Our Second Concert of the Season is just around the corner: Tuesday, February 15 @ 8pm. We will again be at Saint Peters Church at Citigroup Center, Lexington & 54th Street. There is a $20 suggested donation, payable at the door. Our NYCC composers on the evening include JACOB E. GOODMAN, CARL KANTER, DANA DIMIITRI RICHARDSON, and two of our honorary composer members, JOHN EATON and PAUL MORAVEC.
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In a concert on Saturday, Feb. 5th at 6 PM, the Glass Farm Ensemble is presenting two songs of GENE McBRIDE at the Barysnikov Center (37 Arts building), 37th St., between 9th and 10th Aves. NYC. The songs are from a set of two songs in the collection Fancy, written for tenor, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano. The songs are (1) "Times Like These" expresses the current situations we find ourselves in... and greed. Also (2) "A Man, a Woman, and a Dog" is about freedom, individuality, and love.
Gene shares: "The last song mentioned utilizes the words of George Sand excerpted from her letter to Gustave Flaubert in 1871. Her words are entirely apropos for today, "Humanity is outraged in me and with me. We shall not dissimulate nor try to forget this indignation which is one of the most passionate forms of love." Hope you can attend." Other composers on the program are Daniel Fueter, Bruno Mantovani, and John Morton.
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BRIAN FENNELLY writes in to share that on February 5, there will be a premiere performance of his Fantasia Concertante (2009) for violin, cello, and orchestra by soloists Duo Parnas (Madalyn and Cicely Parnas) with the Indiana University New Music Ensemble under David Dzubay; at the Jacobs School of Music, in Bloomington, Indiana. You can visit
parnasmusic.com for more info. NYCC concert goers will remember 'Sigol' for Two which was performed by the Duo Parnas — this is an expansion with orchestra of that piece, which is recorded on their Sheffield lab CD
"Gare du Nord." This CD was chosen by Gene Gaudette on his blog as one of the 10 best CDs of 2010.
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A new bill of chamber operas by
MARTIN HALPERN, "The Hour Glass" and "The Death of Peer Gynt," will be produced at the New York New Church, 114 East 35th Street in Manhattan, on February 17, 18 and 19, 2011, at 8 PM. Tickets, at $20, can be purchased in advance online at
www.Theatermania.com or by calling 212-352-0255.
Both operas deal with an aged man confronting his death. In the first opera, freely based on images from W.B. Yeats's play "The Hour Glass," a much admired professor of religion is visited in a dream by a woman representing the spirit of doubt inside him. In the second opera, freely based on the final scenes of Henrik Ibsen's "Peer Gynt," the anti-hero Peer is forced to accept judgment as one who has failed to find a true identity, and must therefore be "melted down like all such damaged goods."
Featured in "The Hour Glass" are baritone Jim Trainor as the professor and soprano Yvonne Bill as the woman. Featured in "The Death of Peer Gynt" are baritone Joshua South as Peer, tenor Jean Hebert as an Emissary from the place of judgment, and soprano Jacqueline Thompson as Solveig, the loving wife whom Peer abandoned many years ago. The pianist for both operas is Earl Buys. The stage director is David Macdonald, and music direction is by the composer.
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JOHN EATON's "Sor Juana Songs" (1998) will be performed at the Tenri Cultural Institute at 43A West 13th St. on Friday, Feb. 25 at 8pm by the incredible singer Christina Asher and the wonderful pianist Taka Kigawa. John writes, "Three sonnets by, in my opinion, the greatest Latin American poet, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. To capture their themes of, respectively, illusive love, defying the overbearing authority of her male detractors, and the loss of love, I have used microtones in the voice as well as as well as singing into the piano strings, and such piano techniques as holding "lesser" sonorities with the middle pedal of the piano and catching sf passages or chords by the quick change of the right pedal - the last three of which create softer, echoing images of previous events. This is perhaps my favorite and most moving song cycle."
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A reminder to the broader NYCC community, specifically composers who have expressed interest but not yet joined the NYCC: you might like to know we are already in the planning stages for the 2011-2012 concert season. This includes a Call for Scores deadline of February 15. If you would like to be considered for concert programming purposes in the next season, you must be a member in good standing, and should contact us about joining.
