DA CAMERA OF HOUSTON ANNOUNCES 2007/2008 20TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON OF CHAMBER MUSIC AND JAZZ CONCERTS, 20:20

SEASON CELEBRATES 20 YEARS OF MUSICAL EXCELLENCE AND INNOVATION WITH A UNIQUE MUSICAL VIEW OF THE 20^TH CENTURY, MAKING CONNECTIONS WITH SUCH FIGURES AS JAME JOYCE, SIGMUND FREUD, GERTRUDE STEIN AND ALBERT EINSTEIN

Season highlights include new choreography by Houston Ballet’s Stanton Welch for Brahms’s Liebeslieder Waltzes; appearances by violist Tabea Zimmerman, violinist Elmar Oliveira, mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer, Keller Quartet, Sō Percussion, conductor Reinbert de Leeuw, guitarist Manuel Barrueco and Cuarteto Latinoamericano, Pacifica Quartet

Jazz series features returns of violinist Regina Carter and pianist McCoy Tyner, and series debuts of saxophonists Ravi Coltrane and Greg Osby and pianist Vijay Iyer

Houston, TX, March 6, 2007 (Rev. April 12, 2007) -- Da Camera of Houston, the presenter of chamber music and jazz events, announces its 2007/2008 20th anniversary season of concerts, 20:20. The season celebrates 20 years of musical excellence and innovation with a unique musical view of the 20th century.

“From concerts making connections to such great figures as James Joyce, Sigmund Freud, Gertrude Stein and Albert Einstein; to signature programs exploring the intersections of music, literature and art; to legendary 20th century compositions like Stravinsky’s Les Noces and Elliott Carter’s string quartets, the 2007/2008 season represents the essential creative spirit of Da Camera,” says Artistic Director Sarah Rothenberg.

UNIQUE MUSICAL VIEW OF 20^TH CENTURY ENCOMPASSES COMPOSERS, HISTORICAL FIGURES, GREAT COMPOSITIONS

Da Camera’s opening night concert, Happy Birthday, Da Camera! is Saturday, October 6, 2007 at 7:30 PM at the Wortham Theater Center’s Cullen Theater. Da Camera’s 20^th anniversary season opens with a medley of highlights from Artistic Director Sarah Rothenberg’s original, “trend-setting” (Time Out New York) productions. Violin virtuoso Elmar Oliveira makes his Da Camera debut performing Fauré’s Sonata No. 1 for violin and piano in A Major, Op. 13. The Fauré sonata was featured in Marcel Proust’s Paris, a signature Da Camera production which premiered in Houston and went on to be presented in New York, Washington and The Netherlands. Pedja Muzijevic joins Sarah Rothenberg for Eric Satie and Darius Milhaud’s Music for Entr’acte for piano four-hands (with the silent film Entr’acte), from the production Surrealism. Sarah Rothenberg performs Brahms Klavierstucke, Op. 118 and Schoenberg’s Unfinished Fragments and Six Little Piano Pieces, Op. 19, which were part of the chamber music/dance theater production Moondrunk. This evening of great music interwoven with film, readings and stunning visuals closes with the world premiere of Da Camera-commissioned new choreography from Houston Ballet’s Stanton Welch for Brahms’s romantic Liebeslieder Waltzes, presented in collaboration with Houston Ballet and featuring star young singers from the Houston Grand Opera Studio. The singers are Albina Shagimuratova, soprano; Maria Markina, mezzo-soprano; Beau Gibson, tenor and Ryan McKinny, bass-baritone. The dancers are members of Houston Ballet II.

