Washington College Composer Featured At This Year’s National Music Festival in June

Washington College in June will play host again to the National Music Festival, and among the many performances this year is the premiere of a newly revised composition by Assistant Professor of Music John Leupold. Leupold’s “An Actuated Agglomerate” will be performed on June 15 at 7:30 p.m. in Decker Theatre.

“I am delighted to have the talented musicians of the NMF give this work its premiere performance at Washington College,” says Leupold, whose piece will be performed along with works by Igor Stravinsky and Brenno Blauth.

Now in its fourth year as the National Music Festival at Washington College, the festival brings musicians and music scholars to Chestertown for two weeks of practice, education, and performance. More than 35 concerts—from solo recitals to symphony orchestra with chorus—are presented on the stages of the Daniel V. Gibson Center for the Arts and in venues downtown. This year’s festival is June 5-18. Among the mentors this year will be another WC faculty member, James Rester, lecturer in music, who will be mentoring horns.

Leupold first wrote “An Actuated Agglomerate” in 2010, but he completely revised it for this performance. Its three movements—“Accumulation,” “Quiescent,” and “Galvanization”—will be performed by a chamber orchestra comprised of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, two horns, percussion, harp, piano, violin, viola, cello, and bass.

“The whole work was inspired by the idea of things slowly coming into focus,” Leupold says. “When we have an experience, we often do not realize what we are experiencing until it has been happening for some time already. That is the basis of this piece. It takes time for the event to completely come into focus. There is also an undercurrent of the experience being sparked by an exciting event.”

For more about the National Music Festival, including a complete schedule and ticketing information, visit https://nationalmusic.us/ .