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Press Releases
Come Dance With Me The Dance of Life
On Tuesday evening June 2 the North/South Chamber Orchestra under the
direction of Max Lifchitz will introduce New York audiences to six
recent works by composers from Canada, Italy and the US.
The event will start at 8 PM and end approximately at 9:30 PM. It will be held at the intimate but acoustically superior auditorium of Christ & St Stephen's Church (120 West 69th St - between Broadway and Columbus) on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The auditorium is ADA accessible. Admission is free - no tickets required.
The compositions to be heard for the first time are: Oliver Caplan's Lunastella Fuga; Emma Lou Diemer's Lament; Ada Gentile's Improvviso; Eugene Marlow's Undiminished; Patricia Morehead's Come Dance With Me the Dance of Life; and Margarita Zelenaia's Foxtrot. Oboist William Meredith will appear as soloist for the Diemer work while bassoonist Gilbert Dejean will perform the solo part in Morehead's recently completed work.
The composers will be present at the concert to introduce their works and meet with the audience.
Performers and composers are available for media events and interviews and may be contacted through the North/South Office at ns.concerts@att.net
Since its inception in 1980, North/South Consonance has brought to the attention of the New York City public over 1,000 recent works by composers representing a wide spectrum of aesthetic views. It activities are made possible in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Special funding for this program provided by Culture Ireland and the Music Performance Trust Funds.
ABOUT THE COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC
A native New Yorker, Oliver Caplan attended Dartmouth College and the Boston Conservatory. His music has been praised for its memorable melodies, colorful interplay, and for expressesing a deeply felt romanticism. Composed during the summer of 2012 while traveling through New Hampshire, the Lunastella Fuge portrays "nights spent gaping at the stars and wandering the woodland aglow in the otherwordly light of a blue moon."
The former composer-in-residence with the Santa Barbara Symphony, Emma Lou Diemer won a Kennedy Center Friedheim Award for her Piano Concerto. An active organist, Diemer taught at the Santa Barbara campus of the University of California. Her lyrical Lament showcases the expressivness of the solo oboe accompanied rather unobstrusively by warm string harmonies. The performance marks the composer's 88th birthday.
One of Italy's most successful living composers, Ada Gentile studied at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome before winning the 1982 Gaudeamus Composition Prize in Holland. Her works have been performed throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas. Improvviso is built around the breathtaking timbric possibilities inherent in the string orchestra.
Brooklyn-based Eugene Marlow is an active jazz pianist, arranger and composer. His mentors included Billy Taylor and Harold Danko and holds degrees from NYU and CUNY. Undiminished explores jazz scales in the context of the string choir while reflecting the composer's familial and cultural influences.
Patricia Morehead began her education at Canada's Royal Toronto Conservatory before earning advanced degrees at the University of Chicago where her teachers included Ralph Shapey and Shulamit Ran. As an oboist, she has concertized in Brazil, Canada, England, China and throughout the US. She has served as president of American Women Composers and the International Alliance of Women in Music. Come Dance With Me the Dance of Life is a passionate composition for bassoon and strings that celebrates the composer's fascination with dance. While exuberant and sometimes meditative, overall the work conveys a positive outlook on life itself.
Russian-born and long time New York resident Margarita Zelenaia has received grants from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance; and the American Composers Forum. The press has commented on that fact that as a composer she "possesses a rare ability to infuse her music with humor and lyrical tenderness, while also producing works of tremendous depth and seriousness." Foxtrot is a light, jazzy and humoristic piece, full of familiar music idioms developed in surprising ways. Subtitled "Orchestra Rehearsal" the quasi-theatrical work pokes fun at the sometimes rather adversarial relationship between conductors and musicians.
For the complete concert series schedule please visit
www.northsouthmusic.org
To stream, download and/or purchase the 60 compact discs released under the North/South Recordings label please visit
www.classicsonline.com/North_South_Recordings/
The event will start at 8 PM and end approximately at 9:30 PM. It will be held at the intimate but acoustically superior auditorium of Christ & St Stephen's Church (120 West 69th St - between Broadway and Columbus) on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The auditorium is ADA accessible. Admission is free - no tickets required.
The compositions to be heard for the first time are: Oliver Caplan's Lunastella Fuga; Emma Lou Diemer's Lament; Ada Gentile's Improvviso; Eugene Marlow's Undiminished; Patricia Morehead's Come Dance With Me the Dance of Life; and Margarita Zelenaia's Foxtrot. Oboist William Meredith will appear as soloist for the Diemer work while bassoonist Gilbert Dejean will perform the solo part in Morehead's recently completed work.
The composers will be present at the concert to introduce their works and meet with the audience.
Performers and composers are available for media events and interviews and may be contacted through the North/South Office at ns.concerts@att.net
Since its inception in 1980, North/South Consonance has brought to the attention of the New York City public over 1,000 recent works by composers representing a wide spectrum of aesthetic views. It activities are made possible in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Special funding for this program provided by Culture Ireland and the Music Performance Trust Funds.
ABOUT THE COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC
A native New Yorker, Oliver Caplan attended Dartmouth College and the Boston Conservatory. His music has been praised for its memorable melodies, colorful interplay, and for expressesing a deeply felt romanticism. Composed during the summer of 2012 while traveling through New Hampshire, the Lunastella Fuge portrays "nights spent gaping at the stars and wandering the woodland aglow in the otherwordly light of a blue moon."
The former composer-in-residence with the Santa Barbara Symphony, Emma Lou Diemer won a Kennedy Center Friedheim Award for her Piano Concerto. An active organist, Diemer taught at the Santa Barbara campus of the University of California. Her lyrical Lament showcases the expressivness of the solo oboe accompanied rather unobstrusively by warm string harmonies. The performance marks the composer's 88th birthday.
One of Italy's most successful living composers, Ada Gentile studied at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome before winning the 1982 Gaudeamus Composition Prize in Holland. Her works have been performed throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas. Improvviso is built around the breathtaking timbric possibilities inherent in the string orchestra.
Brooklyn-based Eugene Marlow is an active jazz pianist, arranger and composer. His mentors included Billy Taylor and Harold Danko and holds degrees from NYU and CUNY. Undiminished explores jazz scales in the context of the string choir while reflecting the composer's familial and cultural influences.
Patricia Morehead began her education at Canada's Royal Toronto Conservatory before earning advanced degrees at the University of Chicago where her teachers included Ralph Shapey and Shulamit Ran. As an oboist, she has concertized in Brazil, Canada, England, China and throughout the US. She has served as president of American Women Composers and the International Alliance of Women in Music. Come Dance With Me the Dance of Life is a passionate composition for bassoon and strings that celebrates the composer's fascination with dance. While exuberant and sometimes meditative, overall the work conveys a positive outlook on life itself.
Russian-born and long time New York resident Margarita Zelenaia has received grants from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance; and the American Composers Forum. The press has commented on that fact that as a composer she "possesses a rare ability to infuse her music with humor and lyrical tenderness, while also producing works of tremendous depth and seriousness." Foxtrot is a light, jazzy and humoristic piece, full of familiar music idioms developed in surprising ways. Subtitled "Orchestra Rehearsal" the quasi-theatrical work pokes fun at the sometimes rather adversarial relationship between conductors and musicians.
For the complete concert series schedule please visit
www.northsouthmusic.org
To stream, download and/or purchase the 60 compact discs released under the North/South Recordings label please visit
www.classicsonline.com/North_South_Recordings/
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