The world premiere of Glenn McClure’s '86/MSEd '11 “Tremble” will be featured Oct. 22 during the “Music from the Ice and Beyond” concert of the Geneseo Chamber Singers and Spectrum Singers.
GENESEO, N.Y. – The annual fall concert of the Geneseo Chamber Singers and Spectrum Singers will have a unique tone this year featuring the world premiere of Glenn McClure’s '86/MSEd '11 new choral composition “Tremble,” based upon scientific data he gathered during a visit to Antarctica last year. The concert is at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 22 in the Doty Hall Recital Hall and is free and open to the public.
The Chamber Singers are under the direction of Gerard Floriano, professor and chair of the Department of Music, and the Spectrum Singers are under the direction of Amy Cochrane, a lecturer in the department.
McClure, a Geneseo music and English professor, joined a scientific team in Antarctica during his National Science Foundation Artists and Writers Fellowship experience last November. He used sophisticated audio and video equipment to collect raw scientific data from vibrations in the frigid continent and has now converted the data into his choral composition.
“The piece features some key concepts from my experience of working with a seismic team that is ‘listening’ to the infra-gravity waves that travel from the rest of the planet and resonate with the Ross Ice Shelf,” said McClure. “Through a variety of musical gestures, the piece attempts to imitate the waves that resonate through the wind, water, ice, and (with our acceptance) into our body and soul.”
The entire concert is titled “Music from the Ice and Beyond” and in addition to McClure’s piece will feature works by Felix Mendelssohn, Clement Janequin and Gustav Holst as well as arrangements of African American spirituals by Stacey V. Gibbs and Tom Scott.
McClure’s work is not his first venture into the synergies between the arts and sciences. He also composed a work for choir and string quartet in 2014 for the European Space Operations Centre Chorus that was performed to help celebrate the placement of a lander on a comet. In 2006, McClure also composed an oratorio titled “The Starry Messenger,” to explore the musical influences of Galileo’s family, based upon the letters of Galileo’s daughter.
McClure is also on the faculty of the Eastman School of Music and is serving this year as Scholar-in-Residence at Paul Smith’s College in New York’s Adirondack Park.
Media Contact:
David Irwin
College Communications & Marketing
(585) 245-5529
Irwin@geneseo.edu