EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Classical music is alive and well in East Lansing, and Michigan State University’s contemporary music ensemble and saxophonist Joseph Lulloff are ready to prove it.
Faculty artist Lulloff and Musique 21, conducted by Raphael Jimenez, will premiere a new work, Boppish Blue Tinged, Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Large Chamber Ensemble, written by composer and music faculty member Charles Ruggiero, at 8 p.m. April 9 in the Music Building Auditorium on campus.
The 19-minute composition, like many of Ruggiero’s other works for saxophone, synthesizes elements from “modern” art music, jazz, and other 20th- and 21st-century genres, will be the featured piece of the concert. Boppish Blue Tinged is the third concerto Ruggiero has written for his friend, frequent musical collaborator, and MSU faculty colleague, Joseph Lulloff, and it is the second substantial work Ruggiero has composed for maestro Raphael Jimenez and Musique 21.
Ruggiero has been writing music for his colleague and friend Lulloff since the late 1970s when Lulloff was an undergraduate music student. “From the late 1980s to the present,” Ruggiero says, “most of my music for saxophone (which includes three concertos, two saxophone quartets, two large sonatas, much other chamber music) either has been commissioned by Joe or specifically written for him, and he has recorded much of it.”
Musique 21 concerts are free and open to the public. The ensemble uses flexible instrumentation and is devoted to the performance of works written by composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. It provides audiences with unique sounds and timbres that have been developed throughout the contemporary era of music. It comprises both faculty and students within the College of Music.
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