Richard Kimball The Tree of Life Music Event Held At Lycian Centre

Richard Kimball The Tree of Life Music Event will have its First Performance at Lycian Centre, at Sugarloaf, New York on October 22, 2011 7PM

Using a popular metaphor as its title, "The Tree of Life Music Event" is a staged musical performance featuring works by Richard Kimball, Samuel Barber, American jazz masters Bill Evans and Wayne Shorter, the voice of soprano Jody Weatherstone and distinguished conductor David Crone - each piece alluding to one of the great themes of life ... birth, childhood, aging, loss, brotherhood, wonder, sexual love - inspired by the book "Ain't You Got a Right to the Tree of Life?" (highlighting a unique and historic island culture near Charleston, S.C.) and the parallel of artistic foment as existed in the Paris of the early 20th century.

Jody Weatherstone is featured on several works, including one of the two pieces scored for chorus and Samuel Barber/James Agee's emotive orchestral narrative telling of childhood in Knoxville: Summer 1915, which Kimball orchestrated for Ms. Weatherstone and his consort of six players specifically for this performance.

The final highlight of the event is the premiere of Paris 1911, Kimball's latest large work for chamber ensemble which integrates both jazz and classical idioms, taking the listener through a rich panoply of musical expression from French impressionism, through the post romantic era, with jazz, Brazilian rhythmic forms, and a contemporary fugue - each one evolving seamlessly out of the other.

Jazz vocalist Vivian Lord - the speaking side of her signature smoky singing voice, interjects her own salient comments from "above" - as overhead is projected a program of photographic images curated by photographer John Jordan - theater lighting by the Lycian Centre with enhanced audio and live recording under the direction of renowned sound engineer and mixing artist, Frank Fagnano.

Music Program:

Soprano Jody Weatherstone and pianist/composer Richard Kimball, with conductor David Crone and ensemble play a program of Samuel Barber, Wayne Shorter, Bill Evans, and featuring new works by Richard Kimball.

Little Eve Fleugelhorn and digital strings Kimball

Make Hay While the Sun Shines trpt, el. guit., cello, contrabass, drums, piano Kimball
We Will Meet Again, Theme and Variations
Piano and digital Fender Rhodes Bill Evans/Kimball
Only Child Piano Bill Evans

Brother Solo hi voice, chorus, and piano Kimball

Wonderosity Solo hi voice, trpt, el. bass, piano, drums Kimball

Anna Maria/Piece Within a Piece
Piano and digital Fender Rhodes Wayne Shorter/Kimball

The Tree of Life
Chorus, trpt, piano, contrabass, and drums Kimball

INTERMISSION

Avore (young female voice, digital strings, and piano) Kimball

Knoxville: Summer 1915 Solo hi voice, clar., trpt, violin, cello, contrabass, piano S. Barber - chamber orchestration Kimball

Paris 1911 El. guitar, trpt., cello, contrabass, drums, digital strings, digital horns, piano
Kimball

About Richard Kimball

Composer, Pianist, Washington, D.C., 1941

In addition to the piano, during the sixties and seventies, Richard played orchestral contrabass and toured the western states with the University of Utah concert band. Beginning in the sixties, he played bass with various rock, jazz, and Brazilian groups. He also played stints with the Larry Elgart , Sammy Kaye and Tex Beneke Big Bands. Richard also was active in the theatre, writing music for various off-Broadway plays and the venerable Stella --"This is not a democracy!"- Adler Theatre Workshop. During this same period, and through to the present, he recorded and toured with various Brazilian groups such as composer/Grammy nominee Thiago de Mello, Afro-Brazilian flutist/composer Lloyd McNeill, the late Latin flutist/composer Mauricio Smith, and the late renowned Brazilian percussionist Dom um Romao.

Richard holds two degrees in composition from the Juilliard School. While there, he studied with American composers Stanley Wolfe, Vittorio Giannini, and the "dean" of American composer teachers, Vincent Persichetti. He received the Alexandre Gretchanninov Memorial Prize in Composition for his String Quartet and was also teaching assistant to composer Luciano Berio, and the jazz arranger/educator Hall Overton (who arranged the famous Monk Carnegie Hall album) and the Italian composer Luciano Berio.

He began his professional teaching at the Juilliard School's Extension Division, teaching Twentieth Century Music, Literature and Materials of Music, and Composer's Workshop. He also became the Pre-College Division's composition teacher for several years both there and at the Manhattan School of Music.

In more recent years, Richard has concentrated his performance work on piano, composing and performing concerts with his own ensemble, playing night club gigs, and accompanying and recording with various vocalists, most notably with the great jazz singer Vivian Lord. He's also well known in New York for his thirty-four years as co-house pianist, along with Brazilian pianist Dom Salvador, under the Brooklyn Bridge at The River Café playing his unique arrangements of jazz standards and "The Great American Songbook."

Richard has been active writing chamber music scores for documentary films, including the music for the late actor Richard Kiley's last film appearance in "Grow Old Along With Me," produced and directed by Anne Macksoud and John Ankele. In the past few years he also composed several other chamber music scores for public television documentaries highlighting current vital social issues, such as the U.S policy of supplying munitions to poor countries, programs for the elderly, and third world fair trade issues.

In 1986 Richard entered the field of aviation as an avocation and became active conducting volunteer flights for the humanitarian organization AngelFlight and the environmental volunteer pilot group, LightHawk.

In 1991, Richard founded a non-profit organization, Amazônia project Inc., which, in cooperation with the International Rotary Club, provided annual volunteer dental/medical visits to selected villages and indigenous settlements along the Amazon River System in the state of Amazônas, Brazil, and it operated until 2002 when the political climate forced an end to freely importing medicines into that country.

In October 2004, he organized his colleagues in the Warwick, New York area, composed extensive music for, and produced "Concert for the Survivors" to raise money for hurricane Katrina victims and also flew volunteers in his airplane to assist the recovery efforts in New Orleans.

Richard began a movement for the eventual establishment of a major center for the arts, to be entitled The Warwick Valley Center for the Arts, all of whose programs would be centered on education. It would include resident performing ensembles and an institute of music, which Richard founded in 2008, and was operating in evenings at Warwick Valley High School under the aegis of Community 2000 (501c3). Its operation was suspended due to the world financial crisis, though plans for the center continue.

Richard lives with his wife, two sons, their standard poodle, a cat and a canary, in the hamlet of New Milford, town of Warwick, New York.

When:
Saturday, October 22, 2011 7PM
Where:
Lycian Centre, Sugarloaf, New York
845-469-2287
1351 Kings Highway
Sugar Loaf, New York 10981
phone 845.469.ACTS (2287)
email info@lyciancentre.com

Tickets are $27
http://thetreeoflifemusicevents.com/tickets/

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