Patti Smith Narrates TUBBY THE TUBA with Little Orchestra Society Today

The Little Orchestra Society (LOS) presents TUBBY THE TUBA narrated by Patti Smith, the iconic National Book Award-winner, rock musician and poet, today, March 16, 2013, at 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m., at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. Ms. Smith brings to life George Kleinsinger's classic score about the most famous tuba in the world, Tubby, who teaches his instrument Friends in the orchestra that melodies and soloists can come from the most unexpected places. Tubby the Tuba is a childhood favorite of Ms. Smith's. As she writes in her 2010 memoir Just Kids:

"One evening Harry and Peggy invited us to visit with the composer George Kleinsinger, who had a suite of rooms at the Chelsea. ...I was free to rummage through George's musical compositions, stacked randomly among the ferns, palms, and caged nightingales. I was elated to find original sheet music from Shinbone Alley in a pile atop a filing cabinet. But the real revelation was finding Evidence that this modest and kindly snake-rearing gentleman was none other than the composer of the music for Tubby the Tuba. He confirmed this fact and I nearly wept when he showed me original scores for the music so beloved in my childhood."

In addition to Tubby the Tuba, audiences will hear an array of melodies and soloists, some familiar, some unexpected, with excerpts from works including Tan Dun's Concerto for String Orchestra and Pipa, Morton Gould's Tap Dance Concerto, Mozart's Queen of the Night Aria from The Magic Flute, and more.

TUBBY THE TUBA
(recommended for ages 6-12)

SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 2013, 11:00 A.M. AND 1:00 P.M.
DAVID Alan Miller, GUEST CONDUCTOR
Patti Smith, NARRATOR
LANE ALEXANDER, TAP DANCER
NATHAN CHAN, CELLO
MIN XIAO-FEN, PIPA
SOYOUNG PARK, SOPRANO

MIKHAIL GLINKA - Overture to Russlan and Ludmilla

Joseph Haydn - Allegro Molto from Cello Concerto No. 1 in C Major
Nathan Chan, Cello

Tan Dun - Allegro from Concerto for String Orchestra and Pipa
Min Xiao-Fen, Pipa

Morton Gould - Toccata (with Cadenza) from Tap Dance Concerto
Lane Alexander, Tap Dancer

W. A. MOZART - Queen of the Night aria from The Magic Flute
Soyoung Park, Soprano

George Kleinsinger - Tubby The Tuba
Patti Smith, Narrator

Performances are at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall (65th Street and Broadway). Single tickets: $15, $25, $45, $55; available by calling 212/971-9500, at littleorchestra.org, at the Avery Fisher Hall box office and by calling CenterCharge at 212/721-6500.

The Little Orchestra Society's new website serves as the gateway to its live magical and musical experiences. Parents and kids can find activities, games, chats and other materials surrounding Little Orchestra Society concerts at any time through the LOS Kids section of www.littleorchestra.org.

Patti Smith, born in Chicago and raised in South Jersey, migrated to New York in 1967.

Patti Smith's first recording, Horses, was inducted into The National Recording Registry in 1975 and into The Library of Congress by The National Recording Preservation Board in 2010. Her subsequent albums are Radio Ethiopia; Easter; Wave; Dream of Life; Gone Again; Peace and Noise; Gung Ho; Trampin; Land; Twelve; and most currently, Banga.

Author of the acclaimed memoir, Just Kids, which chronicled her friendship and Journey in art with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, Patti Smith was awarded the 2010 National Book Award. Her other books include Witt; Babel; Coral Sea; Woolgathering; and Auguries of Innocence.

Patti Smith's art has been exhibited at galleries and museums worldwide. Represented by the Robert Miller Gallery in New York since 1978, her exhibitions include Strange Messenger, Land 250, and Camera Solo. Steven Sebring's 2008 documentary, dream of life: the movie, was acknowledged internationally and received an Emmy nomination.

As well as being a Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame inductee, Patti Smith also holds the honor of "Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres" from the French Ministry of Culture, and has been awarded honorary doctorates from Rowan State University, Pratt Institute of Art, and the School of Art Institute Chicago. Patti Smith was honored by ASCAP with the Founders Award, representing lifetime achievement, and the recipient of Sweden's Polar Award, an international acknowledgement for significant achievements in music.

On February 7, 2013, Smith will be awarded the Katharine Hepburn Medal from Bryn Mawr College, which recognizes women whose lives, work and contributions embody the same drive and accomplishments as the four-time Academy Award-winning actress.

Patti Smith and her band continue to tour Worldwide as well as lend support for human right issues.

David Alan Miller (guest conductor) has established a reputation as one of the leading American conductors of his generation. Frequently in demand as a guest conductor, he has worked with most of America's major orchestras, developing particularly close relationships with the Minnesota Orchestra and Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He has also conducted the orchestras of Baltimore, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and San Francisco, as well as the New World Symphony and the New York City Ballet. Mr. Miller is also founder and Artistic Director of "New Paths in Music," a festival in New York City dedicated to presenting the works of significant non-American composers who are not yet well known in the United States.

