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Melodia Women's Choir of NYC Presents: A Breath of Spring - A 10th Anniversary Concert

concert
Saturday, April 20, 2013 - 19:30 to 21:00

Melodia Women's Choir of New York City, conducted by Artistic Director Cynthia Powell, brings its 10th-anniversary season to a finale with A Breath of Spring, a joyous concert that brings together a world premiere commission for voices and four French horns with rare and favorite works selected from Melodia’s decade-long repertoire. Ranging across musical styles as broad and rich as Russian folk music to jazz-inspired works to experimental new sounds, Melodia continues this season to pioneer the depth and dynamism of works for women’s voices.

Melodia is especially excited to perform for audiences the world premiere work From the Four Winds by Belarusian-American composer and pianist Nina Siniakova, a winner of Melodia's 10th-anniversary season composer competition. Siniakova's musical style is reminiscent of the traditions of Bartok, Lutoslawsky, and Shostakovich, and also references folkloric and jazz trends. In From the Four Winds, Siniakova draws inspiration from Old and New Testament verses that reference four archangels standing in the four corners of the world holding the four winds. The result is an atmospheric and highly effective piece for women's choir and four French horns, which will be performed in quadrophonic sound from the four corners of the concert space by Melodia with collaborating guest artist Genghis Barbie, a one-of-a-kind virtuoso French horn quartet. "The words light, faith, resurrection describe this work," says Siniakova, who also employs lyrics in four languages throughout the piece: English, German, Greek and Belarusian.

"We're very excited to work on this challenging piece," says Cynthia Powell, Melodia's founding conductor and Artistic Director. "The tone clusters and choral effects use extended vocal techniques, with the sound of wind, whispers, and utterances coming from different sections of the choir, like the four corners of the earth, and with the horns positioned in four opposing areas of the concert hall, I believe the effect will be quite hair-raising!"

Special guests Genghis Barbie will also accompany Melodia in the seldom-performed Four Russian Peasant Songs for Women's Chorus and Four French Horns by Igor Stravinsky. "These are wondrous works," says Powell. "They exude a kind of rough and tumble jocularity, and are so quintessential Stravinsky. You can hear tiny snippets of his Petroushka, Persephone, and The Rite of Spring. Genghis Barbie also promise to bring what audiences have called their "shouting, cheering, standing-room-only" energy to several selections of their own arrangements for the concert’s instrumental interlude.

Also featured this season are works by Claude Debussy, Maurice Duruflé, Eleanor Daley, and John Rutter, who has written an effervescent trio of songs inspired by Shakespearean texts: It Was a Lover and His Lass, When Daisies Pied, and My True Love Hath My Heart.

Melodia Women's Choir has been called "riveting" by the New York Times and was named one of the top choirs in New York by Time Out New York. Melodia has been heard on radio stations WQXR and WNYC, seen on NBC-TV, and has performed at Symphony Space, Merkin Concert Hall, and the Surrogate’s Courthouse as guest artists at the Women’s History Month Celebration for the New York City Comptroller.

Performers include Melodia Women’s Choir, Artistic Director Cynthia Powell, Taisiya Pushkar (piano), and Genghis Barbie (French horn quartet).

Performance Dates for A Breath of Spring

Sunday, April 14 at 4:00 pm
West End Collegiate Church
368 West End Avenue at 77th Street, New York City
*Reception to follow concert

Saturday, April 20 at 7:30 pm
Church of the Holy Apostles
296 Ninth Avenue at West 28th Street, New York City
*Reception to follow concert

Tickets are $20/advance, $25/door ($15/advance students and seniors)
Visit www.melodiawomenschoir.org or call Brown Paper Tickets: 800-838-3006
Information: 212-252-4134

Composers
Nina Siniakova, Igor Stravinsky, Eleanor Daley, John Rutter, Maurice Duruflé, Claude Debussy

Event place: 
Church of the Holy Apostles New York

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