Percussia New Music Ensemble to Present A Musical Nosh With Klezmer Master Frank London in June

Percussia new music ensemble will present A Musical Nosh with Klezmer Master Frank London on Thursday, June 8 at 4:00 PM at the Forest Hills Branch of Queens Public Library, 108-91 71st Ave. in Forest Hills, NY.

Percussia will present the World Premiere of Frank London's original composition Essential Food Groups. Also on the program are Victoria Bond's From the Atlas of Imaginary Places and Elmhurst-based Kento Iwasaki's Project Ethereal. Performers will be percussionist Ingrid Gordon, harpist Susan Jolles, flutist Margaret Lancaster, fadolin player Ljova (Lev Zhurbin) and percussionist Frank Cassara.

Essential Food Groups is a new work composed for Percussia by the eclectic trumpeter Frank London, co-founder of klezmer supergroup The Klezmatics and a musician who has worked with everyone from Itzhak Perlman and Mel Torme to John Zorn and Iggy Pop. London's tastes extend from jazz and klezmer to world music and musical theater; and here he draws inspiration from the work of another creative and eclectic musician and composer, the iconoclastic Frank Zappa.

According to London, A Musical Nosh, which was made possible by a New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Grant, "addresses questions of what is essential to our lives, to our music, to our artistic practice, to our growth as artists and as human beings. The work features each of the virtuoso musicians in Percussia as soloists and in different combinations, in ways that go from introspective to exuberant. The movements of the multi-section work highlight some of the 'Essential Food Groups' in music, or, more particularly, those elements that are necessary to being a musical performer: Listening, Cooperation, Balance, Playfulness, Diligence, Striving towards Transcendence, Leadership, Attentiveness, and more." Visit him at http://www.franklondon.com/.

About From the Atlas of Imaginary Places, Victoria Bond writes, "As someone who has spent a good portion of her life traveling, the idea of going to imaginary places has always held a great fascination. It probably began with Gulliver's Travels, a book that has obsessed me since childhood. This musical suite has a location which, though not part of the original Gulliver, is one that I thought should be there. It is called Danzabar and it is a land where everyone dances all the time, even in their sleep! The other imaginary places are more familiar and also exist in literature: Circe's Island from Homer's Ulysses; Xanadu from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan; Lemuria from a poem by C. S. Lewis called The Last of the Wine, and Shangri-La from the book Lost Horizon by James Hilton." Victoria Bond is at https://www.victoriabond.com/.

Kento Iwasaki is a composer, koto player, and improviser who draws upon the dialogue between traditional foundations and the present day to create a unique language that looks to the future while affirming the past. Visit him at http://kentoiwasaki.squarespace.com/.

The June 8 event is free. For more information, please visit https://queenslibrary.org/calendar/percussia-presents-a-musical-nosh-by-klezmer-master-frank-london/013292-0323or call 718-268-7934.

All Percussia presentations are ADA accessible. For MTA transportation information, visit http://tripplanner.mta.info/MyTrip/ui_web/customplanner/TripPlanner.aspx.

Led by Artistic Director and percussionist Ingrid Gordon and also featuring harpist Susan Jolles, flutist Margaret Lancaster, fadolin player Ljova (Lev Zhurbin) and percussionist Frank Cassara, Percussia's unique instrumentation of percussion, harp, flute, and viola gives the group its one-of-a-kind Signature Sound. Their varied repertoire is an eclectic combination of contemporary chamber music, world, and popular music styles, and original arrangements. Percussia's repertoire crosses genres, styles, and cultural boundaries. Visit their website at http://www.percussia.org/ and like them at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100070327835799.

Their programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. Additional funding is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, by the National Endowment on the Arts, the Music Performance Trust Fund, and by the generous contributions of individual donors.

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