NorSou Jan 24 2024 Artists
The North/South Chamber Orchestra kicks off its 44th season performing a free admission concert featuring music by four New York composers
— Lucid Culture
NEW YORK, NY, USA, January 17, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ — The North/South Chamber Orchestra kicks off its 44th consecutive season on Wednesday evening, January 24 performing a free admission event highlighting music by four New York City composers.
Recent orchestral works by Victor Kioulaphides, Max Lifchitz, Robert Martin and Rufus Reid will be featured. Soloists joining the ensemble include flutist Lisa Hansen, double bassist Stephen Sas, and percussionist Frank Cassara.
The in-person event will start at 8 PM and will conclude around 9:15 PM.
The concert will be held at the acoustically superior DiMenna Center for Classical Music (450 West 37th St; New York, NY 10018).
Registration required for the few remaining seats available.
Those wishing to attend should e-mail ns.concerts@att.net to reserve a seat.
ABOUT THE COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC
Victor Kioulaphides studied double bass and composition at The Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music. the recipient of annual AscaPlus Awards since 1993, his works have been performed throughout Europe and the US and are published by Hal Leonard, Trekel, Liben, and Wolfhead Music. Kioulaphides writes that he titled his new work Black Swan Concerto, as “the double bass as a solo instrument in a concerto setting is of course quite the black swan, a rare occurrence. The middle movement of this concerto is based loosely on the Black Swan aria from The Medium by Giancarlo Menotti, founder of the Spoleto Festival, where the composer and Stephen Sas — the soloist premiering the work — first met and worked together many moons ago.”
Max Lifchitz is active as performer and composer. The founder and director of the North/South Chamber Orchestra, his works appear on multiple recordings issued by the New World, North/South and Classic Masters labels. Commissioned by French percussionist Thierry Miroglio who premiered it during his recent South American tour, Lifchitz’s four-movement Aymara Percussion Concerto is built around Andean rhythms and melodic turns. Each movement reimagines popular folk dances from Bolivia, including a Diablada (Devil’s Dance) and a Morenada — the dance honoring the Virgin of Socavon performed during the Oruru Carnival.
Robert Martin was honored with the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letter in 1976. Upon graduating from the Peabody Conservatory, Martin received a Fulbright Scholarship that took him to Vienna, Eastern Europe and Israel. He also was awarded a Japan-US Creative Artist Fellowship that allowed him to travel and live in Asia. One Year the Milkweed for flute and strings was inspired by Arshile Gorky’s painting of the same name. The work’s evocative title alludes to time and nature. Its melancholic first movement evokes maturing plants that will soon vanish from existence. The energetic second movement describes the new life of the next generation of plants as the wind carries their fluffy, white seeds across the open land.
Rufus Reid is active as performer, composer and educator. The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the MacDowell Colony, Reid appears as double bassist on countless albums joined by jazz artists such as Dexter Gordon, Andrew Hill, The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Quartet, Kenny Barron, Stan Getz, J.J. Johnson, Lee Konitz, and Jack DeJohnette. The music of Wind and Sail is meant to evoke scenes the composer experienced while sailing around Cape Cod’s Pleasant Bay in Massachusetts. While the sun is glistening, the wind can change from moment to moment, propelling the boat to glide effortlessly. The composer hopes the listener become mesmerized by the movement of the waves along with the indicators on the sail which predict the direction of the wind.
MEET THE PERFORMERS
Flutist Lisa Hansen’s critically acclaimed EMI/Angel recording of Joaquín Rodrigo’s Concierto Pastoral with the London Royal Philharmonic Orchestra has been broadcast worldwide. The New York Times described her playing as “irresistibly lyrical” while Fanfare proclaimed “One might well prefer Hansen to Galway.” She has performed and recorded with North/South Consonance since 1988 and is the featured soloist in several North/South Recordings. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Ms. Hansen is now the flute professor at Kean University in New Jersey.
Double Bassist Stephen Sas has performed extensively in Europe, Asia, South America and throughout the United States with ensembles such as the New York Philharmonic, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the New York City Ballet Orchestra, the New Jersey Symphony, The American Symphony, and Sejong Soloists. A native of New York City, he received his Doctorate of Music from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Eugene Levinson and Orin O’Brien. His doctoral dissertation, “A History of Double Bass Performance Practice, 1500-1900”, was the first of its kind written in the English language.
Percussionist Frank Cassara has performed worldwide with the Philip Glass Ensemble and Steve Reich and Musicians. As a member of the New Music Consort/PULSE Percussion Ensemble, he appeared at major festivals in the US and abroad, as well as premiering and recording many new percussion ensemble works. He is the principal percussionist of the Riverside Symphony, and has also performed with many area orchestras such as the Brooklyn Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, and the Long Island Philharmonic. He heads the percussion departments at Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music, Long Island University and Vassar College.
Active since 1980, North/South Consonance, Inc. is devoted to the promotion of music by composers from the Americas and the world. 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; as well as grants from the Music Performance Fund, the BMI Foundation and the generosity of numerous individual donors.
For further programming information, please visit the North/South Consonance website @ https://www.northsouthmusic.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VIfAQ3e61A&list=OLAK5uy_kV8D24x7vXjZAhkLq8tuJ2bsLBPB6ezo0
Max Lifchitz
North/South Consonance, Inc
ns.concerts@att.net
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Robert Martin One Year The Milkweed
