School of Music Dean Karl Paulnack was featured as a guest artist at the Maslanka and Alaskan Composer Festival held in Juneau last week.School of Music Dean Karl Paulnack was featured as a guest artist at the Maslanka and Alaskan Composer Festival held in Juneau last week.
“I really enjoyed my first-ever visit to Alaska,” Paulnack said. “It’s a place of overwhelming natural beauty.”
Sponsored by the Juneau Community Bands in collaboration with the University of Alaska Southeast and Thunder Mountain High School, the four-day festival showcased the works of visiting composer David Maslanka and Alaskan composers Emerson Eads, Artemio Sandoval, Tyree Pino, and William Todd Hunt.
“I particularly enjoy the opportunity to work with living composers,” Paulnack noted. “It’s not that I have anything against playing Bach and Mozart and Beethoven, but if you have a question about what they wrote, you simply have to wonder. With living composers, you can just ask them.”
Festival highlights included a master class with Maslanka and a lecture titled Music from Carnegie Hall to the Grand Canyon to the Shore of Lynn Canal…a conversation with musicians who have done it all!, led by Paulnack and two of his colleagues from Boston Conservatory, Brian Calhoon and Rhonda Rider. Weekend performances included the Taku Winds on Saturday and an afternoon of chamber music on Sunday, featuring Paulnack (piano), Calhoon (percussion), Rider (cello), Dwayne and Caryn Corbin (percussion), and Katy Giorgio (trombone).
“One of the highlights of the concert was being reunited with musical partners from Boston and playing together again with some folks I haven’t seen in a few years,” Paulnack said. “It was an added bonus for me.”
For a more information, visit the festival website.
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20150623085303333