Composer and �ֲ���ý music professor Hiroya Miura already had plenty on his plate when a music festival in the Czech Republic made him, as they say, an offer he couldn’t refuse.

In addition to teaching at �ֲ���ý and directing the college orchestra, Miura was composing an opera — his first — when the International Shakuhachi Festival, in Prague, asked him to write music for a participating ensemble, the BERG Orchestra. But in its particulars, the commission was really asking him to tackle not one, but two more professional firsts.

The commission was for a concerto, a type of orchestral work in which one instrument (rarely, two or three) plays a virtuosic leading role. And the proposed concerto would feature a traditional Japanese flute called the “shakuhachi.”

Miura had never written for shakuhachi nor composed a concerto. “I initially was going to turn down the commission,” says Miura, who’s on sabbatical this academic year.

Shown with the BERG Orchestra, Hiroya Miura takes a curtain call after the world premiere of his concerto for shakuhachi in Prague’s Domovina Hall on Sept. 16, 2019. (Karel Suster/Courtesy of BERG Orchestra)

“But the BERG Orchestra is the only orchestra dedicated to playing contemporary music in the Czech Republic, and is known for adventurous programming and a high quality of music making. I couldn’t say no.” Still, with only six months to write the concerto on top of everything else, “it was a bit like jumping off a cliff.”

As it turned out, it was one big jump that had two happy landings. On Sept. 16, with Miura in attendance, the International Shakuhachi Festival premiered his concerto Galactic Monarchs, performed by the BERG Orchestra with shakuhachi master John Kaizan Neptune as soloist. The performance, which won Miura four curtain calls, concluded the five-day festival.

Then, a few weeks later, in three performances Oct. 5–6 in San Francisco, the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and guest artists premiered the �ֲ���ý professor’s Sharaku Unframed, a 25-minute, one-act micro-opera featuring Hidejiro Honjoh, an acclaimed innovator on the “shamisen,” a traditional Japanese three-string instrument.

Video: Hidejiro Honjoh and the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble perform “Sharaku Unframed” on Oct. 5 at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (Courtesy of the Left Coast Chamber Orchestra).

“The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble has a wonderful audience base and the opera was extremely well-received,” says Miura. “The whole experience of working with the Left Coast musicians and Hidejiro was a sheer joy.”

He adds, “It was probably the first time in my career that I produced this much music in such a short period of time.”

The inspiration for Miura’s operatic debut was one of the more mysterious figures in Japanese art history. Tōshusai Sharaku was a woodblock printmaker known for producing some 140 images of Kabuki theater actors during a 10-month period in the 1790s. But few other biographical details survived.

That changed in 2008, when Sharaku was identified as the creator of a fan drawing in a museum on the Greek island of Corfu. This revelation led to additional sleuthing that convinced researchers of Sharaku’s real identity: He was Saitō Jurobei, a samurai in service to the Hachisuka family and an actor who played only insignificant, non-speaking parts in Noh theater performances.

Note the Noh vs. Kabuki distinction: The former was associated with the ruling class of samurai, who regarded Kabuki as common, even vulgar. If Saitō, aligned with the ruling class, was nevertheless drawn to the latter, it would have behooved him to conceal his real identity when frequenting Kabuki playhouses.

Miura based his opera on Ghost of Sharaku, a short play by Arthur Davison Ficke, an American poet and aficionado of Japanese woodblock prints. The play takes place during the opening of an actual Sharaku exhibition in New York in 1940 — and in play and opera alike, all the characters are ghosts, just as many Noh characters are.

The play even includes a brief appearance by Jurobei’s master, Lord Hachisuka (sung by shamisen player Hidejiro Honjoh), and a silent attendant.

Hidejiro Honjoh (at left) and the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble perform Sharaku Unframed at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music on Oct. 5. (Courtesy of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble)

The opera is scored for two singers; a flutist who doubles on bass flute and piccolo; violist and bassist; percussionist; and Honjoh, of course. “This was my third piece for Hidejiro,” Miura says.

As a musician, Honjoh belongs to a school of shamisen that, among other attributes, “focuses on the timbral expression and its varieties. He talks of the universe which exists within a single utterance of a sound,” Miura explains. “I strived to create the orchestral backdrop using the lean instrumentation I was given to match the sensuality of the shamisen’s timbre.”

