NewSound Festival

The Lincoln Trio

The celebrated Chicago-based Lincoln Trio, with special guest composer Stacy Garrop, will perform at SUNY Fredonia as part of the 13th annual NewSound Festival on Friday, Feb. 1, at 8 p.m. at Rosch Recital Hall. Admission is free.

Stacy Garrop will join the Lincoln Trio as guest composer during the Ethos NewSound Festival.

Desirée Ruhstrat, violin, has performed throughout the United States and Europe, appearing at the White House and on a live radio broadcast heard around the world with the Berlin Radio Orchestra. David Cunliffe, cello, has performed with the BBC and Royal Scottish orchestras and toured as a member of the Balanescu Quartet. Marta Aznavoorian, pianist, has appeared with the Chicago Symphony and performed at the Kennedy Center and the Sydney Opera House.

The Lincoln Trio has performed throughout the United States, with appearances at Carnegie’s Weil Hall, Ravinia Festival, the Indianapolis Beethoven Chamber Music Series, Lane Concert Series, University of Chicago, Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series, Music in the Loft, Poisson Rouge, and in Springfield, Ill., where they were chosen to join the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial celebration with President Barack Obama.

Champions of new music, the Lincoln Trio has performed numerous compositions written especially for them, including premieres of seven works by members of the Chicago Composers Consortium. The trio’s first full length recording, Notable Women, featuring selections by young ASCAP winner Conrad Tao, received numerous accolades following its 2011 release.

Garrop’s musical aesthetic embraces a diverse range of styles and languages, which she weaves together into a musical tapestry that fits the needs of each new piece. Her music has strong dramatic and programmatic tendencies, which are tempered by more abstract, gesture-based ideas. In all that she composes, Garrop strives to clearly communicate the intention of each piece, to musically portray the words of poets, to depict Greek myths, or to simply explore a range of sonic qualities.

An associate professor and head of Composition at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, Garrop has received numerous awards and grants including a commission from the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University, Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Elaine Lebenbom Memorial Award, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble’s Harvey Gaul Composition Competition, Raymond and Beverly Sackler Music Composition Prize, two Barlow Endowment commissions, Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s First Hearing Composition Competition, Omaha Symphony Guild’s International New Music Competition, San Francisco Song Festival’s Phyllis C. Wattis Prize for Song Competition, and the New England Philharmonic’s Call for Scores Competition.

The NewSound Festival, sponsored by Ethos New Music Society, showcases music of the 20th and 21st centuries by featuring composers, performers and lecturers from across the country and is supported by the Student Association.