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Trio Casals
May 18, 2018 @ 8:00 pm
Preservation New Jersey is pleased to welcome Trio Casals to the historic landmark 1867 Sanctuary Arts and Culture Center to present MOTO BELLO. The next chapter in the moving series that brought 2015’s MOTO CONTINUO and MOTO PERPETUO in 2013, living up to its name, MOTO BELLO, or “beautiful motion,” is a collection celebrating the synergy of Trio Casals and the works of ten contemporary composers including Diane Jones, Beth Mehocic, David N. Stewart, Sidney Bailin, L. Peter Deutsch, Giovanni Piacentini, Adrienne Albert, Clive Muncaster, Joanne Carey, and Bruce Babcock.
MOTO BELLO is a journey through individual experience, international scenes, and philosophical pondering. Each piece is an exploration of movement and of the beauty in all forms of motion—dissonant and jagged, soft and freely flowing, or standing tentatively between the two. In some instances, the pieces are romantic and sweeping, as in Ondine, Nightfall, Palette No. 1, the beginning moments of Solo la Sombra. In others, the energetic experience is driven and leaping, as in Woman A/Part, Somewhere Between D and C#, Habanera, Lines, Hockets, and Riffs, and Imagined/Remembered. MOTO BELLO is a diverse tapestry of emotional, energetic, and imaginative listening experiences.
Trio Casals demonstrates not only the imaginativeness of the composers, but also the group’s technical prowess as they communicate the unique meaning and motion behind each composition. On MOTO BELLO, the ensemble exists as the dynamic storyteller of each composer’s artistic statement, weaving each tale of beauty in motion with their own inspired story.
Trio Casals consists of Ovidiu Marinescu, Cello; Sylvia Ahramjian, Violin; and Anna Kislitsyna, Piano. While the trio is new to the 1867 Sanctuary, only Sylvia Ahramjian is performing for the first time in this space. Ovidiu Marinescu has performed several times at the 1867 Sanctuary, once with Anna Kislitsnya.
Since making a highly-acclaimed debut at the 1996 edition of the Pablo Casals Festival in Puerto Rico, Trio Casals has delighted audiences with spectacular virtuosity, engaging enthusiasm and exquisite musical elegance. Recent engagements include performances at Carnegie Hall, a week-long collaboration with the Nashville Ballet and composer Michael Kurek, appearances in the Triple Concerto by Beethoven with the Helena and Southeastern PA Symphonies, and concerts in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware.
Trio Casals has performed in the Rachmaninov Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Holywell Room in Oxford, England, and at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, and has toured China and Romania.
Trio Casals has created original programs that juxtapose the great classical tradition of Beethoven and Brahms with new works written by American composers, such as Paul Schoenfield, Michael Kurek, George Rochberg, and Hilary Tann. Their album Moto Continuo features distinguished composers such as Brian Noyes, Osias Wilensky-Schorr, Diane Jones, and Nicholas Ascioti, who have written trios for the group. Recorded for PARMA Recordings, Moto Continuo was presented in concert at Carnegie Hall and other concert venues. Moto Bello, the follow up album for Parma Recordings, was performed at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York in May 2018. Already planned is a new album: Moto IV, with a Carnegie Hall engagement for Spring 2019. In addition to its performing schedule, Trio Casals is committed to music education, offering regular master classes at schools and colleges. As resident artists for Music for All Seasons, its members have played in shelters for victims of domestic abuse, nursing homes, and hospitals. All three members have distinguished careers as soloists
This concert is also scheduled to be performed on May 19 at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Meet the composers:
DIANE JONES (www.petdragonmusic.com)‘music has been performed by The Relâche Ensemble, The Da Capo Chamber Players, Trio Casals, and Flautet. She has been commissioned by Mélomanie, the Society for New Music, and the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation. Her collaborations with Samba Laranja have garnered two SAMMY awards (Native Orange, 2011 & Pathways, 2014). Her “Three Songs,” recorded by Trio Casals and released on their album Moto Continuo has been broadcast throughout the US and internationally. Her work “Dreamcatcher” for trombone and orchestra, is included on “Neue Kraft Fulend,” a new album from trombonist Haim Avitsur She has collaborated with choreographers to create new music with dance, written film scores, and completed five residencies in Syracuse area public schools.