He adds, “The timbre is so important that the player has to string the instrument right before the performance. This unusual practice says so much about the shamisen aesthetics that focus primarily on a timbral quality that can only come from brand-new silk strings.” But it does mean constant attention during the performance to keeping the still-stretchy strings in tune.

As for the concerto for shakuhachi, the bamboo flute? Well, that instrument and the concerto form may have been new to Miura, but he was well-acquainted with the organizer of the shakuhachi festival. That was Czech musician and impresario Marek Kimei Matvija, and Miura had previously written a piece (for shamisen) for one of his projects.

“I was moved by Marek’s dedication to promote Japanese traditional music and his vision for keeping tradition alive by being unafraid to ask composers to write new works for those instruments,” Miura says. “Sometimes the traditional music milieu in Japan tends to be conservative and overprotective of tradition, and I found his attitude refreshing and inspiring.”

The shakuhachi has only five holes for fingering notes, but by partially covering the holes and varying the angle of blowing the flute, a skilled player can produce a nearly infinite variety of pitches.

“What also characterizes the color of shakuhachi is the sound of air — noise — going into the instrument. The tone is almost never ‘pure’ in the sense of Western music,” Miura says. “The gradation of noise to tone is what makes the instrument so attractive to me.”

A star of the shakuhachi, John Kaizan Neptune is a California native who attended the University of Hawaii primarily because of the islands’ surfing opportunities. En route to dropping out of the university, he discovered shakuhachi in an ethnomusicology course — and ultimately moved to Japan and became one of that nation’s best-known players of the instrument.

Shown just after the close of the 2019 International Shakuhachi Festival Prague are, from left, shakuhachi player Akihito Obama, Czech composer Jan Rösner, �ֲ���ý composer Hiroya Miura, and shakuhachi player John Kaizan Neptune. (Karel Suster/Courtesy of the BERG Orchestra)

“I knew about John ever since I was a child,” Miura says. “He’s probably one of the first non-Japanese shakuhachi players who mastered the instrument. He’s been living in Japan since before I was born — in some regards, he’s much more Japanese than I am!”

In the course of writing Galactic Monarchs for the festival, Miura adds, “I went to John’s beautiful dome house, which he built himself. He also makes shakuhachi from the bamboo around his house. I had so much fun getting to know the instrument and who he is as a performer. It was an eye-opening experience.”

Galactic Monarchs is scored for string orchestra, harp, and percussion, as well as shakuhachi. Because of the flute’s origins as a meditation tool for Buddhist monks, “classical shakuhachi music doesn’t have a sense of meter or pulse — which creates a unique sense of temporal experience.”

“It was a bit like jumping off a cliff.”

Wanting to honor that tradition and the corresponding sense of timing that Neptune has developed, Miura wrote the shakuhachi parts in a so-called spatial or proportional notation, which situates groups of tones within specific time intervals but leaves the actual rhythm of the melodic line to the player.

And the title? Miura once “watched footage of a few million butterflies taking flight simultaneously in a forest in Mexico. The piece is inspired by the sound they create.”

He notes that if mathematician-meteorologist Edward Lorenz “was right in saying that the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas, I thought the flaps of a few million butterflies might stir up the stars in the Milky Way.”

Hidejiro Honjoh tunes his shamisen during a Left Coast Chamber Ensemble rehearsal. (Courtesy of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble)

“In the streets of Havana, I was able to feel that something was changing so rapidly,” says composer Hiroya Miura, who was a featured guest at a music festival in Cuba in November.

Against the long-advertised backdrop of totalitarian rule, cultural suppression, and economic deprivation, Miura also found a lively arts scene, a musical community hungry for fresh ideas — and, he says, a surprising optimism. The Cubans he met, he says, “seem so positive. They always have a way of spinning everything in a positive light.”

Hiroya Miura, associate professor of music st �ֲ���ý, is shown in his Olin Arts Center office shortly before he attended a contemporary-music festival in Cuba. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

It was a momentous time to visit the island. Miura flew to Havana just five days after the November elections that cast doubt upon, among other things, the thaw in U.S.–Cuban relations that President Barack Obama helped bring about.

