1047 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10025
USA
The Cathedral Of St. John The Divine Presents
Ornament Of The World
A Concert Celebrating The Diverse Musical Traditions Of The
Spanish Renaissance
February 19, 2014 at 7:00 pm
Performance is Part of the Cathedral’s Ongoing Great Music in a Great Space Series
New York (February 11, 2013) – The Cathedral of St. John the Divine continues its 2013/14 Great Music in a Great Space series with Ornament of the World, a concert featuring the Cathedral Choir and world music ensemble Rose of the Compass. This musical exploration of multicultural Spain, focusing on the mingling of cultures before the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 and the Moors in 1614, will take place in the Chapel of Saint James, dedicated to Spain’s patron saint, on Wednesday, February 19th , at 7:00 p.m. and again at 9:00 p.m. at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Avenue (at 112th Street), Manhattan.
Under the leadership of Kent Tritle, Director of Cathedral Music and one of America’s leading choral conductors, the Cathedral Choir and world music ensemble Rose of the Compass celebrate the richly varied musical traditions stemming from and inspired by the Spanish Golden Age. The concert begins with calls of a Muezzin summoning faithful Muslims to prayer, a tradition that began during the lifetime of the prophet Mohammed. The Muezzin chant combines with Spanish cantigas, pilgrim melodies from 13th and 14th century Christian traditions, and Sephardic folk songs. These intertwining styles and religious traditions paint a picture of the flowering of Spanish cultural and intellectual activity during the middle and late medieval period. The latter half of the concert will feature instrumental and vocal works by some of the greatest Spanish masters, including Tomás Luis de Victoria, often called “the Palestrina of Spain,” Diego Ortiz, and Antonio de Cabezón. The major works featured on the program are listed below.
Great Music in a Great Space is a series of public concerts inspired by world musical traditions and the Cathedral’s 100-year history of diverse and exhilarating musical events. Launched in 2012, Great Music in a Great Space resumes and re-imagines the legendary Cathedral concert and recital series from the 1980s, which showcased the most exciting composers and performers in the world of choral and orchestral music, consistently drawing capacity crowds. The concerts introduce a broad array of cultural idioms and explore choral, organ and orchestral music from around the world as well as from the Anglican tradition.
Tickets start at $25. For more information on this and future 2013/2014 series performances or to purchase tickets, please. http://www.stjohndivine.org/visit/calendar/events/music/3924/ornament-of-the-world.
About Kent Tritle
Kent Tritle is one of America’s leading choral conductors. Called “the brightest star in New York’s choral music world” by The New York Times, Tritle is in his second season as Director of Cathedral Music and organist at New York’s Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine. The 2011–2012 season marks his eighth season as Music Director of the Oratorio Society of New York and sixth season as Music Director of Musica Sacra. He is Director of Choral Activities at the Manhattan School of Music; and a member of the graduate faculty of The Juilliard School. An acclaimed organ virtuoso, he is also the organist of the New York Philharmonic and the American Symphony Orchestra. He is the host of a weekly radio show about choral music on New York’s classical music station, WQXR entitled “The Choral Mix with Kent Tritle”.
About Rose of the Compass
Rose of the Compass is collaboration between musicians Ara Dinkjian (oud), Tamer Pinarbasi (kanun), Glen Velez (percussion), Nina Stern (recorders and chalumeau), and Shira Kammen, (vielle and violin). For Ornament of the World, Rose of the Compass is joined by Arthur Fiacco (cello).
Nina Stern is one of North America’s leading recorder and classical clarinet players. Stern performs widely as a soloist and as a principal player with prominent orchestras such as The New York Philharmonic, New York City Opera, Philharmonia Baroque, Apollo’s Fire, Opera Lafayette, and American Classical Orchestra. She has recorded for Erato, Harmonia Mundi, Sony Classics, Newport Classics, Wildboar, Telarc and Smithsonian labels. Stern’s latest projects include performances of traditional music of Eastern Europe, Armenia, and the Middle East as a soloist and with the ensemble East of the River. Stern was recently appointed to the faculty of Juilliard’s Historical Performance program and has served on the faculties of the Mannes College of Music – where she directed the Historical Performance Program from 1989 to 1996 – the Civica Scuola di Musica (Milan, Italy), Oberlin Conservatory, and the Five Colleges in Massachusetts. Stern is the founder and artistic director of S’Cool Sounds, an award winning hands-on music education project in New York City public school classrooms. She has traveled around the country and abroad to introduce her educational program to school children and their teachers.
