Genre bending group performs original works rooted in jazz, classical, tango, & rock for violin, cello, voice, keyboards, and percussion.

The Steve Hudson Chamber Ensemble, led by composer Steve Hudson – piano/melodica, and featuring Zach Brock – violin, Jody Redhage – cello/voice, and Martin Urbach – cajon/ percussion, returns to play a live show backing their critically acclaimed album “Galactic Diamonds” – on Saturday, May 19th, 2012 at 8pm, at the Hudson Opera House, 327 Warren St., Hudson, NY. Tickets are $20, ($18 for members) and can be purchased at the door. Call (518) 822-1438 for more information.

Praised by Keyboard Magazine for his “exquisite compositions” and for “a quest for beauty in his lines that evoke the masters,” Steve Hudson has worked with Steven Bernstein, James Zollar, Marcus Rojas, and Claire Daly. Zach Brock has performed and recorded with Stanley Clarke, Joel Harrison, and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, while Jody Redhage currently tours with bassist Esperanza Spalding and has performed with the Tokyo String Quartet, and Bang on a Can.  Martin Urbach has shared the stage with Lee Konitz and Dave Liebman. In 2011, the ensemble performed at Chamber Music America’s national conference in New York and toured Italy and Austria to promote “Galactic Diamonds.”

Their newest recording, Galactic Diamonds has been called “a collection of little gems” by All About Jazz; “so disarmingly fun that it’s impossible to resist…a good-naturedly eclectic mix of third stream jazz with a catchy, quirky pop edge” by Lucid Culture;  and “consistently engaging” by Christian Carey, Signal To Noise.

A Kite’s Tale, created by Chicago’s Blair Thomas & Company is the story of a little girl who sets out to fly her kite and takes a magical journey through her own imagination.  Employing hand puppets, bunraku puppets and giant costumed characters, this wordless narrative is accompanied by a live performance of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, performed on solo piano by Kathryn Goodson.

The performance will take place at the Detroit Institute of Arts, 5200 Woodward Ave. in Detroit, on Saturday and Sunday May 12 and 13, 2012 at 2pm as part of Family Sundays at Rivera Court. The event is free with museum admission (which is $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $4 for youth ages 6-17). For more information, call 313-833-7900.

This delightful 40 minute long family show has been seen at venues such as Sherwood Conservatory of Music, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park in Chicago, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Music Institute of Chicago, and at the National Puppetry Festival, in Atlanta.

A Kite’s Tale was conceived, directed and designed by Blair Thomas. The story is by Blair Thomas in collaboration with the puppeteers: Sam Deutsch, Sarah Fornace, Dan Kerr-Hobert, and Julia Miller.

Blair Thomas & Company is a Chicago-based company that creates and performs contemporary puppetry and visual theater locally, nationally, and internationally. They are dedicated to the art of the puppet and its relationship to live music as an expressive form, in addition to the art as a spectacle form. They create unique, artistic experiences that are vital to the cultural life of Chicago and influential to the field of contemporary performance nationally and internationally. BT&C have twice received the UNIMA award for excellence in puppetry, and Mr. Thomas was also the first artist to be awarded the Jim Henson Artist-In-Residence position at the University of Maryland. Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune says: “very few cities have a native theater company such as Blair Thomas and Company, where visual delicacy and an open heart are at the core of the art.”

Pianist Kathryn Goodson is an international performer, teacher and coach, and has appeared in recital throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan with leading wind instrumental and vocal artists. At the University of Michigan School of Music in Ann Arbor since 2005 she has served as collaborative pianist-coach; in 2008 her position expanded to include musical direction for Robert Swedberg’s opera studio. Recordings of Goodson’s work include Barn Burner and Melodrama (Albany) with Randall Hawes, Voices of the Holocaust (Block M-University of Michigan) with Caroline Helton, In Transit (Innova) with saxophonist Timothy McAllister, as well as international radio and television broadcasts. At schools such as Stanford University, the Conservatoire de Genève and the Musashino Music School in Tokyo, Goodson has taught classes in solo and collaborative repertoire, returning often to the Karlsruhe Music School in Germany to teach American Art Song. Educational outreach also involves concerto soloist appearances for Detroit Symphony Orchestra youth concerts, and, since 2005, musical coordination of a children’s series for the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra. As artistic director Goodson has served in Stuttgart for the Internationale-Hugo-Wolf-Akademie, in Ann Arbor for two Charles Ives festivals with the Phoenix Ensemble and currently for Concerts4aCause of Northside Community Church. Goodson received a doctorate and master of collaborative piano with Martin Katz at the University of Michigan, studying also with Eckart Sellheim. As a Fulbright Scholar to Germany 1992-1994, she received the Konzertexam in Art Song with highest honors with Hartmut Höll at the Karlsruhe Music School. Her bachelor of music in piano performance was earned with Robert Shannon at Oberlin Conservatory.