“Then six days after I came back,” Miura says, “Fidel Castro died.”

The occasion for Miura’s visit was the 29th annual Festival de Música Contemporánea de La Habana (Havana Contemporary Music Festival). He was one of four U.S.-based composers invited to the nine-day event as part of an artist delegation representing the American Composers Forum, an advocacy organization. It was just the second year that the ACF participated.

Also in the delegation was the New York City quintet Third Sound, which performed a concert of music by the four composers — Lembit Beecher, Pierre Lambert, and Wang Lu, in addition to Miura, who is an associate professor of music at �ֲ���ý and conductor of the college orchestra.

A street vendor in Havana. (Hiroya Miura)

The festival was a performance tour de force, with dozens of musicians offering two, sometimes three, concerts a day. Also on the program were panels, including one in which the ACF composers and two other musical groups from the U.S. advised young Cuban musicians on making things happen.

“Castro had very strict cultural policies, and for Cubans, contemporary music kind of stops around 1960–65,” Miura says. “So they are very eager to learn.

“I brought my CDs and scores, and you could really see their eyes light up, seeing these new pieces by living composers from here. During one of the workshops, we heard a demonstration by a new improvisation ensemble of young Cuban composers, and their sincerity for the exploration of new sound was quite moving.”

Hiroya Miura consults with Third Sound pianist Orion Weiss as four members of the ensemble rehearse Miura’s “Open Passage” in Havana. Also shown are flutist Sooyun Kim and cellist Michael Nicolas; out of the frame is violinist Adda Kridler. (Courtesy of Hiroya Miura)

The Miura work that Third Sound played at the festival’s Nov. 18 ACF concert was “ — In memoriam Andrew Svoboda.” Written in 2005 for alto flute, violin, cello, and piano, the piece is a tribute to a lost friend.

“He was a very young talented composer, and he just died all of a sudden of cardiac arrest at the age of 26,” says Miura. “It was a very emotional piece for me.

“Considering that writing and hearing the piece was a way of remembering my friend, and his father was a political dissident from communist Czechoslovakia in the 1960s, hearing the piece 10 years later in Havana felt strangely fitting.”

Miura adds, “My friend’s last name, Svoboda, means ‘freedom’ in Czech.”

From left: Patrick Castillo, composer and director of Third Sound; composers Wang Lu, Pierre Jalbert, Hiroya Miura, Tania León, and Lembit Beecher; International Contemporary Ensemble representatives Alice Teyssier and Ryan Muncy. León performed in her native Cuba for the first time in nearly 50 years at the festival. (Courtesy of Hiroya Miura)

A high point of Miura’s visit was the Fábrica de Arte Cubano — the Cuban Art Factory. Installed in a former power plant and olive oil factory, the F.A.C. is a sort of one-stop shop for hip-and-cool culture — music, dance, art, and more.

“It’s extremely vibrant, there are lots of young people, they stay open until like 3 in the morning, and they have live music playing throughout the night,” he explains.

“On multiple levels of galleries, dance floors, and bars, I was amazed by the people’s energy and free-spiritedness. These alternative and independent art and music scenes seemed to be starting as a hybrid between a state-run facility and private business in Havana — which is an incredible development considering the strict policies the government used to have.”

President Obama is prominent in a display of posters for sale. (Hiroya Miura)

For Miura, some of the visual art that he saw offers an analogy for his admittedly brief exposure to social and cultural Havana. “You have a kind of 1920s communist futuristic design, on top of ’60s–’70s pop art, on top of Takashi Murakami,” the contemporary artist known for bringing Japanese “low culture” into high art.

“Everything is happening at the same time because the country has just opened up,” says the composer. New layers of cultural influence are accreting over the old ones fast, as if making up for lost time.

“It’s almost like an onion: You peel one layer and then there is something surprising that comes up. It’s not just a time capsule, but it’s like weird twists of time and space.”

Barack Obama’s outreach to the island after decades of political stalemate is still reverberating in the streets of Havana. “People are definitely excited about this,” says Miura (who was repeatedly asked by residents whether he voted for Donald Trump. But, living in the U.S. on a green card, this Japanese citizen can’t vote here.)

