Professor Peter Child, who has been on the MIT faculty since 1986, will celebrate his birthday 10 days early with a recital of original works featuring performances by MIT students and faculty and local musicians on Sunday, April 27 at 3 p.m. in Killian Hall. "Child Play III" will be the third faculty concert of his music at MIT.
Dawn Perlner (S.B. 2001) will solo with the MIT Wind Ensemble conducted by Frederick Harris for Child's "Concertino for Violin and Chamber Winds" (2002). She calls the concertino "somewhat challenging" because of the complex patterns and changing of the left-hand position by half-steps. "The resulting line is extremely exciting and unlike anything I've played before. I love the way Professor Child chose to combine the textures of one solo string with the contrasting wind choir," she said, calling all three movements "very unique and beautiful."
Child "is a very thoughtful teacher, never taking a concept for granted but holding it up in the light for his students to examine and reevaluate before moving on," said sophomore Daniel Stein, who plays flute with the wind ensemble and who is in Child's "Introduction to Analysis" class.
The birthday concert program also includes "Fantasia," a new work for harpsichord performed by visiting lecturer Mark Kroll; "Bleak Light: Four Poems of John Hildebidle" (2001), performed by baritone David Ripley and pianist Arlene Kies; "Prayers from the Ark" (2001), a work for wind quintet and narrator performed by music lecturer Jean Rife on horn and freelance professional musicians, with Associate Provost for the Arts Alan Brody as narrator; "Sonatina for Oboe" (1986) performed by Theodore Baskin, principal oboeist with the Montreal Symphony; and "Duo for Piano, Four-Hands" (2002), performed by Evan Hirsch and Sally Pinkas.
For more information on the recital, call 253-2826.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on April 16, 2003.
