Rice University to host Houston premiere of monumental percussion work ‘Inuksuit’ Sept. 21

MEDIA ADVISORY

David Ruth
713-348-6327
david@rice.edu

Jeff Falk
713-348-6775
jfalk@rice.edu

Rice University to host Houston premiere of monumental percussion work ‘Inuksuit’ Sept. 21

HOUSTON – (Sept. 11, 2013) – Rice University will host the Houston premiere of “Inuksuit,” a monumental work for percussion by noted American composer John Luther Adams, Sept. 21. The outdoor performance will use James Turrell’s “Twilight Epiphany” Skyspace as its anchor.

Who:               Percussionists from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, the University of Texas at San Antonio, Texas A&M, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Sam Houston State University, the Colburn School and the local Houston area.

What:             The Houston premiere of “Inuksuit.”

When:             Saturday, Sept. 21, 6-7:15 p.m.

Where:           James Turrell’s “Twilight Epiphany” Skyspace and the West Academic Quad, east of Alice Pratt Brown Hall, home of the Shepherd School. Parking is available in West Lot 1, accessible from Entrance 18 on Rice Boulevard. The Rice campus is at 6100 Main St.

“Inuksuit” is a term significant to the Arctic region and refers to a type of man-made stone landmark. According to event organizers, Adams, whose works are inspired largely by the ecology of the North, believes that “music can contribute to the awakening of our ecological understanding. By deepening our awareness of our connections to Earth, music can provide a sounding model for the renewal of human consciousness and culture.”

A resident of Alaska for the past 30 years, Adams has been a composer-in-residence with the Anchorage Symphony, Anchorage Opera, Fairbanks Symphony, Arctic Chamber Orchestra and Alaska Public Radio Network. He has held teaching positions at Harvard University, Oberlin College, Bennington College and the University of Alaska. “Inuksuit” has been performed in New York City’s Morningside Park and at the Park Avenue Armory as well as other venues throughout the U.S., Canada and Australia.

Brandon Bell, a predoctoral candidate at the Shepherd School of Music, has organized the Houston performance of “Inuksuit” with support from the Shepherd School and Rice Public Art.

For more information about the Shepherd School of Music and Rice Public Art, visit http://music.rice.edu and http://publicart.rice.edu.

Media interested in covering the Sept. 21 concert should RSVP to Jeff Falk, associate director of national media relations at Rice, at jfalk@rice.edu or 713-348-6775.

-30-

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 2 for “best value” among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. To read “What they’re saying about Rice,” go to http://tinyurl.com/AboutRiceU.