 New Renaissance at Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral 113 Remsen Street, Brooklyn, NY October 19th, 2012 - 8PM (7:45 doors) Ensemble Epomeo
Caroline Chin, violin David Yang, viola Kenneth Woods, cello James Tenney - Koan (1971), arr. for violin duo Lou Harrison - String Trio (1946) Michael Vincent Waller - Studiare per Zero Quartetti (2012) for string trio Michael Vincent Waller - Allegoria della Primavera (2012) for violin and cello Michael Vincent Waller - Per Mia Madre e Mia Nonna (2012)* for string trio Alfred Schnittke - String Trio (1985) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Divertimento Trio in E-flat major, K. 563 (1788) Ludwig Van Beethoven - Op. 3, String Trio No. 1 in E-flat major (1784) with special guest performers: Tom Chiu, violin Brian Snow, cello *world premiere $10 admission After performing in Philadelphia, Boston and throughout Canada, England, Scotland, Wales, and Italy, Ensemble Epomeo will make its New York debut at Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral in Brooklyn this October. Acclaimed interpreters of music as diverse as Bach's Goldberg variations and the complete trios of 20th Century cult favorite Hans Gal, EE is also highly committed to new music for string trio and has commissioned works by Melissa Dumphy, Kamyar Mohajer, Kile Smith, and Jay Reise. This concert will be their first opportunity to perform the works of New York composer Michael Vincent Waller with his new trio "Per Mia Madre e Mia Nonna" (2012)* The trio recently made their first Canadian tour, with a residency at St Thomas University and a highly praised debut at the Scotia Festival of Music/Music Room concert series in Halifax. In 2011, they will make their first commercial recordings for the Avie label.The members of Ensemble Epomeo bring to the group a combined wealth of experience as members of professional chamber ensembles across the US and Europe, with expertise in contemporary music, classical performance practice and improvisation. The members of Ensemble Epomeo have all held prestigious professional teaching and performing positions and been recipients of a wide variety of fellowships and awards. Ensemble Epomeo are focused on presenting great works of the chamber music literature in a diverse range of performing venues and program styles. Their intent is always to take seriously the music and their audience, but not themselves. Michael Vincent Waller, born in 1985, is an Italian-American composer of contemporary classical music, who has studied with La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, Bunita Marcus, Petr Kotik, Michael J. Schumacher, and Tom Chiu. Waller's work is avant-garde, with his use of microtonality, just intonation, new abstract forms, extensive glissandi, and isolated sonorities around frequent silences. He also channels early music, with chant-like chorale sections featuring detailed polyphony. Overall, his music features a deep appreciation for saturated minimalism, slow durations, exotic harmonic relationships, and process-based phenomenon. His chamber works have been performed by the S.E.M. Ensemble and members of the FLUX Quartet, performing at venues such as ISSUE Project Room, and also art-sound galleries throughout New York City Waller also curates an avant-garde program in New York City, the NewIdeas MusicSeries, with composers Phill Niblock, Elliott Sharp, a duo with David First, and many more performing. His music series was written up in TimeOut Classical, "Composer and visual artist Michael Vincent Waller, who also happens to be a protégé of La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, opens the second season of the plugged-in new-music series". Described by the Chicago Sun Times as “…riveting and insightful, who lights up in passages of violin pyrotechnics,” Caroline Chin has concertized throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia in concert halls including the John F. Kennedy Center, the White House during their Christmas Festivities, New York’s Carnegie and Weill Halls, and the Concertgebeau in Amsterdam. She gave her solo debut at age 12 and has since performed with several orchestras throughout the United States. Ms. Chin performs as concertmaster with the Paragon Orchestra and has toured the US and Japan with tap dancer Savion Glover. A promoter of new music, she has performed works of composers Elliot Carter, Paul Moravec, Christopher Theofanidis, Michael Gotanska, Lisa Bielawa, Martin Kennedy, and Alexandra Vrebelov. As the Artistic Director of Musica Reginae for the past three years, she organized several projects with contemporary American composers including a commission and world premiere by Pulitzer Prize winner George Walker. An avid chamber musician, Ms. Chin is also a member of the Hudson Piano Trio. She has collaborated with members of the Takacs Quartet, Vermeer Quartet, the Juilliard Quartet as well as with artists Gary Hoffman, Raphael Wallfisch, Colin Carr, Nobuko Imai, Charles Neidich, Piers Lane, and Abdel Rahman El Basha. Festival appearances include the Newburyport Festival in Massachusetts, Consonances Festival in