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CELEBRATE 60 WITH THE WASHINGTON SQUARE MUSIC FESTIVAL’S CONCERT OF MUSIC AND SONG

  • St. Marks Church-in-the-Bowery,  131 East 10th Street, New York NY 10003 (map)

CELEBRATE 60 WITH THE WASHINGTON SQUARE MUSIC

FESTIVAL’S CONCERT OF MUSIC AND SONG

Dec. 2 at St. Mark’s Church-in-the- Bowery  -- free

 

J.S. Bach, W.A. Mozart, Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, and Aribert Reimann are the featured composers on Sunday, December 2 at 3 pm, when the Washington Square Music Festival offers music spanning three centuries.  Performers include cellist & narrator Lutz Rath, violinist Eriko Sato, pianist Hélène Jeanney, flutist Sheryl Henze, tenor Marc Molomot and the Festival Chamber Ensemble.  The performance is free, and seating is first-come, first-served.  This is the final concert in the Festival’s 60th season of free concerts.

 

The venue is St. Marks Church-in-the-Bowery, 131 East 10th Street.  On this site in 1660 was the private chapel of Peter Stuyvesant.  The current structure was built in 1779, and more recently has welcomed a range of traditional and avant-garde performances, as well as hosting Sunday worship services.

 

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 2 at 3 PM - free

WASHINGTON SQUARE MUSIC FESTIVAL CHAMBER ENSEMBLE

The Festival Chamber Ensemble

St. Marks Church-in-the-Bowery, 131 East 10th Street, New York NY 10003

Subway: N, R at 8th St.-NYU; 6 at Astor Place

                                 www.washingtonsquaremusicfestival.org

info@washingtonsquaremusicfestival.org

 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart                      String Quartet in C major, K170

 

Aribert Reimann                  “März”, text by Günter Grass -- US premiere

Sheryl Henze, bass flute

Lutz Rath, narrator

 

Johann Sebastian Bach   Benedictus from Mass in B minor, BWV 232

Louis-Nicolas Clérambault                               “Pirame et Tisbé” cantata

Marc Molomot, tenor

 

JS Bach                                   Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, BWV 1050

 

Aribert Reimann’s “März” (March) refers to a month of extraordinary upheaval in the ‘60s.  The text is a testimony to the revolutionary student movements in 1960s Europe, especially in Germany.  Remarkable is Grass's writing on Ulrike Meinhof, who with Andreas Baader founded the Red Army Fraction also called the Baader-Meinhof Gang.  Music to text by Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass is very rare.  The first performance was in 1966 with Grass as narrator and flutist Aurele Nicolet.  The unusual rough sound of the bass flute mixed with a concrete-like text reflects the sociopolitical climate of the late 60’s.  The Red Army Faction's Urban Guerrilla Concept is not based on an optimistic view of the prevailing circumstances in the Federal Republic and West Berlin.-- The Urban Guerrilla Concept authored by RAF co-founder Ulrike Meinhof (April 1971)

 

The American tenor, Marc Molomot, graduated from the Eastman School of Music in 1992.  This is his first appearance with The Festival.  Possessed of a high-tenor voice and a winning stage persona that comfortably embraces both comedic and dramatic roles; he enjoys an international career in opera and on the concert stage.  Originally known for appearances with the world’s leading early music ensembles with conductors including William Christie and John Eliot Gardiner, Marc is now praised as “an excellent actor-singer” in repertoire of all eras.

 

Recent opera performances have included Purcell’s The Fairy Queen with Chicago Opera Theater; a COT co-production with Long Beach Opera, Busoni’s Turandot in the role of Truffaldino with Bard Music Festival; Virgil Thomson’s The Mother of us All at Hudson Hall; and Berg’s Wozzeck with the Houston Symphony in the role of Der Hauptmann. 

The live recording of this performance was the winner of a Grammy Award and an ECHO Klassik Award, both for Best Opera Recording.

 

Marc Molomot is married to Edward Willis and lives in Kerhonkson, New York.

 

The Washington Square Music Festival is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs with the City Council, The New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, NYC Council Member Margaret Chin, and the Office of the Borough President of Manhattan, Gail Brewer, BP.  Generous grants from The Earle K. & Katherine F. Moore Foundation, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Washington Square Association, The Margaret Neubart Foundation Trust, New York University Community Affairs & NYU Community Fund, Salamon-Abrams Family Fund, Washington Square Park Conservancy, The Hilaria and Alec Baldwin Foundation, Con Edison, and Three Sheets Saloon/ Off the Wagon/Down the Hatch, are deeply appreciated.

 

Earlier Event: June 13
WSA Annual Meeting