Department of Music

The UVA Music Library popular series "Making Noise" is back with a performance by Colin McAllister entitled "The Library at Night" on Friday, October 27th at 7:30pm at the Music Library in Old Cabell Hall.  The Music Library will host a pre-concert reception beginning at 6:30pm.

Drawing inspiration from Alberto Manguel’s The Library at Night (a series of essays on the idea of the library), Colin McAllister’s captivating recital takes the listener on a literary, musical and historical journey through time and place. For several of Manguel’s essays (e.g. The Library as Imagination, The Library as Space, The Library as Oblivion) Colin interweaves music alongside readings from the book, historical vignettes and visual imagery in an engaging concert-length presentation. The compelling selection of music includes masters of medieval, Renaissance and Baroque polyphony, the first “Golden Age” of the guitar, sensual rhythms from Latin America and a newly commissioned work, Spines, by award-winning composer Christopher Adler. 

Colin McAllister engages deeply with cross-disciplinary ideas in the humanities, particularly the intersection between music and history, classics and theology. His performances as a guitarist have been hailed as “sparkling….delivered superbly” (San Francisco Chronicle) and “ravishing” (San Diego Union Tribune), and he has recorded on the Innova, Centaur, Naxos, Albany, Old King Cole, Vienna Modern Masters, Carrier and Tzadik labels. He is the editor of the Cambridge Companion to Apocalyptic Literature (forthcoming 2019) and has two publications with Productions d’OZ: The Vanguard Guitar and Fourteenth Century Counterpoint: Music of the Chantilly Codex. The Vanguard Guitar was praised by Soundboard magazine as “a great success…not only a primer of modern techniques, but also a library of current performance practices.” His guitar instructional course, Learning to Play Guitar: Chords, Scales and Solos was produced by The Great Courses and was released in April 2017. Colin is an Artist Partner with Taylor Guitars, and currently serves as Music Program Director at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.

There will be a colloquium given by Colin McAllister in the afternoon of Friday, October 27th, in 107 Old Cabell Hall at 3:30pm. Underwritten by the University of Virginia Arts Council.

Old Cabell Hall is located on the south end of UVA's historic lawn, directly opposite the Rotunda (map). Parking is available in the Central Grounds parking garage on Emmet Street, in the C1 parking lot off McCormick Rd, and in the parking lots at the UVA Corner.