“It was clear that Obama was so loved by Cubans for opening up the relationship.”

He adds, “One thing that’s for sure, when I spoke with some Cubans there, is that they don’t know what kind of change is coming” post-Fidel. While the current leader, Raul Castro, is more open to a market economy, what that will look like going forward — “nobody seems to really know.”

“I’m really curious to see how Cuba is going to go culturally and politically,” Miura says. Hopefully accompanied by �ֲ���ý students, he adds, “I would love to go back to witness that change.”

Ensemble Mise-En. (Moon Young Ha)

Music by �ֲ���ý students and faculty, including Associate Professor of Music Hiroya Miura and Alice Swanson Esty Professor of Music William Matthews, constitutes one of two forthcoming programs by New York City’s Ensemble Mise-En.

In 7:30 p.m. performances in the Olin Arts Center, the group offers music by Danish and American composers on Sunday, Nov. 15, and by a dozen �ֲ���ý composers the following evening. Admission is free but tickets are required, available at . For more information, please contact 207-786-6135 or olinarts@bates.edu.

Hailed by The New York Times for “examining unusual corners of the composition world,” this contemporary music collective was founded in 2011 by composer-conductor Moon Young Ha.

In addition to Ha’s “(in)stillness,” the Sunday concert features music by Hans Abrahamsen, Simon Steen-Andersen, Bent Sørensen, Enda �ֲ���ý, Frederic Rzewski, and Beth Wiemann.

Along with Matthews and Miura, the �ֲ���ý composers represented on Monday are Elliot Chun ’18, Will Reber ’16, Patrick Nelson ’18, Justin Demers ’18, Abby Bierman ’17, Hikaru Asao ’16, Divyamaan Sahoo ’17, Declan Chu ’17, Ben Cuba ’16, and Gabriel Mizrachi ’16.

The Momenta Quartet.

Presented by the Olin Arts Alive  music series and the �ֲ���ý College Museum of Art, the renowned Momenta Quartet performs new music by two �ֲ���ý composers at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 4, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Admission is $12 and tickets are available at . Free tickets are available to the first 100 seniors and students; please reserve by calling 207-786-6163. For more information, please call 207-786-6135.

The Momenta program includes the premieres of music by �ֲ���ý composers Hiroya Miura and William Matthews, as well as music by Debussy, Haydn and Jason Kao Hwang.

The quartet will also offer a critique of music by �ֲ���ý student composers at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 5, in Olin Concert Hall. This workshop is free and open to the public.

Praised by The New York Times for its “focused, fluid performance” and by contemporary music website Sequenza 21 for its “fire, fantasy and absolute musical commitment,” the Momenta Quartet has premiered more than 50 works in the past seven years and has collaborated with more than 80 composers.

Based in New York City, the quartet performs nationally and internationally. The quartet’s repertoire ranges widely from the classics to contemporary. The members of Momenta are violinists Emilie-Anne Gendron and Adda Kridler, violist Stephanie Griffin and cellist Michael Haas.

Inspired by the current �ֲ���ý College Museum of Art astrophotography exhibition Starstruck, Miura’s “Singularity” adapts cosmic radiation readings to serve as the harmonic basis for his piece.

The imagery in “Mare Tranquillitas,” a musical and video piece composed by Matthews, Alice Swanson Esty Professor of Music at �ֲ���ý, incorporates astrophotographs from Starstruck and photographs of Momenta’s instruments.

The Momenta Quartet.

Three concerts at �ֲ���ý feature choral music for the holiday season, and compositions by �ֲ���ý faculty played by a visiting string quartet.

The �ֲ���ý College Choir performs a holiday program including Benjamin Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols” at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Nov. 30 and Dec. 1.

Presented by the Olin Arts Alive music series and the �ֲ���ý College Museum of Art, the renowned Momenta Quartet performs new music by two �ֲ���ý composers at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 4.

Both concerts take place in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Admission to the choir concerts is free, but tickets are required. Admission to the Momenta Quartet event is $12 and tickets are available at . Free tickets are available to the first 100 seniors and students; please reserve by calling 207-786-6163. For more information, please call 207-786-6135.

