Playing the Imaginary

Join Tufts University Art Galleries on February 6 and March 27 at 5PM to hear the Tufts New Music Ensemble (with special guest John McDonald), perform a selection from Tom Johnson’s Imaginary Music series (1974-1975, 1993). Containing a total of 104 scores, these drawings of musical symbols or loose suggestions of notes promote non-linear interpretations and Johnson used them as tools to imagine new musical possibilities. 

Tufts New Music Ensemble (NME) is a student group of adventurous musicians that brings together the classically-trained, self-taught, and experimentally-minded in an eclectic group that improvises and creates its own programs under the direction of Donald Berman. 

John McDonald is Professor of Music, NME Co-Founder, and Tom Johnson enthusiast. He is a composer who tries to play the piano and a pianist who tries to compose, and has been described as “the New England master of the short piece.” His research interests include composition and new music pedagogy; intermedia collaboration involving composing and performing solo and chamber music; writing for young and non-professional performers; music applications for visual art and science; and advocacy of new and overlooked composers through research and performance.   

Donald Berman is recognized as a chief exponent of new works by living composers, overlooked music by 20th century masters, and recitals that link classical and modern repertoires. His two-volume The Unknown Ives and The Uncovered Ruggles represents the only recordings of the complete short piano works of Charles Ives and Carl Ruggles extant. Berman teaches at the Longy School of Music at Bard University, Tufts University, and is a Radcliffe Institute Fellow. He is President of The Charles Ives Society.