NEWS RELEASE

Contact: David West (west@nsula.edu )
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466

1/17/2003

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NATCHITOCHES-American composer Robert Kapilow will conduct the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) in his new composition: "'03: This New, Immense, Unbounded World," in a concert at Northwestern State University Friday, Jan. 31 at 7:30 p.m. in the A.A. Fredericks Auditorium. The NSU Chamber Choir will perform with the orchestra. Dr. Burt Allen is the conductor of the Chamber Choir.

Tickets are $5. NSU and Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts students are admitted free with I.D.

Commissioned by the LPO and the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism to celebrate the Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial, the piece will debut in Baton Rouge Saturday, Jan. 18. The LPO and Kapilow then tour the state, performing in seven other Louisiana cities including Natchitoches. The program will also include Dvorak's "Symphony No. 9" (New World).

In creating '03: This New, Immense, Unbounded World, Kapilow has traveled across Louisiana, inviting citizens to participate in his musical and cultural research. Kapilow held a series of town meetings and creative workshops throughout Louisiana. Mayors, tribal elders, students and retirees joined Kapilow in the creative process and discussed the significance of the Louisiana Purchase.

The inspiration for the title of Kapilow's ''03: This New, Immense, Unbounded World was the passionate congressional debate surrounding the Louisiana Purchase. The composer has engaged in similarly lively discussions with the citizens of Louisiana, which have given him insight into the historic event itself. While touring Louisiana, Kapilow previewed his newest composition, giving people the rare opportunity to influence a classical work-in-progress. He also has engaged in an ongoing dialogue with Louisianians through a special Web site, www.lplpo.com.

Kapilow's piece is a 20-minute composition in five movements for orchestra and chorus. It is a musical tribute to the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, in which President Thomas Jefferson and his representatives negotiated the acquisition of the immense Louisiana Territory from French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. The territory's 820,000 square miles was the largest single parcel of land ever acquired by the United States, extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border and from the Mississippi River westward to the Rocky Mountains. The transfer was effected Dec. 20, 1803, at what is now Jackson Square in New Orleans.

According to Kapilow, interpreting the landscape of the Louisiana Purchase through music requires the participation of as many people as possible, because the purchase's effects were profound.

"Lives were both ended and expanded; it [the era] was simultaneously wonderful and terrible," he says. "While [the Louisiana Purchase] set the tone and very much laid down the path for what America was to become, the deal was the death knell for the American Indians and forced many of the blacks in the territory to lose their freedom. The Louisiana Purchase was a kaleidoscope of experiences, and, through an ongoing discussion with the people of Louisiana, we hope to pay homage to them all."

The interactive process is similar to the one Kapilow has used in such previous compositions as Union Station for the Kansas City Symphony and D.C.: Monuments, which was commissioned by the Kreeger Museum and the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. But the Louisiana Purchase tribute marks the first time he has invited a state to take part in the creative process.

Kapilow is celebrated for his ability to bring the wonder of classical music to new audiences. He studied at the age of 21 with famed composition teacher Nadia Boulanger, two years before receiving his master's degree from Yale University. The following spring he graduated from the Eastman Conservatory and immediately returned to Yale as assistant conductor of the Yale Symphony Orchestra. Less than a year later, at the age of 24, he was appointed music director and lecturer at the university.

Since then, as conductor or collaborator, Kapilow has performed with the symphony orchestras of Boston, Philadelphia, Kansas City, St. Louis, Toronto, Atlanta, Indianapolis and Milwaukee, as well as those of New Jersey and North Carolina. He regularly hosts and conducts three of his best-known works - Green Eggs and Ham and Gertrude McFuzz both based on stories by Dr. Seuss, and his own adaptation of Chris Van Alsburgh's Polar Express.

Kapilow also has gained a wide following through his acclaimed educational series, "What Makes It Great?," frequently broadcast on National Public Radio and adapted for audiences at New York's Lincoln Center, Boston's Fleetbank Series, the Friends of Chamber Music series in Kansas City and the Cerritos Center near Los Angeles.

For ticket information, contact Courtney Hornsby in the Natchitoches Mayor's Office at 357-3823 or the Mrs. H.D. Dear Sr. and Alice E. Dear School of Creative and Performing Arts at (318) 357-4522.

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