While most of the summer concert series in Buffalo are just kicking off, one of the most unique has already finished up.

The University at Buffalo’s “June in Buffalo” came to a close this weekend with another great series of great musicians, composers and performances. The series was presented by the UB Department of Music and The Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music. The festival took place from June 4 to 10 and was a festival and conference dedicated to composers.

According to their website,

June in Buffalo offered an intensive schedule of seminars, lectures, workshops, professional presentations, participant forums and open rehearsals as well as afternoon and evening concerts open to the general public and critics. Each of the invited composers had one of his/her pieces performed during the festival. The evening performances featured faculty composers, resident ensembles and soloists renowned internationally as interpreters of contemporary music.

Allan Kozinn from The New York Times took an in-depth look at the program as a whole, calling it an “odd duck among new-music festivals.” The combination of expert composers and young hopefuls gives a great balance of talent.

He further explained,

Hearing the students’ works can be magical when their ideas are fresh. Some pieces are at a stage where you can still parse their influences, even as they find their own voices. Others are already onto something distinctive, and you wonder where they might go from here.

Because of a flight delay and misadventures stemming from a wayward GPS unit, I missed the beginning of an Ensemble Interface program devoted to six of these scores on Thursday, but I heard enough to be convinced that the young composers are working at a high level.

Here was a preview from the event:

Photo courtesy of Youtube.