"The Rest Is Noise Persons of the Year are Jane Moss and Tom Morris, for their hearteningly inventive programming at Lincoln Center and Spring for Music/Ojai."
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White Light Festival 2011 closes tonight with the New York premiere of Passio-Compassio, a piece in which eastern and western musicians come together with the music of Bach. This extraordinary cultural cooperation is framed by the meditative dance ritual of Sufi whirling dervishes from Turkey’s Mevlevi Order.
Lebanese contralto Fadia el-Hage started her musical career at the young age of fourteen as a singer with the Rahbani brothers and with Fairoux. She is now one of the few artists to combine western and mid-eastern classical music, with a repertoire of works ranging from the Middle Ages to contemporary times.
Tonight, Fadia brings her talent to Lincoln Center, as she performs at the White Light Festival’s Late Night Elegy.
Ensemble Sarband is dedicated to musically bridging the gaps between East and West. In fact, the name “sarband” stems from Oriental music theory, denoting the improvised link of two compositions within a musical suite. Ensemble Sarband believes that music can provide an enlightened means of mutual respect, an example of understanding and acceptance - in short, a model for peace.
In the NY premiere of Passio-Compassio, the Ensemble Sarband puts together the dance of Sufi whirling dervishes, a Baroque choir, saxophonists, and a string quartet for a musical voyage with Bach’s Passions in Arabic and jazz arrangements, combined with early Christian chant for a fitting close to the White Light Festival 2011 on November 19.
Ensemble Sarband will also be performing tomorrow at 10.30pm with Fadia el-Hage in Late Night Elegy.
Tomorrow night, Lebanese singer Fadia el-Hage joins the Ensemble Sarband to tell stories from the lives and history of Spanish Jews around the Mediterranean. The wide-ranging program comprises works spanning eight centuries of lullabies, romantic, and wedding songs.
Listen to this mesmerizing traditional Andalusian mouwashah sung by Fadia el-Hage.
Fadia el-Hage and Ensemble Sarband perform in the intimate Kaplan Penthouse as part of the White Light Festival.
Tonight, Stephen Prutsman plays a series of songs for solo pianists that reflect on yearning, contentment, desire and tranquility. The intimate Late Night Elegy program begins with works by Maurice Ravel. Give your ears a preview with La Vallée des Cloches.
Tomorrow night, renowned pianist Stephen Prutsman, reflects on yearning, contentment, desire, and tranquility in a meditative program of works for solo piano.
Late Night Elegy with Stephen Prutsman takes place in the intimate space of the Kaplan Penthouse, and is part of the White Light Festival.
New York’s own Gamelan Kusuma Laras will be helping Rob Kapilow explain the intricacies and beauty of the Javanese gamelan in What It Makes It Great? tonight as part of the White Light Festival. Warm up your ears with this clip from one of their performances!
7:30 pm in the Walter Reade Theater
This fascinating short clip shows the skill and work that go into making a gamelan, a kind of orchestra built around tuned percussion instruments. For hundreds of years, the meditative sound of the gamelan has filled the Islamic courts of Java.
Rob Kapilow and New York’s own Gamelan Kusuma Laras interpret these sounds in What Makes It Great? at 7.30pm on November 14, as part of Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival.
Tonight’s performance by the Huelgas Ensemble, entitled “Medieval Apocalypse,” brings together a series of provocations against the church by Perotinus, Machaut, Cicona, and Matteo de Perugia as well as anonymous works from England, Spain, Italy and Cyprus.
7:30 pm at the Chruch of St. Mary the Virgin, 145 W. 46th St.
