This Halloween, students and community members are invited to attend a guest artist recital featuring cellist Craig Hultgren and a variety of cello and electronic compositions.
The recital will be held in the Ralph R. Pottle Recital Hall at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 31 as a part of Fanfare. The evening’s repertoire will showcase contemporary works including world premieres by both Philip Schuessler, instructor of theory and composition, and his wife Kari Besharse, lecturer of music. The Arts and Lectures Committee at Southeastern are funding Hultgren’s trip for the recital, which will be free of charge.
“It is great to bring a novel contemporary program like this to Southeastern,” said Hultgren. “The cello is such a potent instrument for the music of our own time. The audience will hear the cello like they never have before.”
Hultgren specializes in new, creative and avant-garde styles of musical performance. He performs as a part of the Alabama Symphony and Luna Nova, a new music ensemble. For a decade Hultgren has produced the Hultgren Solo Cello Works Biennial, an international cello composition competition. His numerous accomplishments and experiences include three collegiate professor positions, a founding member and current president of the Birmingham Art Music Alliance and solo concerts in Rome, Boston, Pittsburgh, Miami, Atlanta, Orlando and Nashville.
“There will be a few straight ahead acoustic solo compositions and then some fantastic combinations with various electronic applications,” said Hultgren.
Hultgren will play a solo program with pieces being either for solo cello or cello with electronic accompaniment. The entire program was written specifically for Hultgren.
The software Max/MSP, a visual programming language for music and multimedia, will be used for the majority of the electronic works included in the program.
“This software allows composers, essentially, to program ‘patches’ that read the live signal of the cello into the computer and process the sound in various ways,” said Schuessler. “The live sound is distorted, twisted, fragmented, delayed and filtered to accompany the live cellist as he plays.”
As the concert coordinator, Schuessler has been working on concert promotion and publicity as well as organizing Hultgren’s arrival. Schuessler’s world premiere composition, entitled “Monochrome Variations,” is for the cello with computer processing.
“As Craig is considered to be one of the most prominent cellists in the field of contemporary music, I have wanted to write a new piece for him for many years,” said Schuessler. “Once he expressed interest in coming to Southeastern to perform some new music by myself and by my wife Kari Besharse, we arranged to make it happen.”
The upcoming recital is made possible primarily as a result of Schuessler’s friendship and history with Hultgren.
“Craig and I have actually known each other for years,” said Schuessler. “He was a teacher of mine during my undergraduate music studies at Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama.”
The second world premiere by Besharse is entitled “Anemos Fragments,” and is for cello with computer processing.
While the recital will take place on the Halloween holiday, there will be no intentional holiday theme. The date was selected on the basis of schedule availability amongst the three artists.
“Some of the music may sound spooky or eerie, but otherwise there is not an official Halloween theme,” said Schuessler. “Many students have expressed their interest in coming to the concert in a costume. This is encouraged!”