FARMINGTON, ME (January 30, 2024)—The University of Maine at Farmington is pleased to present “An Evening of Improvised Piano Music” by Aaron Wyanski, UMF assistant professor of Music Composition. The UMF Emery Community Arts Center will feature Wyanski’s real time invention of a recital’s worth of music in the Performance Space on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024, at 7 p.m. It is free and open to the public.
Aaron Wyanski is a composer, pianist, and speculative musicologist working in, and in between, the creative practices of jazz, classical, mid-century lounge, and free improvisation. He might be the only person who can say that they’ve had compositions premiered at Carnegie Hall, destroyed an instrument onstage at CBGBs, and backed a Sinatra impersonator at a Florida aquarium. Wyanski distills this wide-ranging and stylistically diverse experience into a deeply personal artistic voice that explores memory, perspective, and vulnerability.
Aaron Wyanski
His music has been featured at New Music Miami, the Hartford New Music Festival, and Five Points Center for the Visual Arts, and he has been awarded residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Performers who have commissioned and/or premiered Wyanski’s works include Duo Refracta, the Amaranth Quartet, Juventas New Music Ensemble, Robert Frankenberry, Krista Kopper, Roger Zahab, Yoon Sun Choi, and Jacob Sacks.
An active educator, Wyanski is currently Assistant Professor of Music Composition at the University of Maine at Farmington, and maintains a small private studio. He also co-founded the Monson Seminar, a residential course for Pell-eligible and first-generation college students, alongside Kristen Case.
He has previously taught at Sweet Briar College, and the Hartt School. He holds a DMA in Music Composition from the Hartt School, an MFA in Music Composition from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, a BM in Jazz Studies from Purchase College, and an AS in Music Performance from Schenectady County Community College.
More on the UMF Emery Community Arts Center
The Emery Community Arts Center is located on Academy St. (between Main St. and High St.) in downtown Farmington. It is an innovative, experimental venue for the arts in Western Maine. It features an exciting 2,500-square-foot, 109-seat multipurpose performance space with dynamic vertical foldaway doors that open onto an outdoor performance area and a 1,600-square-foot Flex-Space gallery for traditional exhibits, new media and performance art.
The gallery is open Monday-Friday, 10am-6pm; Saturday, 12pm-6pm. Closed Sundays and holidays. Please check Emery’s website for updates at https://wpsites.maine.edu/emerycommunityartscenter/
For more information contact Ann Bartges, director of UMF Emery Community Arts Center at ann.bartges@maine.edu or 207-778-7461.
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EDITOR’S NOTE:
Image: https://www.umf.maine.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1/2024/01/RP234-036.jpg
Photo Caption: Aaron Wyanski
Photo Credit: UMF Image
