This weekend, thousands of hours of diligent rehearsal, ounces of reed-moistening saliva and kilograms of rosin culminate in the staging of the Five College New Music Festival Weekend, which features four concerts in three days. Coordinated by University of Massachusetts Music faculty members Elizabeth Chang and Salvatore Macchia, the festival showcases the compositional and performance skills of faculty from Smith, Hampshire, Amherst and Mount Holyoke Colleges, as well as UMass-Amherst. Though the modus operandi is notionally "classical," the contemporary composers and performers have clearly absorbed modern influences, as in Mount Holyoke Professor David Sanford's Shaw Variations (performed on violin, cello and piano by Linda Laderach, Kivie Cahn-Lipman and Larry Schipull), which draws heavily from the music of jazz trumpeter Woody Shaw.

"The vast majority of people who have come together to make the festival happen have volunteered their considerable energies and professionalism during the busiest week of the year, and bear witness to the generous and idealistic spirit which pervades this community," says Chang. "Clearly, there is a widely held belief that the music of our time is worth making a strong case for, and that there is great enthusiasm for working with one another as colleagues in this celebration."

Professor Macchia also took some time out from a hectic fall schedule to answer the Advocate's questions about the festival, its history and its raison d'etre:

Valley Advocate: Is this the first year of the festival, or have there been others of its kind? Is it an annual tradition?

Salvatore Macchia: This is the first year we have had a festival on this scale—four concerts in three days with over 30 performers and 17 composers represented. In the past we have had a few Five College Composers concerts—I remember a few that took place in pairs—but nothing quite like this.

Who are some of the featured performers, and what instrumentation are they using?

I don't want to single anyone out, but I would like to say that the festival is intended to celebrate not only our Five College composers but also the wealth of performance talent within the various schools, colleges and the university. The Valley has a longstanding and very healthy tradition of collaboration between composers and performers and a number of the pieces that will be heard in our programs were written for the very people playing them. For instance, "Fundamentals," a duo for baritone saxophone and bass, was written especially for baritone saxophonist Gary Smulyan, a very well known jazz saxophonist who teaches at Amherst College and performs regularly with Dave Holland, The Vanguard Big Band and Joe Lavano,and he will be playing the first performance of this piece in our first concert. Smith College Professor Donald Wheelock's Piano Variations will be performed by Judith Gordon, the pianist for whom the piece was written and who gave the work its first performance. Even Lew Spratlan's Concertino for Violin and small ensemble will have many of the musicians who were the very players Lew had in mind when he wrote the work originally.

Can you describe some of the compositions that will be performed?

There will be a wide variety of music on the various concerts ranging from evocations of Chinese folk music to the extreme reaches of extended or new playing techniques. With all the musical diversity on display, I must add that there seems to be a universal need amongst all of the composers to arrive at a human, expressive music, no matter which route taken.

Is there any particular theme that pervades the selection of music?

I think the overall theme is the celebration of the extraordinarily high quality and commitment to their art that both our Five College composers and performers display."

The Five College New Music Festival Weekend is held Sept. 11-13, at Bezanson Recital Hall in the Fine Arts Center, UMass-Amherst. All events are free. For the full schedule, please call (413) 545-2511 or visit www.umass.edu/music.