LA Master Chorale to Present WATER PASSION AFTER ST. MATTHEW

Water becomes an extraordinary and transformative musical instrument taking center stage as it flows, drips, gurgles, splashes, bubbles and crashes to create a staggering array of percussive sounds when the Los Angeles Master Chorale, conducted by Artistic Director Grant Gershon, presents Oscar and Grammy Award-winning composer Tan Dun's riveting Water Passion After St. Matthew, "a masterpiece for the ages" (AllMusic), on Saturday, April 11, 2 pm, and Sunday, April 12, 2015, 7 pm, at Disney Hall. Written for choir, soprano and bass soloists, chamber ensemble and 10 illuminated water bowls, the piece features moments of shattering intensity and frenzy contrasted by silence and stillness. Whispers, shouts, chants, laughter, Mongolian overtone singing and the high-pitched Eastern Opera vocal traditions emerge from the chorus while the singers "play" Tibetan finger bells and river stones and rattle ominous thunder sheets. Featured guest artists include Delaram Kamareh, soprano; Stephen Bryant, bass; Shalini Vijayan, violin; Cécilia Tsan, cello; David Cossin, lead percussion; and Yuanlin Chen, digital sampler.

The Chorale gave the work's LA premiere in 2005, which was praised as "splendid and adventurous" (Variety) and remains one of the most talked-about concerts in the choir's history. Commissioned by Helmuth Rilling for the 250th Anniversary of the death of J.S. Bach, whose seminal works include the St. Matthew Passion, Dun's piece "plays with watery symbols of baptism, creation and rebirth" (Newsday). It is also drenched with metaphysical metaphors for cleansing and renewal that recall ancient Chinese water rituals from the village where Tan Dun was raised.

Tickets range from $29 - $129. Group rates are available. For tickets and information, please call (213) 972-7282, or visit www.lamc.org. (Tickets cannot be purchased at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Box Office except on concert days starting 2 hours prior to the performance.) The Walt Disney Concert Hall is located at 111 South Grand Avenue at First Street in downtown Los Angeles.

GRANT GERSHON is currently in his 14th season as the Kiki & David Gindler Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale and also serves as Resident Conductor of LA Opera. The Los Angeles Times declares that the Chorale "has become the most exciting chorus in the country under Grant Gershon" and Opera News proclaims him "a first-rate conductor." During his tenure with the Chorale, he has led more than 100 performances at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, including virtually all of the major works in the choral repertoire. A champion of new music as well, Mr. Gershon has led world premiere performances of major works by John Adams, Esa-Pekka Salonen, David Lang, Louis Andriessen, Christopher Rouse, Steve Reich, Morten Lauridsen, Ricky Ian Gordon, Gabriela Lena Frank and Chinary Ung, among many others. His discography includes two Grammy Award-nominated recordings: Sweeney Todd (New York Philharmonic Special Editions) and Ligeti's Grand Macabre (Sony Classical); five commercial CDs with the Chorale: Glass-Salonen (RCM), You Are (Variations) (Nonesuch), Daniel Variations (Nonesuch), A Good Understanding (Decca), and Miserere (Decca); and a digital recording featuring some of the Chorale's signature a cappella works available online-only at LAMC.org, iTunes and Amazon.com.

Giving a voice to Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Grammy-nominated LOS ANGELES MASTER CHORALE is led by Artistic Director Grant Gershon. Proclaimed "the nation's most pioneering major chorus" (Los Angeles Times), it has also been hailed as "inspired" (The New York Times), "magnificent" (Chicago Tribune) and "a superb vocal ensemble" (The New York Observer). The Chorale is currently in its 51st season as a resident company of The Music Center of Los Angeles County and its 12th as the resident chorus at Disney Hall. Presenting its own concert series each season, it performs choral music from the earliest writings to the most recent contemporary compositions. To date, the choir has commissioned 45 and premiered 92 new works, of which 62 were world premieres, and has been awarded three ASCAP/Chorus America Awards for Adventurous Programming as well as Chorus America's prestigious Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence. The Chorale has performed in more than 300 concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at both Disney Hall and the Hollywood Bowl, and has toured with the orchestra to Europe and New York City. It has also appeared at the Ojai Music Festival, the Great Performers series at Lincoln Center, the Ravinia Festival and the Overture Center in Madison, Wisconsin, as well as in leading venues throughout the Southland. Its discography includes five commercial CDs under Gershon's baton. The latest, released in 2012 on Decca, features three works by Polish composer Henryk Górecki. In addition, in 2013, as part of its 50th anniversary season celebration, the Chorale released a digital recording featuring signature a cappella works available online-only at LAMC.org, iTunes and Amazon.com. LAMC previously released three CDs under former Music Director Paul Salamunovich on RCM, including the Grammy-nominated Lauridsen-Lux Aeterna. The Chorale is also featured with Gershon on the soundtracks of such major motion pictures as Lady in the Water and License to Wed. Serving more than 30,000 audience members of all ages annually, the Los Angeles Master Chorale also provides education outreach to 6,000 students each year.

