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 (clockwise from upper left) Emily Ondracek,
Aminda Asher, Laura Falzon, Edmundo Ramirez |
MOSAconcerts.org \ EVENTS \ Feb 13
ISSA Sonus, chamber ensembleTHIS EVENT HAS OCCURRED Sunday, February 13, 2011 / 5:00 PM Featuring: Laura Falzon, flute Emily Ondracek, violin Edmundo Ramirez, viola Aminda Asher, cello Bringing together a vibrant group of performers and composers who share a wealth of music achievements, musicians of ISSA Sonus ensemble have performed across the world, featured as soloists as well as members of orchestras and ensembles. With a rich repertoire including numerous world premieres, the ensemble is passionate for the development and advocacy of new music, but also recognizes the importance of the many music traditions that they share. As a result many of their concerts expand classical chamber music to include music that cross boundaries in terms of culture, style and tradition. Concerts have also included performances with non-western instrumentalists such as their New York Premiere of the work Memories of a Shoehorn with Turkish Oud player Munir Nurettin Beken. PROGRAM Margarita Zelenaia Homage II Hilary Tann Llef Katherine Hoover Divertimento Binnette Lipper Interlude Aaron Copland Threnody I & II Andrew Norman Light Screens About the ensemble: Founded in 2008, New York based ISSA Sonus ensemble is committed to performing and promoting music from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For more information please visit http://www.issasonusensemble.com/ Flutist Laura Falzon has performed throughout the United States, Europe and Asia as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. Praised by the Musical Times magazine for her “versatile technique,” by the British Flute Society’s PAN Magazine for her passionate interest in contemporary flute music describing her as “fearless in tackling and promoting it,” and hailed by the Music & Musicians as “an excellent instrumentalist,” Ms. Falzon, an ardent advocate of contemporary music, has premiered numerous works written for her ranging from the conventional flute solo to works with non-western instruments like the zheng, African drums and tabla. Padma Phool is one such work written for her by the Anglo-Indian composer John Mayer (mostly known as the founder of Indo-Jazz Fusion and, in the flute world, for his flute Concerto for Sir James Galway). Amongst the list of works premiered are works by composers like Shirish Korde, Alvin Singleton, Mohammed Fairouz, Eric Moe, Charles Camilleri, Akin Euba and Geoff Poole. The recipient of numerous awards, she has received grants from, amongst others, The British Arts Council, The Scottish Arts Council, The Rockefeller Foundation, Cambridge University, NY Women Composers, Rotary Foundation and Columbia University. A graduate of Columbia University, she studied in England with Royal Academy of Music professor and principal flutist of the London Sinfonietta Sebastian Bell and with Julius Baker, Susan Milan and Kim McCormick. She is a founding member and artistic director of the Id-Dinja ensemble and ISSA Sonus ensembles. Violinist Emily Ondracek: A native of Chicago, Emily Ondracek started playing the violin at the age of 5, and began giving public concerts soon thereafter. She gave her solo debut at age 16 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Concertos. She has performed throughout the United States and Europe, and at festivals such as Aspen, Italy’s Festival de Due Mondi, and the Cleveland Orchestra’s Blossom Summer Music festival, where she was awarded the Joseph Gingold prize for outstanding performance. In New York, she frequently gives recitals, regularly performing at such venues as Bargemusic and Le Poisson Rouge, recently giving the debut of Histoire de Babar for violin and piano at the Steinway Hall Recital Series. She has also performed with jazz artists such as Herbie Hancock and Wynton Marsalis. Ms. Ondracek records frequently for film and television, and has recorded for Naxos records. She is the two-time recipient of the Morse Fellowship, a grant for resident teaching artists in the New York Public School system. Ms. Ondracek also maintains a private violin studio in New York City. Ms. Ondracek studied with Masao Kawasaki at the Juilliard School where from she received both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. Ms. Ondracek performs on a violin made by Francois Pique in 1815. Violist Edmundo Ramirez’s collaborations as recitalist, chamber musician, and soloist include concerts with ensembles such as the Bremen Kammerphilharmonie (Germany), the Ensemble Intercontemporaine (France), the Absolute Ensemble New York, the Fine Arts Quartet, The Meininger Hofkapelle in Germany, The New York Symphonic Ensemble, The National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica, the Youth Orchestra of the Americas among some. He has performed in venues that include Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, Carnegie Hall, Bellas Artes (Mexico) the Konzerthaus in Vienna and Berlin, Parco della Musica (Italy) and Concertgebouw of Amsterdam. He has appeared in festivals including Aspen, Bach, Tanglewood and Lincoln Center Festivals in the US; Menton and Aix-en-Provence in France; Bremen and Hamburg Music Festival; China Trust in Taiwan and Chiuhuahua en Mexico, and collaborated with, amongst others, conductors Pierre Boulez, Kent Nagano, Kristjan Jarvi; pianists Saleem Abud-Askar and Mikhail Muntyan and Paquito de Rivera, Joe Zawinul and Goran Gregovich. Edmundo Ramirez started his violin and viola studies at the Municipal School of Music in Santo Domingo de Heredia and later at the National Youth Symphony Music Program, in Costa Rica. He continued his studies at the New England Conservatory in Boston, The Mannes College of Music, The Juilliard School in New York and the Academia Chigiana in Italy, receiving Diplomas di Honor and di Merito. His teachers include Miguel Arango, Yuri Bashmet, Jose Aurelio Castillo, Heidi Castleman, William Schuck, Walter Trampler, members of the Tokyo, Emerson and the Juilliard Quartet and master classes on violin and viola from Masao Kawasaki, Ida Haendel and Rafael Druian. Aminda Asher is a professional cellist living and working in New York City. She has performed in several regional orchestras in the New York metropolitan area including the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, Riverside Symphonia, The Chelsea Symphony, and Astoria Symphony, and has also played for several musical theater productions with the Prospect Theater Company and Making Books Sing. An avid chamber musician, Ms. Asher regularly plays with a variety of chamber ensembles including neoLIT; a contemporary music ensemble that is especially dedicated to the performance of works by women composers. She has appeared in concerts at many of New York’s greatest performance venues including Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and Zankel Hall, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Rose Studio, Merkin Hall, Symphony Space, Bargemusic, and (Le) Poisson Rouge. A dedicated teacher, Ms.Asher is currently on the faculties of Tenafly Music Academy in Tenafly, New Jersey, and the Herald School in Queens, New York. Ms.Asher holds a B.M. in cello performance from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music where she studied with Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi and Sharon Robinson. She received her M.M in Orchestral Performance from the Manhattan School of Music, studying with Alan Stepansky. |