Alia Musica and Kelly Lynch Perform Contemporary Art Songs
| September 15, 2009 | ||
| 7:00 pm |
$12 at the door; $10 for students, seniors, and online
Alia Musica Pittsburgh announces its Fall 2009 Concert, to take place on September 15th at 8pm in Bellefield Hall Auditorium. The concert features soprano Kelly Lynch in a program devoted to vocal music by Pittsburgh composers.
Ms. Lynch, an experienced singer of both opera and new music, will premiere the solo-voice composition The Flesh and the Spirit, by Duquesne University faculty composer Eli Tamar, and sing to various instrumental accompaniments, ranging from piano to 8-player chamber ensemble, in pieces by CMU faculty composer Reza Vali and Alia Musica composer members Federico Garcia and Matthew Gillespie.
The program also includes short instrumental duets in between the vocal numbers: First Lines No. 11, for flute and piano, by Amy Williams (University of Pittsburgh), and Complements and Collisions for oboe and piano by Alia Musica composer James Ogburn.
The main feature of the concert, Reza Vali’s Folk Song Set No. 8, is part of the composer’s on-going cycle of song sets for voice and different groupings (ranging from solo piano in the first, 1978 set, to full orchestra in set No. 16, 2005). With their Persian-folk-inspired melodies, brilliant instrumental coloring, and Vali’s very personal vocal writing, they remain favorite compositions among performers and audiences of Vali’s music.
The eighth set, from 1989, calls for flute, clarinet, harp, piano, percussion, viola, cello, and double-bass, fitting Alia Musica’s unique core ensemble. “Including a Vali piece,” says Artistic Director Federico Garcia, “was an obvious decision for a concert with Kelly, and the one that brings our harp, our viola, and our virtuoso woodwinds was an easy choice.” Not easy to play, however, even by Vali’s standards: “It will be a tour de force and a showcase.”