The Piano Duo Gastesi-Bezerra will perform the entirety of my suite of pieces for piano four-hands From the Faraway Nearby, inspired by paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe in Brazil in July.
On July 19, the duo returns to the beautiful Pinacoteca Benedicto Calixto in Santos under the auspices of the Centro de Expansão Cultural. The program will also include Mozart’s Variations in G Major, Edino Krieger’s Sonata, Mendelssohn’s Variations in B-Flat Major, Debussy’s Petite Suite and and a new work by Dinah Menezes.
On July 26, they will reprise a modified version of the program at the historic monastery Mosteiro de São Bento in São Paulo.
An arrangement for Flute (Optional),Viola and Cello of the Habañera from Bizet’s opera, Carmen, using Pablo Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy for Violin and Piano as a starting point. (2008) ca. 3′30″
Purchase a PDF of the score and parts for $8 per copy via PayPal:
Live performance by the Latvia-based Trio Animando
One of my projects this past year has been the preparation of a Powerpoint lecture series on American music for the American Embassy in Latvia. I prepared 5 90-minute presentations, on Classical, Jazz, Blues, Rock and Hip Hop. I have now been invited by the American Embassy in Lithuania to give the lectures there. I will lecture in Kaunas on May 5 (Lithuanian Music & Theater Academy); in Vilnius on May 6 (Lithuanian Music & Theater Academy); in Klaipėda on May 11 (Klaipeda University); and in Šiauliai on May 13 (Šiauliai University).
Pianist Ana Cervantes, as invited guest of the III Congress of Musicology of the University São Paulo in Ribeirão Preto will participate in roundtable discussions and give a solo recital of music from Rumor de Páramo / Murmurs from the Wasteland, an international commissioning project that pays homage to landmark Mexican writer and photographer Juan Rulfo (1917-1986) in which Cervantes asked composers — from México, Spain, the USA, Great Britain and Brazil— for a solo piano piece inspired in Rulfo’s work.
The concert on Friday, March 6 will include my contribution to the project, Murmuring in Comala, as well as works by Silvia Berg, Joaquín Gutiérrez Heras, Georgina Derbez, Arturo Márquez, Federico Ibarra, Anne LeBaron, Horacio Uribe, Mario LaVista, Jack Fortner, Tomás Marco and Stephen McNeff.
Soprano Kathryn Wieckhorst, accompanied by pianist Jeff Tanski will include my setting of Emily Dickinson’s Heart! We Will Forget Him! on her recital at the Gershwin Hotel (27th street between Madison and 5th) on Thursday, February 19th, 2009 at 8pm. Tickets are $10 at the door, cash only.
The program, The Varied Natures of Love, will feature American opera excerpts and the works of contemporary American composers. It will include works by Lori Laitman, Leonard Bernstein, Leonard Lehrman, Gian Carlo Menotti, Carlisle Floyd, Kurt Weill.
MUSIC REVIEW
Women’s chorus perfects each note
Choral Artists present powerfully varied concert
By Tom Strini of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Posted: Feb. 15, 2009
Sharon Hansen had an opinion about every last note at Saturday’s Milwaukee Choral Artists concert. The micro-managing conductor conveyed her opinions in clear, amazingly detailed gestures. They got instant, satisfying results from her 17 female singers.
It made no difference that Hansen, recovering from foot surgery, conducted from a wheelchair. The concentration and commitment on both sides was palpable in the cozy nave of St. Matthew’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Wauwatosa. Watching them interact is almost as great a pleasure as hearing the remarkable music they make.
Almost.
Their singing was intelligent and beautiful without fail throughout an engaging and varied program. Arrangements of two Debussy songs gave them a chance to do what they do best of all, which is tune and balance complex chords so finely that the harmonies glow like a sonic aurora borealis. Vaughan Williams’ “In Windsor Forest,” a substantial suite drawn from Shakespeare, showcased Hansen’s firm grasp of larger forms. “Old Devil Moon” and “That Old Black Magic” (smartly arranged by Choral Artist Paula Foley Tillen) showed that swing comes as naturally as anything to the MCA.
Music for a small women’s choir is little-known country for most of us, so MCA concerts also afford the pleasure of discovery. This time, the revelations were Alice Parker’s delicate, filigreed “A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Fairy Songs”; Eric Whitacre’s “She Weeps Over Rahoon,” a sensual setting of James Joyce, in which slithery vocal and English horn (nice work by Karli Larsen) lines overlap like serpents in love; and, most of all, Charles Griffin’s “El Paso de la Siguiriya,” on a dark, dreamy Federico Garcia Lorca poem.
“El Paso” is a flamenco a cappella fantasy with episodes of rhythmic clapping, melisma inflected in the Andalusian way and choruses in Spanish dance rhythms. Mezzo Rebecca Davies was ravishing in the solo that is the soul of this piece. She must have listened to a great deal of flamenco singing to prepare; she was at once elegant and earthy.
Much of the choral work in “El Paso” is in free rhythm. Hansen shaped it with a soloist’s latitude. Seventeen voices responded, and the choir became a single voice.
E-mail Tom Strini at tstrini@journalsentinel.com.
From the Faraway Nearby at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida on February 15
Jan 23
The Piano Duo Gastesi-Bezerra will perform the entirety of my suite of pieces for piano four-hands From the Faraway Nearby, inspired by paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida on February 15 at 3PM. The Duo will feature an all-American program in conjunction with the exhibit “Georgia O’Keefe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities.”
The Milwaukee Choral Artists, directed by Sharon Hansen, will perform my El Paso de la Seguiriya, a flamenco-inflected setting for women’s voices of the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca, as part of a program called Magic and Enchantment, at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church (1615 Wauwatosa Avenue) in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin on February 14 at 7:30PM. Happy Valentine’s Day!
Conductor James Allen Anderson, director of Orchestral Activities at the Hayes School of Music at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina will give a brief lecture presentation on my Concerto for Chamber Orchestra (Weaving Olden Dances) at the Conductors Guild Annual Conference for Conductors at the Park Central New York Hotel.
Anderson, along with Barry Hoffman of the Westchester Chamber Orchestra (NY), John Gordon Ross of the Western Piedmont Symphony (NC) and Barbara Day Turner of the San José Chamber Orchestra (CA) are all co-commissioners of the piece.
The piece was premiered last May by the Westchester Chamber Orchestra at Iona College in New Rochelle, NY.
Here are five excerpts from the four movements taken from a live recording of the premiere: concertoexcerptscg.mp3
To view/download a PDF of the score that matches the recorded excerpt, click here.
The Freeport High School Select Chorale, directed by Stephen Pagano, will perform my SATB divisi setting of Emily Brontë’s Fall, Leaves, Fall on their winter concert on December 18 at 7:30 PM at Freeport High School in Freeport, NY (50 S Brookside Ave.). It is a great pleasure and honor for me that Steve (who is retiring this year) is including my work on this concert. I was a member of this group when I was 16-18, and Steve played a big role in my decision to pursue music as a career. Congratulations on your retirement, and a heartfelt thanks.
A native New Yorker currently living and working in Latvia, Charles Griffin’s compositions and arrangements have been performed at festivals and concert halls throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Europe, Asia, Brazil, Cuba, and Puerto Rico.
