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Intellect

Composer Christian Asplund plans BYU faculty recital July 11

Composer-performer Christian Asplund, a faculty member from Brigham Young University’s School of Music, will perform Saturday, July 11, at 7:30 p.m. in the Madsen Recital Hall. He will be joined by New York-based improvising duo David Grollman and Valerie Kuehne. The event is free.

"Asplund, in his well-crafted compositions, delightfully teases us on those slippery slopes between composition and improvisation," composer Stuart Dempster said. Asplund’s music has been performed across the world and he has received many commissions.

He was born and raised in Canada where he received a musical education in the Royal Conservatory system. He has studied and earned degrees from BYU, City University of New York, Mills College and University of Washington where his teachers included Thea Musgrave, Alvin Curran, Michael Hicks, Tom Durham, John Rahn, Joel Durand, and Stuart Dempster.

He was a co-founder of postmodern chamber opera Seattle Experimental Opera in 1994 and founder of Seattle Composers Salon, which has been a major contributor to Seattle’s music life for nine years.

Grollman and Kuehne are a duo of cello and drums who play freely improvised music. They have played in various performance spaces in New York.

For more information contact Ken Crossley at ken_crossley@byu.edu or (801) 422-9348.

Writer: Brandon Garrett

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Photo by Mark A. Philbrick/BYU Photo

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