Global Voices of the Flute

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. – Internationally known flutist Patricia Spencer, soloist as well as flutist with the Naumburg Award–winning Da Capo Chamber Players, will give a recital on Thursday, June 19 at 8 p.m., at the László Z. Bitó ’60 Conservatory Building at Bard College. The program, titled “Global Voices of the Flute,” will feature works with musical connections to China, Japan, Persia, Canada, and Russia, and also will include American work. The program is free and open to the public and no reservations are necessary. For more information, go to www.patriciaspencerflute.com.

The recital is the opening event in a five-day seminar devoted to the study of present-day flute repertoire and connections between old and new repertoire. Seminar participants include professional artists, and graduate and undergraduate flutists from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and elsewhere. A closing recital by the participants will be presented on Tuesday, June 24 at 7:30 p.m. at the Bitó Building.

The June 19 program features Chen Yi, Three Bagatelles from China West; Kamran Ince, Asumani; Shirish Korde, Tenderness of Cranes; Leo Kraft, Third Fantasy for Flute and Piano; Sergey Prokofiev, Sonata, Op. 94 for Flute and Piano; and Murray Schafer, Sonatina for Flute and Harpsichord. Spencer will be joined by Linda Hall, piano; Madeleine Shapiro, cello; and Frederick Hammond, harpsichord.

About the Artists:

With her Chinese premiere in November 2013 of Ge Ganru’s flute concerto, Fairy Lady Meng Jiang, Patricia Spencer added another exciting concerto to her list of major present day concerto performances: the New York premiere of Elliott Carter’s Flute Concerto in 2011; the world premiere of Shulamit Ran’s concerto, Voices, in 2000; the world premiere of Eric Chasalow’s chamber concerto, Three Love Poems, in 2006; and a performance of Joan Tower’s Flute Concerto, for the National Flute Association Convention in 2004. The performance of Ge Ganru’s work took place at the Oriental Arts Center, with the Shanghai Philharmonic conducted by Zhang Liang. Previous career peaks for Spencer have included the U.S. premieres of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Kathinkas Gesang, and world premieres of Elliott Carter’s Enchanted Preludes and Harvey Sollberger’s Riding the Wind, among many others.  Spencer has commissioned dozens of pieces, including Thea Musgrave’s now-classic Narcissus and Judith Shatin's Kairos (Neuma Records). A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory, where she was a student of Robert Willoughby, Spencer continued her studies with Marcel Moyse, John Wummer, and Josef Marx. She teaches flute and chamber music at Bard College and Hofstra University. The Da Capo Chamber Players is in residence at Bard College and The Bard College Conservatory of Music. 

Pianist Linda Hall is assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, where she has performed as part of the MET Orchestra for operas that require a piano part, and has appeared regularly with the MET Chamber Ensemble for the annual Carnegie Hall concert series in Weill Hall and Zankel Hall. In addition to her work with the MET, she collaborates with many singers and instrumentalists in concerts throughout the United States and abroad.  She has taught at the Israeli Vocal Arts Institute in Tel Aviv for many summers and has given master classes in Japan and China. She has also been invited to join the Tanglewood musical faculty every summer since 2006. Her recordings include discs on the Neuma label with flutist Patricia Spencer, an album with MET Orchestra principal cellist Jascha Silberstein for the Heritage label, a CD on the Capriccio label, and recent recordings for Azur Classical, and with the New York Piano Quartet for Urlicht Audio/Visual. She received degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory and The Juilliard School, pursuing advanced studies at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. 

Frederick Hammond, harpsichord, Irma Brandeis Professor Emeritus of Romance Cultures and Music History, holds a Ph.D. from Yale University. He has received fellowships from the American Academy, Villa I Tatti, and the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation for Venetian Studies. He is also music director emeritus of the Clarion Music Society, and the author of two books on Girolamo Frescobaldi, Music and Spectacle in Baroque Rome, and numerous articles. He is also coeditor of the Ambiente Barocco exhibition catalogue, Bard Graduate Center. He has performed at the Smithsonian Institution, Lincoln Center, and Nakamichi Festival, among others. He has taught at Bard College from 1989 to 2012. His recordings are on the Nonesuch, ABC Westminster, and Decca record labels. 

Madeleine Shapiro, cellist, has long been a recognized figure in the field of contemporary music. She was founding director of the internationally known ensemble The New Music Consort and presently directs ModernWorks. Shapiro performs extensively as a solo recitalist throughout the United States, Europe, and Latin America. Her first solo CD, Electricity: Works for Cello and Electronics (Albany Records) was greeted as “focused and cohesive...a polystylistic collection of pieces that individually push the instrument and technology in unique ways,” (Time Out New York). ModernWorks’s recent CD, string quartets by Ge Ganru, was chosen by the New York Times as one of the best CDs of 2009. Shapiro is a recipient of three Encore Awards from the American Composers Forum, and a Barlow Award, all to assist in the presentation of new works. As director of the New Music Consort, she won First Prize in Adventurous Programming awarded by ASCAP Chamber Music America. She has been a three-time visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome.

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This event was last updated on 06-16-2014

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