Free, Public Concerts Offered July 24-August 3

Each year, Wellesley College hosts the Composers Conference and Chamber Music Workshops. The Conference is a two-week program that provides young, emerging composers with the opportunity to showcase compositions in live concerts, which are free and open to the community. This year's program begins Sunday, July 21, and runs through August 4, 2013.

“This is a unique environment for the performance of contemporary music by the top performers of that repertory in the country,” said Martin Brody, Catherine Mills Davis Professor of Music at Wellesley College.

The program brings together a select group of fellows, professional musicians (including some of the finest performers from New York and Boston), and amateur musicians and singers. Additionally, for the first time, a trio of local seventh-graders from Project STEP, a program for musically talented children from underrepresented Boston communities, will participate in the first week of the conference.

According to Kathryn Welter, executive director of the Conference, students from Project STEP will work on a string quartet during the mornings with Liuh-Wen Ting, faculty violist, as their coach, then on a Haydn string trio in the afternoons with faculty oboist Peggy Pearson. “The culmination of their coaching will be a performance of a movement of one of these works during our musicale on Wednesday afternoon [July 24] at 4:30 p.m.,” Welter said. The performance will take place in Pendleton Hall, Room 220.

Faculty members perform concerts Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday nights featuring traditional works and the works of the composer fellows. Learn more about concert specifics on our events pages or on the Composers Conference website.

Concerts take place at 8 p.m. in Jewett Fine Arts Center Auditorium at Wellesley College. All concerts are free and open to the public.

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Mario Davidovsky has guided the conference for nearly 40 years. Joining him this year are senior guest composers Melinda Wagner and Brandeis University’s Eric Chasalow, as well as the recently appointed Chamber Music Director Christof Huebner. Over eight hundred composers and many more amateur chamber musicians have participated in this event since its inception.