Adam Unsworth (photo by Lon Horwedel)
The SUNY Fredonia Wind Ensemble will welcome French horn soloist Adam Unsworth for its upcoming concert, performing Catherine Likhuta's "Vivid Dreams" for low horn and wind ensemble, as part of a three-day residency.
The Wednesday, Nov. 16 wind ensemble concert is slated for at 8 p.m. in King Concert Hall.
Unsworth will also present a master class with Brass Area students during the residency, and will perform with the Fredonia Jazz Orchestra in concert at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 15, in Rosch Recital Hall.
Both concert events are free and the public is invited to attend.
Unsworth is Professor of Horn at the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre and Dance. Prior to his appointment in Ann Arbor, Unsworth was a member of The Philadelphia Orchestra and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He has toured Asia and Europe with the San Francisco Symphony, and is a frequent guest with the Detroit Symphony. Currently, he serves as Principal Horn of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra and is a member of the Bay Area horn quartet, Quadre.
Unsworth has five recordings as a leader to his credit: “Balance,” a jazz recording for horn, jazz sextet and chamber orchestra; “Snapshots,” a recording of contemporary classical music in collaboration with composer/pianist Ms. Likhuta; “Just Follow Instructions,” featuring the chamber music of saxophonist/composer Daniel Schnyder; and “Next Step” and “Excerpt This!” – jazz recordings which received critical acclaim from both jazz and classical reviewers. He was soloist on the premiere of “Mondrian’s Studio,” a concerto by Paul Dooley for horn and wind ensemble, and the premiere recording of Dana Wilson’s Concerto for Horn and Wind Ensemble with the University of Michigan Symphony Band.
Unsworth is a member of the New York based Gil Evans Centennial Project, which has received two GRAMMY nominations for its recordings “Centennial” and “Lines of Color,” and won the 2013 Jazz Journalist Association Award for Large Jazz Ensemble of the Year. He is also part of Japanese big band leader Miho Hazama’s M-Unit Band and has appeared on her most recent GRAMMY- nominated recordings, “Dancer in Nowhere” and “Time River.” He has been a guest musician with new music ensembles Alarm Will Sound, the Meridian Arts Ensemble, Ensemble Signal, Ensemble Linea and the Slee Sinfonietta.
A former faculty member at Temple University, Adam has appeared as a recitalist and clinician at many universities across the United States, and has made several solo and chamber appearances at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall. Unsworth received his formal training at Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Composer Likhuta is from Ukraine and studied in Australia.
The concert will open with "Fanfare for Uncommon Times" by Valerie Coleman, a work written in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, and features brass instrumentation which was also employed by Copland's “Fanfare for the Common Man” and Joan Tower's “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman.”
Suite in B flat, op. 4 by Richard Strauss will be included in the concert, while the closing work is "Come Sunday," a tribute to the Hammond organ's central role in Black worship services.
