Midwinter Sounds -- February 19 at 3 PM in New York City!

The North/South Chamber Orchestra under the direction of its founder Max Lifchitz premieres works by three generations of composers hailing from Cuba, Italy and the US. Anne Marie Ketchum will be the guest soprano soloist.
 
Jan. 25, 2012 - PRLog -- North/South Consonance, Inc. continues its 32nd consecutive season of free-admission concerts on Sunday afternoon February 19. The event will feature the acclaimed North/South Chamber Orchestra under the direction of its founder Max Lifchitz performing five works especially written for the occasion by composers representing three different generations. They are: Ada Gentile, Yalil Guerra, Victor Kioulaphides, Harold Schiffman and Aurelio de la Vega.

   The concert will start at 3 PM and will take place at the auditorium of Christ & St. Stephen’s Church (120 West 69th St) in Manhattan.  Admission is free.

   The featured composers will be in attendance and will be happy to meet with the public during intermission and after the performance. They will be available for interviews and may be contacted through the North/South office at ns.concerts@att.net.

   North/South Consonance’s 2011-12 season 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; grants from Columbia University’s Alice M. Ditson Fund and the Zethus Fund, as well as contributions by many generous individuals.  

For further information about North/South Consonance’s activities, including upcoming concerts and recordings, please visit http://www.northsouthmusic.org.




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ABOUT THE COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC

  The program will open with the first performance of Torre del Guado (2011), a single-movement work  by  the Italian composer  Ada Gentile (b. 1947). The work was written while visiting the resort town of Torre del Guado near Florence during the fall. Its simple direct musical language evokes the tranquility and beauty of the Tuscan countryside. One of Italy’s most important living composers, Ms. Gentile studied with the late Godoffredo Petrassi at the Academia di Santa Cecilia. Her Cantata per la Pace (Peace Cantata) for chorus and orchestra -- commissioned by the Vatican to mark the Jubilee 2000 — has been performed throughout Europe, Russia, Korea and Brazil. While in New York, Ms. Gentile will be lecturing about her music at the Manhattan School of Music and Columbia University.

   Victor Kioulaphides will be represented on the program by his New York Moments, a recently completed four movement work inspired by everyday life in New York. He writes that the work is a “dual tribute to the one and only city that never sleeps, and to the spectacular musicians who set its lights ablaze with their dazzling skill and brilliant artistry.”  The titles of the four movements are: Times Square, Central Park, Tugboat on the Hudson, and Grand Central.  Born in Athens, Greece in 1961, Kioulaphides came to New York in 1979 to train at the Manhattan School of Music and The Juilliard School. A much sought-after double bassist, he received the Pablo Casals Award and the Harold Bauer Award. His chamber and orchestral works have been performed throughout Europe, Japan, and South America.

   The first half of the concert will conclude with El Cucalambé by Yalil Guerra (b. 1973; Havana, Cuba). Born into a family of musicians —his parents are the well-known Cuban folk-music duo Rosell y Cary — Guerra won the 1990 Classical Guitar Competition held in Krakow, Poland before moving to Madrid, Spain where he attended the Royal Conservatory of Music Queen Sofia. Since 1999, Guerra has resided in Los Angeles, CA where he is active in the film and television industries having composed and arranged numerous sound tracks for Univision, Telefatura and Canal 41 Miami. In 2010 he was awarded a Brandon Fradd Fellowship by the Miami-based Cintas Foundation while his album Old Havana was nominated for a Latin Grammy. In three movements, Guerra’s colorful and virtuosic work explores the musical fusion between Spanish and West African elements that make Afro-Caribbean music so unique. Its title makes reference to the 19th century Cuban poet and patriot Juan Cristobal Nápoles Fajardo (1829-1862) who published under the Afro-Cuban pseudonym El Cucalambé. Known throughout the Caribbean for his décimas (poems with 10 sentences), Nápoles Fajardo sought to portray typical Cuban scenes while employing the sounds of Afro-Cuban speech. Quasi-programmatic, each movement of Guerra’s work is inspired by different events related to the history of the island. The first movement is titled Goodbye Cadiz; the second Slaves at Sea, and the third Ebony Woman.

   Aurelio de la Vega’s Recordatio (Recollection) for soprano and chamber orchestra will open the second half of the concert. Written during the summer months of 2011, the work was inspired by the poem De como Dios disfraza su ternura (”Of how God disguises his tenderness”) by the 20th century Cuban writer Emilio Ballagas (1908-1954) whose poetry is credited with capturing the energy and personality of the Afro-Cuban population. De la Vega (b. 1925, Havana, Cuba) was honored with the 2009 Warren Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cintas Foundation. He received the Friedheim Award from Kennedy Center twice and has also received many other honors and decorations from various Latin American countries. Based in Los Angeles since 1959, his orchestra works have been performed throughout the Americas and Europe. Soprano Anne Marie Ketchum, who has recorded most of de la Vega’s vocal music, will appear as soloist for the premiere of Recordatio. Very active as soloist throughout the West Coast, Ms. Ketchum is the Founding Artistic Director and Conductor of the Verdi Chorus of Los Angeles and is also in charge of the Pasadena City College Opera Program.

   The concert will conclude with the four-movement Serenata Concertante by Harold Schiffman (b. 1928; Greensboro, NC) a composer whose music has been described by  the press as “well crafted, lyrical and communicative....worthy of repeated hearings.”  A student of Roger Sessions and Ernst von Dohnanyi, Schiffman’s compositions have been performed throughout the US and Europe. Between 1959-84 Schiffman taught at Florida State University in Tallahassee and founded its acclaimed New Music Festival . He writes that the music of Serenata Concertante demands “concerto-like virtuosity from all the members of the ensemble.”  While the first two movements recall Southern Appalachian fiddle tunes, the last two pay homage to the late French composer Darius Milhaud who Schiffman befriended while living in San Francisco.

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