Isotone Concert

The Isotone Concert Series, which was launched in 2008, presented two concerts annually over the past three seasons, one in New York City in the fall of 2011, and one in Oak Ridge in 2012 on April Fool's Day. The next Isotone Concert will be presented at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 19, at the Clayton Performing Arts Center (see map),Pellissippi State Community College, 10915 Hardin Valley Road, Knoxville. The series is aimed at students and adults fascinated by both music and science.

In the 2012-2013 season only one Isotone concert will be presented, as one of the six concerts in ORCMA's Chamber Music Series. The Isotone concert on Jan. 19, 2013, is a bonus concert: subscribers to the Chamber Music Series can attend this concert for free.

			NEXT ISOTONE CONCERT IS JANUARY 19, 2013, AT PELLISSIPPI STATE COMMUNITY COLLEGE The Isotone Concert this winter will provide a musical and verbal tribute to Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov, who spearheaded the development of the hydrogen bomb for the Soviet Union and later became a human rights activist. The concert will include the world premiere of a commissioned work by Andrew Sauerwein, composer-in-residence at Belhaven University. Susan Eddlemon, violin, and Scott Eddlemon, percussion, are among the performers.

WHAT IS ISOTONE?

Isotone has a double meaning of importance to musicians and scientists. Isotone means a single tone. Isotone also refers to any of the nuclides that have the same number of neutrons but different numbers of protons (just as "isotope" refers to any nuclides with the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons).

Each concert offers a tribute to a famous scientist, such as Marie Curie, Richard Feynman, and Stephen Hawking. At least one work in each concert is an original composition commissioned by the Isotone founders and premiered at the concert. Scott and Susan Eddlemon, founders of the Isotone Series, are graduates of the prestigious Juilliard Music School in New York City. They are regular performers in the unique, enlightening, and sometimes humorous concerts, which also feature museum equipment as well as soloists who sing or play instruments such as the piano, flute, and harp.

ISOTONE CONCERT MADE DEBUT IN NEW YORK CITY IN OCTOBER 2011

To see a review of the concert by a New York City writer, click here.

    Billed as "a collision of physics and music," the Isotone Concert Series has been energizing audiences in the "Atomic City" of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, for three years. Isotone is both a physics and musical term.
 
    In its New York debut Oct. 24, 2011, the Isotone Concert brought together small-town and big-city talent. Commissioned works by New York composers Victoria Bond and Larry Spivack were  presented along with music by Tennessee composers Mark Harrell and Scott Eddlemon in tributes to world-famous physicists Marie Curie, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.
 
    The concert reunited Juilliard School of Music alumni Scott Eddlemon, percussionist and founder of the Isotone Concert Series; his wife, Susan Lang Eddlemon, violinist, and Larry Spivack, percussionist. Pianist Pam Robertson and vocalists Christina Mullikin and Sarah Reed rounded out the ensemble.
 
    The concert presented unique works based on three isotopic spectra collected live onstage with a gamma spectroscopy system, a hair-raising Van de Graaff generator and audience “particle-clicker” participation. Also featured were a collection of physics songs highlighted by Tom Lehrer’s famous rendition of “The Elements.”
 
    The Isotone Concert was performed Monday, Oct. 24, at Peter Norton Symphony Space’s Leonard Nimoy Thalia, 2537 Broadway at 95th St.
 
    Becky Ball, concert reviewer, wrote in the March 2010 issue of The Oak Ridger: "This out-of-the-box program fed our brains with fascinating information and our musical souls with unique rhythms, dynamics and timbre!"