DA CAPO CHAMBER PLAYERS PERFORM AT BARD COLLEGE ON WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7.

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.-The Da Capo Chamber Players will premiere a new work by composer Carlos Carillo during their performance on Wednesday, April 7, at Bard College. The concert, free and open to the public, is sponsored by The Bard Center; it begins at 8:00 p.m. in Olin Hall.

The concert will feature the world premiere of Carlos Carillo's work De la brevedad de la vida, commissioned by Da Capo. Da Capo will also perform Trio for flute, cello, and piano by Bohuslav Martinu; * * * by composer Martin Bresnick; Scrimshaw by Daniel Godfrey; A Whole Lot of Shaking by Andrew Ford, commissioned by Da Capo member Lisa Moore; and Petroushskates by Joan Tower.

Da Capo, winner of the Naumburg Chamber Music Award in 1973, is widely acclaimed for its virtuosity, stimulating programs, and openness to a wide spectrum of styles in new music. Its dedication to working with composers is matched by its commitment to rehearsing a piece as a living, moving, breathing entity, rather than a fixed blueprint to be executed precisely and perfectly. Da Capo Chamber Players performing on April 7 are Patricia Spencer, flute; André Emelianoff, cello; Lisa Moore, piano, with guest artists Marka Gustavsson, viola and violin, and Meighan Stoops, clarinet. Da Capo members Eva Gruesser and Jo-Ann Sternberg are on leave for the spring 1999 season.

The concerts of the Da Capo Chamber Players are made possible in part with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. They are also made possible with private funds from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Amphion Foundation and generous individuals. The Da Capo Chamber Players is a 1998-99 participant in Chamber Music America's music performance program funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

For further information about the concert call 914-758-7425.

ABOUT THE DA CAPO MEMBERS:

André Emelianoff, cello, has been with Da Capo since 1976. He is also the cellist with the New York Chamber Symphony and the Aeolian Chamber Players and has been the cellist and music advisor of the Music Today Ensemble. He is on the faculty of The Juilliard School.

Lisa Moore, piano, is also a member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars. She has performed with the New York City Ballet, Barge Music, and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, among other groups. She won the "Best Australian Recording" award in 1993, for her Wild Russians disc.

Patricia Spencer, flute, has performed in recitals throughout the United States and has a growing repertoire of pieces written especially for her by composers including Ge Gan-ru, Miriam Gideon, Peter Golub, Thea Musgrave, Judith Shatin, and Joan Tower. Now and Present Flute on Neuma Records was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust; her second disc features works by Musgrave and Shatin. Spencer teaches flute and chamber music at Bard College and Hofstra University.

GUEST ARTIST:

Marka Gustavsson, viola and violin, has appeared in chamber music concerts in New York City at Merkin Hall, Carnegie Hall, and the Grace Rainey Rogers Hall at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has been featured as guest artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's Meet the Music series, on WQXR Radio's Young Artists Programs with host Robert Sherman, and on the ABC television documentary Passion to Play. She has also performed in France, the Netherlands, and the Philippines. Gustavsson can be heard on Dorian and Avant releases, and recently joined the faculty at Hofstra University as a member of the Hofstra String Quartet.

Meighan Stoops, clarinet.

ABOUT THE COMPOSERS:

Martin Bresnick has composed music for chamber ensembles, orchestras, films, and electronic media. He was awarded the Stoeger Prize by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Rome Prize, three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and the Premio Ancona, plus Meet the Composer, Chamber Music America, Fromm Foundation, and Koussevitzky commissions. Bresnick is currently professor of composition at the Yale School of Music. His composition is titled * * * in adherence to the tradition of some composers not to reveal the contents of a piece in the title.

Carlos Carillo, born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has studied with George Crumb, Steven Mackey, Jay Reise, and James Primosch. He also holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and Yale University, where he studied composition with Samuel Adler, Warren Benson, and Jacob Druckman, among others. He received one of the first Aaron Copland Awards from the Copland Heritage Association; the Bearns Prize in composition from Columbia University; a Concert Artist Guild Minority Fellowship; and a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among other awards. In 1998 Music at the Anthology commissioned De la brevedad de la vida.

Andrew Ford, born in Liverpool, England, is now a citizen of Australia, where he has lived since 1983. His music has been played internationally, and twenty-five of his pieces have been commercially recorded. He has been visiting composer at the Aspen Festival in Colorado (1998) and composer-in-residence with the Australian Chamber Orchestra (1992-1994). A former academic, he now presents The Music Show on ABC Radio National. He has written two books, Composer to Composer and Illegal Harmonies. A Whole Lot of Shaking, commissioned by Da Capo member Lisa Moore with financial assistance from the Music Fund of the Australia Council, is "quite simply, a piece about trills," says Ford. "Other than this, the music aims to blend the sonorities of two unblendable instruments so that, at least some of the time, the cello seems to be inside the piano."

Daniel S. Godfrey's music has been performed by leading orchestras and chamber ensembles throughout the United States, as well as in Europe, Latin America, and Japan. He has received awards and commissions from the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the U. S. West Foundation. He is director of the School of Music at Syracuse University and the coauthor of Music Since 1945 (Schirmer Books). Godfrey's composition Scrimshaw, a series of scenes for flute and violin, takes its title from the nautical term meaning "a neat piece of work" or "a small task deftly accomplished."

Bohuslav Martinu, born in the Czech Republic, received a scholarship to study music in Paris with Albert Roussel. During World War II he was blacklisted by the Nazis and went into hiding while he sought an exit visa. He survived by sleeping on train station platforms, wandering from place to place. During that year he managed to compose only three works. Once he obtained a visa and settled in New York, he wrote a symphony for each year of his residence including Trio for Flute, Cello, and Piano in 1944.

Joan Tower, Asher B. Edelman Professor of Music at Bard College, is one of the most highly regarded composers in the United States today. In 1998, the year of her sixtieth birthday, more than twenty concerts were presented in her honor throughout the country. She received the Delaware Symphony's Alfred I. Dupont Award for Distinguished American Composers and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, and the Guggenheim Foundation, and in 1990 was the recipient of the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. Tower, whose orchestral works have been commissioned and performed around the world, is currently composer-in-residence with the Orchestra of St. Luke's in New York City. Petroushskates depicts a carnival on ice, inspired by both Stravinsky's Petroushka and Olympic figure skating. Petroushskates is dedicated to Stravinsky and uses the piano as a virtuoso solo instrument.

This event was last updated on 03-02-2001

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