312 Crawford Ave., Syracuse, NY 13224
www.societyfornewmusic.org
Contact: Amy Mendillo
at 425-0295 or amymendillo@yahoo.com
The Young & the Restless
with the Society for New Music American Winners concert on Sunday, March 6
The Society for New Music will present its fourth concert of the 2005 season with American Winners , on Sunday, March 6, 2005 at 3:00 p.m. at the Everson Museum of Art , 401 Harrison Street, Syracuse. The concert features outstanding chamber music works, two of them world premieres, by young award-winning American composers.
Manlius resident Marc Mellits , one of only two recipients worldwide of the prestigious Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award in 2004, who has earned commissions by major ensembles such as the Kronos Quartet, Bang on A Can All-Stars and Eliot Fisk, will be featured on the concert with his work Platter of Discontent , commissioned in 2004 by the Society for New Music. Mellits writes "Overall, Platter of Discontent was inspired (and titled) by the bold yet funky Kristi Mckay, a woman exemplifying courage. Yet since this music was written specifically for the Society for New Music, I knew who the players were going to be and I could take advantage of that fact. Hence, the final movement Freedom of the Eggs ' piano virtuosity was written specifically for the monumental playing of Steve Heyman, while Cristina Buciu's dark and sensuously beautiful playing specifically motivated the violin solo in paranoid cheese..."
Also featured on the concert is North Syracuse native William Coble, with his piece Monolith , for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion and piano. Coble has received degrees from Roosevelt University, Boston University, and the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with the renowned Pulitzer Prize winning composer Ned Rorem. Bill will receive his Ph.D. in composition from the University of Chicago this Spring. Among his prizes and awards are a 2005 Illinois Arts Council, 2004 MGMC Conference, 2003 Rockefeller Foundation, and 2002 Davenport Prize. His recent works have been commissioned and performed by the Richmond Symphony, the Pacifica Quartet, eighth blackbird, and the Contrast's Quartet. Coble, now a Chicago resident, remarked of the March 6 concert, "It sure is great to be home.”
Two premieres by two other young composers round out the program. Fractured Mirrors by Nicolas Scherzinger, chair of the composition department at Syracuse University, was commissioned by the Society. He has won awards in Canada and the U.S., and recently had works premiered in New York City and in Virginia by the Cassatt Quartet. Young composer Jesse Wright FitzGerald, winner of the New York Federation of Music Club's Brian Israel Prize and the 2004 "Music in the Schools" commission from the Society for New Music, will showcase his new piece Visions from a Broken Land . Jesse completed his M.M. at Syracuse University last May and spent the summer studying at Aspen.
The concert opens with Lament , a short work for cello and piano by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, the first woman to ever receive a Pulitzer Prize in Music. A prolific composer in virtually all media, Zwilich's works have been performed by most of the leading American orchestras and by major ensembles abroad.
The outstanding regional performers on this program are flutist Karin Ursin (of Manluis); clarinetist John Friedrichs (of Fayetteville); pianist Steven Heyman (of Fayetteville), violinist Cristina Buciu (of Manlius); cellist George Macero (of Syracuse); percussionist Jennifer Vacanti (of Baldwinsville) and conductor Cynthia Johnston Turner (of Ithaca). Ursin, Friedrichs, Buciu and Macero are members of the Syracuse Symphony. Heyman, who has soloed with the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, is Pianist-in-Residence at Colgate University and member of the piano faculty at Syracuse University. Ms. Johnston Turner is new on the Cornell University music faculty.
Tickets are $15 for adults and $12 for seniors and students, and will be available at the door. For more information, contact Amy Mendillo at 425-0295 or call the Society at 315-468-0246 or 446-5733.
Founded in 1971, the Society for New Music acts as a catalyst for the continued growth of the Central New York musical community by commissioning new works, through advocacy ( Society News and Fresh Ink on WCNY-Classic FM), by featuring regional composers alongside guest composers, by providing regional musicians an opportunity to perform the music of their peers, and by bringing new music to as broad an audience as possible.