Music at the Museum presents: Recent Music by Allen Shawn

On Saturday September 11, Music at the Museum welcomes back composer and pianist Allen Shawn. He will be joined by Ronald Feldman (cello), Elizabeth Morse (harp), William Safford (contrabassoon), and Thomas Bogden (voice). The program consists entirely of premieres of new music by Shawn.

Masks will be required for all audience members for the duration of the event. Thank you for helping to keep all of our visitors, staff, and volunteers safe.

Watch live online! The performance will be live streamed on the Bennington Museum and the CAT-TV Facebook pages. You do not need to have a Facebook account to watch live. Go to facebook.com/benningtonmuseum or facebook.com/CATTVbennington. If you are prompted to Log In or Create an Account, click on the words “Not Now.” Look for the

icon on the left hand side of the screen to know when the live broadcast has started. Click on it to go to the live broadcast. (Note that the LIVE icon will not be present until the broadcast begins.) Once you’ve located the video, we recommend making it full screen for the best viewing experience.

Allen Shawn (born 1948) grew up in New York City in a literary family. He started composing music at the age of ten and studied piano with Frances Dillon and Emilie Harris as a teenager. Later he studied composition with Leon Kirchner and Earl Kim at Harvard University, with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and with Jack Beeson at Columbia University. Since 1985 he has lived in Vermont and been on the music faculty of Bennington College.

Shawn’s work list as of 2021 includes a dozen orchestral pieces, including a Symphony, two Piano Concertos, a Violin Concerto, two Cello Concertos, an Oboe Concerto, and a Double Concerto for clarinet and cello; Seven Piano Sonatas and many additional piano pieces, including several for piano four-hands and two pianos; much chamber music; vocal music; and three chamber operas. His recordings include numerous chamber music CDs; five volumes of piano music, including a CD devoted to his work by the German pianist, Julia Bartha; his Piano Concerto performed by Ursula Oppens with the Albany Symphony, conducted by David Alan Miller; and his chamber opera, The Music Teacher, to a libretto by his brother Wallace, on Bridge Records. He can also be heard on a recent CD of improvisational duos with veteran bassist Michael Bisio, available on bandcamp. He is currently working on a music-theatre collaboration with Anna Maria Hong, Jean Randich, and Sue Rees, which will be performed at Bennington College in Spring, 2022.

Accompanying Allen Shawn for this performance are Thomas Bogden, Ronald Feldman, Elizabeth Morse, and William Safford.