Ara Dinkjian was born in New Jersey, USA in 1958. He graduated Hartt College of Music, earning the country’s first and only special degree in the oud (ancient Middle Eastern fretless lute). His groundbreaking and highly influential group NIGHT ARK has recorded four CDs for RCA/BMG and PolyGram/Universal and has given concerts throughout the States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. His compositions have been recorded throughout the world by renowned musicians and singers in 13 different languages. In 2002, Dinkjian was chosen to represent Armenia in the First International Meeting Of The Oud at which twelve of the world’s top oud players gathered in Thessaloniki, Greece for three days of solo concerts and master classes. His composition “Homecoming” (“Dinata, Dinata”) was performed at the closing ceremonies of the 2004 Athens Olympics. Most recently, Dinkjian has collaborated with kanunist Tamer Pinarbasi and clarinetist Ismail Lumanovski in unique chamber-music style arrangements of ethnic folk, pop, classical, jazz, and original compositions.
Arthur Fiacco has performed at the Caramoor, Tanglewood, Ravinia, Mostly Mozart and Lincoln Center Festivals. As a soloist he has appeared with Broadway legend Patti LuPone, harpsichord virtuoso Igor Kipnis, The Mark Morris Dance Group and the celebrated performance artist Meredith Monk. Fiacco is a member of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. He serves as principal cellist for the Musica Sacra Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Oratorio Society of New York, and the Orchestra of St. Ignatius Loyola. Noted as a “distinguished chamber musician” of “ impressive virtuosity” (Consort magazine), Fiacco’s recording of the late Mozart Symphonies in Hummel’s piano quartet transcriptions has garnered praise as “first rate” and “definitive” by The New York Times.
Shira Kammen is a multi-instrumentalist and occasional vocalist who has spent well over half her life exploring the worlds of early and traditional music. A member for many years of the early music Ensembles Alcatraz and Project Ars Nova, and Medieval Strings, she has also worked with Sequentia, Hesperion XX, the Boston Camerata, the Balkan group Kitka, the King’s Noyse, the Newberry and Folger Consorts, the Oregon, California and San Francisco Shakespeare Festivals, and is the founder of Class V Music, an ensemble dedicated to providing music on river rafting trips. She has performed and taught in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Israel, Morocco, Latvia, Russia and Japan, and on the Colorado, Rogue, Green, Grande Ronde, East Carson and Klamath Rivers.
Tamer Pinarbasi was born in Turkey in 1970, started his kanun lessons at the age of 10, appeared in the film “Haci Arif Bey” at 11, performed with Necdet Yaşar at 12, and made his first of hundreds of recordings at 13, with artists such as Orhan Gencebay, Ibrahim Tatlıses, and Sibel Can. Tamer’s unique technical approach, playing with all 10 fingers instead
of 2, as well as his knowledge of both the eastern modal (makam) system and western harmony, paved the way for him to become one of the world’s great kanun virtuosos. Starting at age 17, he began concertizing throughout Europe. Since coming to America, he has continued to develop his compositional and performance styles in many diverse musical environments, including the New York Gypsy All-Stars.
Glen Velez is an internationally acclaimed soloist and seminal figure in the history of the frame drum. Over two decades ago he brought a new genre of drumming to the Western world by creating his own compositional style inspired by years of drumming studies from various cultures. After 15 years performing and recording with the Steve Reich ensemble and the Paul
Winter Consort, Velez records for the Sounds True label as well as working as a soloist and continuing to collaborate with prominent artists in many styles, including Pat Metheny, Richard Stoltzman, Zakir Hussain and Sonny Fortune.
