Robert Martin: The Wind Quintets - March 13 @ 8 PM in NYC

A special concert featuring four works for wind quintet by Robert Martin will take place Tuesday evening March 13, 2018.

The event sponsoired by North/South Consonance, Inc. will take place at the intimate and acoustically superior auditorium of Christ & St Stephen's Church (120 West 69th Street) on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The free-admission event will start at 8 PM and end around 9:30 PM. The auditorium is ADA accessible. No tickets or reservations needed.

Martin's music is both energizing and thought-provoking. Somewhat oblivious of recent stylistic trends, it sounds distinctively personal and modern. A retrospective, the concert will feature works written between 1980 and 2011.

Mike Strizic, in myentertainmentworld, writes that “Martin shows an undeniable respect for tradition and a clear concision when it comes to compositional force. [He] appears to firmly grasp the summative nature of his work…for that I applaud him.” Ivan Koval writes in the Kiev Music Gazette, “Martin is an undiscovered treasure. He may be the only American composer who understands the musical aesthetics of Eastern Europe. Often his solid musical forms, with their feeling of inevitability, sound as if a modern Haydn or Mozart constructed them.”

After completing his studies at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, Martin worked at various jobs, including as an apprentice in pipe organ restoration. In 1976, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him the Charles Ives Scholarship for outstanding music composition, allowing him to continue post-graduate studies in New York. In 1979, he received a Fulbright Scholarship to study composition in Vienna.

Returning to New York in 1980, he turned his attention to Wall Street, rising to the position of Senior Vice President in investment banking at a leading firm, and serving as financial advisor to the City of New York. As the 1999 recipient of the Japan-U.S. Creative Artist Fellowship in music composition, he spent six months traveling throughout Japan. His music is published by the Theodore Presser Company and is available on the Furious Artisans, CRI/New World and North/South Recordings labels.

Flutist Lisa Hansen, oboist Cat Cantrell, clarinetist Sammy Lesnick, hornist Lisa Pike and bassoonist Gil Dejean will be the performers in charge of saluting Martin who is celebrating his 65th birthday this season.

The North/South Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Max Lifchitz recently released a recording featuring six of Martin's pieces inspired by the paintings of the Armenian-American expressionist master Maxim Gorky.

The recording is available @

The Gorky Pieces

Since its inception in 1980, the North/South Consonance, Inc. has brought to the attention of the New York City public over 1,000 works by composers hailing from the Americas and elsewhere representing a wide spectrum of aesthetic views. In addition to presenting a yearly concert series in New York City the North/South Chamber Orchestra maintains an active recording schedule. Its 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; the Music Performance Trust Fund; and the generosity of numerous individual donors.

For the complete North/South Spring concert series schedule please visit

http://www.northsouthmusic.org/calendar.asp

To stream, download and/or purchase the more than 60 compact discs released by the

North/South Recordings label

please go to

North/South Recordings