UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH COSPONSORS LECTURES BY VISITING CHINESE-AMERICAN COMPOSER

PITTSBURGH, March 9 -- The University of Pittsburgh has joined with the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society (PCMS) to offer a number of free educational and entertainment events in the city with Chinese-American composer Bright Sheng,

March 23-27.

During his five-day residency presented by PCMS, Sheng will give a series of public lectures and master class and coaching sessions with university students at Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University and young musicians from City Music Center's chamber orchestra and children's choir.

During China's Cultural Revolution, Sheng worked for seven years as a pianist and percussionist in a folk music and dance troupe in Chinghai Province near the Tibetan border, where he also studied and collected folk music. After the Revolution, he earned his undergraduate degree in music composition at Changhai Conservatory of Music, before moving to New York in 1982 to continue his studies with teachers such as Leonard Bernstein and George Perle.

Sheng has received many awards and prizes in the United States, including the National Endowment for the Arts, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, Guggenheim Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and Koussevetzky Foundation, as well as commissions from many prestigious organizations such as the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Boston Symphony, Sheng's music has been performed widely in the United States, Europe and Asia. He currently is on the composition faculty of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

The following events are free and open to the public:

• Lecture, "China and Its New Music," and reception

7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., Thursday, March 23.

Frick Fine Arts Building, Schenley Drive (opposite Carnegie Library)

Cosponsored by PCMS and Pitt's Asian Studies Program

• Lecture, "Folk Music and the Composer"

4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., Friday, March 24

Pitt's Music Building, Fifth and Bellefield Avenues, Oakland

Cosponsored by PCMS and Pitt's Music Department

• Performance of two Chinese folk songs by City Music Center's chamber orchestra and children's choir (with composer conducting)

7:40 p.m., Monday, March 27

Grand Foyer, Carnegie Music Hall, 4400 Forbes Avenue, Oakland

Additionally, for those holding a PCMS series concert ticket for the Takács Quartet at 8 p.m., Monday, March 27, there is a pre-concert lecture and demonstration by Sheng of his String Quartet No. 3, in Carnegie Music Hall.

For more information about the events cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh, call 412-648-7370. For all other information regarding Sheng or PCMS, call 412-624-4129.

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