On Saturday, November 2nd, 2019, at 8 pm, the Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra will present a concert under the direction of guest conductor Jens Georg Bachmann with Canadian violinist Emmanuel Vukovich as soloist in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major. The program will be performed at the Staller Center for the Performing Arts Main Stage, 100 Nicolls Road, Stony Brook, NY. Tickets are $20 for general admission, $10 for seniors and students, and available on www.stallercenter.com and in person at the box-office.

Under the baton of Jens Georg Bachmann, who is Artistic Director of the National Symphony Orchestra of Cyprus, the SBSO will be performing an opulent program featuring Vukovich — critically acclaimed for his attention to “every detail of phrasing” (Calgary Herald) and for being “a true musician” (Yannick Nézet-Séguin).

Soviet-Russian-born American composer Lera Auerbach’s Post Silentium for Orchestra opens the evening. Originally commissioned in 2012 by Germany’s Staatskapelle Dresden, this one-movement work is written for strings, piccolo, English horn, contrabassoon, bass trombone, harp, piano, and various forms of percussion.

Composed in 1888, and translated into English as “Death and Transfiguration”, Richard Strauss’s tone poem Tod und Verklärung, Op. 24 depicts the death of an artist, with a four-part sonic storyline of childhood, manhood, attainment, and the shift from this plane to the afterlife.

Initially a failure at its premiere in 1806, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61 is a work of “radiant beauty” (Yehudi Menuhin). This monumental work defines a turning point in the evolution of the concerto form in which the soloist emerges from the orchestra as a free and independent individual voice.  

Works included:
Strauss Tod und Verklärung, Op. 24
Lera Auerbach Post Silentium for Orchestra
Beethoven Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61

Critically acclaimed for his “attention to every detail of phrasing”, Canadian violinist Emmanuel Vukovich (www.emmanuelvukovich.ca) is emerging as an artist of musical integrity and artistic maturity. Grand-prize winner of the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition as first violinist of the former Lloyd Carr-Harris String Quartet, Emmanel has performed across North and South America, Europe, and Australia in performances with artists such Ida Haendal, Matt Haimowitz, Anton Kuerti, and Alex Klein. He is the founder and artistic director of The Parcival Project, an international chamber music collective which has toured Canada, the US, and South America, as well as artist director of Montreal’s Chapelle Historique du Bon Pasteur “Bach Odyssey” – a multi- year series centered around the solo violin Sonatas and Partitas of JS Bach. Emmanuel performs on a 1629 Nicolo Amati violin on generous loan from The Canada Council for the Arts Musical Instrument Bank.

 Upcoming highlights include the creation of two new works:

• Inspired by North Indian Classical Hindustani music, American composer Sheila Silver is writing a violin concerto expressly for Emmanuel. This concerto is intended to be premiered and recorded in 2021. 
• An original work for solo violin, African drums, and chamber orchestra, co-composed with award-winning composer John McDowell, Parzival & Fierefiz: A New Narrative of Race will make its world premiere at the University of Toronto in November 2020 in conjunction with the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Wagner’s Parsifal.

Emmanuel is currently a candidate for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Stony Brook University, working with Philip Setzer and Eugene Drucker of the Emerson String Quartet, Hagai Shaham, and Colin Carr. His final graduation recital will present selections from the solo violin Sonatas & Partitas of J S Bach and Parzival & Fierefiz: A New Narrative of Race.

Jens Georg Bachmann (www.jensgeorgbachmann.com) is the Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of the Republic of Cyprus, since 2017. With his artistic leadership the CySO has significantly increased its popularity and reputation across the country. Being equally at home in operatic and symphonic repertoire, Bachmann has conducted, the Boston, Florida and Princeton symphony orchestras, the Berlin and Hamburg symphony orchestras, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the ERT Radio and Thessaloniki Symphony Orchestras of Greece, the Radio Orchestras of Germany (NDR) as well as at The Metropolitan Opera New York, Royal Swedish Opera, Komische Oper Berlin, Staatsoper Berlin and the state operas of Stuttgart, Nuremberg and Düsseldorf.

Mr. Bachmann had been Associate Conductor of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and Principal Conductor of the Texas Chamber Orchestra as well as Music Director of the Crested Butte Music Festival in Colorado. He has collaborated with some of the world’s finest musicians such as Pinchas Zukerman, Daniel Hope, Yefim Bronfman, Cyprien Katsaris and singers Renée Fleming, Marcello Giordani and Jonas Kaufmann. In addition, Bachmann has been teaching in the USA and Germany academically at the Manhattan School of Music, New York University, the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the Lübeck Hochschule. He also collaborates regularly with the Cyprus Youth Symphony Orchestra.

Being thoroughly trained through mentorships with Christoph von Dohnányi and James Levine for several years, Bachmann is an avid proponent of contemporary music and has worked with many active composers of our time including Elliott Carter, Krzysztof Penderecki, Sofia Gubaidulina as well as annually since 2017 with members of the Center of Cypriot Composers.

Jens Georg Bachmann was born in Berlin, Germany, and studied conducting and violin at the Hochschule für Musik „Hanns Eisler“ Berlin and The Juilliard School New York.

Bachmann has recorded for the DaCapo and Naxos labels.

For more about Emmanuel Vukovich, please visit his website.
To purchase tickets for this event, visit the Staller Center’s order page.

Nash Naubert, Bansuri, will perform an Indian classical flute recital on Friday, July 5, 2019, 8pm at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, located at 57th Street and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. Naubert, an American citizen who has been living in India for the last 20 years, will be joined on Tabla by Aditya Kalyanpur, and by dancer Gaysil Naubert.

Tickets are $30-40 and are available at www.carnegiehall.org.

