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9/28/2005
Media contacts:
Charles Amirkhanian (415) 934-8134, charles@otherminds.org
Diane Roby (415) 931-5367, reddroby@earthlink.net
**Spectacular photos available for direct press download at:
http://www.otherminds.org/Pressroom.html
OTHER MINDS
in collaboration with Swedenborgian Church and Piedmont Piano Company presents
A NEW MUSIC S�ANCE
Saturday, December 3, 2005, at 2pm, 5:30pm and 8pm
Composers of hypnotic, spiritual music to be channeled by Piano, Violin, and Disklavier in three concerts at San Francisco�s Swedenborgian Church
s�ance n. A meeting of people to receive spiritualistic messages.
San Francisco, CA, 23 September 2005 � The intimate candlelit surroundings of Bernard Maybeck�s Swedenborgian Church, built in San Francisco in 1895, will be the scene of America�s first-ever New Music S�ance, presented by Other Minds. Noted pianist Sarah Cahill, and the violin-piano duo of Kate Stenberg and Eva-Maria Zimmermann, will perform a selection of hypnotic, spiritual and rarely-heard contemporary music in a meditative mode. The music spans the period from Erik Satie�s Gnossienne No. 5 (1889), to Charles Ives� Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano (1907), and through the 20th century to the present, including Self (2005) by Bay Area composer Daniel David Feinsmith.
The Other Minds New Music S�ance marathon features three distinct concerts on Saturday, December 3, 2005, at 2pm, 5:30pm, and 8pm, at Swedenborgian Church, 2107 Lyon Street, San Francisco. Tickets for individual concerts are $20, $35, or $50; a series pass for all three concerts is available for $50, $100, or $150. Seating in the intimate setting of Swedenborgian Church will be general admission, with proceeds to benefit Other Minds. Advance tickets are available online at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2301, or by phone at (415) 934-8134.
Produced by Other Minds Artistic Director Charles Amirkhanian, the three concerts in the New Music S�ance feature five hours of solo piano music performed by Sarah Cahill, with additional performances by Kate Stenberg, violin, and Swiss pianist Eva-Maria Zimmermann. Audiences will be treated to performances of Alexander Scriabin�s Vers la flamme (Toward the Flame, 1914) and the world premiere of Three Fantasy Pieces, dating from the early 1960s, by the Russian-born American composer Leo Ornstein (1892-2003). A further highlight will be the American premiere of Danish artist-composer Henning Christiansen�s Den Arkadiske for violin and piano (1966), a Fluxus gloss on folk fiddling that is astonishing in its intensity. The concerts also feature works by John Adams, Johanna Beyer, John Cage, Henry Cowell, Ruth Crawford, Alvin Curran, Lou Harrison, Bunita Marcus, Terry Riley, astrologer Dane Rudhyar and others. Humanly unplayable music by Kyle Gann, Daniel David Feinsmith, and Gary Noland will be self-performed on a Yamaha Disklavier grand piano, including the world premiere of Feinsmith�s Amalek.
�It�s about time we came together in a magical setting to share the rich variety of contemplative music written over the last century,� says Charles Amirkhanian, who conceived the idea for the concert. �I took one look at the interior of the Swedenborgian Church and a whole vision of what a new music s�ance would sound like suggested itself. Present-day new music has a host of ancestors whom we�ll be channelling and performing alongside some of their progeny.�
The Swedenborgian Church is a perfect venue for this s�ance concert. Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) was a scientist who became a mystic philosopher after having strange visions and dreams when he was almost sixty. Emerson, Blake, and Coleridge were among his devotees, along with composer Arnold Schoenberg, who derived aspects of his twelve-tone system from Swedenborg�s teachings. The church, a small rather rustic and intimate venue that seats just over a hundred people, will be arranged in the round with a 7-foot Yamaha Disklavier grand piano from Piedmont Piano Company as the centerpiece, opposite the wood-burning fireplace that will warm the building, along with hundreds of candles to illuminate the performances.
For more information contact Other Minds at (415) 934-8134, www.otherminds.com.
MUSICIANS
Sarah Cahill, piano
Sarah Cahill was praised in the Village Voice for �her phenomenal technique, her instinctive command of recent aesthetics, and quite possibly the most interesting repertoire of any pianist around.� She specializes in new American music as well as the American experimental tradition, and has commissioned, premiered, and recorded numerous compositions for solo piano. Composers who have dedicated works to her include John Adams, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, Annea Lockwood, and Evan Ziporyn, and she has premiered pieces by Lou Harrison, Julia Wolfe, Frederic Rzewski, Ingram Marshall, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Ursula Mamlok, George Lewis, Leo Ornstein, and many others.
