YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - The Dana School of Music will be holding a concert featuring guest artist Science Ficta on Saturday, September 18 at 7:30p.m. in Bliss Hall. 

Science Ficta is composed of longtime friends Loren Ludwig, Doug Balliett, and Dana faculty cellist Kivie Cahn-Lipman, who were originally collaborators in baroque band ACRONYM.

In 2016, the trio formed their own ensemble  to highlight little known older works that have been neglected by modern performers and listeners, as well as new commissions. 

Science Ficta served as ensemble in residence at the University of Virginia in 2019, and will be in residence at Columbia University in 2022. 

The ensemble's program included eclectic early English music, canons by composer Christoph Graunpner, and the premiere of a new piece from the early-instrument revival. 

Science Ficta, with YSU alumna and regional fiddle star Caitlin Hedge, will perform the modern premiere of Casadesus's "The Four Seasons." The piece is taken from composer Henri Casadesus and his family's ensemble, who toured world for the first 3 decades of the 20th century. 

Members of the group will also participate in the Dana Lecture Series on Monday, September 20 at 2:30 p.m. in Bliss Hall Room 3136.

Ludwig's talk called "Maintaining a point": inimalist Strategies in Sixteenth-Century Polyphony will focus on a range of little-known "minimalist" pieces from the sixteenth century, and reflect on what the use of minimalist techniques across nearly 500 years of Western musical history might teach us about the musical aesthetics of repetition. Ludwig is a viola da gamba player and music historian based in Baltimore, MD. He researches what he describes as "polyphonic intimacy," the idea that music in the Western tradition is constructed to foster social relationships among its performers and listeners. Ludwig is a co-founder of LeStrange Viols and Science Ficta and a founding member of the seventeenth-century string band ACRONYM.

Balliett will also give a talk "The Beatles in 1966" which examines the development of the Beatles' music in 1966, with a focus on Revolver and its attendant singles. Balliett is a composer, instrumentalist and poet based in New York City. He composes wekly music for a church in Manhattan's Lower East Side, and is professor of historic basses at the Julliard School. 

You can learn more about the events by calling the Office of Community Engagement and Events at 330-727-7514. 

Both events are free and open to the public.