The Da Capo Chamber Players Present Bard Student Compositions with the Colorado Quartet on May 14
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—The Music Program at Bard College presents a concert by the Da Capo Chamber Players with the Colorado Quartet performing works by composition students of the Bard Music Program and Bard College Conservatory of Music on Wednesday, May 14. The program, free and open to the public, begins at 7:30 p.m. in Olin Hall. No reservations are necessary; seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.
Coordinated by pianist Blair McMillen, a member of Da Capo and the Bard faculty, the program features 12 premieres. These include quintets composed for the Da Capo Chamber players: John Boggs’s “This Estranged Land”; Ben Richter’s “Antarctic Trilogy”; Zeke Virant’s “As I was a child, or how,” with Matt O’Koren, snare drum; and Yiwen Shen’s “Li Hun: Recessional.”
String quartets composed for the Colorado Quartet include Erica Ball’s “. . . the re(sil)i(ent) sound,” Gabrielle Herbst’s “Orange wings stuck; fluttering,” and Conor Brown’s “To Whispering Pines.”
Other works include Benjamin Pesetsky’s “The Triple Fool,” and “Sonnet,” performed by mezzo-soprano Tania Rodriguez and pianist Yiwen Shen; Jesse Brown’s “Reflexion im Glas” for clarinet, violin, cello, and accordion, performed by Da Capo members and Ben Richter, accordion; Meredith Hudak’s “Lúgubre es la vida,” for solo flute, performed by Da Capo member Patricia Spencer; Ava Lehrer’s “Zatom,” for flute, bass clarinet, and piano, performed by Da Capo members; and Lukas Olejnik’s solo piano piece, performed by the composer.
“The Da Capo Chamber Players have been exploring and helping [to] create the modern repertory for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano for the last 30 years,” writes Allan Kozinn in the New York Times. Da Capo is widely acclaimed for its virtuosity, stimulating programs, and openness to a wide spectrum of styles in new music. Its dedication to working with composers is matched by a commitment to rehearsing each piece as a living, moving, breathing entity, rather than as a fixed blueprint. Winner of the Naumburg Chamber Music Award in 1973, Da Capo has been a leader in building a strong heritage of present-day American chamber music and can point with pride to more than 90 chamber music works written especially for the ensemble by Joan Tower, Philip Glass, Harvey Sollberger, and Philippe Bodin, among many others. The Da Capo Chamber Players are flutist Patricia Spencer, clarinetist Meighan Stoops, violinist Curtis Macomber, cellist André Emelianoff, and pianist Blair McMillen. Violinist Renee Jolles and percussionist Matthew Gold are guest artists for this concert. Da Capo is the ensemble in residence of the Bard Music Program and Bard Conservatory.
The Colorado Quartet—Julie Rosenfeld and D. Lydia Redding, violins; Marka Gustavsson, viola; and Diane Chaplin, cello—has quartet in residence at Bard since 2000. In May 1983, the Quartet (officially founded in 1982) was awarded the two most prestigious prizes in the chamber music world: the Naumburg Chamber Music Award in New York, and first prize at the first Banff International String Quartet Competition in Canada. Performing in major cities across the globe, the quartet’s New York appearances have included the Mostly Mozart Festival, where they performed 20 Haydn quartets over a two-year period, as well as concerts in Carnegie Hall and at Lincoln Center. The ensemble regularly performs the complete Beethoven quartets, most recently in Berlin, and is the first female quartet to have performed the Beethoven cycle in both North America and Europe. The Colorado Quartet is also quartet in residence of the Bard Conservatory.
For additional information, contact the Music Program at 845-758-7250.
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(5/7/08)
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Da Capo Chamber Players (clockwise from top): Photo: Peter Schaaf |
The Colorado Quartet (L to R:) D. Lydia Redding, Marka Gustavsson, Julie Rosenfeld, and Diane Chaplin Photo: Wendy Stulberg |