The Meadows Wind Ensemble presents a 70th birthday tribute to Simon Sargon, renowned contemporary composer, pianist and professor at SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts, with guest performers including the Meadows Symphony Orchestra and Dallas Opera baritone John Sauvey. The concert will feature six of Sargon’s original compositions, including the world premiere of a piece written for the occasion. The concert will be held at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 6, in Caruth Auditorium in the Owen Arts Center. Tickets are $13 for adults, $10 for seniors and $7 for students, SMU faculty and staff. To purchase tickets call 214-768-2787.

The program will showcase the composer’s musical diversity, from classical to jazz, from comic to serious, based on themes ranging from war memories to nature to fairy tales. The concert opens with the world premiere of Lift Off, which was specially commissioned for the Meadows Wind Ensemble by its conductor, Jack Delaney. Inspired by the crashing of waves against a cliff along the Pacific shore, the piece suggests a soaring flight into gravity-less space. The work is followed by After the Vietnam War, a cycle of seven songs for baritone and orchestra written in 1984. The text consists of poems written by Vietnam veterans about their experiences. It will be performed by members of the Meadows Symphony Orchestra, with guest baritone John Sauvey of the Dallas Opera.

The pace changes with the next work, Dusting Around with Scott’s Rag (1993), a jazzy, humorous variation on Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer. It will be performed by the Meadows Wind Ensemble and flute soloist Kathryn Martin.

Following a brief intermission, the Wind Ensemble returns for Rap Sessions, a showcase for solo trumpet and solo trombone that it commissioned in 2003. Trumpeter Durango Ruiz and trombonist James Layfield will be featured.

This piece is followed by The World of Anatevka, based on authentic folk melodies of Jewish villages of Eastern Europe and Russia, which were wiped out in the Holocaust. Sargon said, “These melodies express the deep emotions, the profound love of life, and the basic universal concerns of the vibrant people who once lived in these communities and are now no more.” The concert concludes with The Town Musicians of Bremen, a breezy and lighthearted work based on the Grimm fairy tale. Sargon composed the piece in 2002 to celebrate the birth of his first grandchild, Juliana. Michael Blayney (Juliana’s father) will serve as narrator, and choreography by SMU dance students will be featured.

About the Composer:
Simon Sargon holds degrees from Brandeis University (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) and the Juilliard School.  Prior to his appointment at SMU, he taught at Sarah Lawrence College and the Juilliard School, and served as Head of the Voice and Opera Department at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem.  Sargon served as Director of Music at Temple Emanu-El in Dallas from 1974-2001, where he built a nationally recognized program of Jewish music and established himself as a major creative figure in contemporary American Jewish music. 

Sargon enjoys wide recognition as a composer, pianist and lecturer and his compositions have been performed nationally and internationally.  The Dallas Symphony Orchestra has premiered three of his works to critical acclaim, and his instrumental and vocal works have been performed at concert halls and universities across the United States.  Notable commissions include the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Meadows Foundation, Yale University, and the Dallas Holocaust Society. The Texas Music Teachers Association named Sargon its Commissioned Composer twice, in 1994 and 2003. Sargon has received the Annual Award of Recognition from ASCAP (1991-present). He was inducted as an Honorary Member of the American Conference of Cantors (2003); named a Finalist in the National Opera Association Competition (1997); and awarded First Prize in the National Association of Teachers of Singing competition (1993). 

In 2007 Sargon traveled to Hanover, Germany where he supervised a recording of his orchestral work, “Tapestries,” by the Northwest German Philharmonic, to be broadcast throughout Germany and the European Union.  He recently completed a commission for Dallas’s contemporary chamber music ensemble, Voices of Change.  He will be honored this summer at the American Conference of Cantors national convention in San Francisco with a concert of his works.

Sargon’s works are published by Boosey and Hawkes, Southern Music, Hal Leonard, Transcontinental Music, and Lawson-Gould.  His work as both composer and pianist may be heard on the Crystal, Ongaku, Klavier and New World labels.   The Gasparo label has devoted three CDs exclusively to his compositions and two of the works recorded were selected for inclusion in the Milken Archives collection of 20th century American Jewish Music.  Sargon is listed in Baker’s Biography of Musicians (7th edition) and the International Who’s Who in Music (11th  edition).

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