Crane Symphony Orchestra Presents Tan Dun's 'Water Concerto' with Guest Percussionist Aiyun Huang

SUNY Potsdam's Crane School of Music Welcomes Guest Artist Aiyun Huang for Unique Crane Symphony Orchestra Concert Nov. 18

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Guest percussionist Dr. Aiyun Huang will perform alongside the Crane Symphony Orchestra in Tan Dun’s “Water Concerto” at SUNY Potsdam’s Crane School of Music on Nov. 18.

POTSDAM, NY (11/06/2014)(readMedia)-- The next Crane Symphony Orchestra concert will feature a unique musical instrument that's both ubiquitous and rarely heard in concert halls -- water.

SUNY Potsdam's Crane School of Music is proud to present a concert featuring the "Water Concerto for Water and Orchestra" by Tan Dun, featuring internationally renowned percussionist Dr. Aiyun Huang. The pieces features special water instruments and percussion methods used with large vessels of water, accompanied by orchestra.

The Crane Symphony Orchestra concert will be offered on Tuesday, Nov. 18 at 7:30 p.m. in the Helen M. Hosmer Concert Hall. This event is free, and the public is invited to attend. The performance will also videostream live online at the concert time.

Composer Tan Dun is most well known for his Oscar-winning film scores for the movies "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Hero," as well as for writing music for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The "Water Concerto" is one of his major organic music compositions, which call for instruments made of water, stone or paper.

"In Hunan, water was a daily thing with our life. Every day we washed everything with the river. All the old women, they always went to river for laundry, making a beautiful sound, very rhythmic," Dun wrote of the piece. "So I transpose those memories of beautiful laundry sounds and swimming sounds, body popping sounds, water dancing sounds, water teasing sounds, water popping sounds into my orchestrations."

Aiyun Huang, professor of percussion at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Montreal, will perform alongside the Crane Symphony Orchestra students. She has traveled to campus several times to rehearse with the students and teach percussionists about the special techniques required for the concerto.

In addition to the concerto, the orchestra will also perform Edward Elgar's "Engima Variations."

Directed by Dr. Ching-Chun Lai, the Crane Symphony Orchestra is a premier, 90-member performing ensemble at The Crane School of Music. The ensemble performs great orchestral masterworks from the standard and contemporary orchestral literature. The Crane Symphony Orchestra has traveled to perform at Lincoln Center, and in tours across New York State, in addition to working with major guest conductors from around the world each year.

About the guest artist:

Aiyun Huang was the winner of the First Prize and the Audience Award (Prix du Public) at the 2002 Geneva International Music Competition; the first prize in percussion has been awarded only three times in the competition's history. Devoted to the creation of new works for percussion, she has commissioned new works from numerous composers and appeared in concert around the globe. Born in Taiwan, Huang immigrated to Canada when she was 17, where she pursued her studies in percussion with members of Nexus. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors from the University of Toronto, a Premier Prix from Conservatoire Nationale de Région de Rueil-Malmaison in France, and both a master's and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of California, San Diego. Between 2004 and 2006, she was a faculty fellow at the University of California, San Diego. Between 1997 and 2006, she was a member of the dynamic percussion ensemble red fish blue fish, under the direction of Steven Schick. Her current chamber music projects include Toca Loca with pianists Gregory Oh and Simon Docking, and Ensemble Meduse, featuring interdisciplinary works. Her recent European solo tour included performances in Geneva, Lyon, Paris, Katowice, Budapest, Bratislava and Milan. Currently, she is a professor and the chair of the percussion area at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

This concert will be broadcast live on the SUNY Potsdam website at the performance time. To view the program and see other upcoming streaming performances, visit www.potsdam.edu/academics/Crane/streaming.

For more information about SUNY Potsdam's Crane School of Music, please visit www.potsdam.edu/crane.

Founded in 1886, SUNY Potsdam's Crane School of Music has a long legacy of excellence in music education and performance. Life at Crane includes an incredible array of more than 300 recitals, lectures and concerts presented by faculty, students and guests each year. The Crane School of Music is the State University of New York's only All-Steinway institution.

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