Da Camera’s series at The Menil Collection with My Twentieth Century, Tuesday, October 23, 2007 at 7:30 PM. New and 20^th-century works inspired by memory and literature are featured in this fascinating program. Co-commissioned for the anniversary season, Da Camera presents the local premiere of Houston composer Shih-Hui Chen’s Shu Shon Key (Remembrance), featuring viola soloist Hsin-Yun Huang. Influential Yale School of Music composer Martin Bresnick is represented by his Songs of the Mouse People for cello and vibraphone (inspired by Franz Kafka’s story Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse People) and My Twentieth Century. The concert also includes British composer Simon Bainbridge’s Four Primo Levi Settings and selected etudes by György Ligeti. The performers are a mezzo-soprano to be announced; Aralee Dorough, flute; Meighan Stoops, clarinet; Houston Symphony concertmaster Angela Fuller, violin; Bion Tsang, cello; Mark Griffith, percussion; Lisa Moore, piano and Sarah Rothenberg, piano. Shu Shon Key was commissioned by Appalachian Summer Festival, Da Camera of Houston, Evergreen Symphony Orchestra and the Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts for Hsin-Yun Huang.

The season continues on Friday, November 2, 2007 at 8:00 PM at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts’ Zilkha Hall with La Belle Epoque featuring baritone Francois LeRoux and pianist Sarah Rothenberg. The famous salons of turn-of-the-century Paris were dazzling gathering places for the brilliant musicians, writers and artists of the day. New compositions were heard for the first time, poetry was read, friendships were formed and love affairs began. La Belle Epoque, featuring France’s leading interpreter of art song, Francois Le Roux, transports us to a fashionable party on Paris’s Left Bank with the legendary actress Sarah Bernhardt and composer Reynaldo Hahn. Music from Parisian theater productions by the greatest composers of the day, intimate poetry settings and rarely performed songs by the flamboyant mystic Augusta Holmès are interwoven with readings and memoirs. La Belle Epoque also features works of Saint-Saëns, Reynaldo Hahn, Massenet, Gounod, Fauré and Debussy.

On Tuesday, November 13, 2007 at 7:30 PM, the Ensō String Quartet performs at The Menil Collection. The rapidly rising young Ensō String Quartet has garnered such honors as the Piece de concert prize at the Banff International String Quartet Competition and won victories at the Concert Artists Guild International Competition, the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition. Their program includes Ignaz Pleyel’s String Quartet in B-flat Major, B. 311; Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera’s String Quartet No. 1, Op. 20 and Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major. The members of the Ensō String Quartet are Maureen Nelson, violin; John Marcus, violin; Melissa Reardon, viola and Richard Belcher, cello.

The long and fruitful collaboration between Da Camera and The Menil Collection dates back to the founding of both organizations. To mark the two institutions’ 20^th anniversaries, Da Camera presents Notes on Painters: Celebrating The Menil Collection, Tuesday, December 4, 2007 at 7:30 PM at the museum. This program features stylistically diverse music from a wide range of 20^th-century composers inspired by great artists represented in The Menil Collection. Included in the program are Paul Dessau’s Guernica (after Picasso); Stefan Wolpe’s To Anna Blume by Kurt Schwitters for piano and musical clown; John Cage’s Three Songs and For Marcel Duchamp; Arvo Pärt’s Fratres; Pierre Boulez’s Dérive I; John Zorn’s Untitled for cello solo, dedicated to Joseph Cornell; Morton Feldman’s For Franz Kline and Steven Stucky’s Ad parnassum for chamber ensemble (after Paul Klee). The ensemble consists of Karol Bennett, soprano; John Thorne, flute; Thomas LeGrand, clarinet; Eric Ruske, horn; Jennifer Frautschi, violin; Erik Friedlander, cello; Norman Fischer, cello; Matthew Strauss, percussion and Sarah Rothenberg, piano

The 20^th century opened with the publication of Sigmund Freud’s astounding work The Interpretation of Dreams, a book that launched a revolution in psychology. In music, expressive explorations of inner worlds and unspoken desires both precede and follow Freud’s discoveries. The program Dreamworlds, on Thursday, January 24, 2008 at 8:00 PM at the Wortham Theater Center’s Cullen Theater, focuses on Freud’s Vienna and brings together repertoire and artists of unusual intensity to evoke the world of dreams through music. World-renowned German violist Tabea Zimmerman and Metropolitan Opera star and Houston Grand Opera favorite Susanne Mentzer make their Da Camera debuts, joining pianist and Da Camera Artistic Director Sarah Rothenberg, whose recording of late Brahms and Schoenberg is a highlight of her outstanding career. Zimmerman and Rothenberg perform Schumann’s Fairy Tale Pictures for viola and piano, Op. 113 and Brahms’ Sonata in F Minor for viola and piano, Op. 120, No. 1. The two instrumentalists are joined by Mentzer for Brahms’s Two Songs for viola, mezzo and piano, Op. 91 and Schoenberg’s song cycle The Book of the Hanging Gardens.

