DCINY Presents Music from South America

DCINY presents ¡BUENA ONDA! MUSIC FROM SOUTH AMERICA, featuring two choral works by Venezuelan composer Alberto Grau and the world premiere of Argentinian composer Martin Palmeri’s Gran Misa.  Led by guest conductors María Guinand from Venezuela and Saul Zaks from Argentina, with Carla Filipcic Holm; Soprano, Kirsten Allegri Williams; Mezzo-Soprano, Shawn Mlynek; Tenor, and André Chiang; Baritone. 

Alberto Grau's work, written for young voices, will be performed by seven children choirs and orchestra. Palmeri's work will be performed by the Distinguished Concerts Orchestra and Distinguished Concerts Singers International. An encore performance of Palmeri's Misa Buenos Aires (Misatango) is also on the program, featuring bandoneonist Daniel Binelli. The concert will be held on Sunday, June 23, at 2 pm at Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall. Tickets start at $20 and may be purchased by visiting DCINY.org.

Albert Grau's Cinco Piezas de El San Pedro is a children's choral work that won the FAMA Award from the Empresas Polar Foundation in 1996, for its innovative conception in music education through choral singing. The work will be performed by choirs from Hong Kong (Hong Kong International School Middle School Choir), Florida (Granados Music Academy), New Hampshire (Presentation of Mary Academy Children's Choir), North Carolina (McDougle Middle School Choir), and Texas (Westlake Houston Community Choir, Warren Youth Singers, Oliveira Middle School Varsity Treble Choir). Parranda de San Pedro is a popular Venezuelan festival that is celebrated every June 29 in the cities of Guatire and Guarenas of Miranda State, Venezuela. The composer used the original melody of Parranda de El San Pedro in the first song and composed a series of variations in the following four verses.

Grau's 1998 Operetta Ecológica, winner of the First Prize of Composition and Choral Expression (Sixth Edition) Government of Gran Canarias (1998), is composed of 4 movements, Act of the Wind, Act of the Sea, Act of the River and Act of the Tree, with poetry written by Jesús Rosas Marcano, a Venezuelan writer who dedicated much of his life to creating children's poems. The work combines choral and solo passages, summoning the love for nature.

Martín Palmeri's Misa a Buenos Aires is inspired by his native Argentina's traditional tango and in particular by Astor Piazzolla's Tango Nuevo. The Misa a Buenos Aires premiered by the Orquesta Sinfónica de Cuba in 1996. The textual basis of the work is the classical Catholic Ordinary of the Mass as it has been set to music for centuries. The scoring for mezzo-soprano, mixed choir, tango quartet, and string orchestra remains close to the authentic ensembles of the tango orchestras of Palmeri's native country.

Martín Palmeri's Gran Misa (Great Mass) is a four-movement work which combines the rhythms, sonorities, and spirit of tango with the time-honored traditions of the Catholic Ordinary Mass. Having already composed large works centered around two sections of the Mass (Tango Gloria, 2015, Tango Credo, 2017, premiered at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts by DCINY), Palmeri set the remaining four sections as one singular work, completing the Order of the Mass across three compositions. The large-scale work calls for chorus, solo vocal quartet, piano, string orchestra, bandonéon, trumpet, and oboe.

Alberto Grau has earned a place of honor among the best contemporary Venezuelan musicians. He is best known for his work as a choral conductor. As a composer, he has become one of the leading figures in Latin America with many of his works being published by Earthsongs (USA), N.J.Kjos (USA), A Coeur Joie (France), Oxford University Press (England), GGM editors (Venezuela). His books on choral conducting and composition, The Making of a Conductor and The Making of the Composer, are references for young conductors and musicians.

