Chamber Orchestra To Present Pioneering Female Composer, Performer, And Improviser Martha Mooke

The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia (COP) continues our Improvisionaries season presenting trailblazing composer and electric violist, Martha Mooke. COP's fifth series program at the Kimmel Center, Mozart, Mooke, and Fauré, will feature Mozart's brilliant Symphony No. 38 "Prague." This iconic work received its first performance in Prague during one of Mozart's most successful tours to the city. The "Prague" symphony will share the program with a new commission by Martha Mooke. Mooke's unique style crosses the classical, jazz, and rock genres with a compelling and singular musical voice. In addition to concert appearances worldwide, Mooke's work has been featured in recordings that often defy categorization, including David Bowie's Heathen CD.

"I'm thrilled to be working again with my dear friend Dirk Brossé" said Mooke. Mooke performs regularly on national tours, and like Brossé has a diverse and colorful musical portfolio. This Improvisionaries season has presented Maestro Brossé in collaboration with many world renowned improvising musicians. Mooke continues, "Not many ensembles the caliber of The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia are willing to explore new directions in music for the concert stage." Mooke's ethereal innovation adds another provocative and fascinating episode to the landscape of our improvisation-based season with the world premiere of Invisible Hands featuring Mooke as soloist. Invisible Hands is inspired by a conversation in the 1988 PBS series The Power of Myth, where mythologist Joseph Campbell observed that if you "follow your bliss" and live the life you ought to be living, you would begin to meet people of similar inclinations who would open doors for you in previously unsuspected places. When describing her new work, Mooke says, "Stylistically, Invisible Hands fuses the musical worlds of Classical, Improvisation, Electronics, Jazz, and Rock, thus expanding on Gunther Schuller's Third Stream intersection of classical music and jazz"

Andrew Lipke and Martha Mooke team up to present intersect8: Anatomy of Fusion, a genre-transcendent exploration of the many traditions of improvisation. Lipke elaborates, "intersect8 will be an exploration of how the concept of harmony in music connects with, influences, and is influenced by, improvisation." COP's will explore these practices through the lenses of works from a wide background and will include the music from W. A. Mozart, Martha Mooke, Andrew Lipke, The Doors, The Beatles, David Bowie, Gershwin and more. Audiences at intersect are encouraged to challenge their conceptions on where one style of music ends and another begins, while enjoying an unprecedented collaborative performance in a relaxed, informal atmosphere.

This series program begins COP's annual partnership with Philadelphia's Astral Artists, one of America's premiere incubators for rising-star classical musicians. Violist Born Lau, praised for his "immaculately refined" playing (The Philadelphia Inquirer) will perform Hummel's Fantasie for Viola and Orchestra improvising the cadenza for this beautiful and charming work as the COP's inaugural Astral Spotlight Artist. With Astral's mission to support the careers of promising young artists, and COP's long history of, and ongoing interest in, presenting up and coming soloists as a key component to its regular programming, this partnership represents a natural strategic alignment of goals for both institutions. The partnership also marks a concerted effort to expand Philadelphia's musical footprint and exposure of its wealth of musical talent in the local, national, and international musical community. Astral's Executive Director, Julia Rubio, says, "We are thrilled to collaborate with such a respected chamber orchestra and music director Dirk Brossé. This is a wonderful opportunity for our outstanding artists that also establishes an important long-term and creative partnership between our organizations. We both share a common interest in providing leadership and vision for Philadelphia's classical music community."

Martha Mooke, Electric-Acoustic Viola and Composer

Acclaimed for her electrifying performances and compositions, pioneering composer/electro-acoustic violist, Martha Mooke transcends musical boundaries, enhancing her classical training and expertise with extended techniques, digital effects processing and improvisation. A Yamaha Artist and leading clinician on electric and progressive string playing, she has toured with Barbra Streisand, Peter Gabriel, Andrea Bocelli and Star Wars in Concert and has performed with Elton John, Trey Anastasio, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Laurie Anderson, Tony Bennett, Bon Jovi, Patti Smith, Damon Albarn, Blur and many others.

Mooke is Founder and Artistic Director of the Scorchio Quartet featured on David Bowie's Heathen CD. As "house quartet", they perform each year at the annual Tibet House Benefit Concerts at Carnegie Hall produced by Philip Glass.

She has received awards from ASCAP, Meet the Composer, Arts International and Fellowships at the MacDowell Colony. She has been commissioned by Symphony Space, Arizona State University, Tribeca New Music Festival, Ridgewood Concert Band, University of St. Thomas, Agosto Foundation (Prague), Percussion Plus Project, Musicians Accord, SEM Ensemble, Special Music School High School, Kingwood Oxford School and others. Her musical arrangements have been performed by Country music star Sturgill Simpson, Iggy Pop, Sharon Jones and Tibetan musician Tenzin Choegyal. Her catalog includes solo, chamber, symphonic band and orchestra works as well as multimedia, film, theater and ballet scores.