France, the Schiermonnikoog Chamber Music Festival in Holland, and the 2 Rivers Festival in the United Kingdom. Deeply involved in music education, Ms. Chin received a Morse Fellowship at the Juilliard School which placed her in the classrooms of New York Public Schools. She currently develops outreach programs to be brought to the students of public schools in Manhattan and Queens. Ms. Chin received her Bachelor of Music Degree from Indiana University’s School of Music as a student of Miriam Fried and has received her Master of Music Degree from the Juilliard School as a student of Robert Mann. David Yang is one of America’s most versatile musicians, a virtuoso violist also known for commissioning music, coaching chamber music at the University level, running his own chamber music festival, storytelling, and composition. As a high school student, David used to fall asleep with a string quartet score by his pillow and an lp spinning away on the turntable. Now, admired for his intensity, honesty of musical expression, and passionate communication, David has been heard throughout North America and Europe in collaboration with members of the Audubon, Avalon, Bernini, Borromeo, Brentano, Bronte, Cassatt, Corigliano, Daedulus, Flux, Lark, Miro, Muir, Pro Arte and Tokyo String Quartets and Apple Hill Chamber Players, Trio Pamela Frank, Eliot Fisk and Wendy Warner. He is also the recent recipient of an artist fellowship from the Independence Foundation in Philadelphia, PA awarded to a small number of “exceptional artists” in the region.Recent concert highlights include performances of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola and orchestra in Italy, Canada and Wales along with trio recitals in Italy, the UK and throughout the Northeast USA. As an active advocate of new music he has premiered dozens of works in the last few years including the commissioning of new works, (many with the assistance of grants from the American Composers Forum) by composers Matthew Barnson, Robert Capanna, Daniel Colson, Daniel Dorff, Noah Farber, Peter Gilbert, Jeremy Gill, Anne Latham Kerzner, David Laganella, David Ludwig, Roberto Pace, Jonathan Robert Pieslak, Daniel Schlossberg, Eric Sessler, Kile Smith, Emiliano Pardo Tristan, Orianna Webb, Anna Weesner, Andrew Waggoner, Joshua Yang and Sharon Zhu.He is currently Artistic Director of the Newburyport Chamber Music Festival near Boston, MA .In his role as leader of the Philadelphia-based storytelling music troupe Auricolae, he has developed a residency program to foster the creation of new compositions by public school students in Philadelphia and the surrounding region. Auricolae is a rostered ensemblefor the non-profit presenting organization “Musicopia” in addition to the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts. David is also a member of Poor Richard’s String Quartet (currently in residence at Ben Franklin’s parish, historic Christ Church in Olde City, Philadelphia) and the Italian-based string trio Ensemble Epomeo, David also founded the Philadelphia Viola Society.Born and raised in New York City he studied with Martha Strongin Katz, Heidi Castleman, Karen Ritscher and Steve Wyrczynki and also has a Master’s degree in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. He has studied with many of the finest string quartets today including the Amadeus, Colorado and Vermeer String Quartets and members of the American, Cleveland and Juilliard String Quartets with coaching by Josef Gingold, Karen Tuttle, Julius Levine, Robert Mann and Felix Galimir.Director of Chamber Music at the University of Pennsylvania and the Main Line Chamber Music Seminar, he also coaches at Swarthmore College and Settlement Music School in Philadelphia. He now lives in South Philadelphia with his two daughters, Eliana Razzino and Alessandra Pierson Yang. When not practicing viola and spending time with his daughters, he enjoys following professional cycling, swimming, and cooking. David’s father is the eminent landscape photographer John Yang and his mother, Linda Gureasko Yang, was a reporter for the New York Times. His various other pursuits have led him over the years to work as a bicycle messenger in Manhattan, a fossil hunter in the Utah desert, a bartender in New York and a carpenter. He plays on a viola made by the viola da gamba maker Johannes Tielka in 1670 and originally owned by Brahms’ friend Joseph Joachim. He is a member of the Philadelphia Musical Trust Fund Society. Cellist, conductor and author Kenneth Woods is now widely recognized in the US and Europe as a musician of rare versatility, equally at home as conductor, recitalist, chamber musician and soloist. A founding member of the NEA Rural Residency Grant winning Taliesin Trio, he has concertized throughout the US and Canada, and has also been heard as soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe and New Zealand. He has also been the cellist of the Masala String Quartet from 1993-1999. He was artist-in-residence, member of the Eastern Piano Trio while serving as director of strings and chamber music at Eastern Oregon University from 1999-2002.Concerto appearances