Ohio State alumnus Stephen Montague (DMA, music composition, 1972)—a composer, pianist, and conductor—is celebrating an upcoming “significant” birthday with several concerts of his music in Great Britain.

On March 12, a lunchtime “Birthday Happening” features 13 singers performing Montague’s Dinner Party for John Cage in a formal but outrageous dinner party set in the middle of the audience space at St. John’s Smith Square in London. Later that day, the Evening Orchestral Concert features six of his orchestral works and includes the world premiere of Night Tracks for string orchestra and organ and Intrada 1631 for symphonic brass, four drummers, and surround sound strings plus 40 triangles. His Dark Sun – August, 1941 for large orchestra and chorus features 26 percussionists, three radios, fire extinguisher, and air raid sirens.

On March 28, Montague’s Requiem: The Trumpets Sounded Calling Them to the Other Side for orchestra, chorus, 20 percussionists, and four fog horns will be performed at Blackheath Concert Halls in London.

The events celebrate Montague’s 70th birthday. Born in Syracuse, New York, he earned a bachelor and master’s of music from Florida State University and his doctor of musical arts from Ohio State. He went to Warsaw, Poland, on a Fulbright Fellowship 1972-1974, and has been a freelance composer based in London since 1974, though he tours world-wide.

Montague will be the featured composer in residence at the Ohio State School of Music Contemporary Music Festival in November.

Listen to the opening of his Piano Concerto.

Image: Stephen Montague at a late-night spectacular he composed and directed at Duart Castle, Isle of Mull, Scotland, which featured 103 performers. Audience members in masks wandered throughout the castle by candlelight.