�ֲ���ý College Choir

Directed by John Corrie, the choir presents a program featuring Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols” and Eric Whitacre’s “Five Hebrew Love Songs.”

John Corrie conducts the �ֲ���ý College Choir.

An internationally esteemed 20th-century English composer, Britten composed operas, orchestral music, vocal and choral works, and chamber music. Scored for three-part chorus, solo voices and harp, “Ceremony of Carols” marked Britten’s return from America to wartime England in 1942.

Each of Whitacre’s five songs captures a moment that he and his wife, soprano Hila Plitmann, shared, and which she rendered as poems that he set to music.

Momenta Quartet

The Momenta program includes the premiere of �ֲ���ý composers Miura and William Matthews, as well as music by Debussy, Kee Yong Chong and Jason Kao Hwang.

Praised by The New York Times for its “focused, fluid performance” and by contemporary music website Sequenza 21 for its “fire, fantasy and absolute musical commitment,” the Momenta Quartet has premiered more than 50 works in the past seven years and has collaborated with more than 80 composers.

Based in New York City, the quartet performs nationally and internationally. The quartet’s repertoire ranges widely from the classics to contemporary. The members of Momenta are violinists Emilie-Anne Gendron and Adda Kridler, violist Stephanie Griffin and cellist Michael Haas.

Inspired by the current �ֲ���ý College Museum of Art astrophotography exhibition Starstruck, Miura’s “Singularity” adapts cosmic radiation readings to serve as the harmonic basis for his piece.

The imagery in “Mare Tranquillitas,” a musical and video piece composed by William Matthews, Alice Swanson Esty Professor of Music at �ֲ���ý, incorporates astrophotographs from “Starstruck” and photographs of Momenta’s instruments.

The Momenta Quartet will also offer a critique of music by �ֲ���ý student composers at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 5, in Olin Concert Hall. This workshop is free and open to the public.

Red Baraat

Opening with Ethiopian-born Finnish singer-songwriter Mirel Wagner and concluding with the college’s own Jazz Band, the autumn 2012 concert season at �ֲ���ý College represents the best of music from �ֲ���ý and the world.

The season includes the debut of the Olin Arts Alive concert series featuring internationally renowned and emerging performers.

Classical music highlights include visits by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the contemporary music ensemble Momenta Quartet, performing a piece by a �ֲ���ý composer. In addition, pianist Frank Glazer, an artist in residence at the college since 1980, will offer a season-long series comprising music from his most cherished �ֲ���ý programs.

In a joint presentation with L/A Arts — one of several undertaken by �ֲ���ý this academic year — rhythm and blues singer Francine Reed returns to Olin a year after her smash appearance here. Other familiar faces include the �ֲ���ý College Orchestra and College Choir. And new to the college is Red Baraat, a most exciting ensemble combining the sounds of South Asia and the New World.

With exceptions as noted, most concerts are open to the public free of charge and take place in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St. To buy tickets, please visit . For more information or to arrange tickets for the free concerts, please contact olinarts@bates.edu or 207-786-6135.

Here’s the season schedule:

Mirel Wagner (7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 12): Born in Ethiopia, raised in Finland, this folk and blues singer is known for her minimalist style and emotive depth. Note: This Olin Arts Alive series concert takes place at Keigwin Amphitheater at Lake Andrews, next to the Olin Arts Center. Rain site: Olin Concert Hall. Learn more.

Pianist Frank Glazer in 2006. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College.

Frank Glazer Retrospective, Program I (7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 14): The renowned pianist begins a season of music from his most cherished �ֲ���ý programs. Tonight: Handel, Mozart, Debussy, Chopin and Beethoven (Pathétique). Admission: $10 per concert or all eight programs at $65 per seat, at . Proceeds benefit the Frank & Ruth Glazer Scholarship Fund. A limited number of free tickets are available for seniors and students; contact olinarts@bates.eduor 207-786-6163.

�ֲ���ýDowntown (5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 28): The college’s informal series of free downtown concerts resumes with an artist TBA. Note: The venue is 22 Park St., Lewiston.

An Evening of Chamber Music (7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29): Four friends — �ֲ���ý pianist Jim Parakilas, violinist Mary Hunter, cellist Steve Witkin and violist Heather Cook — perform Mozart, Fauré and Dvořák, including the beloved “Dumky” piano trio. Free, but tickets required; contact olinarts@bates.edu.

