The genre-blurring string quartet Sweet Plantain will open the 22nd season of Music at Noon: The Logan Series, on Thursday, Sept. 29.
The annual Music at Noon series at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, offers six performances each season by world-class chamber ensembles. The series’ lunchtime setting—and free admission—are intended to help introduce the energy and diversity of chamber music and chamber music’s artists in a relaxed, unintimidating environment.
Sweet Plantain’s performance takes place at noon in the McGarvey Commons of the college’s Reed Union Building. Admission is free and open to the public, and reserved parking is available in the Reed lot.
Sweet Plantain’s musicians artfully fuse the western classical traditions in which they were trained with the hip-hop, jazz improv, and Latin rhythms on which they were raised in the South Bronx, New Jersey, and Venezuela. Together they give voice to a sound that is contemporary, multicultural and very New York.
Out of desire to give voice to a contemporary, urban, Latino sound, much of Sweet Plantain’s repertoire is rooted in improvisation. “The art of improvisation, once an integral part of western classical music, has all but been abandoned in the training and performance of classical artists, although it continues to occupy an important role in nearly every other musical genre,” Sweet Plantain states in its mission. “Therefore, we work to weave the possibilities of improvisation into classical music by arranging existing pieces and writing original compositions that contain improvised sections. We also make use of extended percussive techniques to best achieve and showcase the rhythmic vitality characteristic of Latin music.”
Founded at Penn State Behrend by Warren philanthropist and arts advocate Kay Logan, the series’ unique musical outreach has been honored with an Adventurous Programming Award by Chamber Music America and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. The series receives major support from the Kay Logan Trust and additional funding from the Penn State Behrend Student Activity Fee, Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts and the Erie Arts Endowment of ArtsErie.
For more information about The Logan Series or Sweet Plantain’s appearance, contact Logan Series director Dr. Gary Viebranz at 814-898-6289 or e-mail gav3@psu.edu.
Added by Penn State Behrend on August 29, 2011