Ithaca College to Celebrate Karel Husa’s 80 Years of Life and Music

The public is invited to two free events commemorating the life and acclaimed music of Karel Husa, the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and former Ithaca College faculty member who turned 80 in August.

On Sunday, October 14, Husa himself will deliver a lecture as the Karel Husa Visiting Professor of Composition. Created in Husa’s honor in 1987, the visiting professorship brings an eminent composer to campus every year. The program has enabled student composers to work with such leading composers as Samuel Adler, John Corigliano, Libby Larsen, Christopher Rouse, and Joan Tower. Husa’s talk will begin at 8:15 p.m. in the recital hall in the James J. Whalen Center for Music.

On Monday, October 15, student and faculty ensembles will perform selections of Husa’s music. The gala concert, "The Music of Karel Husa," will begin at 8:15 p.m. in Ford Hall in the Whalen Center. A reception will follow in the Craig McHenry Lobby.

The concert’s offerings will include Music for Prague 1968, written in Ithaca by an outraged Husa in response to the Soviet invasion of his native Czechoslovakia in 1968. The piece was commissioned by Ithaca College and premiered by the Ithaca College Concert Band. Though banned in Czechoslovakia by the Communist government and never officially heard there until after the 1989 election of President Václav Havel, Music for Prague 1968 has been performed throughout the world and is now a standard in the modern orchestral repertory.

The College’s symphony orchestra, conducted by Grant Cooper, will perform both Music for Prague and Celebración. The wind ensemble, led by Stephen Peterson with pianist Charis Dimaras, will perform Husa’s Concertino for Piano and Winds. Also appearing will be the brass choir, conducted by Keith Kaiser; percussion ensembles, directed by Gordon Stout and Conrad Alexander; and various faculty chamber ensembles.

The School of Music houses the Karel Husa Archive, which provides students and scholars with an intimate view of materials from the composer’s career. The collection contains original manuscripts of many of Husa’s compositions; letters to and from other great composers, including Bernstein, Boulanger, Copland, Foss, and Poulenc; and Husa’s honors, including the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for his String Quartet no. 3 and the 1993 Grawemeyer Award. The latter recognizes individuals and organizations for their innovative and powerful ideas in the fields of the humanities, social sciences, and performing arts. Other Grawemeyer recipients include Mikhail Gorbachev and former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans. Among Husa’s many other awards is the State Medal of Merit, First Class --- the Czech Republic’s highest civilian honor --- which Havel presented to Husa in 1995.

Born in Prague in 1921, Husa studied composition and conducting at the Prague Conservatory and later at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris. His Concerto for Orchestra was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and first performed in 1986 under the baton of Zubin Mehta. Seven years later the New York Philharmonic commissioned Husa’s Violin Concerto for its 150th anniversary. Husa taught composition at Ithaca College from 1967 to 1986 and is the Kappa Alpha Professor of Music Emeritus at Cornell University, where he taught from 1954 until his retirement in 1992.

Husa has conducted the major orchestras of the world, including those in Paris, London, Hamburg, Stockholm, Zurich, Hong Kong, Boston, and New York. In 1990, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Husa realized a longtime dream when he returned to the city of his birth and conducted the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance of Music for Prague 1968.