Diane is the mid-day host on WCNY-FM, Central New York’s Classical Radio Station, and the creator, host, and producer of “Feminine Fusion,” a weekly radio program highlighting women in the classical music world. She is former President of the Society for New Music, and her music has been featured on Fresh Ink, the weekly new music broadcast produced by the Society.
A recipient of the Billy Joel Fellowship, a fellowship with the Chamber Music Institute at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, and awarded the prestigious Grace F. and Theodore Berger Award from the University of Delaware, Diane has also been inducted into Pi Kappa Lambda, the music honor society. Active as a performer as well as a composer, Diane regularly performs with Samba Laranja and the Central New York Flute Choir. She has played flute and piccolo in regional orchestras, and was one half of the flute duo, Flutes of Fancy.
Diane is privileged to have studied with outstanding composers Daniel S. Godfrey, Nicolas Scherzinger, and Jennifer Margaret Barker.
BETH MEHOCIC (USA, b. 1953, Youngstown, Ohio), composer, poet, visual artist, filmmaker and author received her M.M. and Ph.D. in music composition from Michigan State University, East Lansing and is currently the Music Director/Composer-in-Residence and full professor for the Department of Dance at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
music is solid in construction, imaginative in concept, and skillful in orchestration. It appeals to audience and musicians alike.” -Dr. David Daniels, Music Director Emeritus, Warren Symphony Orchestra
This recording of Habanera for Cello and Piano appears on the fourth album produced by Parma Recordings with David Nisbet Stewart’s music. His Concerto for Piano and Orchestra and Suite for Piano-Brass Quartet are on the album Convergence, released in 2012. Five organ pieces are on the album Foundations released in 2014. Fantasy for Viola Solo is on Figments released in 2016.
David is a composer, pianist and organist. His career began in academia and migrated into computer technology from 1979 onward. His style of composing also changed as he pursued a new occupation.
From 1969 to 1979, he taught music theory, composition, and electronic music at Eastern Michigan University and then Kent State University. His last academic post was adjunct professor in the Technology in Music and Related Arts (TIMARA) program at Oberlin College. His style of composition during this period was twelve-tone and aleatoric. Living in Ohio from 1975 to 1985, he was a member of the Cleveland Composers Guild which provided many performances of his chamber music. In these early years he won several prizes for his chamber music.
A self-taught computer programmer, he began studying computer-generated sound in 1969. He produced electronic music both by Moog synthesizer and by computer using the seminal MUSIC4 program on Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11’s.
From 1979 until retirement in 2013, Stewart worked as a computer systems professional. Having been a church musician most of his adult life, he is currently organist at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Ferndale, Michigan.
After leaving college teaching Stewart’s aesthetic changed. He wanted to write more spontaneously the sounds from his imagination – music that was accessible to the performer and audience, while maintaining his stylistic integrity. He became more tonal yet still used twelve-tone and aleatoric techniques when justified.
Stewart was born 1941, in Miami, Florida, and has a B.Mus. degree from Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, 1965, and a M.A. degree from Smith College, 1969. His principal teachers were Bower Murphy, William Klenz, Joseph Wood, Walter Aschaffenburg, and Alvin Etler in composition; David Pizarro on organ; Arthur Dann on piano, all of blessed memory.
He is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP); American Composers Forum; Society of Composers Inc.; Conductors Guild; and the American Guild of Organists.
Stewart believes that leaving academia for the business world was a great benefit to his art. Music is the business of entertaining. The composer must satisfy, even delight, the paying audience. His compositions connect with the listener’s ear and heart.
SIDNEY BAILIN (sidneybailin.com)started composing when he was 6. His first piece was in three-part counterpoint, a fact that he still cannot explain. Imitative counterpoint remains a defining characteristic of his music, perhaps because of his early exposure to species counterpoint, which he learned formally at the age of 10.
He entered Juilliard when he was 15, studying piano with Ania Dorfmann and composition with Hall Overton. The following year, he began private piano coaching with Jeaneane Dowis. After high school he enrolled full-time at Juilliard, studying composition with Roger Sessions and Otto Luening. But then, becoming more and more interested in mathematics, he moved to Columbia University, first as a double major in music and mathematics, then dropping the music. Thus started what he now views as a decades-long exile from music.