GYÖRGY KURTÁG AND KELLER STRING QUARTET
FEATURED IN TWO CONCERTS

Da Camera presents two programs featuring György Kurtág, born in 1926, and recognized as Hungary’s leading composer and one of the world’s most important living artists. The Keller Quartet, Hungary’s leading string quartet, has worked closely with Kurtág, whose music is remarkable for its intimacy, imagination and expressiveness. With these programs, Da Camera audiences are introduced to Kurtág’s music through one of his most widely performed works—the powerful Kafka Fragments for soprano and violin—followed by a concert interweaving his exquisite writing for string quartet with works by three of his greatest influences: Bach, Mozart and Schubert.

Kafka Fragments is Tuesday, January 29, 2008, 7:30 PM at The Menil Collection and features soprano Maria Husmann and Keller Quartet first violinist András Keller in their Houston debuts. Kafka Fragments is a collection of settings of excerpts from Franz Kafka’s letters and diaries, described as “a natural coupling of writer and composer [which] telegraphs with alliterative grace a century of modernism” by The New York Times. Noted German soprano Maria Husmann is a specialist in new music and musical theater. András Keller has made an award-winning recording of Kafka Fragments for ECM New Series.

Keller Quartet makes their Houston debut Friday, February 1, 2008, 8:00 PM at the Cullen Theater, Wortham Theater Center. Their program weaves together Mozart’s Five Bach Fugues with Kurtág’s String Quartet Op. 28 (Officium Breve, In Memoriam Andreae Szervánsky), Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue in C minor K. 546 and Kurtág’s Six moments musicaux, Op. 44. The second half of the program is Schubert’s String Quartet No. 15 in G Major, D 887. The Keller Quartet is András Keller, violin; János Pilz, violin; Zoltán Gál, viola and Judit Szabó, cello.

EXILES IN PARIS MINI-FESTIVAL EXPLORES INTERSECTIONS
OF MUSIC, LITERATURE AND ART

The season continues with Exiles in Paris: A Two-Part Mini-Festival. From 1900 to 1939, expatriate writers, painters, composers, dancers and adventurers of all kinds met and mixed in Paris, making it the center of the European cultural universe. An astounding number of the most influential artworks of the century came to life in this legendary city. With two signature programs, Da Camera explores the intersections of music, literature and art among the great Exiles in Paris: Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso and their friends.

Exiles in Paris, Part 1: Gertrude Stein, James Joyce and Friends is Friday, February 29, 2008, at 8:00 PM at Zilkha Hall, Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. Picasso painted her portrait, Virgil Thomson wrote songs and operas to her texts, and Paul Bowles and Aaron Copland went off to visit Morocco after she told them that they should. A non-conformist in life and in art, Gertrude Stein’s remarkable originality extended from her own writing—The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas becoming her most popular work—to her enormous influence on the brilliant writers, painters and composers who visited her famous apartment on the Rue de Fleurus. James Joyce’s experimental novel, Ulysses, is one of the most influential books of the century. His late work, Finnegans Wake, has puzzled readers since its publication, but its extraordinary musicality is brought to life for us here in Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Stephen Albert’s atmospheric and dramatic work for soprano and chamber ensemble, To Wake the Dead. Additional works on the concert are French composer Pascal Dusapin’s Two Walking for two female voices (text by Gertrude Stein); selected songs by Paul Bowles and selected songs and portraits by Virgil Thomson. Readings include the Anna Livia Plurabelle section of Finnegan’s Wake and Gertrude Stein’s If I Told Him: A Portrait of Picasso. The performers are Lucy Shelton, soprano; Karol Bennett, soprano; Thomas Meglioranza, baritone; Laura Flax, clarinet/bass clarinet; Leone Buyse, flute/alto flute/piccolo; Aloysia Friedmann, violin/viola; Norman Fischer, cello; Timothy Hester, piano/harmonium and Sarah Rothenberg, piano.

