Program to celebrate composer Isaac Alb niz

Skidmore Senior Artist-in-Residence Pola Baytelman will headline a music event titled ?Celebrating Isaac Alb niz? at 3 p.m. Saturday, March 28, in Filene Recital Hall. The program will feature an introduction and commentary by Alb niz biographer Walter A. Clark of the University of California at Riverside. Admission is free and open to the public.

One hundred years after the death of Spanish composer Isaac Alb niz, Skidmore?s own Alb niz expert, pianist Baytelman, will host an afternoon of music and commentary commemorating his life and work. Performances will include seldom-heard choral and solo voice music, instrumental transcriptions, and works for piano by Alb niz. Baytelman is the author of Isaac Alb niz: Chronological List and Thematic Catalog of His Piano Works (1993, Harmonie Park Press), the first catalog of the composer?s piano works. She has performed and recorded Alb niz?s Iberia, the monumental composition written by Alb niz just before his death in 1909. Rarely performed in its entirety by any but the most accomplished pianists, the five-part, 85-minute work incorporates a number of Spanish dance rhythms.

Joining the musical celebration will be Skidmore faculty members Ann Alton, Joel Brown, Michael Emery, Janet McGhee, and Anne Turner; the Skidmore Guitar Ensemble, Vocal Chamber Ensemble, and Skidmore student pianists.

Noted musicologist and author Clark will present ?Spanish Music with a Universal Accent: Isaac Alb niz and His World? during the program. Clark is a professor of musicology and chair of the music department at University of California, Riverside, where he is also founder/director of the Center for Iberian and Latin American Music.