Event Categories: Lectures,Music,U Arts Pass
Campus Locations: Dumke Recital Hall (DGH)
Cost: Free
Contact Name: School of Music
Contact Phone: 8015816762
Contact Email: events@music.utah.edu
Campus Wide Event: Yes
Link: music.utah.edu

On February 9th, 2026, the University of Utah welcomes this year’s Abravanel Distinguished Visiting Composer, Richard Festinger. Richard Festinger will present a lecture titled "Instinct and Design, Spontaneity and Constraint," in Dumke Recital Hall (DGH) at 12 PM, and he is the featured composer in the Abravanel concert, at 7:30 PM, in the same venue. 


The concert features works that combine art, personal expression, and issues of society at large. It includes two works by Richard Festinger, Invocation for reed quintet, and Icarus in Flight for string quartet, which raises climate awareness and is inspired by climate change data, combining art and science in an imaginative musical way. Also on the program are the premiere of Sappho Fragments II by Richard Aldag, which uses surviving texts by the ancient Greek poet, Flowering Dandelion for violin and electronics, by composer and visual artist Kyong Mee Choi, and Two Classified Documents, a work for snare drum based on incidents from the War on Terror by University of Utah School of Music faculty member Robert Rankin.

Performances will be by Jin-Xiang (Jx) Yu (soprano), Zachary Hammond (oboe), Lee Livengood (bass clarinet), John (JT) Posadas (viola), Walter Haman (cello), and University of Utah faculty members Caitlyn Valovick Moore (flute), Jeffrey Allardyce (alto saxophone), Laura Grantier (clarinet), Lori Wike (bassoon), Devin Maxwell (snare drum), Hasse Borup (violin), and Blanka Bednarz (violin).