at the New York Philharmonic’s 2014 and 2016 Biennials, Carnegie Hall, and the Aldeburgh, Tanglewood, and Aspen festivals. He serves as Associate Professor of Music at Brown University and is currently the New England Philharmonic’s Composer-in-Residence. He received his doctorate from Cornell.
Further details about Eric Nathan can be found at www.ericnathanmusic.com