Thursday Scholarship Series: An Evening in Paris

An all-star faculty ensemble takes the stage for “An Evening in Paris,” a musical tour of the City of Light by way of French chamber music of the ‘20s and ‘30s. The audience will have its very own storyteller guiding them through the music and the era.

The performance, the fourth in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music’s flagship concert series, includes works from Paris in the ‘20s and ‘30s, a vibrant era of collaboration and innovation. During this period, American jazz had made its way into Paris at the same time that many European composers were traveling to the U.S. and hearing jazz in the setting where it was born.

A masterwork from that period, and the inspiration and centerpiece of this program, is Darius Milhaud’s “Creation du Monde,” written in 1923, which Frigo says was the “first work of its kind to truly blend musical elements of jazz and popular music with Western art music.” Its instrumentation features instruments prominent in American jazz bands: saxophone, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, piano and a complex array of percussion.  

While the musicians’ performance will guide audience members through the era’s art, the concert’s examination of Paris doesn’t stop at the music. The audience is going to be transported to Paris in the 1920s and 1930s via a dynamic storyteller who will usher them back to the musical and cultural landscape of that time. Washington Isaac Holmes, a doctoral student in vocal performance serves as the storyteller, informing the performance with background and commentary on the French capital during the early 20th century.

This performance is also part of the 2016 Spotlight on the Arts festival, a celebration of the fine arts at the University of Georgia from Nov. 2 – 13. For more information on all the Spotlight events, visit arts.uga.edu.

Tickets are $20 or $6 with a UGA student ID and are available at pac.uga.edu or the PAC box office. Those unable to attend can watch the concert streamed live on the School of Music website: music.uga.edu/streaming.