OSSO TO PERFORM AT TUFTS UNIVERSITY
ALONGSIDE SUFJAN STEVENS’ THE BQE
“Osso’s readings take Mr. Stevens’s music to new places.”—The New York Times
“[Osso is] dramatic, edgy, colorful.”—WNYC’s “Spinning On Air”
MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MA – Tufts University will host modernist string quartet Osso in a daylong residency and concert on November 6, 2009 at the Perry and Marty Granoff Music Center on the Tufts Medford/Somerville campus.
The performances are part of Osso’s North American tour in support of their debut record Run Rabbit Run, a re-arrangement of Sufjan Stevens’Enjoy Your Rabbit—a genre-bending electronic instrumental song cycle referencing the animals of the Chinese zodiac—for the string quartet. Also featured on the tour will be screenings of Stevens’ The BQE, a 40-minute symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York’s infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The New York Times praises the film for its “swirling, glimmering Romantic orchestration.”
The schedule for the Tufts residency includes:
3-4:30 p.m.: Workshop on the Enjoy Your Rabbit arrangements, geared towards composers, musicians, and singer-songwriters. Varis Lecture Hall in the Granoff Music Center. Free and open to the general public, no tickets or reservations required.
7 p.m.: Informal playing of selections from the Enjoy Your Rabbit album. Distler Performance Hall in the Granoff Music Center (see below for ticket information).
8 p.m.: Film Screening – The BQE. Distler Performance Hall in the Granoff Music Center (see below for ticket information).
9 p.m.: Osso in concert featuring Run Rabbit Run. Distler Performance Hall in the Granoff Music Center (see below for ticket information).
The three evening events above are open to the general public, and each can be attended on the same ticket. Tickets are $10 general admission, free with a Tufts I.D. (one ticket per I.D.)
A string quartet with a modernist pulse, Osso has contributed string arrangements to Stevens’ Illinois as well as My Brightest Diamond’s Bring Me the Workhorse. Members of Osso have also performed with an array of artists including Jay-Z, Alice and Ravi Coltrane, The New Pornographers, Antony and the Johnsons, The Polyphonic Spree, The National, Devotchka and Kanye West. On tour they will perform selections from Run Rabbit Run, which features Stevens’ oblique glitches, repetitive trills and experimental textures rearranged for the string quartet by a number of composers including Nico Muhly, Michael Atkinson, Maxim Moston, Gabriel Kahane and others. The album Run Rabbit Run was recently released on Asthmatic Kitty Records.
Originally commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music for the 2007 Next Wave Festival, Sufjan Stevens’ The BQE consists of film footage of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway alongside hula hoopers and an original score by Stevens. View a video trailer of The BQE here: vimeo.com/5682252.
Press Listing for Event Calendar Details
Friday, November 6, 2009
3:00-4:30 p.m.
Workshop on Enjoy Your Rabbit arrangements
7:00 p.m.
Informal playing of Enjoy Your Rabbit selections
8:00 p.m.
Film Screening – The BQE
9:00 p.m.
Osso in concert featuring Run Rabbit Run
All events take place in the Granoff Music Center, 20 Talbot Avenue, Tufts University Medford/Somerville Campus
Featuring: Osso
###
Tufts University, located on three Massachusetts campuses in Boston, Medford/Somerville, and Grafton, and in Talloires, France, is recognized among the premier research universities in the United States. Tufts enjoys a global reputation for academic excellence and for the preparation of students as leaders in a wide range of professions. A growing number of innovative teaching and research initiatives span all Tufts campuses, and collaboration among the faculty and students in the undergraduate, graduate and professional programs across the university's eight schools is widely encouraged.
The Tufts Department of Music offers a flexible and eclectic academic program leading to the Master of Arts degree in music. Students concentrate in composition, ethnomusicology, musicology, or theory, while having the opportunity to explore all these discipline, as well as the areas of music cognition, linguistics, sociology, and anthropology of music. The Tufts Department of Music is housed in the new Perry and Marty Granoff Music Center, home to the Distler Performance Hall and Fisher Performance Room. The Music Center hosts over 150 events and concerts annually, the majority of which are produced and presented by the Department of Music.
Tufts University - Granoff Music Center
20 Talbot Ave, Medford, MA 02155
Press contact: Jeffery Rawitsch/Tara Espiritu
Office: 617-627-3679, 617-627-2253
Box Office: 617-627-3679
Web: www.tufts.edu/musiccenter