As Music Director of the Albany Symphony Orchestra, a position he has held since 1992, Mr. Miller has proven himself a creative and compelling orchestra builder. Through exploration of unusual repertoire, educational programming, community outreach and recording initiatives, he has reaffirmed the Albany Symphony's reputation as the nation's leading champion of American symphonic music and one of its most innovative orchestras. Other accolades include Columbia University's 2003 Ditson Conductor's Award, the oldest award honoring conductors for their commitment to American music, the 2001 ASCAP Morton Gould Award for Innovative Programming and, in 1999, ASCAP's first-ever Leonard Bernstein Award for Outstanding Educational Programming.

His extensive discography includes recordings of the works of Todd Levin with the London Symphony Orchestra for Deutsche Grammophon, as well as music by Michael Daugherty, Kamran Ince, and Michael Torke for London/Decca. His recordings with the Albany Symphony include discs of music by John Harbison, Roy Harris, Morton Gould, Don Gillis, George Lloyd, Peter Mennin, and Vincent Persichetti, all on the Albany Records label. He also led the Los Angeles Philharmonic in its recording of Mel Powell's music, including "Duplicates: Concerto for Two Pianos," winner of the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

A native of Los Angeles, David Alan Miller holds a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master's degree in orchestral conducting from The Juilliard School.

Lane Alexander (tap dancer) has a performing career spanning over 30 years that includes work on the concert stage, musical theater, television and film. He is one of the foremost experts on Morton Gould's Tap Dance Concerto which he has performed with the New York Pops, the London Philharmonic, the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, and many other prestigious orchestras around the globe. He was the first artist to publish a recording of the Tap Dance Concerto since the original recording with Danny Daniels in 1952.

Lane toured nationally with Austin on Tap and appeared in the Candlelight Dinner Theater's long running production of 42nd Street (directed by Bill Pullinsi and choreographed by Marc Robin) before joining William Orloski's National Tap Dance Company of Canada in 1987 as an ensemble member. While still appearing as a guest artist with the NTDCC, Lane Co-founded alexander,michaels/Future Movement (am/FM) with Chicago native and noted contemporary dancer/choreographer Kelly Michaels. Together, they created a repertory of tap, modern dances that stretched the boundaries of both and worked for an acknowledgement of American tap as a recognized art form. They co-founded the Chicago Human Rhythm Project in 1990 as a summer festival of tap and percussive dance to further that mission. Lane's choreography and contributions to the field have been recognized by The National Endowment for the Arts' American Masterpieces program through the Illinois Arts Council, the Ruth Page Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Field, and the Chicago Dance and Music Alliance for Outstanding Solo Performance, among others.

In 2009, Lane received a ten-year appointment to the Beijing Contemporary Music Academy as a Senior Advisor and regularly teaches and performs in Athens, Beijing, Brasilia, Caracas, Florianopolis, Helsinki, Munich, Paris, Prague, Stuttgart, Tokyo, Zurich and at numerous festivals around the North America including the Third Coast Rhythm Project, Tap City, Vancouver Tap Festival and Soul to Soles. He has appeared with such greats as Donald O'Connor, Gregory Hines, Maurice Hines, the Nicholas Brothers, Buster Brown, Prince Spencer, Peg Leg Bates, Jimmy Slyde, Bill Irwin, Savion Glover and Luke Cresswell. Lane currently teaches at the Tap Studio in Chicago and has served on the faculties of dance studios and universities across the United States.

Eighteen-year-old cellist Nathan Chan made his musical debut at the age of three, conducting the San Jose Chamber Orchestra on a set of variations by Mozart. He has performed as a soloist with orchestras including the San Francisco Symphony, The Royal Philharmonic (London), Northern Sinfonia (UK), Albany Symphony, Marin Symphony, and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, among others. He made his Carnegie Hall debut at the age of 12, recorded with the legendary singer Roberta Flack at age 13, and at age 15, released a CD of the live world premiere performance of the "quadruple concerto" Velesslavitsa by Alexander Prior on the European label, Toccata Classics. He was featured in the Peabody Award-winning HBO Television documentary, "The Music in Me," the Grammy Award-winning radio show, "From the Top," and was one of the featured artists of the acclaimed three-part British Television documentary, "The World's Greatest Musical Prodigies." Nathan currently attends the Columbia University-Juilliard School Exchange program and studies with Richard Aaron.

Pipa player, singer and composer Min Xiao-Fen was born in the ancient capital of Nanjing, China. She has become internationally known for her virtuosity and fluid playing style on the pipa, whether performing classical music or in avant-garde or improvised settings.

Min has recorded traditional Chinese music together with many of the world's leading symphony orchestras and other ensembles and has performed at a number of international festivals. Since moving to the United States in 1992, she has been featured as a soloist with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Pacific Symphony, San Diego Symphony, and New Haven Symphony Orchestra, among many others. Min premiered composer Tan Dun's opera Peony Pavilion with director Peter Sellars in 1998. Min also premiered composer Anthony De Ritis's pipa concerto, Ping Pong, with the Taipei Chinese Music Orchestra in 2004 and composer Huang Ruo's solo work, Written on the Wind, for the Meet the Composer series in 2008.

