Claudia Calderón to open Logan Series
Music of South America’s Orinoco River basin
The seventeenth season of Music at Noon: The Logan Series opens Tuesday, September 26, with a free lunchtime performance by South American pianist Claudia Calderón.
Music at Noon, an innovative program to introduce classical music in an informal atmosphere rather than in an intimidating concert hall, was founded at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, in 1989 by Warren philanthropist and arts advocate Kay Logan. Its unique music outreach efforts were honored in New York City last spring with an Adventurous Programming Award given by Chamber Music America and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers.
The Logan Series also has been honored for its curatorial approach to programming. Each year a theme is chosen for musical exploration, then balanced with artists more traditionally associated with chamber music. Highlighted in the 2006-07 season will be Latin music.
Claudia Calderón is an ideal choice to begin a Latin-infused season of chamber music. A native of Venezuela, she trained as a concert pianist in Germany and Italy before returning to Caracas to teach chamber music at the university level. There she began ethno musicological research on joropo, the traditional llanero harp music from the plains and coasts of the Orinoco River basin of Venezuela and Colombia, and created the first complete set of music transcriptions for the genre. In 1999 she founded the Fundación Editorial Arpamérica to rescue and promote joropo through educational publications and new compositions.
Characteristic of joropo are alternating virtuoso solo performances by the lead melodic instruments, which for this performance will be piano and cuatro (a four-string guitar that is strummed or plucked in a fierce, percussive manner), double bass, and the maracas.
“Most people have only experienced the maracas as a novelty instrument,” Daniel Barnard, series director and lecturer in music at the college, said. “But Calderón’s maracist, José Alberto Pérez, is one of the most virtuosic players I have ever encountered. When I watched him play, I had to keep reminding myself to pay attention to the rest of the band.”
Calderón and three llanero, or plains musicians, will perform at noon in the Reed Union Building’s McGarvey Commons. In keeping with the informal spirit of the Logan Series, admission is free, and casual dress and packed lunches are encouraged. Hot and cold lunch items also can be purchased in the building’s Bruno’s Café.
The series receives major support from the Kay Logan Trust and additional funding from the Erie Arts Endowment of the Arts Council of Erie, the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, the Penn State Behrend Student Activity Fee, Pennsylvania Partners on the Arts, Wal-Mart, JazzErie, and Romolo Chocolates.
For more information about The Logan Series, visit the season Web site at www.pserie.psu.edu/musicatnoon or phone the Penn State Behrend School of Humanities and Social Sciences at 814-898-6108.