WOODSTOCK CHAMBER ORCHESTRA PREMIERES WORK BY RICHARD TEITELBAUM ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 10
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—The world premiere of Richard Teitelbaum's "Concertino for Piano and Orchestra," composed for pianist Hiroko Sakurazawa and the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra (WCO), will be performed at the final concert of the WCO's 1999–2000 season at Bard College on Wednesday, May 10, at 8:00 p.m. The concert, presented by The Bard Center, will be held in Olin Hall. Admission to the concert is $12 for adults; $6 for students; and free for children twelve and under, as well as faculty and students of Bard College.
"This program really has a mixture of everything," explains artistic director Luis Garcia-Renart. "Richard's 'Concertino,' is very beautiful, with a slow, lyrical movement and two jazz influenced movements. It is something we are very excited to do as it is both challenging and the first time the orchestra has worked with a piano soloist." In fact, pianist Hiroko Sakurazawa is making her American debut at this concert. The WCO will also perform de Falla's El Amor Brujo featuring mezzo-soprano Joan Fuerstman. "Joan stepped in as a last-minute replacement and we are very lucky to have someone of her quality," says Garcia-Renart. The WCO will also perform overtures to two of Rossini's operas, La Scala di Seta and Tancredi.
Mezzo-soprano Joan Fuerstman has been a member of the Bard College Music Program faculty since 1996 as voice teacher and opera coach. She has performed widely throughout the United States, Canada, and South America. Her credits include solo orchestral appearances with the New York Philharmonic, the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra, the Pepsico Summer Festival Orchestra, New York Choral Symphony, Musica Aeterna, and North Carolina Symphony Orchestra. Fuerstman's opera appearances include the New York City Opera, the National Opera Company, and the Turnau Opera. She also toured for three years as soloist with New York Pro Musica. She received a bachelor of music degree from the University of North Carolina in Greensboro and a master of music degree from the Manhattan School of Music. Her teachers have included Richard Cox, Rose Bampton, Anna Hamlin, Arthur Burrows, and Leland Wade.
Composer and performer Richard Teitelbaum is an associate professor of music at Bard College. He is a pioneer in electronic and computer music acknowledged for innovations in interactive computer systems and his ability to humanize the synthesizer. He has performed with Anthony Braxton, Aki Takahashi, Nam June Paik, and Frederic Rzewski, among others. His compositions have been played throughout Europe, North and South America, Japan, and Thailand and recordings of them can be heard on the Wergo, Centaur, Hat Hut, Tzadik, Polydor, and Arista labels. Teitelbaum is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Prix Arts Electronica from Austrian Radio and Television; commissions from the Venice Biennale, German Radio, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Mary Flagler Cary Trust, Meet the Composer/NEA Commissioning Program, and Rockefeller Foundation; and two Fulbright research grants to Italy and Japan. He was educated at Yale University where he studied with Mel Powell and Allen Forte; in Italy with Luigi Nono and Gofreddo Petrassi; and in Japan, where he studied Gagaku with Masataro Togi and shakuhachi with Katsuya Yokoyama.
Pianist Hiroko Sakurazawa is making her American debut in this performance with the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra. She studied piano with Mariko Yamamoto and Henriette Puig-Roget at Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo, and continued her studies with Aki Takahashi, one of Japan's leading pianists. Sakurazawa's recent appearances have included a solo recital of European and American piano music at the Rockefeller Foundation's Study and Conference Center in Bellagio, Italy. She gave her debut recital in Tokyo in 1996, performing recent pieces by Toru Takemitsu, Shinichiro Ikebe, and Toshi Ichiyanagi, as well as works by Mozart and Fauré. Since then, she has performed throughout Japan as a soloist and in collaboration with, among others, Aki Takahashi and the renowned Ondes Martenot virtuoso, Takashi Harada, who is currently on tour with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Sakurazawa has also produced and performed concerts in local communities in Japan, including a series especially for children at the Fuchu City Hall, near Tokyo.
Artistic director Luis Garcia-Renart is professor of music at Bard College and on the faculty at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie; the Piatigorsky seminars at the University of Southern California; and the Yale Summer School of Music and Art. He is also music director of the Cappella Festival Chamber Choir and Orchestra. Garcia-Renart was born in Barcelona, Spain, and studied at the Music School of the National University and the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico. From 1951 until 1956, his cello studies were supervised by Pablo Casals under whom he studied directly in France and in Puerto Rico until 1960, when he won a scholarship to study at the Conservatory of Moscow with Rostropovich and Khachaturian. Garcia-Renart attended the conservatories of Bern and Basel, Switzerland, and Trossingen, Germany, where he was a pupil of Sandor Veress and Sandor Vegh. He has appeared in solo performances in Europe, the former Soviet Union, Israel, and in North and South America. Prizes awarded Garcia-Renart include the Casals International Contests in Paris in 1956, in Xalpa in 1959, and in Israel in 1961. He also received the Harriet Cohen Cello Prize in London in 1959. In addition to conducting, Garcia-Renart performs frequently as a soloist in recitals and chamber music both here and abroad.
The concert is made possible in part with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, and through the generosity of the Homeland Foundation and the Leon Levy Foundation at Bard College. For further information, call 914-246-7045.
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