Grammy Award-nominated bass STEPHEN BRYANT enjoys a distinguished career in concert and opera that has taken him around the world, with acclaimed performances in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. His engagements during the 2014-2015 season include Tan Dun's Water Passion after St. Matthew with the Los Angeles Master Chorale and in Europe; Elijah with the South Dakota Symphony; and a debut with Winter Opera St. Louis as Bartolo in Le Nozze di Figaro. A premiere interpreter of the works of Academy Award-winning composer Tan Dun, Bryant created the role of Dante in the world premiere of the opera Marco Polo and was nominated for a Grammy for "Best Opera Recording" for the opera's release on Opus Arte. He reprised the role for productions at London's Barbican Centre (broadcast by the BBC), the Bergen International Festival and with de Nederlandse Opera. He has also performed Mr. Tan's Water Passion after St. Matthew with the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart, MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony, and on tour in the Netherlands; and his Orchestra Theatre II with the Hamburger Symphoniker. His other recent concert appearances include Mendelssohn's Elijah with the New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra; Handel's Messiah with the Indianapolis Symphony and Pittsburgh Symphony; Mozart's Requiem with Princeton Pro Musica; and Verdi's Requiem with the Washington National Opera Orchestra under the auspices of the Defiant Requiem Foundation.

Educator, composer and electronic music performer YUANLIN CHEN, digital sampler, founded a computer and electronic music studio at Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music, the first studio of its kind in China. He is featured on the film score for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and has also performed electronic music for Tan Dun's Peony Pavilion; 2000 Today: A World Symphony for the Millennium; and Water Passion after St. Matthew. Chen's composition Primary Voice for traditional Chinese instruments and electronic music, received its premiere at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts' Archaic Spirits in Millennial Sounds in San Francisco. Chen earned a M.M. from the Central Conservatory of Music in China and a D.M.A. from State University of New York in Stony Brook.

At the forefront of emerging artists from the New York scene, percussionist DAVID COSSIN has stretched the boundaries of percussion performance. As a specialist in new and experimental music, he has worked across a broad spectrum of musical and artistic forms to incorporate new media with percussion. Cossin has recorded and performed internationally with composers and ensembles including the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Steve Reich and Musicians, Philip Glass, Yo-Yo Ma, Meredith Monk, Tan Dun, Cecil Taylor, Talujon Percussion Quartet, Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, and Bo Diddley. His numerous theater projects include collaborations with Blue Man Group, Mabou Mines, and director Peter Sellars, and he was featured as the percussion soloist in Tan Dun's Grammy- and Oscar-winning score to Ang Lee's film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In 2004, he curated the Sound Res Festival, an experimental music festival in southern Italy. Cossin has performed as a soloist with such major orchestras as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre de Radio France, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Sao Paulo State Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Gothenburg Symphony, Hong Kong Symphony, and Singapore Symphony. In addition to his performance work, Cossin is an active composer and has invented several new instruments, which have expanded the limits of traditional percussion. His ventures into other art forms include sonic installations that have been presented in New York, Italy, and Germany.

