Old Meets New: February 8 @ 4 PM (EST)

Old Meets New: February 8 @ 4 PM (EST)

Max Lifchitz performs a virtual recital

featuring music inspired by age-old conventions.

 

Streaming Live @

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWuF3z-RDm0G3N2rv4rB6kQ

 

Pianist Max Lifchitz will launch North/South Consonance’s 41^st consecutive concert season with a virtual recital. The event will feature eight works inspired by 18^th and 19^th century conventions by composers hailing from Brazil, Jamaica, Mexico, and the US.

 

The virtual event will originate from the Marc A. Scorca Hall in New York City on Monday February 8, 2021. It will start at 4 PM (EST) and end around 5:30 PM.

 

The recital will be webcast through the National Opera Center YouTube Channel @

<https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWuF3z-RDm0G3N2rv4rB6kQ>.

 

No pre-registration to access the webcast is required.

 

Brief information about the featured composers and their works follows:

 

The cheerful Sonatina Mozartiana by the recently departed Brazilian composer Gilberto Mendes will open the program. Mendes described his three-movement work as something Mozart would have written if he would have been born in Rio de Janeiro instead of Salzburg.

 

Wach ya Haydn by the young Jamaican composer Mikhail Johnson is an ingenious adaptation of Papa Haydn’s witty style.

 

Max Lifchitz’s recently completed B-A-C-H Fantasia consists of twelve variations built around the pitches symbolized great German master’s last name: B flat, A, C and B natural.

 

Piano Resonances by Bay-area based Douglas Ovens’ exploits the coloristic possibilities inherent in the acoustic keyboard. Its textures and rhythms recall procedures often found in works penned during the 1960’s.

 

Harold Schiffman recently celebrated his 90^th birthday. A distinguished Florida State University faculty member, his virtuosic Piano Sonata No. 2 follows the traditional fast-slow-fast model. Its musical language is informed by mannerisms often found in Appalachian folk-music.

 

Each of the demanding Three Etudes by the young Mexican composer Jorge Vidales is built around a certain interval. The first featured the interval of the third, the second the interval of the seventh and the third is composed around perfect fifths.

 

William Toutant is based in Los Angeles. His Ludes and Fugues is an attempt to revitalize a favorite Baroque scheme. The work consists of two skillful fugues in three voices surrounded by an invigorating prelude, a quiet interlude, and a dramatic postlude.

 

Karl Weigl was a Jewish-Austrian composer who migrated to New York in 1938. A prolific composer and successful conductor, he began his career as an assistant to Gustav Mahler at the Vienna State Opera. His 28 Variations is an exceptionally romantic work built around an original eight-bar theme.

 

Max Lifchitz has appeared as soloist with among others, the Albany Symphony Orchestra, the Clifton Park Chamber Orchestra, Mexico's National Symphony Orchestra, Peru's National Symphony, and the Neuchatel Orchestra in Switzerland. The San Francisco Chronicle described him as "a composer of brilliant imagination and a stunning, ultra-sensitive pianist" while the New York Times praised his "clean, measured and sensitive performances." His numerous recordings are widely available through iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, and other commercial music streaming services.

 

The artist is available for interviews and may be contacted through the North/South office at <ns.concerts@att.net>

 

The event is 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. Additional support from the Zethus Fund and many generous individual donors is gratefully acknowledged.