Nash Naubert has pursued the art of Indian classical music to a high level of virtuosity which, along with his touring and volunteer work, speaks to his passion for Indian classical music. Nash will be accompanied on tabla by Aditya Kalyanpur, a virtuoso of the younger generation of players worldwide. Together they will present traditional ragas that date back centuries. The concert will end with ‘Hamsa,’ a fusion piece originally composed by Nash Naubert. The piece reflects the sound of birds, and will be interpreted by Gaysil Naubert through an original Peacock dance (a ballet with Indian classical hand movements).

Program will include:
Raga Bageshree
Raga Kedar
Hamsa

A raga or raag (literally means “coloring, tingeing, dyeing”) is a melodic framework for improvisation in Indian classical music. The raga is an old tradition, and every performer expresses the raga in their own way. All of the music in the performance is completely improvised and composed by Naubert Naubert.

For more information, please visit nashnaubert.com

In 2020, the world will celebrate Beethoven’s 250th birthday.

In anticipation of his sestercentennial, this coming June 26 & 28, 2019, singers Deborah Carmichael, Kinga Cserjési, Berry Jones, and Peter Ludwig, joined by instrumentalists Nikita Morozov (violin), Valeriya Sholokhova (cello), and Douglas Martin (piano), will perform some of Beethoven’s little-known vocal works, as well as familiar favorites.

Program will include various ensemble and solo works by Beethoven including:
-concert aria Ah, perfido!
–Mir ist so wunderbar from the opera Fidelio
-Piano Trio in E-flat major, Op.70, No.2: IV. Finale. Allegro
-Selections from Scottish Songs, Welsh Songs, and other Lieder

On June 26th, at 7:30pm, the Beethoven concert will be held at the Hungarian House, 213 East 82nd Street, New York, NY. Tickets available at https://beethoven2019.eventbrite.com.

The concert on June 28th, 5pm is the 2nd annual benefit concert for the Amagansett Life-Saving Station (160 Atlantic Ave. Amagansett, Long Island, NY 11930). Held in the boat room, tickets are $20 per person in advance (amagansettlss.org); $25 at the door.  Seating is limited and all seats are general admission.

“The Amagansett Life-Saving Station has been a unique centerpiece of Long Island history since it was built in 1902. Over a period of 44 years, the dedicated men who worked at the Station saved hundreds of lives. In 1942, four Nazi saboteurs were found by Coast Guardsman John Cullen close to the Station during a nightly beach patrol. And in 1966, the building was rescued from demolition and purchased for a dollar by Joel Carmichael whose family lived there for the rest of the 20th century. After Carmichael’s death in 2006, the house was donated to East Hampton Town for historical preservation.”
(partially cited with from OceanKeeperTheMovie.com)

On May 17, 2007, the East Hampton Town Board designated the Amagansett Life-Saving Station a historic landmark by resolution 2007-43. The board appointed an advisory committee of residents, which then became the nonprofit U.S. Amagansett Life-Saving and Coast Guard Station Society, overseeing the six-year restoration of the Station to its original 1902 design, an undertaking guided by the comprehensive Historic Structure Report commissioned from Historic Services Director Robert Hefner.

The four singers of “The Cozy Side of Beethoven” are students and teachers of the Libero Canto approach.  Libero Canto is a way of teaching and learning singing that liberates the vocal and musical potential of singers who wish to develop singing as an art form, and makes the joy of singing accessible to anyone who seeks it.

The name Libero Canto comes from the phrase, “la via al libero canto,” the path to free singing. This approach was first developed by Lajos Szamosi in Budapest before the Second World War. Libero Canto is a path, a process, and an attitude toward singing and music making. It is a humanistic, holistic approach that values authentic expression and the unfolding of individual potential, and trusts that if we imagine music clearly and allow our true, vital impulses to come through, the wisdom of the body will carry us toward increasing freedom in singing.

DEBORAH CARMICHAEL studied singing with Edvin Szamosi and piano at the Mannes College of Music Extension Division.  She has sung in Europe and the United States, with Lea Bracher as the Duo Delizioso, and since 2013 with Kinga Cserjési as La Compagnia Amarilli.  Deborah has taught singing in New York and Vienna since 1992, including workshops in Austria, Budapest and New York. In 2012, she initiated the Il Cuore Canta workshop series for young opera singers.  She produced the documentary film, “Libero Canto, Voice is Breath,” by Andrea Simon.

KINGA CSERJÉSI has a master’s degree in choir conducting and in the Kodaly method from the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest, and a postgraduate degree in Early Vocal Music from the Fontys University in the Netherlands.  She studied singing with Heent Prins and Edvin Szamosi.  Kinga has sung internationally as a soloist and with various vocal ensembles and is a founding member of the Hungarian group, Bartok’s Roses.
 She has taught singing in Budapest and New York since 1994, and is currently living, teaching, and performing in New York City. 

BERRY JONES attended the Eastman School School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music in Vocal Performance. He was a choir director and organist for nine years with various churches in the New York area, and a music educator for the Archdiocese of New York for fifteen years.  He was also a teaching artist for the St. Luke’s Educational Outreach program and the Harlem School of the Arts. He has sung recitals and concerts in the U.S. as well as in Florence, Italy. Berry is currently studying singing with Sandy Goodman while transitioning from baritone to tenor.

PETER LUDWIG is a graduate of Juilliard and NYU.  He has sung principal roles with Vineyard and Encompass Theaters, Pensacola Opera, Stonington Opera Arts, et al. He was a soloist at Carnegie and Weill Halls and other venues in the U.S. and Europe, and has been featured in ten world or U.S. premieres.  Peter has taught singing at the 92nd Street Y and LaGuardia High School of the Arts, where he directed the Opera Workshop, as well as workshops and master classes for singers and actors in Greece.  Peter now teaches singing privately in New York City.

For more information, please visit liberocanto.org