In demand for her innovative educational programs, Mooke regularly presents clinics at national and regional conferences including ASTA, JEN, NAMM, Midwest Clinic, NYSSMA and IAJE. She is a recipient of the 2013 ASTA Kudos Award for "helping extend the boundaries in string music and education".

Mooke's genre-defying recordings, Enharmonic Vision and Bowing's Cafe Mars with guitarist Randolph Hudson, III, have attracted wide critical acclaim. Her latest release, No Ordinary Window, released on Monk Music Records is produced by multi-Grammy winner Cynthia Daniels.

Mooke received the prestigious ASCAP Concert Music Award in 2001 for creating and producing ASCAP's new music showcase THRU THE WALLS featuring composer/performers whose work defies categorization. She serves on the Board of Governors of the New York Chapter of the Recording Academy and on the Composers Now Advisory Board.

Born Lau, Violist Astral Artist Spotlight

Praised for his "immaculately refined" playing (The Philadelphia Inquirer), violist Born Lau has appeared internationally as both a soloist and chamber musician. He has performed as soloist with the Hong Kong Festival Orchestra, the New Valley Symphony Orchestra, the Dreyfoos Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Colburn Orchestra. He has appeared at the Yellow Barn and Sarasota Music festivals, Perlman Music Program, and at Switzerland's Verbier Festival Academy. He served as Principal Violist of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, as well as Guest Principal Violist of San Diego Symphony in the 2012-2013 season.

Mr. Lau is a prizewinner at the 2014 Primrose International Viola Competition. He is also the winner of Astral Artists' 2012 National Auditions, the 2013 Prix Musique de Chambre at the American School in Fontainebleau, France, the 2009 Artist Series of Sarasota Scholarship Competition and the 2008 Music Society of Coral Lakes Scholarship Award. He has also been a prizewinner in the Hellam Young Artists', Schmidbauer International Strings, and Artists Series of Sarasota competitions. The enterprising artist also recently organized a fundraising concert for UNICEF.

Originally from Hong Kong, Born Lau graduated from high school in West Palm Beach, Florida. He began studying the violin at the age of seven and the viola at eleven. His past private teachers include Roberto Diaz, Paul Coletti, and Richard Fleischman, and he studied chamber music with Ronald Leonard, John Perry, and Arnold Steinhardt. Mr. Lau holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Colburn Conservatory of Music and a Diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music, and has given master classes at Soochow University, Temple Music Prep, the New World School of the Arts, and the Washington Conservatory of Music.

Andrew Lipke, Singer-Songwriter

Andrew Lipke is a Philadelphia based, South African born multi-instrumentalist and composer active in many different styles of music. Lipke moved to Philadelphia to pursue a degree in composition at The University of The Arts and has since gone on to become a critically acclaimed and sought after arranger, producer, composer, performer, and educator.

Andrew is driven by a passion to find the common ground between disparate styles of music and his career reflects this. He has performed as a vocalist with several prominent American orchestras (Indianapolis Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia) in addition to touring the country with the critically acclaimed Led Zeppelin tribute band Get The Led Out.

He has produced dozens of records for local and regional artists and released five solo albums. In 2010, Andrew formed the Azrael String Quartet to perform music he had written for his album The Plague which upon release was named one of 2011's 50 best albums by Philadelphia Weekly. His 2012 work Siddiqah was choreographed by The Columbus Dance Theatre for their production Rock out which also included several string quartet arrangements of classic rock songs Lipke completed for the Carpe Diem String Quartet. In 2013, Andrew wrote a punk rock score for the internationally released EPIX film Back Issues: The Hustler Magazine Story and in 2014 had the privilege of completing orchestral arrangements for Blue Note Records' artist Amos Lee's sold out show with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra at the legendary Red Rocks amphitheater.

Andrew has always valued music education and through his involvement with the Philadelphia based non-profit LiveConnections has collaborated with several members of the Philadelphia Orchestra and other prominent local and regional musicians creating collaborative, cross genre presentations for young people highlighting the transformative and boundary-crossing nature of music. In 2015, Andrew was invited by Music Director Dirk Brossé to collaborate with The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia to create and curate an innovative, cross-genre concert series - which Lipke named, intersect. Andrew is currently working on a cross platform album/orchestral work based on the Herman Hesse book Siddhartha in addition to a number of other projects.

To post a comment, you must register and login.