Hoff-Barthelson Music School Students To Perform World Premiere At Annual Festival Of Contemporary Music

Hoff-Barthelson Music School's Annual Contemporary Music Festival, The Music of Our Time, takes place Monday, May 9, 2022, through Sunday, May 15, 2022, and will include a world premiere commissioned by the School. Composer Juhi Bansal's "To the Night" for cello quintet will be performed at the Festival's culminating concert on Sunday, May 15, 2022, at 7:00 pm.

"For over 20 years the Music of Our Time Festival has provided an outlet for the Hoff-Barthelson community to explore, create, and delve into contemporary music," said Peter Seidenberg, Artistic Director of the Festival. "The festival nurtures the concept that music of our present day reflects the time we live in in a vital and vivid way."

The School's relationship with Juhi Bansal is made possible by Copland House, with which Hoff-Barthelson has had a long and mutually beneficial relationship. "Both organizations are devoted to introducing students and audiences to contemporary music and to the nurturing and development of emerging composers," says Seidenberg.

Ms. Bansal's composition, "To the Night," uses the same configuration as Schubert's famous quintet - scored for a standard string quartet plus an extra cello instead of an extra viola - and draws on Indian raag melodies and rhythmic patterns. The quintet will be performed by HBMS students Eliana Weinsaft and Benjamin Reyes, violins; Oliva Seidenberg, viola; and cellists Yasmin Yogartnam and Sarah Rivas.

Also performing on the concert will be the School's Advanced and Adult Jazz Ensembles, Ed Palermo, director; the Beginner Voices, Yuki Hiruma Charlesworth, director; and the Petite Chorus and Junior Voices, Jennifer Tibbetts, director.

Throughout the Festival, faculty and student soloists and ensembles can be heard in recitals including a recital of works created in the School's HB Compose Yourself! Project. A key component of the Festival, the HB Compose Yourself! Project is a rare opportunity for students to receive feedback from renowned, award-winning composers on works that they have written. The 2022 guest composers are Stephanie Ann Boyd and Will Healy. Works created for this project will be performed on the HB Compose Yourself! Project Recital, on Monday, May 9 at 8 pm. The Compose Yourself! Project is coordinated by HBMS faculty member Derek Cooper.

"Jazz A to Z" led by HBMS faculty member and jazz great Ed Palermo will offer an exciting evening of jazz favorites and originals on Monday, Wednesday, May 11 at 8:00 pm.

Faculty performers appearing at the Festival include pianists Elena Belli and Joan Forsyth, guitarist Andrew Marino, violinists Gary Kosloski and Eriko Sato, cellist Peter Seidenberg, and clarinetist Dan Spitzer. A complete schedule of these recitals can be found at www.hbms.org.

"The Music of Our Time Festival is one of the most exciting, creative events of the school year here at Hoff-Barthelson," says Executive Director Ken Cole. "We hope you'll join us for this dynamic celebration of new music!"

All events are held at the School, 25 School Lane, Scarsdale, and are free of charge.

"Radiant and transcendent," the music of Juhi Bansal weaves together themes celebrating musical and cultural diversity, nature and the environment, and strong female role models. Her music draws upon elements as disparate as progressive metal, Hindustani music, spectralism and musical theatre tradition to create deeply expressive, evocative sound-worlds. As an Indian composer brought up in Hong Kong, her work draws subtly upon both those traditions, entwining them closely and intricately with the gestures of western classical music.

Recent projects include Waves of Change, a digital experience on womanhood, identity and clash of cultures inspired by the story of the Bangladesh Girls Surf Club; and Edge of a Dream, an opera about Ada Lovelace, daughter of infamous poet Lord Byron and a 19th Century pioneer in computing commissioned by Los Angeles Opera. Recent seasons have included commissions from the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, Beth Morrison Projects, New York Virtuoso Singers, Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre, the Oakland East Bay Symphony, AIDS Quilt Songbook 20th Anniversary project and more. She is a staunch proponent of bringing new audiences into contemporary music and of helping musicians of all backgrounds build ownership in the knowledge that they too can create music.

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