The ARK Trio to present World Premieres in NYC 2/14

The ARK trio's inaugural concert taking place this Valentine's Day in New York City celebrates the art song and champions four noted international classical composers who collectively share a love of the poetic and draw inspiration from the ARK trio's unique sound of voice, cello and piano.

In their intrepid debut as the ARK trio - soprano Allison Charney, cellist Kajsa William-Olsson and pianist Reiko Uchida - will perform six world premieres by American composer Michael Ching - "Arrangements and Derangements: Interpretations of Schubert", Israeli composer/pianist Moshe Knoll - "Simplicity," Russian-born, Israeli raised composer Dina Pruzhansky - "On Love and Land" and three works by American composer Kim D. Sherman "The Wedding Song," "The Laodamiad: A Mythic Journey" and "Prairie Diary" at NYC's Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre at Symphony Space on Tuesday February 14 at 7PM.

The program begins with a work by the highly-acclaimed opera and symphonic composer and conductor Michael Ching -  "Arrangements and Derangements: Interpretations of Schubert." Ching's witty homage composed for the ARK trio is based on Shubert's beloved Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667, popularly known as the 'Trout Quintet' - written by one of the Romantic period's leading figures, the 22 year old Franz Schubert. Of the work, Ching reflects "Schubert's songs are so perfect that they are hard to adapt without feeling like you might be defacing them... there are two impulses at work: 1) a very careful, respectful, almost reverential arrangement and 2) an aggressive reinterpretation or commentary which I've called "derangement" which is a jumble of de-arrange, deranged, and French déranger (disrupt, disturb). The derangement of "Sei mir gegrüsst" reflects a 21st century view of the text. What may have seemed Romantic in Schubert's time, seems to me obsessive and even deluded. The cello plays Schubert's melody and the voice reinterprets Rückert's text. It is almost as if the singer is conjuring the words from hearing the song played by the cello."

The second work featured on the concert's program is the song cycle "On Love and Land" by Russian born, Israeli raised composer Dina Pruzhansky. Pruzhansky's music is based on three haunting love letters exchanged by a husband and his wife titled "May 1936," "November 1936" and "When Orange Blossoms Are in Bloom." About the composition Pruzhansky shared "I'm very excited to have the fantastic performers of the ARK trio premiere the songs. The anonymous texts for 'On Love and Land' song cycle was found amongst personal letters, introduced to me by the renowned author and radio broadcaster Robert Sherman, after he became familiar with my 'Song of Songs' vocal cycle and had collaborated with me on setting his story 'Teeny-Tiny Violin' as a symphonic fairy tale. I was immediately drawn to the gentle intimacy, passion, and sincerity felt in these letters, as well as their setting-in Israel which was my home for nearly fifteen years. Today, despite all the urbanization in Tel Aviv-the skyscrapers and the glass hi-tech buildings-the orange blossoms mentioned in one of the poems, are still there, blooming each spring, still capturing the very essence of the place."

"Simplicity" by Israeli composer/pianist Moshe Knoll is the third in the ARK trio's presentation of six new works. The composer's music is inspired by the words of American poet Henry David Thoreau. "When I heard soprano Allison Charney was looking for a new piece that would set to music her favorite line from Thoreau's Walden, "If we respected only what is inevitable and has a right to be, music and poetry would resound along the streets," the inspiration for "Simplicity" was born" said Moshe Knoll. "Simplicity" is written in the form of a mini-Cantata, and the cello part functions as a Basso Continuo, the standard accompaniment technique during the Baroque period. The many references to J.S. Bach are, to me, a musical equivalent of Thoreau's "Back to Nature" ideology. This is meant in the sense of trying to recapture some the innocence of music before Romanticism and Modernism. The realization that we cannot go back in time justified for me the use of current post Modernistic idioms, side by side with the tonal gestures of Bach. When different styles coexist within the same work, there is a suggestion of a state of being, which is beyond the accidents of time and space: a Platonic world of archetypes, a singularity that pre-exists the laws of physics as we know them. To paraphrase Wordsworth, we are bound by space and time, yet we still have intimations of immortality."

The works of American composer Kim D. Sherman, whose music embraces lyricism and dissonance as equal partners in conveying dramatic landscapes, concludes the program with the three works "The Laodamiad: A Mythic Journey" a work for solo cello; "The Wedding Song" from the biblical 'Song of Songs' with an English translation by Jordan Charney and "A Prairie Diary," based on the poetry of Willa Cather in collaboration with playwright Darrah Cloud.

Of her work "A Prairie Diary" Sherman said "The material in the text evokes images and feelings of my own roots in the Midwest. I wanted to give a voice to the vastness, the sky and the land, and to give a sound to the feeling of belonging to the dream of this country. And always, these words from "O Pioneers!" rang through my thoughts as I wrote the music: "For the first time, perhaps, since that land emerged from the waters of geologic ages, a human face was set toward it with love and yearning. It seemed beautiful to her, rich and strong and glorious. Her eyes drank in the breadth of it, until her tears blinded her."

The spirit of Cather's words from "O Pioneers" may equally apply to the phenomenon of creating and embarking upon a relationship with a new classical music experience:  "the great, free spirit which breathes across it, must have bent lower than it ever bent to a human will before. The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman."

Love Resounding
featuring soprano Allison Charney, cellist Kajsa William-Olsson and pianist Reiko Uchida
in works by Kim D. Sherman, Michael Ching, Dina Pruzhansky and Moshe Knoll
February 14, 2017 at 7PM
Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space
2537 Broadway at 95th Street, New York, NY 10025-6990
Tickets: $30; Members $25; Seniors, Children $15; Students $10
Purchase Online: or at the Box Office Hours: Tues - Sun 1pm - 6pm. | Open one hour prior to performances and events. 212-864-5400

 

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