Cahill is particularly fascinated by how the early 20th-century American modernists have influenced composers working today. She has explored these musical lineages in many concert programs, the most ambitious being a three-day festival celebrating the centennial of Henry Cowell in 1997. For the 2001 centennial of Ruth Crawford Seeger, she commissioned seven composers, all women, to write short homage pieces, which she has performed at Merkin Hall, Dartmouth College, the Cincinnati Conservatory, and Hampshire College in Amherst. For another project, Playdate, she has commissioned composers including Lois V. Vierk and John Kennedy for a concert especially designed for children. She enjoys working closely with composers, musicologists, and scholars to prepare scores for performance.
She has performed at the Other Minds Festival, the Phillips Collection, Pacific Crossings Festival in Tokyo, and the Spoleto Festival USA. Recent appearances include the Tokyo Summer Festival and the Nuovi Spazi Musicali festival in Rome. This season, Sarah will team up with pianist Joseph Kubera to premiere a set of four-hand pieces by Terry Riley in New York, and at UCLA�s Royce Hall. She also has solo recitals scheduled in Santa Fe, New York, and Tokyo, as well as performances with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra and the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble.
Her albums of works by Ravel and Cowell are on the New Albion label, which also released her recording of Ruth Crawford�s Preludes and Piano Study in Mixed Accents and two suites by Johanna Beyer. She has also recorded for the Tzadik, CRI, New World, Albany, Artifact, and Cold Blue labels. She is currently preparing recordings of music by Leo Ornstein, Ingram Marshall, Evan Ziporyn, Kyle Gann, and Mamoru Fujieda. Her radio show, Then & Now, can be heard every Sunday evening from 8 to 10pm on KALW (91.7 FM), San Francisco; her website is www.sarahcahill.com.
Kate Stenberg, violin
Violinist Kate Stenberg's career as a soloist and chamber musician has spanned a broad spectrum of styles with particular emphasis on contemporary music. She has performed throughout the U.S. and Europe and currently is most active as a member of the Del Sol String Quartet whose recent accomplishments have won them an ASCAP award for Adventurous Programming for Contemporary Music. She also plays on occasion with the San Francisco Symphony, the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and was a founding member of Left Coast, a San Francisco-based contemporary music ensemble and the Stenberg/Plude Duo (violin & piano). In addition she now performs with the Real Vocal String Quartet, a unique Bay Area group that focuses on arrangements and original works by its members who both sing and play their instruments. Her premieres include Trois Regards (1988-89) for violin and piano by Canadian composer Ronald Bruce Smith, to be performed at the Other Minds New Music S�ance.
Stenberg is first violinist on the widely hailed world premiere recording of the complete string quartets of George Antheil (with Del Sol on the Other Minds label) and recorded the popular album "Tear" with Del Sol with whom she just has returned from a concert tour to Seoul playing music of six Korean women composers. She also has recorded with Ali Akbar Khan, Stratos and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. Stenberg's history with Other Minds dates to our first festival where performed music by Julia Wolfe at Other Minds 1 (1993) with the Alyeska Quartet, by Frances White at OM 2 (1994) with the Left Coast, by Gavin Bryars at OM 7 (2001) with the Other Minds Ensemble by Michael Nyman and Daniel Bernard Roumain with Del Sol at OM 11 (2005). Her other festival performances include Centre Acanthes, The Banff Centre, Sandpoint, the Music Academy of the West and Tanglewood. She has performed chamber music with Bonnie Hampton and Joan Jeanrenaud and played under the direction of Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa.
A native of Northern California raised in a dynamic family of professional musicians, she is a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and received her Master's Degree from the Eastman School of Music where she also served on the violin faculty. She also has taught at the University of San Francisco and continues to teach privately. In her spare time she enjoys Tai Chi Chuan and hiking.