Performing a program entitled Dialogue between the Traditional and the Modern, including folk and Chinese Opera works as well as contemporary works by both Chinese and Western composers such as Xie Wenhui and Victoria Bond, the Chinese Hua Xia Chamber Ensemble (pronounced HWA SHA) makes their Lincoln Center Debut at Alice Tully Hall on Monday, May 7 at 7:30pm. Tickets are $20 and are available at www.lincolncenter.org and at Alice Tully Hall, 1941 Broadway (65th Street between Broadway & Amsterdam Avenue); For more information, call 212 671 4050.

Founded in 1995, and currently touring the United States with performances in New York and Boston, the Chinese Hua Xia Chamber Ensemble of the China Conservatory has become one of the most dynamic and technically impressive chamber ensembles of China. Under the strong leadership of Professor Zhang Weiliang and Maestro Tsung Yeh, the ensemble has achieved international acclaim. Its musicians, who are mainly young conservatory teachers, have won numerous instrumental competition awards in China and abroad. Their repertoire ranges from traditional Chinese folk music and Chinese opera music to contemporary Chinese and international classical music. The ensemble has recorded several CDs and has performed in the United States, France, Portugal, Australia, and in Asia and Africa. For this performance, the program will feature six world premieres commissioned by the ensemble for this US tour.

The Program includes:
Lang Tao Sha (Traditional)
Feng Qiu Huang, by Liu Qing (World Premiere)
Five Impressions, by Gao Ping (World Premiere)
Wild Geese in the Sandbank (Traditional)
Graceful, by Wang Dan Hong (World Premiere)
Nodes, by John Mallia (World Premiere)
Deep Night (Traditional Chinese Opera)
Less, but More, by Xie Wen Hui (World Premiere)
Bridge, by Victoria Bond (World Premiere arrangement for this ensemble)

Performers include: Huang Mei (guqin); Wang Yidong (Chinese percussion); Mark Baekbum Yee (cello); Chai Shuai (erxian & erhu); Qiu Ji (zheng); Ge Yong (pipa); Chen Yue (flute); Wu Huanghuang (yangqin); Huang Mei (ruan); Chen Yue (flute); Tomoya Aomori, Justin Doute (western percussion); Zhang Weiliang (xiao); Han Shi (violin), Eric Umble (clarinet), Sun Pei (piano). Tsung Yeh, conductor, Zhang Weiliang Artistic Director. Zhao Talimu, President of China Conservatory, serves as leader of this delegation.

Music/Words (www.musicwordsnyc.com), an interdisciplinary series founded and curated by NYC- based pianist Inna Faliks (www.innafaliks.com), continues its fourth season on April 23 and 30 on WFMT at 8pm CST. Faliks will play CPE Bach, Eric Satie, Schubert, Chopin. L.B. Thompson, Whiting Award winner, is the poet.

The series MUSIC/WORDS was recently praised by Lucid Culture as being “surreal, impactful, and relevant” and was described as “a throwback to the Paris salons of the late 1800s.” It celebrates links between poetry and music by presenting collaborations between exciting solo performers and acclaimed contemporary poets in the form of a live recital/reading.

Inna Faliks created the series in order to foster a chance for poets and musicians to work together and inspire each other, as well as to allow different audiences to come together for these musical-literary events. New published and unpublished works are read alongside performances of music old and new and connected by content, intuition, and inspiration.

According to Faliks, “I pair performers together based on their personalities and styles, and encourage them to choose the poems and music in varied ways that are strongly and intuitively connected.”