The 2024 New Music on the Bayou summer festival is set to begin Wednesday, June 5th at 1:00 PM and conclude Saturday evening, June 8th. This year's festival brings 50 composers and 40 performers to 11 venues across 2 cities.
The concert series will feature contemporary, classical, chamber, and solo works for various instrumentations. Festival-goers will have the opportunity to attend 11 concerts in Monroe or Ruston, each concert a generous 45-50 minutes in length.
While the festival will be returning to familiar venues, several that have been used since its beginnings in 2016, Festival Director Dr. Mel Mobley is excited to bring non-traditional music to untraditional venues. This year, concerts will be held at the Biedenharn Museum, the Masur Museum, Flying Tiger Brewery of Monroe, and, of course, Black Bayou Refuge Center.
Mobley said, "The music is probably going to be predominantly different than most anything you've heard. There is a huge variety, as when we arrange the concerts, we try to make them have a good amount of variety. That is variety in terms of instrumentation mostly. Like, this piece is for piano and voice, but on the same concert, there is a piece for two marimbas and then a piece for strings and mixed winds. So you are going to hear a lot of different instruments, and the music will [add to] the pieces very greatly. There will be some things you have already heard, maybe a film score or a vocal piece you already know, and there be some that are very avant-garde and sounds you don't typically think of as musical, so it is a very exciting way to experience and approach new music."
The festival begins today at 1:00 PM at the F. Jay Taylor Visual Arts Center located on the campus of Louisiana Tech University.
For more information or to view a list of concert times and locations, visit newmusiconthebayou.com.
