ANN ARBOR, MI – The University of Michigan Life Sciences Orchestra will pay tribute to the music of Scotland, and the opening of a new U-M scientific research building, with a free public concert on Sunday, Jan. 15.

In the first performance of the LSO's sixth season, the orchestra will play three Scottish-themed works beginning at 4 p.m. at Hill Auditorium. Music director John Padgett Goodell and assistant conductor Clinton Smith will lead the LSO, which is made up of members of the U-M's medical, health and life science community. Goodell is a graduate, and Smith a current student, of the noted orchestral conducting program at the U-M School of Music.

On one piece, the LSO will be joined by a solo bagpiper who also studies the science of hearing. Ewan Macpherson, Ph.D., is a research investigator at the U-M Medical School's Kresge Hearing Research Institute, and practices his instrument in a soundproof room at the research facility.

The concert is dedicated to the opening of the U-M Medical School's new 470,000-square-foot Biomedical Sciences Research Building, which will soon be home to the laboratories of dozens of U-M scientists and their research teams. Lester Monts, Ph.D., U-M senior vice provost for academic affairs and a professor of music, will give opening remarks.

The program will begin with two 20 th -century works based on old tunes from Scotland and northern England: “An Orkney wedding, with sunrise” by Peter Maxwell Davies, featuring Macpherson, and “A Christmas Dance (Sir Roger de Coverly)” by Frank Bridge. It will conclude with the Symphony No. 3, op. 56 by Felix Mendelssohn, known as the “Scottish” symphony and written after his 1829 trip to Scotland.

For more information, visit www.umich.edu/~lsorch, e-mail orchestra@umich.edu, or call (734) 936-ARTS. The LSO is part of the U-M Health System's Gifts of Art program, which brings the world of art and music to the U-M Health System.  

The LSO was founded in the spirit of the U-M's Life Sciences Initiative, which seeks to encourage scientists and health professionals to work together, surmounting the traditional boundaries between academic disciplines in the basic sciences, health sciences, health care, engineering, social science, and the humanities.

The LSO brings together faculty, staff, students, volunteers and alumni from the medical, health and life sciences areas of the U-M, giving them an outlet for their musical talents and a chance to interact with one another across academic boundaries. Members include doctors and research scientists, medical students and residents, hospital staff, nurses, public health specialists, bioengineers, pharmacists, dentists, research assistants and family members of U-M life science community members. Founded by students and staff from the U-M Health System, the orchestra made its debut in January 2001.

Written by Kara Gavin

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