In honor of classical music greats, a group of Northwestern performers and composers have united to raise awareness for a unique music genre. Exposure: Musicians for New Music was founded Fall Quarter to organize free concerts and showcase new classical music.
“New classical music gets kind of a bad rap, and we wanted to bring this music we love to a wider audience,” said Music and Weinberg sophomore Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody, an Exposure organizer.
New classical music, also known as new art music, uses the same instruments as traditional classical music but calls on influences from Middle Eastern music to pop, Rudavsky-Brody said.
Composers can present their work to Exposure to be performed by the group’s core musicians. The group includes bass, piano, flute and oboe players and several vocalists
“We’re always trying to (expand) so we have an instrumentalist from every category that Northwestern has to offer,” said organizer Ryan MacGavin, a Music junior. “We also want to create new music written for the instrumentalists performing for us to sponsor a composer/performer relationship.”
Exposure will sponsor a Feb. 10 event at the Dittmar Memorial Gallery as part of the Tuesdays at Dittmar series. The hour-long concert begins at 7:30 p.m. and includes catered refreshments before and after the show.
“The point of the concert is to provide music that’s shorter and less formal than most concerts,” said Rudavsky-Brody. “People don’t have to feel like they’re going to a concert as much as enjoying new music.”
The concert will showcase student ensembles, a graduate string quartet and a professional singer from Chicago. While the group’s organizers are all NU students, MacGavin said Exposure will not be applying for Associated Student Government status because its goal is reaching out to musicians beyond the school.
“We’re just as open to other schools’ performance works as well as performers around the Chicago area,” MacGavin said. “Eventually it’s our goal to import people from around the country, whether they’re performers or composers, so they can be featured in our programs. But that’s maybe a year away.”
Although the group might ask for donations, MacGavin said the concerts will stay free.
“It’s almost wrong to charge people to come to these concerts,” MacGavin said. “Not only is it our passion, but we’re trying to expose people to the new art that’s happening around them.”
Rudavsky-Brody said he hopes people will come to appreciate the genre.
“What we’re doing is in a way the future of concert music,” Rudavsky-Brody said. “Obviously the old masters are great, but a lot of people get turned off by some of the newer music. They hear one new composer and think it’s all weird. As composers we think it’s very interesting, and we think other people will as well once they give it a chance.”
