An art exhibition opening reception is planned Friday from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the Visual Arts Building.
Featuring the work of more than 600 students from more than 40 courses, the School of Arts and Humanities at UT Dallas kicks off The Spring Arts Festival this week.
The Festival, which runs through May 11, invites the public to campus for classical music, jazz, dance, guitar, piano and vocal performances, as well as an art exhibition and reception.
Highlighting the events will be a concert conducted by internationally renowned composer and UT Dallas Professor of Music Robert Xavier Rodríguez. He will lead the UT Dallas Musica Nova ensemble in a free concert on Friday, May 3, at 8 p.m. in the Jonsson Performance Hall.
The evening will feature also UT Dallas students accompanied by pianist Michael McVay in a performance of The Musical Offering, a collection of pieces that Johann Sebastian Bach composed for King Frederick “The Great” of Prussia.
The Musica Nova ensemble will perform a free concert on Friday, May 3, at 8 p.m. in the Jonsson Performance Hall.
“Bach’s Musical Offering is one of the greatest musical treasures of all time, and it is hardly ever performed. Our concert will be a rare opportunity to hear this magnificent work in its entirety,” said Rodríguez.
The ensemble will also perform, among other pieces, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Trio in B-flat, Op. 97, also called the “Archduke Trio.”
Musicians performing in Musica Nova are drawn from the UT Dallas Chamber Music Ensemble, which provides opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students to play music written for small and large ensembles, as well as multi-media and theater works of all periods.
Musica Nova guest artists have included members of the Dallas Symphony and Dallas Opera orchestras and singers from the New York City Opera and Metropolitan Opera. Past Musica Nova concert programs have ranged from Medieval and Renaissance dances and motets to standard repertoire to experimental new works written for or developed by the ensemble. Concerts have included an evening of jigs, an evening of tangos, French cabaret and mariachi songs, chamber opera, ballet and a fully staged commedia dell'arte pantomime.