The Stetson University School of Music presents an evening of contemporary chamber music, Sounds New, featuring visiting artists Michael Norsworthy, clarinet; and Tony Arnold, soprano, Friday, Feb. 8, 7:30 p.m., in Lee Chapel, 421 N. Woodland Blvd., DeLand.

The concert will also feature performances by Stetson faculty Lynn Musco, clarinet; David Bjella, cello; and Routa Kroumovitch, violin.

They will be performing music composed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by Luciano Berio, Elliott Carter, Ingolf Dahl and Gerard Grisey. Carter, one of the most highly regarded composers of our time, passed away last year at the age of 103; the concert will feature music that he completed as recently as 2008. 

Performer Biographies:

Michael Norsworthy, clarinet, has been hailed as “a dramatic performer…with beautiful tonal nuances”(Pittsburgh Tribune-Review), and “one of the world’s best clarinetists”(Michael Finnissy, composer), and is acclaimed as both a soloist and sought-after chamber musician. A veritable chameleon, he regularly defies categorization and has captivated critics and audiences around the globe with performances that explore transcendent virtuosity and extremes of musical expression. As one of the most celebrated champions of the modern repertoire of his generation, Mr. Norsworthy has given premieres of over 150 works in collaboration with composers Babbitt, Birtwistle, Carter, Dench, Ferneyhough, Finnissy, Foss, Henze, Lachenmann, Lindberg, Murail, and Rihm among many others in leading venues such as Carnegie Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein, Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall, Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall, The Casals Festival, and the Aspen Music Festival. He has recorded for Mode, Albany, Gasparo, Cantaloupe, BMOP/sound, New World, Cirrus Music, and Cauchemar records, and recently premiered concerti by Michael Finnissy, Pozzi Escot, and Noel Zahler. He is principal clarinet with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, a member of New York’s Manhattan Sinfonietta, Professor of Clarinet at the Boston Conservatory, and Artist in Residence at Harvard University with Harvard Group for New Music (HGNM).  His teachers include Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr, Eric Mandat, Kalmen Opperman, and Richard Stoltzman. Mr. Norsworthy is a performing artist and artistic advisor for Selmer Paris and Rico International and he plays exclusively on Selmer Paris clarinets and Rico reeds.  For more info, please visit www.michaelnorsworthy.com

Tony Arnold:

John von Rhein of the Chicago Tribune writes, “anything sung by soprano Tony Arnold is worth hearing.” Hailed by the New York Times as “a bold and powerful interpreter,” she has gained international acclaim for sparkling and insightful performances of the most daunting contemporary scores. In 2001, Ms. Arnold was thrust into the international spotlight when she became the only vocalist ever to be awarded first prize in the Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition. On the heels of that triumph, she claimed first prize in the 15^th Louise D. McMahon International Music Competition. Since that time, Ms. Arnold has established a reputation as a leading specialist in new vocal repertoire, receiving consistent critical accolades for her many recordings, as well as performances with groups such as the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW, Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, New York New Music Ensemble, Ensemble 21, eighth blackbird, Contempo, Orchestra of St. Lukes, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Fulcrum Point, and many others.

Ms. Arnold has been a frequent guest at international festivals in the USA, Mexico, Germany, Armenia, Finland, Switzerland, Italy, and Korea. She was a featured artist at the 2008 Darmstadt International Music Festival, the premier contemporary music venue of Europe. She tours regularly as a member of the George Crumb Ensemble. With violin virtuoso Movses Pogossian, she has taken György Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments to more than 30 venues across the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. A DVD/CD set of their performance was released in 2009 on Bridge Records, to great critical acclaim.

In addition to Kafka Fragments, Ms. Arnold’s many recordings include a 2006 Grammy Nominated performance of George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children on Bridge Records. Released in 2009 was a DVD of the music of Crumb with the composer. She collaborated with conductor Robert Craft on two CDs of vocal works by Anton Webern on the Naxos label. She has also recorded music of Carter, Babbitt, Wolpe and Tania León for Bridge; Berio’s Sequenza III for Naxos; and music of Kaija Saariaho, Jason Eckardt, Schubert, and Messiaen on New Focus Records.

Ms. Arnold is an active participant in the creation and commissioning of new music. As the 2009 Howard Hanson Distinguished Professor of American Music at the Eastman School, Ms. Arnold shepherded the creation and premiere performances of new vocal music by 15 Eastman composers. Recent premieres have included works by Georges Aperghis, David Lang, Philippe Manoury, Pamela Madsen, David Liptak, and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon. During the summers, Ms. Arnold engages composers and singers in music written by the participants of the SoundSCAPE Festival in Maccagno, Italy. Since 2003 she has served on the faculty of the University at Buffalo, where she founded the extended vocal techniques ensemble, BABEL.

Ms. Arnold is a graduate of Oberlin College and Northwestern University. Among her many mentors, she is greatly indebted to her study with sopranos Carmen Mehta and Carol Webber, and conductors Robert Spano and Victor Yampolsky. Read more about Tony Arnold at www.screecher.com.

The public is invited. General admission-$10; seniors-$8; area students $5. It is free for Stetson faculty, students and staff with ID, and for Concert Series ticket holders.

For tickets and more information, contact Stetson University’s School of Music at (386) 822-8950, or www2.stetson.edu/music. Check out Stetson’s full cultural calendar for Spring 2013 at Stetson Today at www2.stetson.edu/today.