Events

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A one-time-only performance RiteNow: A Centennial Celebration of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring will take place at Woolsey Hall, 500 College Street (corner of College & Grove), New Haven, CT on November 17 at 8pm. Admission is free. Complete info is at www.RiteNowProject.com

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RiteNow will include works by composers Fay Kueen Wang, Justin Tierney, Matthew Welch, Benjamin Wallace, Daniel Schlosberg, Gleb Kanasevich, Polina Nazaykinskaya, and Paul Kerekes. Production designer Solomon Weisbard will create an immersive environmental design, and costumes will be created by Ksenia Zhuleva.

Complete composer bios are available at www.RiteNowProject.com. Here’s a summary:

Composer/performer Fay Wang’s music has been performed around Asia, Europe and USA, including the Berlin Concert House, the Arnold Schoenberg Center, Oper Graz, Yun Isang Memorial Hall, Beijing, Shanghai Concert Hall, Merkin Hall and Lincoln Center, with ensembles including the China Philharmonic Orchestra, Sinfonia Iuventus, RIAS Youth Orchestra, Dinosaur Annex, and a recent premiere by Bang On A Can All-Stars at NYC’s Ecstatic Music Festival.

The music of Matthew Tobin Welch (b.1976), Composer/Multi-instrumentalist, stems from a multi-faceted foundation. As a virtuoso of the Highland Bagpipe, he studied traditional music with Gold Medalist masters such as Colin MacLellan, Jack Lee, Angus MacLellan and Andrew Wright. Matthew also was a member of the four – time World Champion Simon Fraser University Pipe Band, winning with them in 1999 and 2001.

Justine Tierney‘s music was declared “superb, robust, and grand” by the Boston Globe who avowed that “Tierney’s dark-hued music had polished, ominous richness… and sound-worlds that were cogent and immediate.” A recent performance ofThe God’s Script was described as [one of] “two of the most compelling operas also draw on illustrious literary sources: … it sheathes in fierce, gorgeously orchestrated music a dramatization of Jorge Luis Borges’sLa Escritura del Dios.”

Ben Wallace, originally hailing from Albuquerque, New Mexico, is a New England based composer, pianist, percussionist, and conductor. His works have been performed at various venues in Cincinnati, New Haven, New York, Switzerland, and Albuquerque. He received his Bachelor of Music in 2011 from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati where he studied with Joel Hoffman, Michael Fiday, Mara Helmuth, and Al Otte of Percussion Group Cincinnati.

Polina Nazaykinskaya was born in Togliatti, Russia in 1987 and has been studying music since the age of 4. After graduating with honors from the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Russia with concentrations in violin and composition, Polina earned her Masters of Music Degree from the Yale School of Music. Her professors at Yale included Christopher Theofanidis and Ezra Laderman. Currently Polina is pursuing Artist Diploma in composition at the Yale School of Music.

Composer and pianist Daniel Schlosberg (b. 1987) just completed his master’s degree and is currently pursuing his doctorate at the Yale School of Music. His works have been played by the Buffalo Philharmonic, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, New Morse Code, Yale Baroque Ensemble, Center City Opera Theater, and counter)induction. In July, his orchestral piece My reflection ran away with my eyes was featured at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz, CA.

Gleb Kanasevich, a 2013 YSM graduate with MM in clarinet, has taken part in IRCAM’s 2013 AcademieManifeste and this year has had premiere performances at Spoleto Festival,soundSCAPE Festival, Atlantic Music Festival and Fundacion Music AntiquaNova in Argentina. He currently performs largely as a soloist and in duet with pianist Michael Sheppard under Chesapeake Concert Artists.

Paul Kerekes was born in Huntington, New York. His music has been described as “striking…ecstatic…dramatic” (WQXR), “highly eloquent” (New Haven Advocate), and able to create “an almost tactile picture” (The New York Times).

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In the words of Conductor Paolo Bortolameolli:

“How many times does the world stop to celebrate ONE single piece of art?

In the spring of 2013, a masterpiece and seminal work of music of the twentieth century, “Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring)”, turned 100 years old. May 29th, 1913, the day on which “The Rite of Spring ” was premiered at the Theatre Champs Elysee in Paris, is in retrospect a key date in the history of music, ballet and art in general and can be considered as the launching of a century. This gives us a good opportunity to look back and reflect.

The celebration this year was an event of global proportions. Many and varied approaches are possible but without doubt there is one that sparks my fascination: The artistic collaboration.