Eva-Maria Zimmermann, piano
Swiss pianist Eva-Maria Zimmermann maintains a career on two continents through performances that are �breathtakingly intense� (Der Bund, Switzerland) and �brilliant and sensitive� (Berner Oberl�nder). Her solo appearances include recitals as well as concerto performances with major symphony orchestras such as the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. Winner of the prestigious Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarship, she has appeared at international festivals in Israel, the U.S and Europe, including the Festival Piano en Saintonge in France, the Sommerfestspiele Murten in Switzerland, and the Yerba Buena International Music Festival in San Francisco. She has studied with many distinguished musicians such as Leon Fleisher, Gy�rgy Seb�k, Leonard Hokanson, and Dominique Merlet. She graduated with highest honors from the Conservatory of Geneva.
Eva-Maria Zimmermann is a musician of broad interests who, in addition to solo appearances, devotes herself to chamber music, lieder recitals, and teaching. She actively collaborates with the Del Sol String Quartet and bass-baritone Ren� Perler, and was a founding member of the award-winning Charmillon Piano Quartet. Many of her chamber music and lieder recitals have been broadcast on Swiss Radio DRS2 and Radio de la Suisse Romande in such prestigious series as World Class on DRS2. As an educator, she has been a faculty member of the University of San Francisco, and currently teaches in the music program at Nueva School in Hillsborough, CA, which was founded by Sir Yehudi Menuhin.
Zimmermann spent her early childhood in Indonesia, where her parents were Peace Corps workers. Being exposed to different cultures and languages from very early on has greatly enhanced her understanding of diverse styles of music and art. She currently lives in San Francisco.
posted by Coming Events
9/28/2005 01:18:00 PM
9/1/2005
Co-presented by Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in New York and Hong Kong Association of New York, world-renowned Chinese orchestra THE HONG KONG CHINESE ORCHESTRA (HKCO), returns to New York�s Avery Fisher Hall on October 12 at 8 pm with a spectacular program that mixes the ancient with the avant-garde. Led by artistic director and principal conductor Yan Huichang, the orchestra will perform large-scale original masterpieces by famed Chinese composers Tan Dun (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Zhao Jiping (Farewell My Concubine), and Peng Xiuwen.
Extending the Chinese traditional instrumental ensemble from an average of 10 musicians to 80, HKCO has developed a unique profile that transcends boundaries or classifications such as �orchestra,� �classical music,� and �world music.� HKCO�s varied repertoire ranges from harmonized folk song arrangements and epoch-making revolutionary works of the Cultural Revolution, to avant-garde and modern works by the current generation of Chinese composers.
One of the works to be performed is noted composer Tan Dun�s Fire Ritual. Encapsulating both the ancient and modern, the concerto, a wind and percussion musical dialogue, features the huqin (the collective name of the Chinese two-string fiddle family). Lead by soloist and concertmaster Wong On-Yuen, the spatial distribution of the players around the hall and on-stage treats the audience to a genuine �surround-sound� experience.
Another major work in the program is composer Zhao Jiping�s Silk Road Fantasia Suite, which is scored for the guanzi (Chinese wind instruments). Soloist Guo Yazhi playing multiple wind instruments creates a sonic panorama of the Great Northwest regions of China. Zhao has been heralded as China�s John Williams, because of his numerous captivating film scores, including international art house hits such as Farewell My Concubine, Raise the Red Lantern, Judou, and To Live. The Silk Road Fantasia Suite initially caught the attention of Yo-Yo Ma, who commissioned Zhao to write new music for the Silk Road Ensemble in 1999. Zhao has participated in the Silk Road Ensemble�s residencies in Tanglewood, and his works have been performed at Carnegie Hall, the BBC Proms, and other distinguished venues and festivals around the world. Most recently, he was the composer and music director of the Silk Road Ensemble�s critically acclaimed SONY Classical CD, Silk Road Journeys: Beyond the Horizon.
The second half of the HKCO concert at Avery Fisher Hall features Peng Xiuwen�s Fantasia on Terra Cotta Warriors, a grand soundscape that recreates 2,000-year-old battles. A three-movement work, it is poetic and magnificent, capturing the psyche of battle-worn troops longing for their homes during a prolonged military campaign. Sounds of military horns, cavalry in combat, and the majesty of the First Emperor�s entourage are all depicted in this tone poem.
For further information on the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, please visit www.hkco.org.
Tickets for the October 12 concert are on sale at the Avery Fisher Hall Box Office from August 13. Call CenterCharge at 212.721.6500 for phone sales or purchase tickets online at www.lincolncenter.org. Group ticket discounts are available at www.hkany.org, or call 212.371.4222. Ticket prices: $35, $45, $55, $68.
posted by Coming Events
9/01/2005 09:39:00 AM
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