Red Baraat (7:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 30): Driven by bandleader Sunny Jain’s dhol, a North Indian drum, this uproarious Brooklyn band blends Brit-Indi Bhangra with funky New World brass. Admission $15/ $10, available at . Free tickets are available for the first 100 seniors or students. To reserve, please email olinarts@bates.edu. .

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 6): One of America’s most compelling pianists, Jeremy Denk is among the six CMS players in an Olin Arts Alive performance. Featured is music by Bruch, Brahms and Dohnányi. Admission $15/ $10, available at . Free tickets are available for the first 100 seniors or students. To reserve, please email olinarts@bates.edu. .

Francine Reed

Frank Glazer Retrospective, Program II (7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 12): See Program I, above, for artist and admission details. Tonight: Schoenberg’s Six Short Pieces, along with music by Schubert, Brahms and Chopin.

Francine Reed (7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 13): Olin Arts Alive and L/A Arts present an evening with this blues, gospel and jazz singer. A hit at Olin a year ago, the openhearted, full-throated Reed is the widely recognized voice in Lyle Lovett’s Large Band, but has a powerhouse career in her own right. Admission: $15 / $10, increasing to $20 /$10 on the day of the show. Available at . Learn more.

Alexandre Tharaud (7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21). Olin Arts Alive presents the up-and-coming French pianist. “Tharaud is dazzlingly nimble-fingered and often admirably sensitive, without romanticizing,” wrote the BBC. A program of Scarlatti, Ravel, Chopin and Liszt. Admission $12, available at ; free tickets are available for the first 100 seniors and students. Email olinarts@bates.edu to reserve. .

Rollin’ to Olin(12:30 p.m. on three Thursdays: Nov. 1, 8 and 15). The public is invited to this free arts-literacy program for local schoolchildren. A �ֲ���ý College Museum of Art presentation takes place at 12:30 p.m., followed by a mini-concert from 1 to 1:30.

Europa Galante

Europa Galante (7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 2): Olin Arts Alive presents a Baroque music ensemble from Italy, founded and still directed by violinist Fabio Biondi. The program “Apotheosis and Folia” includes music by Vivaldi, Couperin, Mascitti, Corelli and C.P.E. Bach. Admission $12, available at . Free tickets are available to the first 100 seniors and students; reserve by emailing olinarts@bates.edu. .

Frank Glazer Retrospective, Program III (7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 9): See Program I, above, for artist and admission information. Tonight: Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales, along with music by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin.

�ֲ���ý College Orchestra (7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 10): Hiroya Miura directs the ensemble in a program including Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92. Free, but tickets required.

�ֲ���ý College Choir (8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Nov. 30-Dec. 1): John Corrie directs the choir in a program TBA. Free, but tickets required.

Frank Glazer Retrospective, Program IV (3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 2): See Program I, above, for artist and admission information. Tonight: music by Franck, Weber, Gershwin, Barber, Copland and Brahms.

Momenta Quartet

Momenta Quartet (7:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 4): Olin Arts Alive and the �ֲ���ý College Museum of Art present this quartet whose repertoire ranges widely from the classics to contemporary — such as tonight’s premiere by �ֲ���ý composer Hiroya Miura, commissioned for the museum’s exhibition Starstruck. Also on the program: music by Debussy, Kee Yong Chong and Jason Kao Hwang. Admission $12, available at . Free tickets are available to the first 100 seniors and students; reserve by emailing olinarts@bates.edu. .

�ֲ���ý College Jazz Band (7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 5) Tom Snow leads the band in arrangements for large and small ensembles, and genres from big band to bossa nova to funk. Free, but tickets required.

Hiroya Miura conducts the �ֲ���ý College Orchestra.

Conducted by Hiroya Miura of the �ֲ���ý faculty, the �ֲ���ý College Orchestra performs Brahms’ Symphony No. 3 and Debussy’s “Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune” at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 10.

The concert will take place in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St., and is open to the public at no cost. However, because of limited seating, tickets are required. For tickets and more information, please contact 207-786-6135 or olinarts@bates.edu.

