Experience an evening of bold, theatrical contemporary music as the nU ensemble, led by director Mark A. Norman. Presented as part of the UNCSA m.i.n.D. festival, the program explores music that blurs boundaries between concert tradition, popular culture, storytelling, and amplified sound.

Michael Daugherty’s Le Tombeau de Liberace features pianist Dmitri Vorobiev in a witty, virtuosic tribute to the flamboyant American entertainer. Written as a four-movement piano concertino, the work embraces the glitter, sentimentality, spectacle, and musical excess associated with Liberace, weaving boogie-woogie, romantic gestures, and colorful theatrical flair into a playful meditation on American popular culture.

David Lang’s Are You Experienced brings an entirely different kind of theatricality to the stage. Featuring Brent Harvey on electric tuba and David Winkelman as narrator, the work takes its title from Jimi Hendrix but is not an arrangement of his music. Instead, Lang creates a surreal, often darkly humorous journey for narrator, amplified tuba, and ensemble, using unexpected sounds and dramatic storytelling to explore the idea of altered experience.