Calendar

Adventurous L.A. classical ensemble Wild Up makes its REDCAT debut May 17, teaming up with CalArts musicians for the culmination of CalArts’ festival of Sofia Gubaidulina’s music.

Patricia Caicedo, one of the leading interpreters of the Latin American Art Song repertoire, will present her only New York recital of the season on May 2.

The free-admission concert sponsored by North/South Consonance, Inc. will take place at the intimate and acoustically superior auditorium of Christ & St Stephen’s Church (120 West 69th St, Manhattan). It will commence at 8 PM.

The multi-lingual program will include songs in Catalan, Spanish, Nahautl (the language of the Aztecs), Quechua (the language of the Incas) and Portuguese. Ms. Caicedo will sing songs by among others, Mexican composers Manuel M. Ponce, Salvador Moreno and Sivestre Revueltas; Peruvian composer Theodoro Valcarcel; Colombian composer Jaime Leon; Argentinean composer Alberto Ginastera; Catalan composer Edmund Toldra; and Brazilian composers Camargo Guarnieri and Heitor Villa-Lobos.

Caicedo has resided in Barcelona, Spain for more than 10 years where she is active as both performer and musicologist. She is the founder and director of the Barcelona Festival of Song, held during the summer and now entering its 6th edition.

Her books The Latin American Art Song: A Critical Anthology and Interpretative Resource for Singers (Ediciones Tritó, 2005) and The Colombian Art Song – Jaime Leon: Analysis and Compilation of his works for voice and piano Vol. 1 & 2 (Mundo Arts Publications, 2009) have become reference books in the field of vocal pedagogy.

She has performed throughout Europe and Latin America and has presented lectures and workshops at numerous American universities.

Her acclaimed albums include: De mi corazón latino – Latin Songs of All time (Mundo Arts, 2010), A mi ciudad Nativa – To My Native City (Mundo Arts, 2005), Lied: Art songs of Latin America (Albert Moraleda, 2001) and La Felicidad, recorded with the Banda Sinfónica Santafé de Bogotá in 1997.

Ms. Caicedo will be accompanied at the piano by the versatile Max Lifchitz. Born in Mexico City. Lifchitz has resided in New York City since 1966 and has appeared on concert stages throughout Latin America, Europe and the US. He has released 9 solo piano albums and appears as conductor and collaborative artists in many more.

Ms. Caicedo will be available for interviews and media events while in New York City. She may be contacted through the North/South Consonance office at ns.concerts@att.net.

For further information about North/South Consonance’s concerts please visit http://www.northsouthmusic.org

Sunday, April 10th @ 7pm

REDCAT, the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater, Los Angeles, CA

The EAR Unit, Los Angeles’ fearless new music ensemble, performs David Dvorin’s “As Alice” with live electro-acoustic manipulations of tea cups, saucers, playing cards, clocks, doors, cats, dogs, baby sneezes and children’s voices along with interactive video. In special coordination with REDCAT, the Los Angeles premiere will feature an immersive performance of the twenty-five minute new work by the trio (violin, piano, electronic percussion), which includes specially mixed surround sound, and visuals projected onto 8 foot suspended spheres.

“As Alice” uses Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to reflect upon a series of childhood situations or acts of imaginative play with both aural and visual references. The electro-acoustic score was created solely from recorded sounds chosen because of their association with the Alice story, and include recorded conversations with Dvorin’s six year-old daughter. All of the collected sounds (including voice) were manipulated, processed, and ultimately used as fodder for invented (or imagined) instruments that are performed live by the percussionist in conjunction with the violin and piano.

Dvorin collaborated with Switzerland-based visual designer Ted Davis on the creation of interactive visual elements that are projection mapped onto large spherical objects situated around the performers. The raw visual material consists of both Cecil Hepworth’s age-deteriorated 1903 film of Alice in Wonderland, as well as whimsical illustrations drawn by Dvorin’s young daughter. Similar to the music, these images are also processed, triggered, and controlled by the musicians interactively, and react to their performance.

From the composer:

“I strongly feel that imaginative play is the source of all creativity in our lives. As children we relish the pleasures of pretending to be something we’re not, visiting a fabricated universe, constructing ‘rules’ and situations with which to interact, and ultimately transcending oneself, if just for a moment, in play. I recognize these same thrills when composing music: pretending, fabricating, constructing and hopefully transcending. Perhaps that is why I am still in love with children’s literature, whimsy, and nonsense. We are “as Alice”, exploring the fantastical without asking “why”; in imagination, dreaming and waking have no delineation.”

Moving Painting/Live Piano