Flutist returns for Faculty Select Concert Wednesday

Sunday, April 5, 2015
Venezuelan flutist and DePauw University alumnus Orlando Cela

Venezuelan flutist and DePauw University alumnus Orlando Cela returns to Greencastle this week at the invitation of the School of Music faculty to offer the next Faculty Select Series concert at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 8 in the Green Center's Thompson Recital Hall.

Known for his extended technique and collaborations on new works, Cela will perform a range of music from the "Sonata in A Minor" by C. P. E. Bach to "Ansvāra" by Indian composer Shirish Korde celebrated for "integrating and synthesizing music of diverse cultures into breathtaking works of complex expressive layers."

While at DePauw, the 1997 graduate studied with music professors Anne Reynolds and Eric Edberg.

"Orlando is an inspiring performer," Reynolds said. "His Latin background shows up in his musical verve and excitement; he's an experimenter and a risk taker."

The path Cela is now on is completing his fifth recording, "Project Extended," a compilation of pieces by contemporary composers who wrote works for him using nothing except extended techniques, such as multiphonic flutter-tonguing.

His love of music from all over the world also inspired him to create Las Paraulatas Bostonianas -- a group that expands the tradition of Venezuelan folk music -- and to learn to play different kinds of flutes, including "dizi" (a Chinese flute), at the Kogod Courtyard of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.

Cela plays in a variety of styles and settings, having performed with the Ensemble 451, I/O New Music Ensemble, Music at Eden's Edge, Duo SopraVoce, as a solo and collaborative performer in the U.S. and abroad in the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Spain, Great Britain and China, including lecturing and performing for the MusicAcoustica Electroacoustic Music Festival at the Central Conservatory of China.

During his visit to DePauw, a part of the School's 21st-Century Musician Initiative, Cela will talk with composition students and play some of their new works, visit Reynold's flute choir and play two very different concerts, including a program of Germanic flute for the 10:20 a.m. Wednesday Recital Hour. Then for the Faculty Select concert at 7:30 p.m., he will perform a collection of contemporary music for flutes and electronics (live, sampled, created, etc.), featuring the works of Natacha Diels, Peter Koeszeghy, Shirish Korde and Edgard Varčse, among others.

General admission tickets for the Faculty Select Series are $5. Tickets for all students, seniors, and youth, are free thanks to season sponsors Judson and Joyce Green.

To obtain tickets, visit www.depauw.edu/music/tickets, stop by or call the GCPA box office, 658-4827.

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