Eventually, Bailin received a doctorate in Mathematical Logic from the University of Oxford. His activity since then has been wide ranging: publishing papers on computer topics, writing an award-winning film script, working as a skydiving instructor and now, to this day, as a karate instructor. But in 2003 he felt the call to return to composing, and he now finds himself at the top of his compositional and creative powers.
L PETER DEUTSCH is a native of Cambridge, MA, now living in Sonoma County, CA. His early music education included performance and composition for voice, piano, and recorder. After a long detour through a distinguished career in Computer Science, he returned to composition part-time in 1986 and full-time in 2003, including a M.A. degree under Frank La Rocca at CSU Hayward.
GIOVANNI PIACENTINI (www.giovannipiacentini.com) is a composer whose body of work is as diverse as his cultural background. Born in Mexico City to an Italian opera lover, and a Mexican figurative painter, he was exposed to a wide array of artistic expressions that helped shape his musical vision.
During an immersive two years at the Manhattan School of Music, where he earned his M.A. in Composition, Giovanni wrote his first symphonic work, “Animus”, which was performed under the baton of Dr. David Gilbert. As part of the MSM chamber choir, he performed at Lincoln Center with the New York Philharmonic and at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C among many other landmark venues.
Giovanni has edited works for guitar commissioned by Sharon Isbin and David Starobin. He assisted his mentor, Dr. Richard Danielpour, with premieres including a piano concerto with the Vienna Philharmonic and a large-scale Oratorio with the Pacific Symphony.
Since then, Giovanni has been very active as a composer receiving commissions from a variety of ensembles including the harp duo, “Duo Scorpio” in NYC, the Irish violin and viola duet “Collailm Duo”, the concert series “Music of Reality” in Boston, MA, and the “Mexiam” festival at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, CA. He continues to explore ways of pushing the boundaries of the classical guitar, by incorporating subtle electronic elements to the natural acoustic sound. Compositionally, he is experimenting with “modular pieces” which combine elements of information architecture and modular design and sound.
Giovanni recently released his debut album as a composer entitled Chiaroscuro with the Navona Records label. He is currently pursuing a PhD in composition at UCLA.
Award-winning composer (ASCAP) (www.adriennealbert.com) has had her chamber, choral, vocal, orchestral and wind band works performed throughout the United States and across the globe. Before composing her own music in the 1990s, Albert enjoyed a long career as a singer working with composers including Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein, Philip Glass, Gunther Schuller and many others,. Adrienne’s own music has been supported by noteworthy arts organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts, American Composers Forum, Meet The Composer/Rockefeller Foundation, Subito Awards, Mu Phi Epsilon Fraternity, MPE Foundation, ACME, and ASCAP. Recent commissions include works for The Cornell University Chorus, Harvard-Westlake School, Holyoke Civic Symphony, Mu Phi Epsilon Foundation, Palisades Virtuosi, Zinkali Trio, Pennsylvania Academy of Music, Chamber Music Palisades, Pacific Serenades as well as private individuals.
A graduate of UCLA, Albert studied composition privately with Stephen “Lucky” Mosko, and orchestration with Albert Harris. Her music has been recorded on MSR, Naxos, Navona, Centaur, Little Piper, Albany, and ABC Records and is published by Kenter Canyon Music (ASCAP). Her music can also be found through Falls House Press, FluteWorld, Theodore Front Musical Literature, and Trevco-Varner Music. “Music has a ways been a central part of my life. Whether it has been performing, singing, or composing, it is the thread that weaves through each part of my being. I find joy in every form of music, and have been extremely fortunate in having an extraordinary past which informs my present and makes me look forward with great enthusiasm to the future.”
claim to fame came about a year after the death in 1965 of Sir Winston Churchill. The following year, he established the Churchill Memorial Concerts at Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxon, and conducted the first six concerts, which continue to include celebrated speakers. At about the same time, Clive became interested in Music Therapy. He then founded the Music Therapy Charity, an organization which still exists in England. A Southern BBCTV documentary was shown illustrating his pioneering activities.
