End of Year Virtual Concerts

Join us on our YouTube channel Thursdays at 7pm in May for virtual concert events celebrating the work of our student-musicians and faculty this spring.

Links to access the YouTube Premieres will be added to this page once they are available.

Thursday, May 13, 7pm: Concert Bands & Pep Band Virtual Concert

The NC State Symphonic Band, Varsity Pep Band and Wind Ensemble will present a virtual concert of music recorded in person this semester.

The Symphonic Band will present “Out of this World”, with a musical tribute to the Mars Mission with a selection from Gustav Holst’s The Planets, and selections by John Williams honoring the heroes of the pandemic and those we’ve lost. The symphonic band is directed by Chris Branam.

Under the direction of Dr. Paul Garcia, the pep band will present gameday favorites and pop music hits, while the wind ensemble will perform music by John Philip Sousa, Johann Sebastian Bach and Michael Gandolfi.

Thursday, May 20, 7pm: NC State Choirs perform premiere of “Where We Find Ourselves”

The NC State Choirs perform the premiere of a newly commissioned song cycle “Where We Find Ourselves” by composer Michael Bussewitz-Quarm inspired by the photography of Hugh Mangum, recently on display at the Nasher Museum of Art. 

Durham native Mangum was an itinerant photographer working primarily in North Carolina and Virginia in the shadow of Jim Crow laws from 1897-1922, photographing a clientele that was diverse both racially and economically. His glass plate negatives were stored in a barn at the time of his death, and were only discovered when the barn was saved from demolition in the 1970s. 

Join us for a virtual concert of the five-movement song cycle “Where We Find Ourselves”, which explores societal issues such as class, race and poverty. The performance will be accompanied by some of Mangum’s photographs. The NC State Department of Music is a member of the Where We Find Ourselves Commissioning Consortium. The choirs are directed by Dr. Nathan Leaf.

Thursday, May 27, 7pm: Orchestra World Premieres Virtual Concert

NC State’s orchestras, the Raleigh Civic Symphony and Raleigh Civic Chamber Orchestra, will premiere new works by composers Milad Yousufi, Nahre Sol and Trevor New. The virtual concert will include introductions from the composers and remotely recorded performances by the orchestras. The orchestras are directed by Dr. Peter Askim.

As the first-ever symphonic composer from Afghanistan, Milad Yousufi draws on his background growing up under the Taliban and as a refugee to create a powerful, sweeping musical manifesto in his “Freedom.” Yousufi is also a talented painter, and his haunting images of his homeland accompany the music in this world premiere recording of the orchestral version of his music.  

Violist/composer Trevor New and pianist/composer Nahre Sol were both commissioned by the orchestras to workshop and create new music for “virtual orchestra,” during the pandemic. Using latency and technology as a feature, not a “bug,” of distance collaboration in the age of COVID-19, both composers came up with unique solutions to the challenges, creating stunning, personal audio landscapes. Within each composition, individual musicians perform remotely, but in real-time collaboration, to create communal musical experiences unique to our times. Trevor New’s music combines solo viola and electronic audio processing with live musicians, and Nahre Sol’s composition interweaves orchestral textures with newly-created video animations to create a unique audio-visual experience. 

This program will be the premiere of each of the compositions, part of nine world-premiere recordings created during the pandemic by the orchestras and conductor Peter Askim.

New works commissioned for the NC State orchestra program by the Raleigh Civic Symphony Association with support from the City of Raleigh Arts Commission and the North Carolina Arts Council.