Once again we reaffirm Stravinsky’s genius and the transcendent legacy of his composition. The definitive emancipation of rhythm, the imaginative and provocative use of the orchestra and the harmonic boldness are some of the reasons why this is a fundamental score of the twentieth century. In addition, the name of Vaslav Nijinsky is confirmed as the great revolutionary in the genesis of contemporary dance. The contribution of painter, writer, archaeologist and philosopher Nicholas Roerich, materialized through the original sets and costumes joined the concept of primitivism and mysticism of an ancient rite. And the artistry and enterprise of Sergei Diaghilev is a legend in the history of twentieth century music.

The combination of a group of sensitive and brilliant minds who shared a specific time in history bore fruit in a masterpiece in every sense.

How do we look back today then, to its creation, 100 years ago?

Art is a living organism that does not stop, and that makes its way every day through its inevitable need to find new ways to communicate and express from the observance, the anticipation or reflection. Rarely can we, however, do so from these three angles simultaneously.

The validity, importance and strength of the current artistic creation led me to the concept to pay a particular tribute: joining forces again to obtain a collective result in a once of lifetime experience.

Based on the episodic structure of Stravinsky’s work, I commissioned to 8 highly gifted and talented composers of this generation, to write each an episode that would be eventually assembled to form an homage piece. The result is an eclectic work, where eight personal languages from ​​8 points of views have been captured in a single score.

Moreover, the aesthetic vision of our Production Designer will unify the contrasting elements, showing a common message based on the essential concept of the original work: The Rite. A rite for spring, but also for death and birth, the rite in ancient times, but also at a time where art experienced an unprecedented period of experimentation. It is the result of a society on the verge of the first global war that transformed humanity into the actual Chosen to be sacrificed, a rite to a reborn, a rite to celebrate the concrete manifestation of music in a concert hall that 100 years ago. This was one of the most controversial and booed premieres — which 100 years later makes us wonder where is the audience, THAT audience today?

A rite to man and its primary, essential language: Art.

A rite to THEN and NOW.”

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On Sunday November 17th at 8pm, conductor Paolo Bortolameolli will lead the Zephyrus Project Orchestra in a performance of RiteNow: A Centennial Celebration of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. This one-time-only performance will take place at Woolsey Hall, 500 College Street (corner of College & Grove), New Haven, CT. Admission is free. Complete info is at www.RiteNowProject.com

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MUSIC/WORDS, the acclaimed music-poetry series (NY, Chicago and LA), invites the audience to be moved by free associations, interplay of moods, genres and different mediums in its 6th season.

Faliks-PavlovaInna Faliks, left; Vera Pavlova, right

Brooklyn, NY – Pianist Inna Faliks, with poet Vera Pavlova, appear in Music/Words: Chopin edition on Sunday October 27th, 2013 at 4 pm at the Dweck Center for Contemporary Culture, Brooklyn Public Library, 10 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, NY. Admission is Free. For more information, call (312) 787-7070.

Celebrated pianist Inna Faliks is the founder and curator of the award-winning interdisciplinary series Music/Words, which explores the connections between poetry and music. She is joined by Vera Pavlova, one of Russia’s most important contemporary poets, whose first poetry collection in English, If There Is Something to Desire, was a bestselling title in 2010. Faliks will perform works by Chopin.

In this performance, Vera Pavlova’s passionate, sensuous poetry, with English translations, will intersect with selections of Frederic Chopin, including the Sonata # 2 in B flat minor. Music/Words has been featured in regular live broadcasts on WFMT Radio in Chicago, in collaboration with Poetry Foundation, at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC, and at UCLA in Los Angeles.

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. Music/Words partnerships have included some of the most celebrated American poets.

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.”

Pianist Inna Faliks has set herself apart in thousands of performances as a sincere, communicative and direct performer whose virtuosity, power and risk taking serve the depth, intelligance and poetry of her interpretations. Inna’s command of standard solo and concerto repertoire is highlighted by her love of rare and new music, and interdisciplinary and audience-involving programs and lectures. These include her award winning Music/Words, where she alternates music with readings by contemporary poets, her program of piano music of the poet Boris Pasternak (on MSR Classics Sound of Verse, which drew comparisons to Argerich and Cliburn), 13 Ways of Looking at the Goldberg – new variations on Bach’s Aria , music of women composers, and many other programs. She makes sure to present programs that include both beloved crowd pleasers and music that is new and challenging, creating an adventurous, moving and involving experience for the audience. She is a musical omnivore. Faliks debuted as a teenager with the Chicago Symphony and at the Gilmore Festival to rave reviews, and has been exciting and moving audiences worldwide since then. She is Associate Professor of Piano at UCLA, and her new Beethoven disc on the MSR Classics label has just been released. www.innafaliks.com

Please visit www.verapavlova.us for poet bio.

