For Immediate Release Contact: Barbara K. Laskin
January 20, 2004 Doug Stone
(651) 696-6203

Macalester College Music Department to Present
Multicultural Chamber Music Concerts

St. Paul, Minn. - The Macalester College Music Department will present a pair of multicultural, chamber music theatre performances featuring poetry and music by Asian women and African American men. The two programs, at 8 p.m., January 30th and at 8 p.m., February 5th, will be performed by the Core Ensemble, featuring cello, piano, percussion and actors Fiona Choi and Akin Babatunde. Both concerts, which are free and open to the public, will take place in the Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center Concert Hall, 1600 Grand Avenue, St. Paul, Minn.

The Silken Phoenix, at 8 p.m., on Friday, January 30th, represents historical periods from the 12th century Song Dynasty to the feudal society of 18th century Vietnam and celebrates the life, times and works of the Asian women poets Ho Xuan Huong of Vietnam, Izumi Shikibu from Japan and China's Li Ch'ing-chao. Novelist and poet Wang Ping, a native of Shanghai and a faculty member of Macalester College's English department, wrote the script. Composers from Vietnam (P.Q. Phan), Cambodia (Chinary Ung), China (Kui Dong) and Hong Kong (Melissa Hui) wrote the music.

Of Ebony Embers-Vignettes of the Harlem Renaissance, at 8 p.m., on Thursday, February 5th, celebrates the artistic achievements of African Americans in New York City during the 1920's and 1930's by examining the lives of three African American poets - Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen and Claude McKay - as seen through the eyes of the painter and muralist Aaron Douglas. The script is by actor/playwright Akin Babatunde, and Saundra McLain, executive director of Troupe New York provided literary collaboration and stage direction. The Core Ensemble performs music by African American composers ranging from jazz greats Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus to contemporary composers Jeffrey Mumford and George Walker.

The Core Ensemble tours nationally and internationally and receives support from the Florida Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs, the Palm Beach County Cultural Council, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Virgil Thomson Foundation and the C. Michael Paul and Josephine Bay Paul Foundation. The Core Ensemble was the 2000 recipient of the Eugene McDermott Award for Excellence in the Arts awarded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Macalester is a private liberal arts college with a full-time enrollment of 1,810 students. Macalester is nationally recognized for its commitment to academic excellence, internationalism, diversity and service to society.