North/South Consonance, Inc. Presents 10th And Final Concert Of 29th Season 6/23

North/South Consonance, Inc. will present its 10th and final concert of its 29th consecutive season on Tuesday, June 23 at 8 PM at the auditorium of Christ & St. Stephen's Church (120 West 69th St) in Manhattan. Admission is free.

The Grammy nominated North/South Chamber Orchestra will perform works by Munir Beken, Max Lifchitz, David Patterson, Andrea Reinkemeyer and Lifchitz . Turkish Ud virtuoso Munir Beken will be the featured soloist while Max Lifchitz, the orchestra's founder and director, will lead the ensemble.

The composers will be on hand to introduce their works and meet with the audience during intermission and after the concert.

North/South Consonance's 2008-09 season was made possible in part with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; as well as grants from the Alice M. Ditson Fund at Columbia University; the Keene Family Foundation; and the Music Performance Funds. Contributions from more than 100 individual donors are gratefully acknowledged. For further information about its activities, including concerts and recordings, please visit www.northsouthmusic.org.

The program will open with the first New York performance of Half Moon Nocturne for winds, strings and piano by Andrea Reinkemeyer, the Ann Arbor, MI based composer. Born in 1976, Reinkemeyer studied at the University of Oregon and the University of Michigan and now teaches at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Half Moon Nocturne is a sonic exploration of the beautiful Pinckney Recreation Area in Michigan where the composer and her husband have enjoyed numerous hikes around Half Moon and Silver Lakes.

The program will continue with the first US performance of the Concerto for Ud and Orchestra by Munir Beken, the Turkish composer and performer now living in Los Angeles. The composer, a well-known performer of the Turkish Ud, will be the featured soloist. Born in Istanbul in 1964, Beken studied Ud and western music at the Istanbul State Conservatory before touring throughout Europe as a member of the State Turkish Music Ensemble. In 1989 Beken was appointed Executive Director of the Center for Turkish Music at the Baltimore campus of the University of Maryland. He recently joined the Ethnomusicology Department at the University of California, Los Angeles. Rounder Records has released his acclaimed solo recordings featuring traditional and contemporary music for the UD. Beken's Concerto for Ud and Orchestra is a single movement composition built around rhythms and melodic gestures derived from traditional Turkish music. Interestingly, the Ud writing is informed by western guitar techniques and the orchestral accompaniment creates a texture that emphasizes counterpoint in a chamber music style.

The second half of the program will open with the New York premiere of two brief, humorous works by David Patterson the Boston-based composer. Patterson studied with Leon Kirchner at Harvard University before traveling to Paris to work with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen. He has taught at the Boston campus of University of Massachusetts since 1989. The Boston Globe described his music as "effecting and affecting." The two pieces by Patterson on the program were written for the imaginary Hermit Thrush Orchestra. The first, The Hermit Thrush Orchestra Plays Erik Satie was inspired by the famous Gymnopedie. The second, The Hermit Thrush Orchestra Plays Heart and Soul employs the 1940's tune "Chopsticks" by Hoagy Carmichael.

The concert will close with a performance of Yellow Ribbons No. 40 by Max Lifchitz, the Mexican-American composer and conductor who founded North/South Consonance, Inc in 1980. A New York resident since 1966, Lifchitz studied at The Juilliard School and Harvard University and has taught at Columbia University, the Manhattan School of Music, The Schwob School of Music In Columbus, GA and the University at Albany, SUNY. Active as a pianist, conductor and producer, his many recordings are now available for streaming and download through the NAXOS ClassicsOnline website. Written in 2005, Yellow Ribbons No. 40 is part of a series of works began in 1980 written as an homage to the former American hostages in Iran. Like a concerto for orchestra, this four movement work is built around the various instrumental colors that make up the ensemble while providing ample opportunity for technical display for all the instrumentalists.