In spite of her classical background, Min has also become an established member of the improvised music community in New York. She has worked with a variety of artists, including trombonist George Lewis, saxophonists Jane Ira Bloom and Ned Rothenberg, guitarists Marc Ribot and Elliott Sharp, violinists Regina Carter and Jason Kao Hwang, bassist Mark Dresser, pianists Jon Jang and Daniel Kelly, sound artists Carl Stone and DJ Spooky, and sound and visual artist Christian Marclay. Min has also made a guest appearance on singer Björk's album, Volta, in 2007 and was invited to perform as a special guest with Björk at Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall in New York City following the release of the album.

As a composer, Min received a commission in 2007 for Return of the Dragon from The Kitchen in New York, followed by a performance with her Asian Trio. She was a featured composer and performed her solo piece Blue Pipa for the American Composers Orchestra's Composer Out Front series. Ghost Masks was commissioned and performed by Min-Wu-Xu at the Glatt & Verkehrt Festival in Krems, Austria in 2008, and her solo Dim Sum was premiered at Interpretations in 2010 in New York.

Min regularly performs with her own groups, which include the Blue Pipa Trio (with bassist Dean Johnson and guitarist Steve Salerno), the Chinese Women String Ensemble, The Asian Trio (with Korean cellist Okkyung Lee and Japanese percussionist Satoshi Takeishi), and Min-Wu-Xu.

Min has taught many master classes and has been an artist in residence at schools and universities across the United States and Europe, including The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, Boston Conservatory, The New School, Columbia University, Wellesley College and the Amsterdam Conservatory. She is the founder of Blue Pipa Inc. and currently lives in Forest Hills, Queens.

Soprano Soyoung Park was born in Busan, South Korea, and began singing when she was thirteen years old. Ms. Park received her bachelor's degree in Vocal Performance from Seoul National University where she was awarded a full scholarship and graduated first in her class. At SNU she performed the roles of Violetta from Verdi's La Traviata and Gilda from the opera Rigoletto in their main-stage productions. Ms. Park was awarded first prize at the Sungjung Music Competition in 2008 and Nanpa Vocal Competition in 2009. She also performed in The Young Artist Debut Concert at the Sejong Art Center in Korea.

Ms. Park was the recipient of the Presidential Scholarship for her Master's Degree at the New England Conservatory in 2012 where she performed the roles of the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte and Zerbinetta from the Prologue of Ariadne auf Naxos. She went on to sing the Queen of the Night at the Aspen Music Festival in 2012. Most recently she performed the role of Amore in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice at NEC and will be performing the role of Lisetta in NEC's production of Rossini's La gazzetta in 2013. She is currently pursuing her Artist Diploma at the New England Conservatory in the studio of Lorraine Nubar.

The Little Orchestra Society/Orpheon, Inc. (LOS), now in its 65th season, performed its inaugural concert at The Town Hall on October 20, 1947, and has since been devoted to presenting music and educational programming that inspires audiences of all ages to encourage a lifetime of participation in the arts. The LOS honors both the past, by presenting ensemble pieces created by the great early composers, while also "orchestrating the innovation" in classical music through world premieres of new works -- more than 65 throughout its history. The Orchestra performs dynamic repertoire using multiple art forms to create meaningful experiences for today's audiences.

The LOS's mission to present music in engaging, educational contexts was refined under the direction of the late Maestro Dino Anagnost, who led the orchestra from 1979 to 2011. Throughout its history, the Orchestra has given many important premieres and launched the careers of major musical talents in its concert programming for adult audiences. In addition to its concert performances, its music Education and community engagement programs educate and entertain New York Metropolitan Area children and their families, as well as senior citizens, through the Musical Connections, Live In Concert! and Project 65Plus programs.

Musical Connections: The School Partnership Program, a year-long music Education program, teaches students the basic elements of music by engaging them in the process of composing their own works. Live In Concert! seeks to instill a lasting love of music in children and their families and to create new audiences for classical music. New York City public school students and children from publicly-funded daycare centers and Social service agencies attend The Little Orchestra Society's dress rehearsals and concerts without charge. Project 65Plus recognizes the importance of life-long learning and provides senior New Yorkers with free admission to the Orchestra's concerts. The LOS also works to serve grandparents who are caregivers. More than 12,000 people participate in LOS music Education and public service programs each year.

The Little Orchestra Society's concert series includes the Peabody Award-winning Happy Concerts for Young People for children ages 6-12, the Lolli-Pops for children ages 3-5, and the concerts for adults, which have included Vivaldi's Venice, Cathedral Concerts - Great Music Under a Byzantine Dome and Sound Discoveries. For more information, visit littleorchestra.org or call 212-971-9500.