Greenwich Village's Cornelia Street Cafe to Host RAAQ et al, 5/21-5/24

This weekend, the Cornelia Street Cafe in Greenwich Village will host both music and spoken word events.

On May 21 and 22 at 9:30 and 10:30pm, the Cafe will host Rez Abbasi's quartet RAAQ. This quartet features Rez on acoustic guitar along with vibraphone player Bill Ware. The group is rounded off by the bassist, Stephan Crump (Vijay Iyer Trio), and the drummer, Eric McPherson (Andrew Hill).  RAAQ will perform new compositions. RAAQ's album is due out on Sunnyside Records in September, just after the group performs at the Newport Jazz Festival.  For more information, visit http://www.rezabbasi.com.

On May 23 at 8:30pm, the Cafe will host the Tom Beckham Group.  NYC vibraphonist Tom Beckham will return to the Cornelia Street Cafe with longtime collaborators Chris Cheek (saxophones), Henry Hey (piano), Matt Clohesy (bass), and Ferenc Nemeth (drums) - the same ensemble featured on his recent CD 'Rebound.'  The band will play new compositions written for the ensemble, plus material from 2 previous CDs, 'Center Songs' (Sunnyside) and 'Suspicions' (Fresh Sound New Talent).  John Book, of thisisbooksmusic.com, says of Beckham, "...here's someone who makes the vibraphone sound like the most grand of jazz instruments."  According to Scott Albin of Jazz.com, "The leadoff track, 'Tethered,' [from 'Rebound']... invites repeated listens, so compelling are the tune, the series of solos, and group interplay."  "Beckham's work has a sound all its own - which is what jazz is really about," says Rhapsody.com.  The cover for this performance will be $10.  For more information, visit http://www.tombeckham.net.

On May 24 at 6:00pm, the cafe will host 'Pianos and Arias.'  Conductor and pianist Eugene Sirotkine will present young Russian tenor Victor Antipenko in a program of piano works, lieder and arias from composers Puccini, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Bizet, Bartok, and Rachmaninov.

Born in Soviet Russia, Eugene Sirotkine started studying piano privately at six and within a year, gained acceptance into the Glinka Choir College, a boy's music school with a very unique status in Russia. Upon graduation, he enrolled into the distinguished St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he advanced his choral and orchestral conducting studies. His debut as a conductor came in 1989 with the Latvian Philharmonic in St.Petersburg soon after which he immigrated to the United States in 1991. Since 1998 Sirotkine is the conductor and music director of the Hudson Valley Singers, an 65-member choral group that was founded in 1951. In 1999 he was engaged as an assistant conductor at the New York Metropolitan Opera, where he worked until 2008. Sirotkine reveals that he takes his inspiration from two great composers, Berlioz and Bartok. 

Victor Antipenko has recently moved to New York City from St. Petersburg, Russia, where, since 2003 he was a member of the Mariinsky Opera Chorus. While at Mariinsky and also on tour with that company he sung solo roles from Eugene Onegin, The Queen of Spades, Boris Godunov, Khovantchina, The Gambler, Lady Macbeth of Mtzensk, The Nose, La Forza del Destino, Fidelio, Idomeneo, King Roger and most recently Benvenuto Cellini. While still at the Glinka Choir School in St. Petersburg Mr. Antipenko has recorded Prokofiev's On Guard for Peace with Yuri Temirkanov and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. He later studied choral conducting at St Petersburg Conservatory, graduating with honors in 2007. Currently Mr. Antipenko lives in Philadelphia, where he studies with William Schumann at the Academy of Vocal Arts, and actively pursuing his solo career.

DVDs of these performers will be available for $10.  The host for this event will be Larry Kraman, and the cover will be $10.

