By Jorge Casuso

March 11, 2019 -- Two local avant-garde music series will join forces to celebrate a creative arts program launched across the country 55 years ago that shaped the course of American classical music.

Jacaranda and the Soundwaves new music series will present programs next month that feature music by members of the SUNY Buffalo Center of the Creative and Performing Arts.

The Soundwaves concert Wednesday April 10 at 7:30 pm at the Santa Monica Library offers a free preview of excerpts from "STAY ON IT," a Jacaranda concert April 13 at the First Presbyterian Church in downtown Santa Monica.

Lukas Foss conducting at UCLA (Courtesy UCLA Associated Students)

"The recent emergence of Julius Eastman (1940-90) has caused a re-thinking of the roots of American minimalism and the history of Black classical music, as well as a fresh look at the milieu from which Eastman emerged," according to Jacaranda's promotion for the concert.

From 1964 to 1980 the center featured the work of Eastman, as well as composers Lukas Foss (who founded the center), Fredric Rzewski and James Tenney.

The Center "offered performance and residency opportunities, linking several generations of the avant-garde," concert organizers said.

The program for a December 1, 1964 Carnegie Hall concert under the Foss' guidance spells out the opportunities presented "in a time of constant change and rapid evolution of new ideas.

"Today composers and theorists are involved in continuous research leading often into fields heretofore thought as alien to the world of music."

Pianist and conductor Scott Dunn, a student of Foss best known as the Associate Conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, will perform solo piano music by Foss and discuss the works performed at the concert. Dunn, a Jacaranda regular since 2005, has recorded Foss’s "Solo" under the composer’s supervision. Scott Dunn (left) and Adam Tendler (below) (Courtesy Soundwaves Music Series)

Dunn will be joined by pianist Adam Tendler, who will perform Rzewski’s setting for “speaking pianist” of Oscar Wilde’s open letter from prison to Lord Alfred Douglas to commemorate the composer's 80th birthday.

Tendler's sold-out trio of John Cage concerts at the Broad Museum "was a highlight of 2018," organizers said. Dunn and Tendler will be joined by Soundwaves veterans Seth Parker Woods on cello and T. J. Troy on percussion. Jacaranda has "presented world-class artists playing imaginative programs of contemporary and canonical classical music" since 2003, organizers said.

The week before most Jacaranda shows, Soundwaves will offer free previews of excerpts with artist talks.

The monthly Soundwaves series presents artists who appear on the DRAM (Database of Recorded American Music) streaming service. The Santa Monica Library is the first public library to offer this service to its cardholders.

Listings of past and upcoming Soundwaves shows as well as sound and video recordings can be found at SoundwavesNewMusic.com

The Main Library is served by Big Blue Bus routes 1, 7, R7, R10 and 18 and provides bicycle parking racks.

For more information, visit smpl.org or contact the Santa Monica Public Library at (310) 458-8600.

[photo of Tendler and Dunn attached]