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NEC Composers' Series: Arthur Berger Memorial Concert

Jordan Hall

NEC Composers' Series: Arthur Berger Memorial Concert
Free - Ticket Required
In-Person Event
Open to the Public
Streaming
NEC Composers' Series: Arthur Berger Memorial Concert
An annual tradition in NEC’s Composition Department, this concert celebrates the life and music of Arthur Berger, an influential composer, critic, and teacher who served on the faculty from 1980-1999. Tonight’s concert focuses on Berger’s contributions to the vocal repertoire with his song cycle about music, love, life, and companionship Five Settings of European Poets, set to five different languages. Curated by composition faculty Sid Richardson, the program also includes vocal pieces by various NEC faculty, including Kati Agócs, Rodney Lister, John Mallia, and Sid Richardson.

Artist(s)

Arthur Berger joined the NEC composition faculty in 1980 after his official “retirement” from teaching, and remained for two decades, well into an “emeritus” status that did not diminish his participation in the musical life of the Conservatory. Berger made his mark on 20th-century music both as a journalist and as a composer. His music reviews appeared in the Boston Transcript in the 1930s, while he was a student at Harvard; he later wrote for the New York Herald Tribune, and founded and edited two publications: The Musical Mercury and Perspectives in New Music. As a composer, Berger shifted from neoclassicism to twelve-tone and other modernist composition techniques; his studies and life kept him close to many of the 20th century’s key figures in the arts, from Stravinsky to Motherwell. Boston Modern Orchestra Project has released a recording on New World of Berger’s complete orchestral works, the product of several years of BMOP’s annual Jordan Hall concerts devoted to NEC composers and performers. Geoffrey Burleson ‘88 M.M. has recorded his complete piano music (Centaur, 2002). Berger’s Reflections of an American Composer was published by University of California Press in 2002.

The live stream of this event is available to NEC Community members only. To watch the stream, please click the “Streaming Access” button at the top of the page and enter the NEC Community streaming password on the video window labeled “NEC-Produced Stream” when prompted.

Berger: Five Settings of European Poets
Gandolfi: Lowell Songs
Lister: Ordinary Heartaches and Other Poems of Michael Blumenthal
Richardson: Inscribed on a Lintel
Richardson: How Do I Love Thee?