Carolina Performing Arts (CPA) at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-Chapel Hill) in partnership with the University’s Department of Music and the Institute for the Arts and Humanities will host Reassessing the Rite: A Centennial Conference, a major scholarly contribution to The Rite of Spring at 100 October 25-28 at UNC.
Beginning October 25, the four-day conference includes 17 presentations addressing the artistic impact of The Rite Spring in the history of Modernism, across the fields of music, dance and design. Participants will include renowned dance historian, Lynn Garafola, and celebrated Russian music scholar, Richard Taruskin, who will give a keynote address on “Resisting The Rite”.
“Following breathtaking Rite 100 performances from The Silk Road Ensemble and Compagnie Marie Chouinard, we are thrilled to present Reassessing the Rite,” stated Emil J. Kang, Executive Director for the Arts at UNC-Chapel Hill and Director of Carolina Performing Arts. “Some of the world’s most influential thinkers on the topic will be assembled here in Chapel Hill, promising a thought-provoking and exciting series of discussions.”
A performance by one of Russia’s leading contemporary music groups, Studio for New Music Ensemble will open the conference on October 25. Immediately following the conference, on October 29 and 30, The Mariinsky Orchestra under the direction of maestro Valery Gergiev will perform a program that includes the U.S. premise of a new work by Matthias Pintscher, co-produced by CPA and the Schleswig-Holstein Festival for Rite 100. During the October 30 performance, the orchestra will perform The Rite of Spring.
“Reassessing the Rite has been a vital component of the Rite 100 program since Emil and I envisioned the project four years ago,” stated Severine Neff, UNC Distinguished Professor of Music. “Each session will uniquely challenge the way we think about Stravinsky, Nijinsky, Roerich, and their explosive collaboration that left a Parisian crowd stunned 100 years ago.”
Reassessing the Rite is held in conjunction with a thematically related conference at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in May 2013. The proceedings of the two symposia will offer material for a book edited by Maureen Carr, a leading scholar specializing in Stravinsky’s compositional methods,Gretchen Horlacher, a cutting-edge analyst of Stravinsky’s music, and UNC Distinguished Professors Severine Neff and John Nádas.
For a full schedule of conference events and to download the conference program, please visit http://tinyurl.com/9pop5gd. Conference events, excluding the Studio for New Music Ensemble performance, are free and open to the public.