 

 

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Screen Shot 2013-10-07 at 9.59.42 AMOn Sunday November 17th at 8pm, conductor Paolo Bortolameolli will lead the Zephyrus Project Orchestra in a performance of RiteNow: A Centennial Celebration of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. This one-time-only performance will take place at Woolsey Hall, 500 College Street (corner of College & Grove), New Haven, CT. Admission is free. Complete info is at www.RiteNowProject.com.

RiteNow will include works by composers Fay Kueen Wang, Justin Tierney, Matthew Welch, Benjamin Wallace, Daniel Schlosberg, Gleb Kanasevich, Polina Nazaykinskaya, and Paul Kerekes. Production designer Solomon Weisbard will create an immersive environmental design, and costumes will be created by Ksenia Zhuleva.
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In the wake of its riotous premiere, Igor Stravinsky’s monumental Rite of Spring, became a beacon of inspiration for countless
composers, performers, choreographers, dancers and visual artists. This work stunned listeners with its passion, focus, ingenuity and vehemence. Its influence continues, inspiring these musicians to present RiteNow: a celebration of the centenary of “The Rite’s” infamous premiere.
The Rite of Spring is famous for the way that it is put together – blocks of music, or “tableaux” that bump up right next to one another. RiteNow will celebrate the 100th birthday of Stravinsky’s piece by featuring eight short selections inspired by it. These will then be assembled just like the “tableaux” in the “Rite” into one memorable piece for an orchestra of massive proportions (approximately 120 players).
Praised by composer George Crumb for his “sensitive and insightful interpretation”, conductor Paolo Bortolameolli brings a visual, synthetic and collaborative approach to music that is infused by his fascination for and interplay among the arts. With his passion for connecting the 21st century audience to the concert stage, Mr. Bortolameolli enjoys conducting orchestral music, working with youth orchestras, collaborating with today’s composers and lecturing.
Further information, including composer bios, is available at www.RiteNowProject.com.

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AnyWhen 11On Saturday November 9th at 7:30 pm, Douglas Detrick’s AnyWhen Ensemble will perform at San Francisco’s Center for New Music, 55 Taylor Street. AnyWhen will be joined by Addleds and Lisa Mezzacappa‘s Interlopers in a program entitled Addleds Sound Laboratory #3, curated by Linda Bouchard. Tickets (available at the door) are $15 General, and $10 Members. For venue information, please visit www.centerfornewmusic.com.

AnyWhen Ensemble will perform excerpts from their work, The Bright and Rushing World, selections from their first album Walking Across, and will be giving the world premiere of a new piece, Pax Vobiscum, by New York based Filipino composer Sidney Boquiren.

AnyWhen Ensemble is: Douglas Detrick, composer and trumpet; Hashem Assadullahi, saxophone; Shirley Hunt, cello; Steve Vacchi, bassoon; and Ryan Biesack, percussion

According to AnyWhen’s founder Douglas Detrick, “This will be the first time in several years that we’ve played a work by another composer. I love Sidney Boquiren’s music – it has a profound spiritual depth to it that is really hard to find anywhere. I met Sidney when I was an undergrad, and he performed one of his own piano pieces for our class. By the end of the piece he was visibly drained, but not just physically. I sensed that he put everything he had, in a profound, spiritual sense, into that performance for our little class. I never forgot it and I’m honored to be his friend and colleague now, and thrilled to be performing Pax Vobiscum.”

Douglas Detrick’s AnyWhen Ensemble (Portland,OR) is dedicated to the performance of Detrick’s original music and brings jazz and classical musicians together to create a hybrid music with unique possibilities. Its signature instrumentation of trumpet, saxophone, bassoon, cello and drums sets the group apart, but the ensemble makes its most significant impact with highly creative and individual repertoire, a fluid integration of dynamic chamber performance with jazz improvisation, and with its bold vision of a more diverse and more vibrant present and future for music. The AnyWhen Ensemble was awarded the New Jazz Works and Presenting Jazz grant from Chamber Music America in 2011. This extremely competitive grant, attracting over 250 applicants every year, commissioned a new work by Detrick called The Bright and Rushing World, an ambitious addition to this singular composer’s list of accomplishments. A recording of this work will be released in 2014. The group has performed at the Jazz Gallery and the Stone in New York, and on festivals including the Festival of New Trumpet Music curated by Dave Douglas, and the Is That Jazz? Festival in Seattle, WA curated by Tom Baker. The group has also performed and given master classes at colleges across the country including Cornish College of the Arts, University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, University of Oregon, and Willamette University.