Join celebrated composer George Crumb, with Music professors Eugene Narmour and Anna Weesner of Penn, and Robert Maggio of West Chester University in a special preconcert panel discussion at 7:00 pm of Crumb's Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale), a work that symbolizes prehistoric time.

Then at 8:00 pm join Penn Presents at the Annenberg Center (behind the Penn Humanities Forum) for an evening's performance by the imaginative, quirky, and provocative sextet eighth blackbird. The group will perform Minimum Security Trailer (2000) by Minimum Security Composers Collective, Vox Balaenae (1971) by George Crumb, and Divinum Mysterium (2000) by Daniel Kellogg.

Hailed as ambassadors of new music, eighth blackbird is known for its astounding musical versatility as well as for its dedication to the works of today’s composers. Currently ensemble-in-residence at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, the sextet was honored in 2000 with the prestigious Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the first BMI/Boudleaux-Bryant Fund Commission. The New York Times praised eighth blackbird as a “superb contemporary music sextet” during the 1998-99 season, after its New York debut at Merkin Concert Hall. In 1998 it became the first contemporary ensemble to win first prize at the Concert Artists Guild International Competition, where it was also awarded the Rockport Chamber Music Festival Prize. Round Nut Tool, eighth blackbird’s debut CD, was released in 1999. 

The ensemble’s 2001-02 season features residencies and performances throughout the United States, including stops in Washington, DC, Philadelphia, San Francisco and New York, where the group makes its Lincoln Center debut in Alice Tully Hall.