DACAMERA and Kaufman Music Center Announce World Premiere Streams In February

February brings another hearty month of world premiere streaming concerts from DACAMERA and Kaufman Music Center. From Orli Shaham and the Daedalus Quartet to Sullivan Fortner and the teen composers of Luna Composition Lab, there are riches aplenty to help us through the winter months.

Full details here:

Tuesday, February 9 (8 pm) - Ignat Solzhenitsyn, piano: Solzhenitsyn and Prokofiev: The War Years

DACAMERA

In the intimate Menil Collection, renowned pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn performs Sergei Prokofiev's monumental Piano Sonatas No. 7 and 8, written after the composer's return home to Stalinist Russia following eighteen years of exile. Solzhenitsyn joins DACAMERA's Artistic Director Sarah Rothenberg in a post-concert discussion about growing up Russian in Vermont, the life and career of Prokofiev, and the life and work of the pianist's father Alexander Solzhenitsyn. The elder Solzhenitsyn was the Nobel prize-winning author of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, the historic publication that revealed life in the Stalinist gulag to the western world. Wrote the Philadelphia Inquirer, "In Solzhenitsyn's hands, [Prokofiev's sonatas] are varied and nuanced, with influences from Chopin to Poulenc contributing to some of Prokofiev's most compelling moments." Tickets are free with registration.

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Thursday, Feburary 11 (7 pm) - Luna Meets Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra

Virtual performance co-presented by Kaufman Music Center and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra

In a new partnership, NYC's Kaufman Music Center (KMC) teams up with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) to present the world premieres of eight works by 2019-20 Fellows in KMC's Luna Composition Lab program, plus participants in Luna Lab with LACO. The program includes music by teen composers Olivia Bennett, KiMani Bridges, Madeline Clara Cheng, Ebunoluwa Oguntola, Anya Lagman, Sage Shurman, Chloe Villamayor and Emily Webster-Zuber. Founded by 2018 Grammy nominee Missy Mazzoli and 2019 Pulitzer Prize winner Ellen Reid with Kaufman Music Center in 2016, Luna Lab addresses the gender imbalance in the field of classical music by providing aspiring female-identifying, non-binary and gender nonconforming composers age 12-18 with a year of one-on-one mentorship, performance opportunities and high-quality recordings of their work. Free concert. Filmed in Zipper Hall at The Colburn School in Los Angeles.

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Thursday, February 18 (7 pm) - Bell Orchestra - A Performance Film

Kaufman Music Center

Montreal's Bell Orchestre comes together in the beautiful Canadian countryside to make this unique concert film. Bell Orchestre consists of six musical mavericks, including Arcade Fire members Sarah Neufeld and Richard Reed Parry, who, on their critically-acclaimed first two albums, have shifted the boundaries of instrumental music. The group cites such diverse influences as Talk Talk, Lee 'Scratch' Parry, and Arvo Pärt, which come together to form a contemporary sound, as if Debussy had composed his fragile impressionism with the knowledge of the ecstatic possibility of a pop concert.

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Friday, February 19 (8 pm) - Sullivan Fortner, piano

DACAMERA

Filmed at the Steinway piano factory in New York, the jazz pianist is featured in a new exclusive DACAMERA stream. For the past decade, New Orleans native Fortner has been garnering praise for his talents as a pianist, composer and band leader. The Grammy Award-winner received international praise as both key player and producer for his collaborative work on The Window with vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant. His recordings as a leader are Moments Preserved and Aria. In 2019, Fortner won Rising Star-Piano and Rising Star Jazz Artist in the DownBeat Critics Poll. According to The New York Times, "His fundamentals as a player could hardly be stronger, and his instincts as a composer and bandleader are almost startlingly mature."

Following the performance is a live talk back with the artist. Free with registration.

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Monday, February 22 (7 pm) - Orli Shaham, piano

Kaufman Music Center

Hailed as a "first rate Mozartean" by the Chicago Tribune, pianist Orli Shaham explores the deep musical connections between her favorite Mozart piano sonatas and other beloved works for the keyboard. In this program, Ms. Shaham performs Schubert's Piano Sonata in A Major, D. 664 and Mozart's Piano Sonata No.15 in F major, K.533/494, demonstrating the later composer's response to Mozart's craft in these two works written 30 years apart. The lyrical textures, use of melodic material and even direct quotes from Mozart's compositions are evident in Schubert's music.

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Friday, February 26 (8 pm) - Daedalus Quartet + Sarah Rothenberg, piano: Weinberg Piano Quintet, Op. 18

DACAMERA

In commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the death of Polish-Russian composer Mieczeslaw Weinberg (December 8, 1919 - February 26, 1996), DACAMERA presents a performance of his intensely powerful Piano Quintet, composed in 1944. Weinberg has been cited by The New York Times as "...a hidden 20th-century master...perhaps as prolific as Shostakovich and hardly less gifted." Recorded in a live Houston performance from May, 2019. Weinberg's Piano Quintet is a dramatic and powerful testament to the historical moment in which it was composed. Since Houston Grand Opera's revival of Weinberg's opera The Passenger, the posthumous reputation of this brilliant composer continues to grow. The Piano Quintet, symphonic in scale and dramatic scope, is one of the greatest works in this form of the 20th century. Free with registration.

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