UT Symphony Orchestra & Miro Quartet to Peform World Premiere at Bass Concert Hall, 12/4

The world-renowned Miró Quartet and The University of Texas Symphony Orchestra present a program featuring the world premiere of a piece written for string quartet and chamber orchestra by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts. Puts, a former Butler School of Music faculty member and long-time colleague of the Miró Quartet, composed the work as part of a year-long celebration of the centennial of The University of Texas School of Music which begins with this December 2013 concert. "We are so excited to kick off the year-long celebration of 100 years of music at The University of Texas with this concert featuring our world-class orchestra and the world premiere of a work composed by former faculty member Kevin Puts," says Interim Director of the Butler School of Music and Professor Glenn Richter.

Returning to Bass Concert Hall after a triumphant centennial performance of Stravinksy's Le Sacre du Printemps with the Joffrey Ballet, The University of Texas Symphony Orchestra under the baton of maestro Gerhardt Zimmermann, will also perform the Shostakovich Symphony No. 5.

The University of Texas Symphony Orchestra is quickly becoming recognized as one of the top college orchestras in the nation. They have been featured since 2007 as part of The International Festival-Institute at Round Top's yearly "August to April Series," and in 2008 the group performed at The Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, Texas. In 2009 they performed to wide acclaim at the Texas Music Educator's Association convention in San Antonio, Texas. Students in UTSO have had the opportunity to work with noted musicians such as Jennifer Higdon, John Adams, William Bolcom and Claude Baker, in addition to featured appearances with UT's world-renowned faculty of soloists and composers.

Founded in 1995 at the Oberlin Conservatory and hailed by The New York Times as possessing "explosive vigor and technical finesse," the dynamic Miró Quartet, one of America's highest-profile chamber groups enjoys its place at the top of the international chamber music scene. Now in its second decade, the Miró Quartet is the Faculty String Quartet-in residence at the Butler School of Music. Their honors include a 2005 Cleveland Quartet Award, as well as being the first ensemble to be awarded the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant.

Kevin Puts' How Wild the Sea was inspired by the tsunami that hit Japan in 2011. "I was compelled by news footage of an elderly Japanese man sitting helpless on the rooftop of his house as it is carried away by the powerful tsunami tide," says Puts. The world premiere of How Wild the Sea was commissioned for the Miró Quartet and chamber orchestra by Texas Performing Arts at The University of Texas at Austin, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Society, City Music Cleveland, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra and the Naples Philharmonic. Additional support was provided to Texas Performing Arts by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

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