Americas Society Announces the 2014 Music of the Americas Concert Series
Americas Society Kicks Off 2014 Programming with Mexican Contemporary Sounds, Peruvian and Guatemalan Early Music, and Traditional Rhythms from Cuba
New York, January 30, 2014—The New York debut of Mexico's cutting edge Ensemble CEPROMUSIC; the U.S. premiere of Pablo Ortiz’s and Sergio Chejfec’s chamber opera, Gallos y Huesos; and a concert of new Latin American wind music by Quintet of the Americas are some of the highlights of the spring 2014 MetLife Foundation Music of the Americas Concert Series. Americas Society's programming, recently recognized with the CMA/ASCAP award, will also showcase young artists, including pianists Wenqiao Jiang from China and Willany Darias from Cuba; cellist Nicholas Mariscal, winner of Indiana University’s 3rd Latin American Music Recording Competition; and the Ithaca College Contemporary Ensemble with a selection of chamber music.
Ensemble CEPROMUSIC: New Music from Mexico
Monday, February 3, 2014
7:00 p.m.
680 Park Avenue
New York, NY
Responding to the need to support the remarkable vitality of contemporary music creation in Mexico, Mexico's National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA) created the Centro de Experimentación y Producción de Música Contemporánea (CEPROMUSIC) as a venue dedicated to the creation, performance, and dissemination of new music and sound experimentation. Led by José Luis Castillo, the 20-member professional ensemble had its debut in November 2012 in a program of music by Manuel Enríquez and György Ligeti. In its Music of the Americas debut, Ensemble CEPROMUSIC will present new music by Mexican composers.
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Concert: Music of Ignacio Cervantes
Friday, February 21, 2014
7:00 p.m.
680 Park Avenue
New York, NY
Young Chinese pianist Wenqiao Jiang, a student of legendary Cuban piano pedagogue Salomón Mikowsky, will present a rare performance of Danzas cubanas, a collection of 47 pieces written by Ignacio Cervantes (1847-1905). Cervantes, one of the most important Cuban composers and a virtuoso pianist, wrote Danzas cubanas in the late 1850s. In them, he explores popular rhythms and forms and evokes the rich musical life of the island in the second half of the 19th century. Jiang will be joined by Cuban pianist Willany Darias, another of Mikowsky’s students, in several of the dances, written for piano four hands. This is the first of three Music of the Americas concerts featuring young musicians in February and March 2014.
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Musica Ficta – Columbus: Gateway to the New World
Thursday, February 27, 2014
7:00 p.m.
Hispanic Society
Audubon Terrace
Broadway between 155th and 156th Streets
New York, NY
Musica Ficta is one of Spain’s leading early music groups, founded in 1992 by Raúl Mallavibarrena, having released 18 albums and toured internationally. In their Music of the Americas debut, the ensemble will perform vocal and instrumental music written in Bolivia, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, and Spain during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The program includes music by Juan de Araujo, Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla, Alonso Lobo, Lucas Ruiz de Ribayaz, Gaspar Fernándes, José de Cascante, Francisco Guerrero, Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco, and Juan García de Zéspedes, as well as anonymous music in Nahuatl and Quechua.
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Eduardo Egüez and Furio Zanasi in Concert
Saturday, March 8, 2014
7:00 p.m.
680 Park Avenue
New York, NY
Music of the Americas presents lutenist Eduardo Egüez with baritone Furio Zanasi in a much-anticipated concert at Americas Society. They will perform music by Galilei, Frescobaldi, Caccini, and Monteverdi.
Born in Buenos Aires, Eduardo Egüez belongs to the new generation of argentine lutenists. His studies in composition were conducted at the Catholic Argentine University, while in 1995 he obtained his diploma in lute from the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis under the guidance of Hopkinson Smith. Egüez has given many solo concerts in the main cities of Australia, Europe, Japan, and South America, and has been well received by critics worldwide and highly appreciated by the public. Egüez teaches lute and basso continuo at the Zurich Conservatory in Switzerland.
Furio Zanasi, an Italian baritone, began his musical activities in early music, with a repertoire spanning from the madrigal to Baroque opera. He has collaborated with many ensembles and participated in some of the most prestigious festivals devoted to the early music in Italy as well as throughout Europe.
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Symphonie des Dragons: Au Goût du Soldat
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
7:00 p.m.
680 Park Avenue
New York, NY
Symphonie des Dragons explores the repertoire of the great wind bands of Versailles. Under the direction of Gonzalo X. Ruiz, one of the world's finest baroque oboists, this unique combination of oboes, bassoons, percussion, and guitar is dedicated to the revival of the rich repertoire of military and ceremonial music and dances of the French Golden Age and its influence on the rest of Europe.
