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The free concert will begin at 8:15 p.m. in the Hockett Family Recital Hall in the Whalen Center. Violinist Susan Waterbury, cellist Elizabeth Simkin, and pianist Read Gainsford will perform. Higdon will also meet with student composers during an afternoon composition seminar.
Musical America praised Higdon's Piano Trio as ". . . beautiful music in the traditional sense, likable on first hearing, yet with a decidedly modern bent. Its sound is full and expansive, at times even reaching the sonic dimensions of Brahms, yet it retains a buoyancy that makes it happily transparent; even in its most forceful moments all three instruments speak with a special brilliance."
Higdon is an active freelance composer and a faculty member at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music. USA Today named her orchestral work Shine as "Best New Piece of the Year" in that publication's Top Picks in Classical Music for 1996. Higdon's works are recorded on two dozen discs, including a recent release on Telarc of blue cathedral by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
The Heckscher Foundation-Ithaca College Composition Prize is awarded annually to encourage composition at a high level.
Contributed by Erik Kibelsbeck
Photo of Higdon by Jeff Hurwitz
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20040910110824807