Eastman stages performance in the park

ive music will fill the air at Webster Park, a picturesque spot on the shore of Lake Ontario. Robert Morris, concert-music composer and chair of the composition department at the Eastman School of Music, has conceived a composition for orchestra and soloists to be played outdoors at the public park. The piece, titled Playing Outside, is scored for more than 50 musicians scattered throughout the park's woods and trails. The piece is exactly 100 minutes long and will be performed twice on Sunday, September 30, at 1:30 and 4:30 p.m. (Rain date is October 7.)

Morris came up with the idea while hiking on the park's intricate web of ski trails in the summer of 1996. "I was so fascinated by these wooded trails that I made a map of them with a friend. I felt a connection between these trails and the kind of music I write, so I thought it would be interesting to bring them together in a musical composition. But this music would not be concert music per se, but something like ambient music, where the music blends into the environment in this case into the sounds and sights of the fields and forests of the park."

The composition will be presented and performed by Ossia, an organization of young composers and performers studying at Eastman, as well as the school's gamelan ensemble.

Upon arrival at the park, audience members will receive a program of events with a map of the places in the park where musical events will take place and when. Various kinds of improvisational music, played by soloists as well as full ensembles, will be heard on the paths and in the park's woods and fields. No one, including the composer, will be able to hear all of the musical sections in one performance. The idea is to provide an assortment of musical experiences emphasizing the relations between people and the natural world.

For more information on this work, visit http://lulu.esm.rochester.edu/rdm/PLAYING.OUTSIDE.

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