Soprano DELARAM KAMAREH "has a purity in her voice that is easy to enjoy, pin-point technique, and a remarkable range" (All Is Yar). A true coloratura, Delaram is equally comfortable singing classically and operatically as she is in her native Persian, Middle Eastern and Balkan modes and can sing in excess of a dozen languages. This diversity in vocal technique, range and genres allows her to express the versatility sought after in the contemporary music world. With Southwest Chamber Orchestra Delaram sang a "veritable minefield of a soprano part" in Oliver Knussen's "Hums and Songs of Winnie the Pooh," and her collaboration with the groundbreaking opera company The Industry began with scenes from Pauline Oliveros's electronic opera "Nubian Word for Flowers." Delaram also participated in Christopher Cerrone's Invisible Cities, an opera performed in Los Angeles' Union Station. Delaram studied piano at the conservatory of Tehran before moving to the United States when she was awarded a scholarship from the opera department at UCLA under the tutelage of Vladimir Chernov. In addition to her contemporary music projects, she has sung the role of Blonde in Die Eintführung aus dem Serail, the title roles in both Lakmé and Doña Francisquita, and was a soloist in Bach's St. John Passion.

Born in France, CÉCILIA TSAN began playing the cello with the same teacher as her childhood friend Yo-Yo Ma. After majoring in Philosophy and Chinese, she was accepted at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and was awarded the 1st Prize for Cello summa cum laude and the 1st Prize for Chamber Music. She is a prizewinner at the Barcelona International Competition, the Florence International Competition and the winner of the Debussy Prize at the Paris International Competition. Tsan has toured throughout the world not only as a soloist, but also as a chamber musician with Rudolf Firkusny, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Michel Dalberto, Jean Hubeau, Bruno Rigutto, Pierre Amoyal, Augustin Dumay, Jo Genualdi, Hatto Beyerle, Gérard Caussé, Bruno Pasquier, Paul Neubauer, Heiichiro Ohyama and Martin Chalifour. Since moving to Los Angeles, she has recorded hundreds of movie soundtracks with such composers as John Williams, James Horner, Randy Newman, Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, David Newman, Jerry Goldsmith, Alan Silvestri, Alexandre Desplats and James Newton-Howard. Tsan has served as Principal Cello for the Academy Awards, the Emmys, American Idol and America's Got Talent. Several composers, including jazz-pianist Clare Fisher and Enrique Diemecke, have written solo pieces for her. Tsan has recorded a CD (Eleven pieces for Cello and Piano) under the Cybelia label and two CDs of chamber music by Weber and Ropartz, under the Timpani label, both with pianist Jean-Louis Haguenauer. She is also featured on the acclaimed 2006 CD Jazz and Cocktails, a piano trio written by Gernot Wolfgang, also featuring violonist Tereza Stanislav and pianist Robert Thies, with whom she founded the Pantoum Trio. Tsan currently serves as Principal Cellist with the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra and was Principal Cello with New West Symphony for five years.

SHALINI VIJAYAN, hailed as "a vibrant violinist" (Los Angeles Times) is an established performer and collaborator on both coasts. A native of California, she studied in New York as a scholarship student at the Manhattan School of Music, where she received her B.M. and M.M. Vijayan, an advocate for modern music, was a founding member and is Principal Second Violin of Kristjan Jarvi's Absolute Ensemble, having recorded several albums with them, including 2001 Grammy nominee, Absolution. As a part of Absolute, she has performed throughout the United States and Europe, most notably in London's Barbican Hall and the Konzerthaus in Vienna. The group has premiered works by John Zorn, Daniel Schnyder, Ezequiel Vinao, and Charles Coleman, among others, and worked closely with such soloists as Thomas Hampson, Simone Dinnerstein and Napoleon Murphy Brock. A member of the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida from 1998-2001, she served as concertmaster for Michael Tilson Thomas, John Adams, Reinbert de Leeuw, and Oliver Knussen. She was also concertmaster for the world premiere performances and recording of Steven Mackey's Tuck and Roll for RCA records in 2000. Vijayan is featured regularly with Grammy Award-winning Southwest Chamber Music and can be heard on its Complete Chamber Works of Carlos Chávez, Vol. 3. She is also one half of the duo 61/4, with percussionist Lynn Vartan, and is a member of the Pacific Symphony Orchestra as well as Principal Second Violin of the Opera Pacific Orchestra.

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