SONOS Chamber Orchestra to Present NATURE AS INSPIRATION FOR MUSIC at Merkin Concert Hall

SONOS Chamber Orchestra, Erik E. Ochsner, Music Director and Conductor, will present Nature as Inspiration for Music, a concert on Tuesday, May 24 at 8 PM at Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Music Center, 129 West 67th Street, New York, NY.

Nature and physical surroundings have long inspired composers. To honor the 150 anniversary of the birth of Jean Sibelius, SONOS will perform the composer's The Wood Nymph for narrator and orchestra, with narrator Edmund Stone, along with THE WORLD PREMIERE OF Swedish composer Fredrik Sixten's Concerto for Two Pianos and Chamber Orchestra, with South Korean piano duo Yoo & Kim (winners of the 2013 Dranoff International 2-Piano Competition) as soloists. Also on the program is Pulitzer Prize-winner Paul Moravec's Albany Rhythms, U.S. Premieres of Canadian composer Alexander Brott's Aurora Borealis and Finnish composer Pehr Henrik Nordgren's Chamber Symphony, and New York-based composer Jessie Montgomery's Starburst, as well as Hong Kong born Alice Ho's newly expanded orchestration of her Dark Waters. Both Ms. Montgomery and Ms. Ho will be at the concert. The event will also include a performance of a special new arrangement of Dave Grusin's Academy Award nominated theme song to On Golden Pond, arranged for 2 pianos and chamber orchestra.

The Fredrik Sixten piece was commissioned by SONOS in honor of the Dranoff International 2-Piano Foundation and is dedicated to the memory of Ruth Unger. The Sibelius piece is being performed for only the second time in the U.S., with special permission from the Sibelius estate.

Tickets for the May 24 concert are $30/$20 and are available at www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/sonos-chamber-orchestra-erik-ochsner-conductor. More about the concert at www.sonoschamberorch.org.

Jackie Jaekyung Yoo is a prizewinner of nearly thirty international competitions. She has appeared as soloist with the Symphony Orchestra of Croatian Radio and Television, Manchester Camerata and Orquestra Simfonica de les Balears "Ciutat de Palma." Yoon-Jee Kim is a conductor/pianist who has performed at Carnegie Hall and Avery Fischer Hall with soloists like Itzhak Perlman. She holds a Bachelor's degree from Yale University and a Master's in conducting from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. Visit them at www.yooandkim.com.

Narrator Edmund Stone is a U.K born, classically trained Shakespearean actor whose background includes a variety of stage and screen roles. He hosts The Score with Edmund Stone (www.thescore.org), a weekly celebration of symphonic music in film which is heard on a wide variety of NPR stations and on the internet. It is produced by All Classical Public Media in Portland, Oregon.

Finnish-American conductor Erik Ochsner is Music Director of SONOS Chamber Orchestra; Artistic Director of The Dranoff International 2 Piano Foundation and serves as Principal Guest Conductor for Bugs Bunny at the Symphony. His versatility as a conductor has stretched across a broad range of repertoire from conducting as few as five performers in contemporary and modern works, to leading 300 performers in "live to projection" concerts of films like Back to the Future, E.T., Frozen, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Trek (2009), Star Trek Into Darkness in addition to projects like Bugs Bunny at the Symphony and Pixar in Concert. Upcoming engagements include a concert of music from Star Wars with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa. Ochsner has led orchestras in Adelaide, Albuquerque, Beijing, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kaohsiung (Taiwan), Kitchener-Waterloo, Krakow, Melbourne, Mexico City, New York, Oregon, Ottawa, Reykjavik, Richmond, Rochester, Round Top Festival Institute (Texas), St. Louis, Shanghai, Stockholm, Tampere (Finland), Wellington, West Saxony (Germany) and Wolf Trap. Visit him at www.erikochsner.com.

SONOS Chamber Orchestra strives to be a vibrant alternative in the New York City cultural landscape. Under the direction of its founders: Music Director and Conductor Erik Ochsner, and musicians Allen Alexander and Pamela Ajango French, SONOS began its work by focusing and exploring artistic opportunities in the diverse and unique neighborhoods throughout Upper Manhattan, including Washington Heights, Inwood, and the Upper East Side. SONOS currently is a flexible and versatile group of young professional musicians devoted to the promotion and performance of under-appreciated works from the traditional repertoire, along with innovative new works showcasing the talents of dedicated contemporary composers. Their website is at www.sonoschamberorch.org.