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Le Tambourin Suite 2 in Performance by Buffalo Philharmonic Under JoAnn Falletta

June 9, 2010: JoAnn Falletta and The Buffalo Philharmonic performed Bernard Rands' Le Tambourin, Suite 2 at the June in Buffalo Festival on June 6 in Slee Hall of the University at Buffalo. Composed in 1984, each of the two suites of Le Tambourin consist of three short movements of a musical character that is prompted by specific visual characteristics found in paintings and drawings by Van Gogh. The composer elaborates:

Musical depiction of the paintings' subject matter was not of concern to me in this work. Rather, the relationship is confined to technique in matters of harmony and dissonance, color and light, energy and intensity of brush stroke, shape, clarity. Nevertheless, Van Gogh painted and drew with such fervor and passion that often technical aspects of his work are simultaneous translations of his own inner turmoil, anxiety, rage, joy, love and depression.

Presented by the University at Buffalo's Department of Music and The Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music, June in Buffalo, a festival and conference dedicated to composers, took place from May 31-June 6. Each year the festival offers an intensive schedule of seminars, lectures, workshops, professional presentations, participant forums and open rehearsals as well as afternoon and evening concerts open to the general public and critics. Evening performances feature faculty composers, resident ensembles and soloists renowned internationally as interpreters of contemporary music.

Also included in the festival's programming were Rands' chamber works "now again"- fragments from Sappho and déjà.

To find out more on June in Buffalo, click here.

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