Siri Rico & Max Lifchitz to Peform at Christ & St Stephen's Church, 3/23

Puerto Rican soprano Siri Rico and pianist Max Lifchitz team up on Sunday afternoon March 23 to perform a program designed to draw attention to 20th and 21st century art songs by composers from Spain and the Americas.

The event - part of the 34th consecutive season of free-admission concerts sponsored by North/South Consonance, Inc -will start at 3 PM and end approximately at 4:45 PM. It will be held at the intimate but acoustically superior auditorium of Christ & St Stephen's Church (120 West 69th St - between Broadway and Columbus) on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The auditorium is accessible to the handicapped. Admission is free - no tickets needed.

The program will highlight songs with texts in Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese and Italian modeled after compositional styles of bygone eras. Twentieth century masters represented will include Joaquín Rodrigo (Sephardic Songs); Carlos Guastavino (Three Songs inspired by Luis Cernuda's Poetry); Heitor Villa-Lobos (his masterful setting of the 18th century Lundú da Marquesa de Santos); Federico Mompou (Combat del somni); and Xavier Montsalvatge (Five Songs Inspired by Afro-Cuban Poetry).

Also on the program will be first performances of works by Alice Shields, Ricardo Llorca and the afternoon's pianist, Max Lifchitz.

Three Virgin Songs by New York composer Alice Shields are based on a Catalan text and melody from the medieval Spanish mystery play The Death and Assumption of the Virgin. El Combat del Somni ("The Battle of Dreams") by Ricardo Llorca -- the Spanish-born composer residing in New York - were written as a companion to Mompou's songs of the same name which will also be included in the program. Three Concerted Madrigals by Mexican-born Max Lifchitz were inspired by 16th century Italian madrigals.

Both Ms. Rico and Mr. Lifchitz are available for media events and interviews and may be contacted through our office at ns.concerts@att.net

Since its inception in 1980, North/South Consonance has brought to the attention of the New York City public over 1,000 recent works by composers representing a wide spectrum of aesthetic views. It 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.