On May 24, the cafe will host Gene Pritsker's Sound Liberation, presented by 21st Century Schizoid Music.  The group will perform excerpts form their new album VRE Suite, which is to be released on Innova Records on July 27, as well as various pieces chamber music by Pritsker.  Composer/guitarist/rapper Gene Pritsker has written over 370 compositions, including chamber operas, orchestral and chamber works, electro-acoustic music, and songs for hip-hop and rock ensembles. He is also the founder and leader of Sound Liberation, a hiphop-chamber-jazz-rock ensemble which has released CDs on Col-legno and innova. Gene's music has been performed all over the world at various festivals and by many ensembles and performers, including the Adelaide Symphony, The Athens Camarata, and the Berlin Philharmonic. He has worked closely with Joe Zawinul and has orchestrated major Hollywood movies.  For more information, visit http://www.genepritsker.com/,
http://www.soundliberation.net, or https://www.youtube.com/user/noizepunk.  Frank J. Oteri will be the host, and the cover will be $10.

On May 21 at 6:00pm, the cafe will host a Ukrainian literary evening with prose and poetry by Vasyl Makhno, Askold Melnyczuk, and host Alexander Motyl.  The cover will be $10

On May 22 at 6:00pm, the cafe will host 'The Liar Show,' featuring Gabrielle Seltz (The New York Times, Newsday), Brad Lawrence ('Monsters in the Wood'), Sharon Spell ('Shrink'), and Joanna Clearfield (The Moth).  The four will tell stories, but one story will be a lie.  Those who discover the liar will win t-shirts. Host Andy Christie is a word-weaver himself, featured in The New York Times and on National Public Radio.  The cover will be $15.

On May 23 at 6:00pm, the cafe will host 'Music/Words,' featuring pianist Inna Faliks and poets Deborah Landau and Mark Levine.

Deborah Landau is the author of Orchidelirium, which won the Anhinga Prize for Poetry, and Blue Dark (forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press). Her poems appear in The Paris Review, Tin House, The Antioch Review, The Kenyon Review, TriQuarterly, The Best American Erotic Poems, Grand Street, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. She co-hosts the video interview program Open Book on Slate.com and is the Director of the NYU Creative Writing Program.

Mark Levine has written three books of poems, "Debt" (1993), "Enola Gay" (2000), and "The Wilds" (2006), as well as a book of nonfiction, "F5" (2007). His poems have been in many magazines and anthologies, and he has written nonfiction prose for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, New York, and other places. He is on the faculty of poetry at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and lives in Brooklyn.

Young Ukrainian-born pianist Inna Faliks has established herself as one of the most passionately Committed Artists of her generation. After her acclaimed debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at age 15, she has performed on many of the world's great stages, with numerous orchestras, in solo appearances, and with conductors such as Leonard Slatkin and Keith Lockhart. Critics praise her "courage to take risks, expressive intensity and technical perfection" (General Anzeiger, Bonn), "Infusing every note with brilliance and personality," (Hilton Head Competition Review), "poetry and panoramic vision" (Washington Post) , "riveting passion, playfulness" (Baltimore Sun) and her "virtuosity, humor, lyricism and a way to make every note an important part of the texture of the music."(Free Times, South Carolina)  In March 2010, Donald Rosenberg of Gramphone said, "In a programme-note introducing her new solo disc, "Sound of Verse" pianist Inna Faliks states that she was inspired by literature and poetry in choosing the repertoire. What's also intriguing about the recording is Faliks' prowess in rendering each piece with a keen combination of expressive acuity and textural clarity. Faliks plays these obscure pieces (of Pasternak) with the same concentration and attention to detail that she applies to the Ravel-beautifully limned and paced - and to Rachmaninov's Piano Sonata # 2 in the original 1913 version. Intensely felt, her Rachmaninoff abounds in poetic phrasing and finely gauged drama." For more information, visit http://www.innaonline.com
Angelo Verga will be the host. The cover will be $20.

The Cornelia Street Cafe is located at 29 Cornelia Street (between West 4th and Bleeker Streets in Greenwich Village).  For more information, call 212-989-9319 or visit http://www.corneliastreetcafe.com.