“At first, Brahms and Debussy seem to be at aesthetic opposites,” says Miura. “Brahms is the height of the 19th-century German ‘absolute music’ — music that is about only itself, with no external references. And Debussy was self-consciously trying to redefine French music.

“These two pieces, however, were written only 10 years apart, and in spite of the difference in their harmonic language, I am struck by their similarly organic treatment of the rhythm. The composers were both masters of form and the organization of musical motifs.”

The 27 students in the orchestra (the other 18 players are musicians from the community) will find “both pieces challenging for various reasons: rhythm, orchestral balance, expression, etc.,” Miura adds. “However, I find both pieces are absolutely worth the effort for their sublime musical quality.”

Hiroya Miura conducts the �ֲ���ý College Orchestra in a 2006 rehearsal.

It’s a big weekend for classical music Nov. 12-13, as the �ֲ���ý and Bowdoin Orchestra and pianist Frank Glazer present back-to-back concerts in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

The orchestra, which will be conducted at �ֲ���ý by Hiroya Miura and includes musicians from �ֲ���ý and Bowdoin colleges, plays works by Bartok, Haydn and Mendelssohn at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 12.

Glazer performs music by Berg, Beethoven, Brahms and Liszt at 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 13, in the concert hall.

Both concerts are open to the public at no cost, but tickets are required. Please contact 207-786-6135 or olinarts@bates.edu.

Pianist and artist-in-residence Frank Glazer.

The orchestra program consists of Bartok’s Romanian Folk Dances; Haydn’s Symphony No. 99 in E-flat major; and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4 (“Italian”).

The ensemble also performs this program at 3 p.m. the following day at Bowdoin’s Studzinski Recital Hall, Kanbar Auditorium, conducted by Bowdoin’s Roland Vazquez.

“The Haydn and Mendelssohn symphonies both have connections to London,” Hiroya explains. The 99th symphony is the seventh of the so-called “London Symphonies,” which Haydn wrote during his second visit to London where he was invited by the violinist and impresario Johann Peter Salomon to conduct large orchestras.

Mendelssohn’s ‘Italian’ symphony was commissioned by the London, now Royal, Philharmonic Society, which Salmon founded with a few other members 20 years prior. “Although the pieces by Haydn and Mendelssohn are 40 years apart, in my mind they both share the cosmopolitan flair that Europeans, especially Londoners, were enjoying at the time.”

Hiroya adds, “Bartok’s Romanian Folk Dances show yet another aspect of the European cosmopolitanism, although Bartok was much more invested in the local roots of Romanian, Hungarian and Bulgarian folk music.”

The 96-year-old Glazer, an internationally acclaimed pianist, has been an artist in residence at �ֲ���ý since 1980. Here’s his program:

Berg’s Piano Sonata, Op. 1: Berg and Glazer were both students of Arnold Schoenberg, the composer who introduced the notion of atonality and the 12-tone approach to composition. Berg composed this early sonata, which is still tonal and rooted in traditional sonata form, while he was Schoenberg’s student.

Beethoven’s 15 Variations and Fugue in E Flat Major, Op. 35 (“Eroica” Variations): One of two theme-and-variations works that Beethoven considered substantial enough to assign opus numbers — works in which he elevated the form to a new level. This shares a melodic theme with three other compositions, including the “Eroica” Symphony, hence the nickname for this piece.

Brahms’ Theme and Variations from the String Sextet in B Flat Major, Op. 18: This arrangement for solo piano of the second movement of Brahms’s Op. 18 String Sextet, composed early in his career, was a gift for Clara Schumann, the widow of his friend Robert Schumann.

Brahms’ Scherzo in E Flat Minor, Op. 4: The earliest published Brahms composition, composed at age 18.

And three by Liszt:

Legende No. 1: Saint Francis Preaching to the Birds was inspired by St. Francis of Assisi’s well-known story in which he delivers a sermon to the birds.

Années de Pélerinage: Sonetta 104 del Petrarcha is one of a series of 26 piano pieces that Liszt composed over four decades, an autobiographical series inspired by the journey to maturity undertaken by Goethe’s fictional Wilhelm Meister.

�ճ����Rigoletto Paraphrase is based on a vocal quartet from the fourth act of Verdi’s opera by that name.