include the Aspen Music Festival, the Grande Ronde Symphony, Cambridge Symphony, Gonzaga Symphony, Boston Chamber Orchestra, Lancashire Chamber Orchestra, Blue Mountain Festival Chamber Orchestra, Oregon East Symphony, and the Madison Philomusica. He has been heard in radio broadcasts on NPR, the BBC and the CBC, and recorded for Vienna Modern Masters.Festival appearances include the Festival at Sandpoint, Great Lakes Chamber Festival, Lucerne Festival in Switzerland, Schloss Weinberg Festival in Austria, Chautauqua Institute, Domaine Forget Festival in Canada, Wallowa Lake Chamber Music Festival and the International Festival Institute at Round Top. He is currently an affiliate artist with the Ischia Chamber Music Festival, the Clock Tower Chamber Music Festival and is cellist of the string trio Ensemble Epomeo.Intensely committed to new music, Mr. Woods has collaborated with such composers as Bruce Adolphe, Gerhard Samuel, John Corigliano, Oliver Knussen, and Peter Lieberson, and has given numerous premieres. As a cellist he has been recipient of the Aspen Fellowship, and is the only person to have received the Dale Gilbert Award, given annually to the “Outstanding String Performer in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music” in consecutive years. Also while in Madison, he held the Strelow Quartet Fellowship, as a member of the graduate quartet-in-residence.Kenneth Woods chamber music colleagues include members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Smithsonian Chamber Players, the Pro Arte, Audubon, La Salle and Tokyo Quartets, the Cincinnati, Chicago, and Toronto Symphonies, and the Minnesota, Gewandhaus and Concertgebouw Orchestras. Kenneth Woods plays a cello of Italian origin believed to be made by the great Pesaro maker Mariani in the 1640′s. A fluent and busy writer who finished his first novel at the age of 13, Kenneth Woods is the author of the blog A View From the Podium, where he writes about music, conducting, cello playing and the life of a traveling musician. Consistently one of the most popular classical music blogs in the world, it has been blog of the month in Gramophone Magazine, and has received favorable notice from the music critics of the Independent, the New Yorker, Wall Street Journal and others.Ken’s hobbies include cycling, complaining about the Green Bay Packers, cooking and hiking with his son Sam, his wife, the violinist Suzanne Casey and his dog Murphy. A noted champion of new music, experimental violinist and composer-improviser Tom Chiu has performed over 150 premieres worldwide by influential composers such as Virko Baley, Dean Drummond, Roscoe Mitchell, and Somei Satoh, among others. He has also worked with pioneering improvisers David Chesky, David First, Oliver Lake, and Ornette Coleman, with whom he appeared at the Walker Art Center in 2005. Chiu’s discography includes recordings for the Canteloupe, Innova, Koch, Mode, Sombient, and Tzadik labels. In a mixed-media context, Chiu has created new works with choreographers Eun-Me Ahn and Shen Wei, audio-visual artist Phill Niblock, sculptor Ernesto Neto, conceptual balloonist Judy Dunaway, and director Lee Breuer from avant theater troupe Mabou Mines. His extensive work in film showcases his creative versatility: as composer (Boris), arranger/fiddler (I Sell The Dead), voice-over artist (Chandni Chowk to China), and actor (The Man With One Red Shoe, with Tom Hanks). Chiu holds degrees in music and chemistry from Yale and a doctorate in music from Juilliard. Cellist Brian Snow pursues an active performing career in New York City, where he is a member of Newspeak Ensemble, the Omni Ensemble, Praxis String Quartet, Ashmont Hill Chamber Music Society, and the 20>21 Ensemble. He has appeared as a soloist with the Riverside Orchestra, Crescent City Symphony (New Orleans) and the Longy Chamber Orchestra, and has performed with Mark Morris Dance Group, Alarm Will Sound, singer-songwriter Brett Aaron, Fireworks Ensemble, the M6, Manhattan Sinfonietta, ACME, Build, Meredith Monk, and the Emerson String Quartet. He has recorded with the Yale Cellos, Sonya Kitchell, My Brightest Diamond, Ratatat, and Jonsi of Sigur Ros, and has appeared with John Legend on The Colbert Report, The All-American Rejects on MTV’s TRL, and with Duffy on NBC’s Today Show. Brian won top prizes at the Paranov, Emerson String Quartet, and Longy concerto soloists competitions. Currently a DMA candidate at SUNY Stony Brook, he holds degrees from the Hartt School of Music and Longy School of Music, and has a Master of Music degree from Yale. Brian studied with the eminent cellists David Finckel, Aldo Parisot, Terry King, and Colin Carr, and has participated in master classes with Janos Starker, Steven Isserlis, and Timothy Eddy. In the summers, Brian participated in Taos, Round Top, and Killington festivals, the American-Russian Youth Orchestra Tour, and was a fellowship recipient at Aspen Music Festival. A dedicated teacher himself, Brian is a faculty member at Brooklyn Conservatory and the Brooklyn Waldorf School and has taught at summer programs including Friends of Music in Korea and Summertrios. |