A Bonsai Garden - April 18 at 8 PM in New York City

NEW YORK - March 29, 2016 - PRLog -- North/South Consonance, Inc continues its series of free-admission
concerts on Monday evening April 18 when violinist Claudia Schaer,
cellist Tomoko Fujita and pianist Max Lifchitz join forces to perform
for the first time in New York recent piano trios by Brian Banks,
Ofer Ben-Amots and Allan Crossman.


The concert will take place at the auditorium of  Christ & St
Stephen's Church (120 West 69th Street) on Manhattan's Upper West
Side. The free-admission event will start at 8 PM and end around 9:30
PM. The auditorium is ADA accessible. No tickets or reservations
needed.

The composers will introduce their works prior to being performed and
will also meet with the public after the concert.

ABOUT THE COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC

Brian R. Banks has resided in Puebla, Mexico since 1996 where he
serves as composer-in-residence for the Universidad de las Americas.
The Seattle native studied at Peabody Conservatory and the University
of California, Berkeley. His compositions explore the boundaries
among the popular, world and classical music traditions.  His A
Bonsai Garden comprises eight contrasting movements inspired by four
mythical creatures from Japanese fairy tales known as the Yokai. The
four creatures are: Kitsune--a shape shifting creature most often
represented as a fox-woman; Kappa--a water goblin, a cross between a
giant salamander and a tortoise; the Tanuki-based on Japan's "raccoon
dogs," are somewhat playful troublemakers; and finally Nekomata--a
sly, two-tailed cat.

Ofer Ben-Amots began his musical journey as a pianist in his native
Israel before coming to the US to earn a doctorate in composition at
the University of Pennsylvania under the guidance of George Crumb. A
member of the Colorado College faculty, his works have been performed
throughout Europe, Japan and the US and have garnered many awards
including the Aaron Copland Award and the Music Composition Artist
Fellowship from the Colorado Council on the Arts. A member of the
Advisory Board of the Milken Foundation American-Jewish Music
Archive, he is a Jerusalem Fellow of the Center for Jewish Culture
and Creativity and its Artistic Director for North America. Written
in 2013, The Odessa Trio is dedicated to the memory of the composer's
mentor Joseph Dorman (1940-2006), the Russian-Israeli pianist and
composer who taught at Tel Aviv University. The highly eclectic
composition combines elements found in Jewish liturgical music --
including Shofar-like calls -- with Chopinesque mannerisms and tango
motifes. A haunting dynamic tension permeates the virtuosic work.

A native New Yorker, Allan Crossman resided in Montreal where he
taught at Concordia University before moving to the Bay area to join
the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory. His work as composer
has been supported by grants from the Canada Council for the Arts,
the American Composers Forum, and Meet the Composer. The Log of the
Skipper's Wife -- his musical drawn from Irish/Scottish shanties --
was produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford and the
Kennedy Center. Crossman's piano trio Icarus is based on the mythical
story in which Icarus flies too close to the sun and falls into the
sea. In this new musical version, the sea revives Icarus, and he
ascends once again, now fully-formed, harmonizing both youthful and
mature qualities of desire, physicality, caution, impetuosity,
innocence, hope. The piece uses traditional and modern musical
language to reflect the timeless and the new.

MEET THE PERFORMERS

Canadian violinist Claudia Schaer trained at The
Juilliard School where she was a student and assistant of Sally
Thomas before earning a doctorate in performance from The University
at Stony Brook, SUNY. She has appeared as soloist and chamber
musician at numerous international festivals, including the Thy
Chamber Festival in Denmark; the Berlin Philharmonic's Opera Barga
Festival in Italy; the Luzerne Festival in Switzerland; and China's
Nanning Festival, where she was invited to serve a Guest Professor
for the Guangxi Arts College. Her recording of Bach's Sonatas and
Partitas produced with assistance of a Canada Council grant was
recently released to much acclaim.

A native of Port Jefferson, NY, Tomoko Fujita has collaborated with
esteemed artists such as Itzhak Perlman; members of the Cleveland,
Emerson, and Juilliard String Quartets; dancer Wendy Whelan, and the
Lar Lubovitch Dance Company. She was the cellist of the Bryant Park
Quartet for ten years. Currently, she is a member of the New York
Chamber Music Co-Op while serving as Performance Director of the
Stony Brook University Pre-College Program. Fujita teaches at the
Kinhaven Music School, the New York Youth Symphony Chamber Music
Program, and the St. Thomas Choir School.

A dynamic figure in America's musical life, pianist and composer Max
Lifchitz was born in MÉxico City and has lived in New York since
1966. He has appeared on concert stages throughout Latin America,
Europe and the United States and has recorded over 60 compact disc
albums. The San Francisco Chronicle described him as "a stunning,
ultra-sensitive pianist" while The New York Times praised Mr.
Lifchitz for his "clean, measured and sensitive performances." The
American Record Guide referred to him as "...one of America's finest
exponents of contemporary piano music."

For the completem Spring concert series schedule please visit
http://www.northsouthmusic.org