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Ithaca College Contemporary Ensemble
Monday, April 14, 2014
7:00 p.m.
680 Park Avenue
New York, NY
Comprising faculty and students, the Ithaca College Contemporary Ensemble focuses on music of our time as well as classics of the twentieth century. Currently under the direction of Jorge Grossmann and Jeffery Meyer, ICCE provides a uniquely formative and intense performance experience for Ithaca College students.
In 2008, ICCE—previously known as "Kulmusik"—performed at the 20th International New Music Festival "Sound Ways" in St. Petersburg, Russia. The concert took place at Glinka Hall of the Philharmonic, one of St. Petersburg's most beautiful and prestigious halls.
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Wednesday, April 23, 2014
7:00 p.m.
680 Park Avenue
New York, NY
A native of Tucson, Arizona, 20-year-old cellist, pianist, and composer Nicholas Mariscal is pursuing a bachelor of music at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music under the tutelage of Eric Kim, having received the Jacobs Scholarship in 2010. He has served as both principal and assistant principal of the Jacobs School of Music’s Chamber Orchestra, and has also performed with the New Music Ensemble. Some of his most salient performances as a Jacob’s student include Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, and Sofia Gubaidulina’s cello concerto “Sonnengesang” with the Jacobs School’s Contemporary Vocal Ensemble. He has won numerous competitions and awards, and has received numerous distinctions both as a cellist and a composer, such as the Tucson Philharmonia Youth Orchestra’s Concerto Competition and the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra concerto competitions.
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Concert: Heloísa Fernandes, Piano
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
7:00 p.m.
680 Park Avenue
New York, NY
Americas Society presents Brazilian pianist and composer Heloísa Fernandes in concert.
Fernandes was born in Presidente Prudente, São Paulo, and took up the piano at age five. She went on to study with Paulo Gori and Gilberto Tinetti, with whom she cultivated her taste for classical music, and graduated with degrees in piano performance from the Conservatório Dramático e Musical de São Paulo, in conducting from the Centro de Estudos Tom Jobim, and in composition from the University of São Paulo. Her repertoire focuses on instrumental interpretations of popular Brazilian music.
In 2001, she was one of five finalists in the Prêmio Visa de Música Brasileira, and in 2005 she released her premiere recording, Fruto, featuring her own compositions as well as her arrangements of works by Pixinguinha and Caetano Veloso.
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Quintet of the Americas: Music of Roberto Sierra
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
7:00 p.m.
680 Park Avenue
New York, NY
Long recognized as leading interpreters of folk and contemporary wind quintet music of North and South America, Quintet of the Americas is one of the Western Hemisphere’s finest chamber ensembles. The Washington Post has called their performances, “musical dialogue at the highest level” and Japan’s InTune magazine has written that “their virtuosity, balances, articulation and intonation mark them as one of the world's top wind quintets.”
Established in Bogotá in 1976 and based in New York City since 1979, Quintet of the Americas has spent over three decades commissioning over 70 works, performing over three hundred concerts throughout the United States, and in Canada, the Caribbean, South America, and Eastern Europe, and recording eight CDs.
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Gallos y Huesos: New Opera by Pablo Ortiz
Monday, June 2, 2014
7:00 p.m.
Location TBD
Music of the Americas, in collaboration with the Centro de Experimentación del Teatro Colón, presents Gallos y Huesos (Roosters and Bones) a new chamber opera by Pablo Ortiz with libretto by Sergio Chejfec.
Pablo Ortiz is Ars Nova’s composer in residence for the 2012-2013 season. Gallos y Huesos will be recorded in February to complete a CD of his music begun last year with his Notker and Five Motets. Ortiz is professor of music at the University of California at Davis, and a specialist on tango, as some of his music reveals.
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Upcoming events in the MetLife Foundation Music of the Americas Concert Series can be found on Americas Society’s website at http://www.as-coa.org/music/events. For regular concert updates, follow “Music of the Americas” on Facebook and Twitter.
Press Inquiries: Please contact Adriana La Rotta at alarotta@as-coa.org or 1-212-277-8384.
Americas Society is the premier organization dedicated to education, debate and dialogue in the Americas. Established by David Rockefeller in 1965, our mission is to foster an understanding of the contemporary political, social and economic issues confronting Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada, and to increase public awareness and appreciation of the diverse cultural heritage of the Americas and the importance of the inter-American relationship.