Cutting Edge Concerts to Present MEMORIES, MYTHS AND DREAMS, 4/11

MEMORIES, MYTHS AND DREAMS Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival features Joan Tower's Dumbarton Quintet and a world premiere by Russell Platt Performers on April 11 program at Peter Norton Symphony Space include Cassatt Quartet, Ursula Oppens and Steven Beck

Cutting Edge Concerts' second program of its 19th season, Memories, Myths and Dreams, features works by four American composers - Joan Tower, Russell Platt, Robert Xavier Rodriguez and CEC's artistic director, Victoria Bond - all of whom will be at the concert,and will speak briefly about their works. The performance on Monday, April 11 at 7:30 pm at Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Peter Norton Symphony Space features the Cassatt Quartet and the pianists Ursula Oppens and Steven Beck.

The composer Russell Platt created Memoir especially for Cutting Edge Concerts, adapting it from an earlier work. The violinist Emilie-Anne Gendron and the pianist Steven Beck give Memoir its world premiere on this concert. Platt's music has been performed by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, New York Festival of Song and the Knights, among many other artists. He has won an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for Music Criticism for his work as Classical Music Editor of Goings On About Town for The New Yorker magazine.

The pianist Ursula Oppens and the Cassatt Quartet are the featured performers in Joan Tower's Dumbarton Quintet. Tower has been profoundly influenced by the work of Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Copland. So in 2007, when the Dumbarton Oaks Estate commissioned her to write a new work - an honor bestowed upon only two other composers, Stravinsky and Copland - it seemed inevitable. Tower herself was the pianist in that first performance at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC.

The Cassatt Quartet is also on stage for the performance of Victoria Bond's Dreams of Flying. Bond's inspiration for the work came from the name of the ensemble who commissioned it - The Audubon Quartet, named for the 19th-century painter of The Birds of America. "Most of us have had dreams of flying, and for me, those dreams are always ecstatic ones. I savor the freedom from gravity, and the ability to rise from the ground and float freely through the air," says Bond.

Rodriguez Robert Xavier Rodriguez evokes the ancient Mayan world with Xochiquetzal (So-chee-KET-sal), which receives its New York premiere in a performance by the violinist Chloe Trevor and the pianist Jeff Lankov. Xochiquetzal is a tribute to the goddess associated with music, beauty, love and female sexual power. In the final movement, there is a quotation of "Xtoles" (Shi-TO-les), an ancient Mayan dance song that is believed to be one of the oldest known melodies.

In addition to the Memories, Myths and Dreams program on April 11, Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival's 19th season also includes concerts on April 4 (¡Cuba Today!) and April 18 (Reflections and Illusions). Tickets for Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival 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.

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