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Press Release

Music Department Hosts andPlay duo for ‘Collaborating with Technology’ Presentation

Contact: Michele Abba

805-756-2406; mabba@calpoly.edu

SAN LUIS OBISPO — The Music Department will host andPlay duo — Maya Bennardo, violin, and Hannah Levinson, viola — for a talk and concert at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 20, in Room 218 of the Davidson Music Center.

Maya Bennardo, violin, and Hannah Levinson, viola of the band andPlay
Maya Bennardo, left, and Hannah Levinson of andPlay.

Titled “Collaborating with Technology,” the presentation will feature pieces the duo commissioned by Bethany Younge, Lester St. Louis and David Bird, which showcase three different ways of incorporating technology into performance.

Based in New York City, Bennardo and Levinson first played to an eager crowd on Fire Island in the summer of 2012 and have since commissioned more than 40 works.

andPlay’s debut album, “playlist” (2019, New Focus Recordings), features world-premiere studio recordings of works by Ashkan Behzadi, David Bird and Clara Iannotta. “playlist” was recorded as part of the duo’s artist residency at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center in Troy, New York, and was listed on Bandcamp’s “Best Contemporary Classical: October 2019.”

Recent highlights include a five-city tour in Sweden performing their Translucent Harmonies program, appearances at the Oh My Ears Festival in Phoenix, and the Re:Sound Festival in Cleveland. The duo has also performed at venues including the Center for New Music in San Francisco, Monk Space in Los Angeles, Scandinavia House and Roulette in New York, Short North Stage in Columbus, Ohio, and Aftershock Theater in Pittsburgh.

Beyond the concert stage, Bennardo and Levinson are passionate educators offering workshops in contemporary string techniques, chamber music coaching and composition notation for strings. They have given performances and masterclasses at Arizona State University, UC Santa Cruz, Western Connecticut State University, Otterbein University, Bowling Green State University and were artists-in-residence at the Snow Pond Composers Workshop in Sidney, Maine.

The presentation is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by Cal Poly’s College of Liberal Arts and Music Department. For more information, call the Music Department at 805-756-2406 or see the department’s calendar.

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