Exiles in Paris, Part 2: Les Noces and Ballet Mécanique is Friday, March 14, 2008, 8:00 PM in the Cullen Theater, Wortham Theater Center. Igor Stravinsky’s explosive works for Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe in Paris left their mark on a century of composers. Ritualistic and insistently rhythmic, Les Noces, conceived as a dance cantata, depicts a Russian peasant wedding and is scored for four pianos, chorus and percussion. Stravinsky’s wildly inventive work influenced American avant-gardist George Antheil, whose legendary Ballet Mécanique puts sirens, airplane propellers and electric bells on stage with pianos and percussion instruments. Also on the program are Stravinksy’s Four Russian Peasant Songs and Concerto for two pianos. Renowned Dutch conductor Reinbert de Leeuw and Sō Percussion make their Da Camera debuts. The concert is a collaboration with Houston Chamber Choir, led by Artistic Director Robert Simpson. The musicians include Alan Feinberg, Timothy Hester, Pedja Muzijevic, Sarah Rothenberg, pianos; Sō Percussion (Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, Jason Treuting, Lawson White); Richard Brown, percussion and Matthew Strauss, percussion.

THREE CONCERTS CELEBRATE ELLIOTT CARTER CENTENARY

Following the 2006/2007 season’s stunning survey of the Bela Bartók string quartets,
Da Camera moves on to the next generation of composers and performers with the concerts Elliott Carter and Late Beethoven. In celebration of American composer Elliott Carter’s 100^th birthday, Da Camera presents his complete string quartets over three days. Carter’s Quartet No. 1–composed 11 years after Bartók’s last quartet–started a cycle that is now recognized as one of the great post-war achievements in American music. The brilliant Pacifica Quartet, winner of a prestigious 2006 Avery Fisher Career Grant, have championed these works and been praised for “the virtuosity and intense commitment it brings to a contemporary master like Carter” (Chicago Sun-Times).

On Sunday, April 13, 2008 at 3:00 PM Da Camera presents a free concert in The Menil Collection’s Cy Twombly Gallery, featuring Carter’s String Quartet No. 1. On Monday, April 14, 2008 at 7:30 PM, the event continues with Carter’s String Quartets Numbers 2 and 3 and Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110. On Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 7:30 PM, the program is Carter’s String Quartets Numbers 4 and 5 and Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111. The Pacifica Quartet’s members are Simin Ganatra, violin; Sibbi Bernhardsson, violin; Masumi Per Rostad, viola and Brandon Vamos, cello). The pianist is Sarah Rothenberg.

SEASON CONTINUES WITH PAIRING OF GUITAR AND STRING QUARTET

The beauty and unbridled passion of Spanish and Latin American music come together in the dynamic pairing of Cuban guitarist Manuel Barrueco and the Mexican string quartet Cuarteto Latinoamericano. On Saturday, April 12, 2008 at 8:00 PM, Cuarteto Latinoamericano and Manuel Barrueco perform works of Boccherini, Carlos Guastavino, Javier Alvarez, Agustín Barrios, Gabriela Lena Frank and Astor Piazzolla. Cuarteto Latinoamericano’s members are Saúl Bitrán, violin Arón Bitrán, violin; Javier Montiel, viola and Alvaro Bitrán, cello. Full of fire and finesse, the brilliant foursome joins Barrueco—renowned for his seductive musicality and uncommon lyrical gifts—for an impassioned program that showcases works for solo guitar, compositions for string quartet and the combination of the two.