In 1967 Grau founded the Schola Cantorum de Caracas and won First Prize in the 1974 Guido D'Arezzo International Competition in Italy. Since then he has attended international congresses and festivals with his choirs including ACDA Conventions, World Choral Symposia, Europa and America Cantat Festivals. He has been invited as a guest conductor, adjudicator, and professor of choral music in Europe, USA, Latin America, and Asia. The International Federation for Choral Music gave him in 2015 the 'Life Long Achievement Award' for his work as a composer and pedagogue. More than thirty recordings provide evidence of his fine musicianship and extensive knowledge of international and Latin-American choral repertoire. His Ballet La Doncella for mixed choir, speaker & chamber ensemble was awarded first prize in the 1978 International Day for Choral Singing competition in Barcelona, Spain, and his Operetta Ecológica won the Prize of Composition from the Comunidad Autónoma de Canarias, Spain in 1999. He received a commission from the 6th World Choral Symposium in Minneapolis in 2002.

Maria Guinand is the Artistic Director of Schola Cantorum of Venezuela and conducts choral projects throughout Latin America, Europe, the United States, and Asia. Renowned as an authentic interpreter and trainer of Latin American choral music of the 20th and 21st centuries, she is a recipient of the Helmuth Rilling Preis (2009), the Robert Edler Preis für Chormusik (2000), and the Kulturpreis of the InterNationes Foundation (1998), three of the most distinguished prizes in choral music conducting. Guinand conducts two of Venezuela's most prestigious choirs, the Schola Cantorum de Venezuela and the Cantoría Alberto Grau, with both of whom she has toured extensively and won many awards. Always interested in new choral

music, she has been involved in projects such as the premieres, performances, and recordings of Osvaldo Golijov's La Pasión según San Marcos and John Adams' A Flowering Tree.

Martín Palmeri was born in Buenos Aires where he studied composition, choral direction, orchestral conducting. As a choral director, he has led the Choir of the Faculty of Law (UBA), the Polyphonic Town Choir of Vicente López, Vocal Sospir, the Colegio Esclavas del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús de Belgrano (College of the Slaves of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Belgrano), the Escuela Argentina Modelo (Argentina Modelo School), the Music School of Buenos Aires, Vocal del Quartier (Paraná), a local singing group of Paraná.

He has written numerous choral and instrumental works and operas. In recent years he has been invited to direct and perform as a pianist in the performance of his work "Misatango", (first performed by the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba in 1996) in Europe and the USA. He was awarded First Prize in the Choral Arrangement Competition organized by AAMCANT in 2011. The National University of Rosario awarded him First Prize in the National Choral Arrangement Competition in 2010. Several of his compositions have been recorded on CDs produced in Italy, Latvia, and Argentina.

Saul Zaks is 2016 Grammy Nominated conductor and musician from Buenos Aires, Argentina, living in Denmark. Saul Zaks completed his conducting studies at The Jerusalem Academy of Music & Dance, Israel, and received a diploma in musical theory, history of Western music and conducting from the Danish National Academy of Music.

DISTINGUISHED CONCERTS INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK (DCINY)
Founded in 2007 by Iris Derke and Jonathan Griffith, with its first public performance in January 2008, DCINY is a leading producer of dynamic musical entertainment in renowned international venues. Over 40,000 musicians representing 49 countries and all 50 United States have participated in DCINY productions. Since the inception of the company, DCINY has produced 17 world premieres and more than 200 concerts for over 200,000 audience members.

With unforgettable, world-class concert experiences, empowering educational programs, and a global community of artists and audiences, DCINY changes lives through the power of musical performance. In addition to being selected four times for Inc. 5000, DCINY has received national recognition with multiple American Prizes: Jonathan Griffith, Founder and Music Director of Distinguished Concerts Orchestra (Winner 2014 American Prize in Conducting, Professional Orchestra Division), DCINY's General Director and Co-Founder Iris Derke and the DCINY Team (Winner 2015 American Prize in Arts Marketing), and Distinguished Concerts International New York (DCINY) has been recognized by LUX Life Magazine as the Most Outstanding Musical Education Program 2019 - New York.