- This event has passed.
RAMIN AMIR ARJOMAND, piano
Thursday, November 7, 2019 @ 8:00 pm
An improvisation, two works by Giacinto Scelsi, and a fugue by J.S. Bach
Arjomand: Improvisation
Giacinto Scelsi: Quattro Illustrazioni (“Four illustrations of the metamorphoses of Vishnu,” 1953)
Scelsi: Poemi (1934/1937)
J.S. Bach: Fugue No. 8 in D-sharp minor (Well-Tempered Clavier II)
Ramin Amir Arjomand is an Iranian-American composer, pianist, conductor, and educator. Studied composition with Stephen Jaffe, Gheorghe Costinescu, Fred Lerdahl, Jonathan Kramer, and Tristan Murail. His concert music has been commissioned and/or performed by Speculum Musicae, So Percussion Ensemble, the New York Virtuoso Singers, the Cassatt Quartet, TAK Ensemble, the Columbia Collegium Musicum, and numerous independent ensembles and soloists.
As a pianist, Arjomand has performed widely as a soloist and in ensembles presenting his own works. His approach cultivates spontaneity and thrives on questioning the need for pre-concieved formal structures. In recent appearances, his activity has focused on total improvisation. His electroacoustic music, based in a ProTools digital editing environment, works primarily with recorded improvised sound material.
From 1999-2001, while a doctoral fellow at Columbia, Arjomand was the director and conductor of the University’s early music choir, Collegium Musicum. During this time he began to research the polyphonic technique of 15th-century Flemish composers, whose music became the main focus of his concert repertoire with the Collegium. His doctoral dissertation was “On Contrapuntal Practice.” His interest in vocal music and in speech as music has led to a wide variety of concert, electroacoustic and music-theater works. In 2007, his work Alma Redemptoris Mater for 12-part a capella choir was awarded First Prize in the New York Virtuoso Singers Choral Composition Competition and was premiered in New York City with Harold Rosenbaum conducting.
Arjomand has worked extensively as a composer, pianist, lecturer, and musical adviser with the Barnard College Department of Dance. His approach to dance theater composition emphasizes contrapuntal relationships between sound and movement. He has worked to develop collaborative models in which composer and choreographer can trust one another to work freely and independently toward a common goal. His collaboration with choreographer Laveen Naidu, like arrows in the hand of a warrior, daybreak, was commissioned by the Barnard Dance Department and presented by Columbia’s Miller Theatre.
Arjomand completed his doctoral work in Music Composition at Columbia in 2006. A highly sought-after teacher, he has taught Harmony and Counterpoint, Piano, Chamber Music Coaching, Ear Training, and Masterpieces of Western Music. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Columbia Department of Music.
From the Italian Academy at Columbia University.