By THE PROXY REPORT STAFF
MACOMB, Illinois – The School of Music at Western Illinois University, will present the 35th annual New Music Festival 2022 on March 7-8.
The festival will be held in Browne Hall and in the College of Fine Arts and Communication Recital Hall, and be directed by WIU School of Music Professor James Romig and Assistant Professor Hong-Da Chin, both composition faculty.
This year’s featured performer is cellist Craig Hultgren and the featured composer is Baljinder Sekhon.
Hultgren has performed as a cellist with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra and has taught at Birmingham-Southern College, the University of Alabama Birmingham and the Alabama School of Fine Arts. His work is featured in four solo CD recordings. For 10 years he produced the Hultgren Solo Cello Works Biennial, an international competition to highlight the best new cello compositions.
Sekhon’s work has been presented in more than 500 concerts in 20 countries. His wide range of musical interests and styles for saxophone and percussion instruments are recognized as pioneering work. He is an assistant professor of composition at the University of South Florida and has also served as a percussionist at the L.S. Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella Series in Walt Disney Hall, Festival Spazio Musica in Cagliari, Italy and at the Bang on a Can Marathon in New York City.
This year’s festival schedule include:
Monday, March 7
• 7:30 p.m., COFAC Recital Hall: Hulgren playing works by Sekhon, Chin and Romig.
Tuesday, March 8
• 2 p.m., COFAC Recital Hall An open rehearsal with Hultgren, cello – open to the public.
• 7:30 p.m., COFAC Recital Hall: Hultren playing works by WIU student composers Jessica Schaumberg, Hunter Logan Stuart, Garrett Davis, Libbey Lazowski, Alice Müller, Ryan Simester, Adam Nyquist, Mary Bausman, Robin Butler,and Jeremiah Hendricks. The concert is open to the public.
The New Music Festival is supported by the School of Music and the WIU Performing Arts Society. For more information, call the COFAC Recital Hall office at (309) 298-1843, or go to bit.ly/WIUNewMusic.
