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The inaugural festival Connect presents Bartók and his legacy

Source: Tianjin Juilliard SchoolJanuary/23/2021

The inaugural Festival Connect opens on Friday, January 29, 2021 at 7:00pm in Tianjin Juilliard’s Concert Hall with the Tianjin Juilliard Ensemble, the school’s flagship resident faculty ensemble, and takes place through Friday, February 5, 2021. The festival aims to focus on one or two prominent composers from the 20th century each year, complemented by two living composers whose styles inherited and/or are derived from their predecessor’s. Béla Bartók (1881 – 1945) was selected as this year’s featured composer for the festival. The two living composers featured in the festival are Zhou Tian (China, b. 1981) and Ádám Kondor (Hungary, b. 1964) and the concerts will include their world premiere works.

 
Festival Connect is modeled after Juilliard’s annual modern music festival, Focus, which offers a survey of a topic in contemporary music each year. In its first ten years, Festival Connect aims to showcase the central composer’s masterpieces in performances, highlighting those works within the cultural and social context of the composer’s world. At the same time, tracing the composer’s legacy and special highlights of the composer’s influence on contemporaries and future generations, especially living composers of our time.

The festival also connects Juilliard’s two programs in the United States and China as part of President Emeritus Joseph W. Polisi’s vision of creating “One School, Two Campuses.” This year, Tianjin Juilliard was able to invite visiting students from the New York campus to be part of the festival since many of Juilliard’s Chinese students are still in China due to travel restrictions.

A series of five performances, including the opening concert with the Tianjin Juilliard Ensemble, three chamber music concerts with portraits of the two living composers, and a closing concert with the Tianjin Juilliard Orchestra, will be supplemented by talks, lectures, and special events. All festival programs will be held at the new landmark campus.
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