The Sylvan Winds celebrate GEORGES BARRERE
Join us for wine and music on Valentine's Day......
The Sylvan Winds invite you on
FROM: Svjetlana Kabalin
FOR: the Sylvan Winds
RESERVATIONS / PROGRAM INFORMATION (phone/fax): 212/222-3569
February 10, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SYLVAN WINDS Celebrate GEORGES BARRÈRE
now at CHRIST & ST. STEPHEN'S CHURCH (120 West 69th Street)
Tuesday, FEBRUARY 14, 2006 at 8:00 PM
with PRE-CONCERT LECTURE at 7:30 PM
The Sylvan Winds
Svjetlana Kabalin, flute; Alexandra Knoll, oboe; Amy Zoloto, clarinet;
Thomas Sefcovic, bassoon; Zohar Schondorf, horn
with Guest Artist: Christie Julien, piano
continue its exploration of ‘flute monarch’ Georges Barrère’s legacy, tied to the pubÂliÂcaÂtion of his biography by Nancy Toff, with a Valentine’s Day gala for their inaugural conÂcert of the new season in a program entitled
To Barrère with Love
Adolphe Deslandres (1840-1911) Trois pièces en Quintette (1900)
Patrice Devanchy (1876-1943) Suite for winds and piano (1903)
André Caplet (1878-1925) Quintet for winds and piano (1900)
René de Boisdeffre (1834-1906) Scherzo, op. 49
Hedwige Chrétien (1859-1944) Sérénade sous bois (1920) et Arabesque (1921)
Albert Seitz (1872-1937) Sextet No. 1 for winds and piano (1897)
Ticket prices for the concert are $30 for adults and $15 for students and seniors
For further program information and reservations, please call or fax 212 / 222-3569.
Georges Barrère (1876-1944, France/USA) was one of five French wind players recruited in 1905 by Walter Damrosch who envied the woodwind sounds of the Boston Symphony and wanted to emulate them in his New York Symphony Orchestra. In 1895, Barrère had founded the Société Moderne d’Instruments à Vent in Paris, a chamber music organization that performed 60 new works by 41 composers in its first 10 years. In New York, Barrère would go on to found the woodwind department at the Institute of Musical Art, now the Juilliard School, bringing with him the traditions of the French school of woodwind performance. In 1910, he founded the Barrère Ensemble of Wind Instruments consistently promoting new repertoire, advocating American composers, and supporting women composers long before it became fashionable. He toured throughout the country from 1912 to 1936, encouraged the new voices of the future – Henry Brant, Wallingford Riegger and Edgard Varèse - and was responsible for the premières of more than 170 works, with more than 40 dedicated to him. This is the third concert by the Sylvan Winds dedicated to preserving his legacy.
Nancy Toff, a past president of the New York Flute Club, is the author of The Flute Book and The Development of the Modern Flute. Her Monarch of the Flute: The Life of Georges Barrère has just been published by Oxford University Press, coinciding with the centenary of his arrival to the United States. It is the first biography of this important musician, whose life is a veriÂtable tale of two cities, Paris and New York, to which he contributed sigÂnifiÂcantly as a performer and pedagogue. With a missionary zeal for stimulating woodwind chamber music ensembles and the performance of new compositions for that medium, his many ensembles toured the United States, building new audiences for chamber music and promoting French repertoire as well as new American music. – Ms. Toff will open this gala concert with a pre-performance lecture at 7:20 p.m.
French born pianist Christie Julien is a graduate of Baltimore’s Peabody ConÂserÂvatory where she earned her Artist Diploma under the tutelage of Leon Fleisher. In 2002 she made a specÂtacÂular U.S. debut with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center under the baÂton of Leonard Slatkin in Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 3, a work that she also performed in Baltimore and repeated at the French Embassy. Her first solo public apÂpearance on French naÂtional television was when she was twelve. The following year she won a national prize and soloed with the orchestra. After winning the French Steinway competition, she performed at Berlin’s PhilÂharÂmonÂic Hall at fifteen, and she graduated from the Paris Conservatory with a unaniÂmously conferred first prize in both piano and chamber music. She has also toured China and apÂpeared at festivals in Europe and the United States, including Santa Fe, La Jolla, Great Lakes and Ravinia.
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Most of the works on this program were premièred by Barrère and his wind ensembles in Paris; some have been dedicated to him as well. Except for the ArÂgentinian-born Lalo (Boris) Schifrin, all the composers on this program were also Barrère’s French compatriots. There is a Parisian connection with Schifrin, too; he won a scholÂarÂship to study at its Conservatory with Koechlin and Messiaen, before being disÂcovÂered in his native land by Dizzy Gillespie, whom he joined as a pianist and arranger, on his way to becoming a notable film and TV composer. In this flute-oriented program, it is worth noting that in adÂdition to his numerous off-screen compositions he wrote a 1996 Caribbean Flute Concerto. However, it is as a gesture of gratitude that this work is being included, for the continuing French support of the victims of the recent ravages suffered by the cruel blows of Katrina. Indeed, this concert is offered in hopes of a continued appreciation of French and American culture and a celebration of our fraternity.
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Hailed by the New York Times for “its venturesomeness of programming and stylishness of performance,� the ensemble has performed throughout the tri-state area, and has toured both domestically and abroad. The Sylvan Winds has established a reputation as one of the city’s most versatile chamber music ensembles and has received many honors, including an invitation to perform at the New York Governor’s Arts Awards. Dedicated to exploring the entire body of literature for wind instruments, the ensemble has consistently earned audience and critical acclaim. Of its spring ‘99 concert at Weill Recital Hall, New York Times critic Paul Griffiths wrote, “the work was beautifully executed here, with due care for its rhythmic demands. Indeed, throughout the evening the musicians showed themselves able to think, breathe and enter as one.�
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Additional performances by the SYLVAN WINDS this season will take place on Sunday, April 23, 2006 at 3:00 PM under the auspices of the Kosciuszko Foundation, 15 E 65 Street, featuring works of Poldowski, Kotonski, Kilar and Lutoslawski, and the ensemble will close the season as usual at Weill Recital Hall on Thursday, May 18, 2006 at 8:00 PM, with the world première of Robert Dick’s Startling Stories, framed by Mozart, Adagio & Allegro, K 594; Karl Husa, Five Poems; and Maurice Ravel, Mother Goose suite arranged for wind quintet by Mark Popkin.
