Michael Daugherty
8 p.m. Wednesday, October 23, 2002
Composer Michael Daugherty and The University of Michigan Contemporary Directions Ensemble with oboe soloist Nancy Ambrose King will present a program of Daugherty's music with commentary by the composer illustrated at the piano. The ensemble, founded in the 1960s and now directed by Professor Jonathan Shames, specializes in performing works of leading composers of the day, including Daugherty. Made up of the University's most gifted music students it performs nationally, often with the involvement of such composers as John Adams, Eliot Carter and Daugherty himself who is a noted raconteur.

Daugherty is famous for his unique concert music inspired by American icons. Detroit has already heard some of his large orchestral works performed by the DSO, where he is composer in residence. His music for small ensemble is even more adventuresome and often very entertaining and should be very meaningful in light of the composer's commentary. This is a concert that goes back to Pro Musica's roots when Bartok and Ravel (1928), Prokofiev (1930), Poulenc (1948), Copland and Milhaud (1954), George Crumb (1978), and Ned Rorem (1986) for example, took part in similar formats.