The New York New Music Ensemble opens the Slee/Visiting Artist series with a bang. Wait—better make that a loud wail. The big work on the program is a semi-staged performance of British composer Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King from 1969. The “mad king” is George II (think 1776) who suffered a major mental breakdown in 1788, perhaps caused by an inherited metabolic disorder, steadily losing touch with reality until his death in 1820. He reportedly spent the last years of his life trying to teach his pet birds to sing melodies that he played to them on a small mechanical organ. Gender theorists please note that Iranian-born Haleh Abghari (pictured), whose voice has been described by the Washington Post as “a piercingly pure soprano,” plays the part of the king, usually portrayed by a baritone. She will not only sing in a more or less normal voice but also bellow, whine, croak, cackle and occasionally scream at the top of her lungs in what is acknowledged as a brutal but highly effective depiction of a descent into insanity. The world premiere of David Felder’s Boxmunsdottir for bass clarinet and electronics—a reworking of his admired Boxman for trombone and electronics—is on the program as well. Café Music by Paul Schoenfield is the evening’s most immediately accessible work, and Schoenfield has noted that he composed it with the intention of writing “a kind of high-class dinner music, music which could be played at a restaurant but might also (just barely) find its way into a concert hall.”

Saturday, September 8 at 8pm. Slee Hall, UB North Campus (645-2921, slee.buffalo.edu). $8-$20 door, $5-$12 advance

(www.ubcfa.org/645-ARTS, Ticketmaster).