Sylvan Winds Announces Opening Season Concert

The Sylvan Winds announce the opening concert of the 2016-17 Season celebrating music, art, culture, and history.

Performing in historic and notable New York City buildings and performance venues, the ensemble creates imaginative and informative programs that complement the environs of each space.

LA PASIÓN! FADO, TANGO & FLAMENCO will take place on November 30, 2016 at 7:00 PM at The Hispanic Society Library & Museum, Broadway between 155th & 156th Streets.

The Sylvan Winds features Eva Conti, dancer; Rex Benincasa, percussion; Pedro da Silva, guitar; Gina Cuffari, soprano; Svjetlana Kabalin, flute; Katherine Halvorson, oboe; Nuno Antunes, clarinet; Gina Cuffari, bassoon; and Zohar Schondorf, horn.

Program

Isaac Albeniz (1860-1909) Asturias

Georges Bizet (1838-1875) Aragonaise, Seguidilla & Danse Boheme

Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) Milonga sin palabras & Libertango

Paquito D'Rivera (B. 1948) Vals Venezolano, Contradanza & Wapango

Campos De Sousa (1906-1966) Sou do Fado (fado Loucura)

José Carlos Gomes Fado Magala

Traditional Siguirya

Pedro da Silva (B. 1976) An Irishman in Turkey

Program subject to change.

FREE ADMISSION to concert but RSVP REQUIRED

This concert is made possible, in part, with support from
the New York State Council on the Arts.

For reservations, please call 212 / 926-2234 x250 or events@hispanicsociety.org

Pedro da Silva (B. 1976) A musical Renaissance man, Pedro da Silva is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, professor, and lecturer in various fields of music and other arts and sciences. On the composition and guitar faculty at New York University, he has given master classes and lectures internationally at museums, universities, and palaces, on a variety of topics - ranging from music and physics, art, and music technology - including sold-out courses at MoMA since 2011. His compositions and performances have taken him to over a dozen countries across four continents. He has performed in some of the most recognizable concert halls in the world including: Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York; the Louvre Museum and Palace of Versailles in France; Monserrate Palace and Centro Cultural de Belém in Portugal; and the Kew Royal Palace in London.

Eva Conti brings a lifetime of musical study and performance to her flamenco dance. Since graduating from the Manhattan School of Music she has been performing extensively as a professional musician on both French horn and guitar in the US and abroad. As a flamenco dancer she has studied in the US and in Spain with Jose' Molina, Omayra Amaya, Inmaculada Ortega, Pastora Galvan, Farruquito, and Rebeca Tomas. She is a featured dancer and soloist with the Alborada Spanish Dance Theatre since 2006, and has done numerous musical arrangements for their productions.

Isaac Albeniz (1860-1909, Catalonia) was a child prodigy on the piano. By the age of seven he had auditioned for the Paris Conservatory, but they did not accept him because he was considered too young. However, by the age of nine his resourceful father had him tour Northern Spain with his sister Clementina and by the age of 15, Albeniz had traveled the world, performing in Buenos Aires, Cuba, New York, and London as his father was a customs agent. It was his relationship with pianist and composer Felipe Pedrell in 1893 that inspired him to compose Spanish music for piano. His concert career peaked between 1889 and 1892 when he toured throughout Europe, keeping homes in both London and Paris. In 1900 he began to suffer from Bright's disease, thus returning to composition. His final masterpiece Iberia, was written between 1905 and 1908, just prior to his death in 1909.

Georges Bizet (1838-1875, Paris,France) entered the Paris Conservatory in 1848, just prior to his tenth birthday. His teachers includEd Zimmermann, Gounod, and Halévy, whose daughter he would later marry. Winning first prize in organ and fugue in 1855, he also wrote his earliest works including the Symphony in C in November of the same year. A winner of the Prix de Rome, he continued his studies there but had to leave suddenly in 1860 due to his mother's illness. His mother died the following year, and Bizet devoted himself to several operas including The Pearl Fishers and La joie fille de Perth. He married in 1869 and soon joined the French National Guard at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in July 1870. This would delay several projects, including Jeux d'enfants, Djamileh (a one-act opera), and the incidental music to L'Arlesienne. His best-known work, Carmen, was mostly composed during the summer of 1873 and completed by the end of 1874. Though not well received initially, it was highly praised by Debussy, Saint-Saens, Tchaikovsky, and Brahms who attended over twenty performances.

Astor PIAZZOLA (Mar 11, 1921 / Mar del Plata - July 4, 1992 / Buenos Aires) Growing up in New York he became acquainted with jazz and J.S. Bach, studied with Ginastera in Argentina, and on a grant in Paris, with Nadia Boulanger. Back home, he formed the Octeto Buenos Aires whose 'nuevo tango' used both jazz elements and counterpoint.

Paquito D'Rivera (b. 1948, Havana) is a world-class performing artist on clarinet and saxophone. Growing up in Cuba, he was the youngest performing artist to endorse a musical instrument when he signed with Selmer at the age of seven. Working in a number of genres, but best known for Latin jazz, he is a win­ner of many Grammys. After seeking asylum at the American Embassy while on tour in Spain, he received support from Dizzy Gillespie and David Amram, and has lived in the United States since the early 1980s Respected by musicians in both the jazz and classical worlds, he won Grammy awards in both categories.

Both Julio Campos de SOUSA (1906-1966) and José Carlos GOMES are well-known composers of Fado (which means fate), a music genre that originated in Portugal in the 1820s. They are songs that follow a traditional structure and typically have mournful tunes and lyrics describing the sea, resignation, melancholy, or the life of the poor. The Portuguese use the word saudade, or longing, symbolizing feelings of loss that is permanent and irreparable.

Additional performances by the SYLVAN WINDS this season will take place on Thursday, February 16, 2017 at 7:30 PM at The Cell Theatre with a program of new works for winds by Wolfe, Schwartz, Ott, Oteri, and Patterson as part of the Composers Now Festival, and on Thursday, April 20, 2017 at 7:00 PM at The Basilica of the Old St. Patrick's Cathedral, with a program of Italian works including a contemporary of Da Ponte with works by Cambini, Gualdo da Vandero, Berio, Rota, Ghedini and Respighi.

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