On Sunday 13 November, Mortensen Hall on our Douglass Campus is the venue for a celebration of composer Robert Moevs (1920-2007), husband of noted archaeologist and Rutgers professor emerita of Classics Dr. Maria Teresa Marabini Moevs. The celebratory concert is free and open to the public.
“After serving in World War II as a pilot in the United States Air Force, Moevs’ formative years were spent in Europe… In close contact with the tightly-structured works of Boulez, and stunned by the raw sound of Edgar Varèse, Moevs synthesized these styles into what he termed ‘systematic chromaticism’.” [Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of 20th Century Classical Musicians].
Robert Moevs received his AB (1942) and AM (1952) degrees from Harvard University, with additional study at the Ecoles d’Art in Fontainebleau (1946) and the Conservatoire Nationale de Musique in Paris (1947-1951). His principal teachers were Walter Piston and Nadia Boulanger. Moevs taught at Harvard University (1955-1963) and Rutgers (1964-1991), and was a Fellow (1955) and Resident (1961) of the American Academy in Rome, and received in 1962 a Guggenheim Prize. In 1978 Moevs received the Stockhausen International Prize in Composition for his Concerto grosso for piano, percussion and orchestra, which was recorded for CRI in 1981 by the Orchestra of the Twentieth Century, conducted by Arthur Weisberg.
His wife, Maria Teresa Marabini Moevs, was a Fulbright Fellow of the American Academy in Rome in 1951-1952, and held a Rome Prize Fellowship in 1964, and a Membership at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1977-1978. She taught at Harvard in 1956-197, and at Rutgers from 1965 through 1991, and is a current emerita member of the Classics Department’s faculty. Her numerous and important published works include (more recently) Cosa: the Italian sigillata (2006) and “Per una storia del gusto: riconsiderazioni sul Calice Warren”, Bollettino d’Arte 146 (2008).
Above, Et Occidentem Illustra for Chorus and Orchestra (1964). Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Rutgers University Choir; Erich Leinsdorf, conductor (February 24-25,1967). Premiere performance. The title refers to Rutgers’ Latin motto.
Here is a fuller account of the evening, as it appears in NewJerseyStage.com
Mason Gross School of the Arts and Rutgers University Libraries present The Legacy of Robert Moevs, a celebratory concert of the modernist composer who taught at Rutgers University from 1964 to 1991. The free event takes place Sunday, November 13, 2016 at 7:30pm at Richard H. Shindell Choral Hall, inside Mortensen Hall on the Douglass Campus.
The concert features works by the late Moevs as well as composer and sound artist Judith Shatin (a Douglass College alumna, member of the Douglass Society, and student of Moevs), and Steven Kemper, assistant professor of music technology and composition at Mason Gross School of the Arts. Shatin is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor and founding director of the Virginia Center for Computer Music at the University of Virginia, where she served as doctoral advisor to Kemper.
“One special aspect of this concert is that it involves a chain of generations,” says Shatin, who adds that the pieces chosen for the event demonstrate interpretations of string quartets since the middle of the last century.
Above, Attis for Tenor, Chorus, Percussion, and Orchestra (1958-59; 1963).
Richard Burgin conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus (February 13, 1960)
The New York City-based American Modern Ensemble will perform Moevs’s String Quartet No. 1 (1959), Shatin’s Elijah’s Chariot (1995) for string quartet and electronics, and Kemper’s Rhythmanalysis I: New Brunswick, a piece for string quartet and electronics that was newly commissioned by the Moevs family.
During his career, Moevs created a large body of orchestral, chamber, vocal, and instrumental music that earned him awards including a Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Stockhausen International Prize in Composition in 1978.
Moevs composed at a time Kemper describes as “high modernism in academic art music in America—but there are also other influences in his music, like jazz, interesting rhythmic progressions, and intriguing things happening with timbre.”
As an educator, Moevs was “an inspiring professor: demanding but fair, incredibly knowledgeable and encouraging,” says Shatin.
Above, Main-Travelled Roads, Symphonic Piece no. 4 (1973) by Robert Moevs in a 2014 performance by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Schermerhorn.
Shatin’s Elijah’s Chariot, commissioned by the Kronos Quartet and the National Endowment for the Arts, was inspired by the Biblical story of Elijah, and features electronic sounds produced by digitally processing recordings of a ram’s horn playing.
Kemper’s contribution to the program incorporates field recordings from Bettenbender Plaza on the Douglass Campus and downtown New Brunswick. The composition is a companion piece to Moevs’s string quartet and is part of a larger project Kemper is working on studying how sound is related to vibrancy in urban areas.
“I had a discussion with the Moevs family about a nice way to celebrate this legacy that would be meaningful for me, as the compositional grandchild, so to speak, of Moevs in this concert,” says Kemper, who adds that looking back at the composer’s mid-20th century musical works is both exciting and challenging.
“Moevs’s music is intellectualized in a way and it can be difficult, but I think that it’s rewarding to take that on and hear it with fresh ears,” Kemper says.
The Legacy of Robert Moevs takes place Sunday, November 13, 2016 at 7:30 p.m. at Richard H. Shindell Choral Hall, inside Mortensen Hall. The event is free; tickets are not required.
Mortensen Hall is part of the Mason Gross Performing Arts Center at 85 George Street (between Route 18 and Ryders Lane), on the Douglass Campus of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, in New Brunswick.
For more information about any Mason Gross event, visit http://www.masongross.rutgers.edu or call the Mason Gross Performing Arts Center ticket office at 848-932-7511.
This concert is supported by the family of Robert Moevs and Mason Gross Presents. A reception sponsored by Rutgers University Libraries will follow the concert.
rutgersclassics.com 