A staple of New York City's contemporary music scene, the 18th season of Victoria Bond's Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival celebrates Thomas Jefferson's birthday on Monday, April 13, 7:30pm at Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Peter Norton Symphony Space. Special guest Frank Almond (concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra), along with the downtown virtuoso ensemble Sirius Quartet and narrator Gerard Doyle, performs the world premiere of Victoria Bond's Soul of a Nation.
Soul of a Nation is inspired by Thomas Jefferson's love of music. Victoria Bond wrote the work expressly for acclaimed violinist Frank Almond, who made headlines in 2014 when his "ex-Lipinski" Stradivari violin was stolen in an armed robbery and recovered nine days later. In the spirit of works such as Copland's Lincoln Portrait, Bond's compelling concerto Soul of a Nation features Thomas Jefferson's own words (adapted by Dr. Myles Lee and spoken by actor Gerard Doyle), with music inspired by "La Folia" by Arcangelo Corelli, a cherished score in Jefferson's library.
Also on the program are world premiere performances of compositions by members of Sirius Quartet: Gregor Huebner, Jeremy Harman and Fung Chern Hwei, as well as the world premiere of Hudson Spiral by New York stalwart composer Kyle Gann.
Tickets for the April 13 concert at 7:30 are $20 in advance or $30 day of show. A special subscription package for all three concerts is available for $39 (must add tickets for all three concerts to cart to see discount). Tickets are available online at symphonyspace.org, by calling (212) 864-5400 or visiting the box office (2537 Broadway at 95th Street, New York, NY). More information is at cuttingedgeconcerts.org.
About Cutting Edge Concerts:
Composer and conductor Victoria Bond is the founder and director of Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival. CEC has been called "a full-throttle commitment to contemporary music" by Chamber Music America, and "a gift to New Yorkers thirsty for new sounds" by Time Out New York. Now in its 18th season, highlights of this year's festival include the festival's debut with American Modern Ensemble at Subculture (April 6), a Thomas Jefferson Birthday Bash (April 13) featuring violinist Frank Almond and the Sirius Quartet performing world premieres, the Cutting Edge Concerts debut of Miho Hazama's m_unit jazz ensemble (April 20) and pianist Paul Barnes, and a staged workshop performance of Victoria Bond's opera Clara, inspired by the life of Clara Schumann (April 27) featuring Gramercy Trio. More information about the festival is at CuttingEdgeConcerts.org.
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