North/South Chamber Orchestra Announces New Year's Eve Celebration, 1/8

The North/South Chamber Orchestra welcomes the New Year on Sunday afternoon January 8 performing a free-admission concert featuring four cheerful and dynamic works by living American composers.

Miolina -- the violin duo fresh from its performances in Japan -- will appear as guest artists for the first performance of the Motown Concerto especially written for the occasion by Greek-American composer and long-time New York City resident VIctor Kioulaphides.

Other works also receiving their first hearing in New York include the Fantasia and Jig by Carson Cooman, a Suite for Strings by William Toutant and Brightness Aloft by the ensemble's conductor, Max Lifchitz.

The concert will take place at the intimate and acoustically superior auditorium of Christ & St Stephen's Church (120 West 69th Street) on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The free-admission event will start at 3 PM and end around 4:30 PM. The auditorium is ADA accessible. No tickets or reservations needed.

The composers will be in attendance and will introduce their works to the audience.

Since its inception in 1980, the North/South Consonance, Inc. has brought to the attention of the New York City public over 1,000 works by composers hailing from the Americas and elsewhere representing a wide spectrum of aesthetic views. Its activities are made possible in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs as well as by the generosity of numerous individual donors.

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ABOUT THE COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC

Carson Cooman is a prolific composer whose vocal and intrumental works have been performed on all six inhabited continents in venues that range from the stage of Carnegie Hall to the basket of a hot air balloon. A graduate from Harvard and Carnegie Mellon, he serves as organist and artist-in-residence at the Cathedral Church of St Paul in Boston. The Fantasy and Jig for string orchestra was written as a wedding present for Irene and Raphael David. The first movement is a free fantasia with a major/minor interplay that alludes to early English string fantasias. The second movement is a joyous jig with a Celtic-Appalachian flavor.

A native of Athens, Victor Kioulaphides has resided in New York City since 1979 maintaining an active schedule as performer and composer. His works have been performed throughout Europe and the US under the auspices of organizations ranging from the New York Classical Guitar Society to the Kammerorchester Riegelsberg. The newly minted double concerto Mostly Motown stems from the composer's experiences growing up in the '60s as a musically curious, omnivorous child. He writes that "the work reflects the ever wonderful quilt that is American popular music, from the verve and energy of the first African-American artists to make it into the mainstream during the Civil Rights era to the signs of gradual evolution in the expressive language of their white colleagues through the ballad and nascent rock music. It isn't the Music of the Spheres; a disco-ball, perhaps."

Max Lifchitz began his musical training in his native Mexico City before receiving a scholarship to attend The Juilliard School. Active as composer, pianist and conductor, he earned first prize in the 1976 International Gaudeamus Competition for Performers of Twentieth Century Music held in Holland and has appeared on concert stages throughout Latin America, Europe and the United States. Written as a reaction to the gradual increase in daylight that effortlessly follows the Winter Solstice, Lifchitz's Brightness Aloft is based on the melody of Xicochi Conetzintle - the 17th century Mexican carol. The text of the motet is in náhuatl, the language of the Aztecs. Its title can be translated as "Sleep, O my Child" obviously referring to baby Jesus. The work consists of twelve unpretentious variations on the motet's iridescent melody.

Los Angeles-based William Toutant studied at Georgetown and Michigan State before joining the faculty of the California State University, Northridge Music School. Well-known for having written and hosted the weekly radio program, "The KCSN Opera House," Toutant also served as Dean of the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication. Neo-classical in spirit, his three-movement Suite for Strings is cast around traditional molds and procedures.

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MEET THE PERFORMERS

Active since 2012, Miolina is the brainchild of violinists Mioi Takeda and Lynn Bechtold. Longtime advocates of new music,
both violinists enjoy collaborating with composers as well as discovering hidden gems from the past. They have received grants from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and from New York Women Composers, Inc. Their forthcoming album was recorded at Chicago's Experimental Sound Studio.

Embarking on its 37th consecutive season, the North/South Chamber Orchestra presents a yearly concert series in New York City while maintaining an active recording schedule. The ensemble's most recent release features five fascinating compositions by New York based Robert Martin inspired by Arshile Gorky's abstract expressionist paintings now available on YouTube

For the complete Winter/Spring concert series schedule please visit

http://www.northsouthmusic.org/calendar.asp

To stream, download and/or purchase the more than 60 compact discs released by the
North/South Recordings label
please go to

North/South Recordings

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