___ UPCOMING EVENTS ___
Sunday, June 19, 2011, 3 p.m., Tenri Cultural Institute, 43A W. 13th Street, New York, NY OF TIME AND BREATH Christina Ascher, contralto Kaoru Hinata, flute John Patrick Popham, celloJohn Cage: Music for Three (1984-1987) Theodore Wiprud: Sirens’ Song (2010) Brian Schober: Song of Water Clock at Night (2011)* Helmut Lachenmann: temA (1968) Alice Shields: Komachi at Sekidera (1987/2011)** *world premiere **World premiere of the new version $20; students/ seniors $10
OF TIME AND BREATH delves deeply into poetic thoughts and feelings about the passage of time and the experience of life’s breath, but even more than that is a program to be directly experienced. All five pieces provoke strong and very physical empathetic reactions in the attentive listener: The “pieces” and “interludes” in Cage’s “Music for Three” free us from a conventional perception of time. Theodore Wiprud’s “Sirens’ Song” is in every sense music of time and breath, singer and flutist breathing together, evoking a sensation from across the ages. The enchanting flute and vocal melodies and the percussion stones Brian Schober’s “Song of Water Clock at Night,” settings of poems by the 9th century Chinese Wen T’ing-yün, conjure up scenes of antiquity which all the same purvey the immediacy of “now.” Lachenmann’s “temA,” a monumentally pivotal work of the 20th century and certainly one of the most complex and most difficult of that time, deals with breath itself. A complete overlapping of breathing processes and sound productions of all three musicians takes place, a phenomenon which has a strong empathetic effect on the listener. Alice Shield’s “Komachi at Sekidera,” based on a Japanese Noh play of the 14th century, tells us about Ono no Komachi, a woman of the Heian court of the 9th century, famous for her poetry and her beauty and becoming a legend after her death. In Shields’ piece, Komachi has lived into old age, beyond her beauty and her literary fame, and has been forgotten and she is confronted with age and mortality
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___ RECENT EVENTS ___
Saturday, June 4, 2011, 7:30 p.m., New York Composers Circle, Leonard Nimroy Thalia at Peter Norton Symphony Space, New York. Christina Ascher sings ELEGY FOR JANE by JOHN EATON, world premiere
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Monday, May 23 , 2011, 8 p.m., HiArt Gallery, New York, New Music and Video at The Time In Gallery MATTHEW GREENBAUM – IN DER ZEIT for contralto and video, world premiere_______
Thursday, March 31, 2011, Consulate General of Argentina Christina Ascher guests on piano recital with Cesar Vuksic WILD VOCALISE for contralto and piano, bu CESAR VUKSIC, world premiere_______
Friday, March 18, 2011, 8 p.m. and Saturday, March 19, 3 p.m. and 8 p.m., Manhattan Movement & Arts Center, New York, NY, 10023 ENCUENTROS – Annabella Gonzalez Dance Theater CHRISTINA ASCHER, contralto, guests singing JOSEPH PEHRSON’s “PHONE” for solo voice.
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Alice Shields – Namasté (world premiere)
Seymour Barab - from Songs of Perfect Propriety
Charles Colemen - Two Winter Songs
Gene Pritsker – Whitman’s Strangers
Thomas Pasatieri – Orpheus/ To Music Bent/ I Just Love My Voice
John Eaton - Sor Juana Songs
Dana Dimitri Richardson - Kyrie (world premiere)
Friday, December 3, 2010
Baruch Performing Arts Center, New York
VOICES! VOICES!
chamber music by
Luciano Berio, Bojidar Spassov, Theodore Wiprud, Mark Carlson, Dmitri Smirnov, John Cage
with Christina Ascher, contralto, Laura Barger, piano, Laura Falzon, flute
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Thursday, November 18, 2010, TANK, New York, NY OUT OF CAGE chamber music by John Cage, Alice Shields, Michael Oesterle, C. Rene Hirschfeld, Dai Fujikura with CHRISTINA ASCHER, contralto, TED MOOK, cello, LAURA FALZON, flute_______
Friday, November 5, and Saturday, November 6, 2010, 8 p.m.,Theatre80, 80 St. Marks Place, New York NY
DANCE OF THE STONES
chamber opera by Brian Schober – world premiere
Stage Direction: Richard Olson, conductor: Claudia Dumschat
Christina Ascher as Tara
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Wednesday, June 30, 2010, 8 p.m. “LOVE SONGS” by Faye-Ellen Silverman – world premiere Mannes College, The New School for Music, 150 West 85th Street, New York, NY 10024 Christina Ascher, contralto & Laura Falzon, flute
Christina Ascher