The orchestra performs music by Beethoven and Richard Strauss at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 19, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St. Donations to a relief fund for the coastal town of Yamamoto-cho, 24 miles south of Sendai, will be gratefully accepted.

NBC affiliate WSCH-TV interviews Hiroya Miura, conductor of the �ֲ���ý College Orchestra, prior to the March 19 concert that raised funds for the people of Yamamoto-cho, Japan.

For more information or to reserve seats, please contact 207-786-6135 or olinarts@bates.edu.

Miura was born and raised in Sendai, near the epicenter of the earthquake, and his parents currently reside in Yamamoto-cho. According to Wikipedia, the town is one of the areas hardest hit by the quake.

The orchestra will dedicate the concert to the memory of those lost in the disaster, and Miura will personally see that audience donations are delivered to the mayor of Yamamoto-cho.

• Including donations received during the March 19 concert and online, more than $8,200 had been raised for Yamamoto-cho by March 22. Donations are still most welcome.

For people unable to attend the concert, donations can made online at www.batestickets.com or mailed to:

Support for Japan
�ֲ���ý College, Olin Arts Center
75 Russell St.
Lewiston ME 04240

About the program

The orchestra will play Beethoven’s landmark Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”) and Richard Strauss’ Serenade for 13 Wind Instruments, works that “are full of youthful energy from these two German composers,” Miura says.

The Beethoven symphony is a milestone in symphonic music, a work marking the transition from the formal strictures of the Classical period to the more emotional, organically unfolding style of the Romantic.

The Strauss serenade, meanwhile, is the earliest composition by this late-Romantic composer to endure in the repertoire. It’s scored for flutes, oboes, clarinets, horns, bassoons, contrabassoon or tuba, and bass.

“Eroica,” which Beethoven completed in 1803, was written as he was coming to grips with hearing problems that would culminate in total deafness.

“It was probably the first time in history that a symphony became so intensely personal and dramatic,” Miura says, “and the ‘Eroica’ was by far the longest, and perhaps the most substantial, symphonic work of its time.”

The work makes bold use of brass instruments, especially French horn, “and it’s no surprise that the ‘Eroica’ was one of the most influential works for young Strauss, whose father was an orchestral horn player.

“It’s also no coincidence that this serenade by the hand of 18-year-old Strauss is in the key of E-flat major, the key of the ‘Eroica’ and Strauss’ later work ‘A Hero’s Life,’ ” Miura says. “I hope the audience will enjoy the virtual musical dialogue between young Strauss and Beethoven in these two works.”

The orchestra concert comes days before two Miura compositions will be premiered at the JapanNYC Festival organized by Carnegie Hall, with Seiji Ozawa as artistic director, in March and April.

Miura’s “Mitate” will be performed by the Juilliard Percussion Ensemble at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall on Tuesday, March 29. Line C3, also a percussion ensemble, debuts his “Blowout” at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center on Saturday, April 2. Both concerts begin at 8 p.m. .

Music improvised by schoolchildren from Japan and Lewiston forms the basis of a collaborative sound and image project to be performed at �ֲ���ý College at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 10, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Listening In, Looking Out is a project undertaken by Hiroya Miura, a composer who directs the
�ֲ���ý College Orchestra, in collaboration with �ֲ���ý students, intermedia artist Peter Bussigel and percussionist Masaki Endo, as well as the children, whose recorded musical efforts form part of the soundscape.

Endo will perform during the presentation of the piece. For more information, please contact
207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.

The composition of the piece is based on a game, often associated with the Dadaist art movement of the early 20th century, in which each member of a team adds a piece, in turn, to the creation of a work. For Listening In, Looking Out, Miura, Bussigel and the �ֲ���ý students conducted improvisation workshops this year with children in Sendai, Japan (where a version of the piece was premiered in 2009), and at Lewiston’s Farwell Elementary School.

The workshops are designed to get children to improvise simple musical instruments from everyday objects. Recordings from the workshops were edited by the �ֲ���ý students to create a sound and image composition.

The �ֲ���ý students taking part are two juniors, Abigael Merson of Falmouth and Jack Schneider of Tacoma Park, Md.; and Alex Koster, a senior from Pound Ridge, N.Y.