ARGORU:Variations on an African Theme—Flutist Laura Falzon performs Two World and one US premiere in a concert featuring works by El-Dabh, Singleton, Fairouz, Euba, Camilleri, Moorman, Smith and Travis in Los Angeles California on Thurs, Oct. 22nd 2009
Posted by s21concerts in Concert Announcement
Flutist Laura Falzon performs ARGORU: Variations on an African theme, a concert for flute, piano and percussion, on Thursday, October 22nd 2009 at 7.30 pm at the Jan Popper Theatre, UCLA, in Los Angeles, California as part of the 3rd AMNA festival. Laura will be joined by pianist Janise White and percussionist Wilson Moorman.
ARGORU: Variations on an African theme, is a chamber music concert featuring the World Premiere of two works, one by NY based composer Joyce Moorman and the other by LA based composer Dwayne Smith. Other works featured in the program include the Mediterranean composer Charles Camilleri’s US premiere of his Sama’i, Halim El-Dabh’s Big Tooth Aspen, Mohammed Fairouz’s Two Venetian Frescos, and Alvin Singleton’s Argoru III after which this program is titled.
Joyce Moorman’s work being premiered in this concert is called Jazz Sonatina scored for flute, piano and percussion. Percussionist Wilson Moorman and pianist Janise White will join Laura Falzon in performing this work. This work drawn from another work of hers–Dream variations–incorporates elements of the jazz tradition with quartal harmony and twelve-tone melodic construction.
The other piece getting its premiere is Dwayne Smith’s work Fantasia on “Kilo Lese Olorun Mi” for flute and piano. This work is based on Ethiopian Folk tunes.
The Mediterranean composer from the island of Malta Charles Camilleri’s Sama’i is one work in a series of flute works that Camilleri wrote for the instrument. Falzon’s long collaboration with this composer (who passed away in January this year), resulted in many works written by the composer for her including solo pieces, works with piano and with orchestra. Laura Falzon is also very familiar with Halim El-Dabh’s work Big Tooth Aspen for flute and derabucca. She performed its New York premiere in 2006. Halim says that Falzon’s performance showed “Exuberance with poise” adding that her “flute’s voice seems to come from [the] heart while empowered by the mastery of performance.”
NY based composer Mohammed Fairouz’s latest work, Two Venetian Frescos for flute and piano, was written for and premiered by Laura Falzon earlier this month during a concert at Le Poisson Rouge on October the 5th. This work was originally meant to be a one movement form entitled Barcarolle. However the composer added a 2nd movement to precede this movement entitled Canzonetta. These two movements make up Two Venetian Frescos. About Laura’s performance of the work Fairouz says that ”my expectations were exceeded when I realized how sympathetically and musically she embodied my Two Venetian Frescos.”
Laura Falzon will also perform Alvin Singleton’s work for solo flute Argoru III. On a feature that EAM Schott music did on Alvin’s work this month, Falzon was quoted as saying that “Argoru is a word found in the Twi language of Ghana meaning ‘to play’, and Argoru III sets out to do just what it implies in that it provides the performer with thematic material within a framework that allows plenty of freedom for the performer to ‘play’ around with interpreting the work. (…) Being myself very much influenced by the Italian flute school (my first flute professor was a student of Severino Gazzelloni), I am so pleased that I have discovered the music of Alvin Singleton. As Singleton studied with Goffredo Petrassi in Rome, it is perhaps this Italian connection that is at the heart of the affinity I feel to Singleton’s work.” http://www.eamdllc.com/story.cfm?story_id=385
Composers Akin Euba and Roy Travis will be in attendance at the concert and will also have their work performed during this concert. Akin Euba’s work for flute and piano, written for Falzon in 2006, is titled Study in Polyrhythm III. Akin Euba, based in Pittsburgh, is originally Nigerian and elements of his Yoruba culture often feature in his classical works, whether it be his opera Chaka or this work.
The program closes with Switched-on-Ashanti, a work for live flute and pre-recorded Ashanti drumming by Roy Travis who incidentally was a composition teacher of Euba’s. Travis studied at the Juilliard School, Columbia University and with Milhaud at the Paris Conservatory. Switched-on-Ashanti features rhythms from African Ashanti dances and superimposes a live virtuosic flute line onto prerecorded rhythms by Ghanian master drummer Kwasi Badu.
More info about Flutist Laura Falzon on http://www.laurafalzon.com/
Entries (RSS)