In 1970, an unexpected invitation to study Music Therapy at Florida State University, USA, resulted in his becoming a registered Music Therapist with a Master’s Degree in Composition, (MM). This in turn led to a permanent move to the USA as a University Music Therapy Director. Years later, when living in Missouri, he gained his Doctor of Musical Arts {DMA) in Music Composition (1974) from the Conservatory of Music, UMKC in Kansas City. Among his activities in Kansas City, he wrote incidental music for the Missouri Repertory Theater, and became an announcer for the Classical Music Radio Station (KXTR).
After graduating, he became the Music Therapy Director at the College of Saint Teresa, Winona, Minnesota. There, he presented a full length concert of original compositions, and his Chamber Opera, “THE CUNNING MAN.” He played first violin in the Winona State University Orchestra, and was also on the Board. Whilst in Winona, he had his own radio show, “Sounds Healthy” on the Winona State University radio station.
Winona was a rather remote place to be, so he chose to move to Washington DC. Whilst there, he directed a Church Choir in Arlington, played the piano for a ballet class in Montgomery, and played first violin in the Alexandra Symphony Orchestra. Most importantly, he wrote the film music for a Smithsonian Documentary, which was shown nationally.
His next move was to Lynchburg, Virginia, where he became Music Director at the Virginia School of The Arts. This position was followed by an invitation to conduct the Liberty University Symphony Orchestra, and direct their string program for Music Education Majors. He joined the Lynchburg Symphony Orchestra as a first violinist, and was a member of the Board.
Whilst in Lynchburg he developed his own one-man band playing the violin to his own recorded accompaniments. He toured the Eastern Seaboard performing in institutions including: Independent Living, Assisted Living, and Nursing Homes.
Clive then moved to Princeton, New Jersey, in order to set up home with his second wife. From there he continued touring the Eastern Seaboard with his violin. In 2001, he won the “Welcome Christmas” prize in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for a carol written for choir and strings. The recording was heard internationally. For Eleven years he conducted the local SightReading Orchestra resulting in a large conducting repertoire of Classical Music. He is now writing a book for the benefit of Music Therapists and Activity Directors. Additionally, he is concentrating on composition, and is hoping to complete some unfinished operatic works.
JOANNE D. CAREY
Applauded by Aaron Copland, inspired by Desmond Tutu, and mentored by Hugo Friedhofer and Earle Hagen, BRUCE BABCOCK has spent his working life composing music for the musicians of Los Angeles. Successful in both film and television, and the concert hall, he is known for vibrant, sonorous, expressive pieces that immerse audience and performers alike in an inclusive and exuberant celebration of the musical art. Bruce’s music has been performed by, among others, Pacific Serenades, the Debussy Trio, the Donald Brinegar Singers, the Santa Barbara Chamber Music Festival, Boston Metro Opera, the Antioch Ensemble, the Space Coast Symphony, and Haga Motettkör of Göteborg, Sweden.
Babcock holds Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in music composition from California State University, Northridge (CSUN). While at CSUN, Bruce’s Impasse was performed for Aaron Copland during his 1975 residency. Copland’s comments on the piece, recorded for posterity, include “an impression of musicality which is very pleasant, indeed…a convincing sense of an overall mood…knows what he wants…sure of what he’s doing.” Babcock’s mentors in Hollywood included Hugo Friedhofer, Paul Glass,and Earle Hagen. He won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music Composition for a Series in 1992, one of eight total Emmy nominations in a ten-year period, as well as eight TV/Film awards from BMI. He has also collaborated as an orchestrator and conductor with some of the biggest names in film scoring, including James Newton Howard, Michael Kamen, and Christopher Young.
- $20 for General Admission
- $15 for Friends of the Sanctuary
- $5 for School and College students with ID
- $15 per person for Groups of 10 or more**
Tickets can be purchased online or reserved at the box office for payment by cash, check or credit card by calling 609-392-6409 or emailing 1867sanctuary@preservationnj.org. Tickets may also be purchased at the door as space allows.
**GROUP RATES (10 or more people). Group rates apply only to advance online sales and must be purchased in quantities of 10 or more within a single purchase. Group rate tickets cannot be purchased at the box office prior to the concert.
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