Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival to Launch 19th Season with ¡CUBA TODAY!

Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival launches its 19th season with a program celebrating Cuban composers ¡Cuba Today! features works that span 70 years by three generations of composers: Tania Leon, Aurelio de la Vega, Keyla Orozco and Orlando Jacinto Garcia Monday, April 4 at Peter Norton Symphony Space.

On Monday, April 4, 7:30 pm, Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival celebrates three generations of composers from Cuba. In this first concert of the festival's 19th season, the Miami-based Deering Estate Chamber Ensemble travels north to Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Peter Norton Symphony Space to perform works spanning 70 years. All of the composers will be at the concert, and will speak briefly with CEC's artistic director, Victoria Bond before their work is performed.

Orlando Jacinto Garcia composed Cross Currents for the Deering Estate Chamber Ensemble, writing the work with these specific performers - violinist Scott Flavin, violist Laura Wilcox, cellist Ross Harbaugh and pianist Asiya Korepanova - in mind. The CEC performance is the world premiere.

Piezas de bolsillo by Keyla Orozco Violist Laura Wilcox and pianist Asiya Korepanova perform the New York premiere of a work by Keyla Orozco, a Cuban composer who lives in the United States and the Netherlands. Piezas de bolsillo is a four-part work that is inspired by traditional music and dance rhythms from Venezuela and Cuba, including cha-cha, merengue and joropo.

Tania Leon, one of the most well-known Cuban-American composers, presents her 2012 work for string trio, A tres voces. The piece explores the idea of metamorphosis through the transformation of musical ideas and textures.

Ninety-year old Aurelio de la Vega is represented by works from the 1940s - Prelude No. 1 and Piano Trio - and by his 1975 piece The Magic Labyrinth. The Magic Labyrinth's score is completely conceived from a pictorial point of view, reflecting de la Vega's other creative passion, visual art.

Tickets are $20 in advance (available online, in person at the Symphony Space box office, or by calling 212-864-5400), and $30 day of show. Subscriptions are available: purchase three concerts for the price of two.

The Deering Estate Chamber Ensemble is the resident ensemble/founding artists at the Deering Estate at Cutler, a 444-acre historic estate, park, and nature preserve that quietly rests on Biscayne Bay in Miami, Florida. The ensemble presents collaborative concerts combining performances of classical and new works that feature contemporary composers through lectures, visual art exhibits, environmental and historic interpretive programs.