SEASON FINALE INSPIRED BY PHYSICIST ALBERT EINSTEIN

Da Camera’s season finale is After Einstein on Saturday, May 3, 2008 at 8:00 PM in the Cullen Theater, Wortham Theater Center. In 1905, an unknown patent clerk published a paper radically altering our understanding of time. Years later, Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking, visionary work. A passionate amateur violinist, Einstein played Mozart’s chamber works throughout his life. This program presents the great scientist’s beloved Mozart, represented by the Quintet for clarinet and strings in A Major, K. 581, alongside one of the century’s greatest musical figures, Olivier Messiaen, whose monumental Quartet for the End of Time transports the audience to a spiritual dimension far beyond ordinary time. The ensemble includes David Shifrin, clarinet; Vera Beths, violin; John Marcus, violin; James Dunham, viola; Desmond Hoebig, cello and Sarah Rothenberg, piano.

Da Camera Jazz Series

Da Camera’s 2007/2008 jazz series features its signature mix of established stars and outstanding talent from the younger generation of emerging jazz artists.

The series kicks off on Friday, October 12, 2007 at 8:00 PM in the Cullen Theater of the Wortham Theater Center with a performance by violinist Regina Carter. Jazz violinist Regina Carter returns to the Da Camera jazz series with a new program based on her recent recording, I’ll Be Seeing You: A Sentimental Journey. With guest vocalist Carla Cook, Carter and her band perform works by Rodgers and Hart, Duke Ellington, W. C. Handy and other greats.

The series continues with the Da Camera debut of saxophonist Greg Osby. Greg Osby Five perform Friday, November 9, 2007 at 8:00 PM at the Wortham Theater Center’s Cullen Theater. Saxophonist, composer, producer and educator Greg Osby has made an indelible mark on contemporary jazz as a leader of his own ensembles and as a guest artist with other acclaimed groups. Notable for his insightful and innovative approach to composition and performance of original music, Osby is a shining beacon among the current generation of jazz musicians. His latest Blue Note recordings are 2005’s Channel Three and 2004’s Public.

The series continues with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane on Saturday, February 9, 2008 at 8:00 PM at the Cullen Theater, Wortham Theater Center. The second son of John and Alice Coltrane, tenor and soprano saxophonist Ravi Coltrane is at the forefront of the restless few who are carving out new paths in jazz. Down Beat calls him “a modernist who has absorbed a wealth of jazz.” Ravi Coltrane’s most recent recording is In Flux. In The New York Times, Ben Ratliff wrote “Mr. Coltrane avoids tired song structures and doesn’t want to bore you. He’s fascinated on one hand by miniatures and on the other by the idea of longer songs that sound like collective improvisation from start to finish. [In Flux] is a record you can point to and say: This is what jazz sounds like now.”

Da Camera presents the legendary pianist McCoy Tyner and his trio on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 8:00 PM in the Cullen Theater, Wortham Theater Center. McCoy Tyner has released nearly 80 albums under his name, earned four Grammy Awards and was awarded Jazz Master from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2002. A member of John Coltrane’s great 1960’s quartet, McCoy Tyner’s blues-based piano style, replete with sophisticated chords and an explosively percussive left hand, has transcended conventional styles to become one of the most identifiable sounds in improvised music. His harmonic contributions and dramatic rhythmic devices form the vocabulary of a majority of jazz pianists.

The jazz series concludes with the series debut of the innovative pianist Vijay Iyer and his quartet featuring saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 8:00 PM in the Cullen Theater, Wortham Theater Center. Dubbed one of the “new stars of jazz” by U.S. News & World Report, and one of “today’s most important pianists” by The New Yorker, Vijay Iyer is a forceful, rhythmically invigorating performer who weds a cutting-edge sensibility to a unique sense for compositional balance. An exceptional, forward-thinking composer, Iyer draws from African, Asian and European musical lineages to create fresh, original music in the American creative tradition. His most recent recordings are this year’s Still Life with Commentator and 2006’s Raw Materials.

Subscriptions for Da Camera’s 2007/2008 season are on sale now. For tickets or a free season brochure, contact the Da Camera Music Center, 1427 Branard, at 713-524-5050. Da Camera’s web site is www.dacamera.com.

Click a star to rate!

Rating: 0.00 / 5.00 - Not yet rated.
0 ratings