Released: August 24, 2012
Lincoln, Neb. - The University of Nebraska–Lincoln School of Music presents faculty artists, Paul Barnes, Hixson-Lied Professor of Piano, and the Chiara String Quartet in concert on Sunday, Sept 9 at 3 p.m. in Kimball Recital Hall. The three works featured in the concert were all commissioned by Barnes and received their world premiere performances within the past three years.
Barnes and the Chiara String Quartet will perform Ivan Moody’s “Nocturne of Light,” a piano quintet based on Greek Orthodox resurrection hymns. This work made its world premiere on April 26, 2010, at Cutting Edge Concerts, Symphony Space in New York City. William Shomos, Hixson-Lied Professor of Voice and Opera, and Barnes’ son, Peter Barnes, will join Barnes in singing the two hymns prior to the performance.
Included on the program are Gilad Cohen’s “Ballade for Piano,” which won the 2011 American Liszt Society Bicentennial Composition Competition held at the University of Georgia, Athens, Ga. The world premiere was given on February 19, 2011.
Concluding the program will be N. Lincoln Hanks' “Monstre Sacre,” a four-movement virtuoso work based on the idea of the “Holy Monster,” those troubled and conflicted artists without whose art we simply cannot live. The world premiere was given on April 2, 2012, at Cutting Edge Concerts, Symphony Space in New York City.
The concert is on Sunday, Sept. 9 at 3 p.m. in Kimball Recital Hall. This event is FREE and open to the public.
Gilad Cohen bio
Israeli composer Gilad Cohen is an active composer, performer and conductor in different musical genres including concert music, rock and music for theatre. A graduate of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and the Mannes College of Music, Gilad is currently a PhD candidate in Composition at Princeton University. A recipient of the Israeli Prime Minister Award for Composers in 2010 (the most prestigious award for composers in Israel), Gilad has written chamber, choral and orchestral music that was performed at venues around the US, Europe and Israel including Merkin Hall, Morgan Library & Museum, Bargemusic (New York), the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Kolarac Hall (Belgrade) and the Jerusalem Theatre (Israel). Recent awards including the Whiting Fellowship for Humanities, the Encore Grant from the American Composers Forum, the first prize in the American Liszt Society International Composition Competition and the top prize in the 2012 Franz Josef Reinl Composition Contest. A current student at the Tony-honored BMI Musical Theatre Workshop in New York, Gilad is active as a composer for theatre, choral conductor and performer, playing piano, bass and guitar. Recent performances included Merkin Hall, Rose Hall at Lincoln Center and Symphony Space (NYC). www.giladcohen.com
N. Lincoln Hanks bio
A professional singer and composer, N. Lincoln Hanks thrives in the outer regions of the music spectrum. He studied composition at Indiana University with Don Freund, Frederick Fox, and Claude Baker, and he studied with John Harbison at the Aspen Music Festival. Among his many recognitions and awards, Lincoln has won the Contemporary Choral Composition Competition from The Roger Wagner Center for Choral Studies and an ASCAP award. He was also honored recently as a finalist in the Lilly Fellows Program– Arlin G. Meyer Prize for his oratorio, Tegel Passion. Many distinguished performing artists and groups, including pianist Paul Barnes, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and the Dale Warland Singers, have performed his music. Recently, his works have been featured on North/South Concerts, the Cutting Edge New Music Festival, the Boston New Music Initiative concert series, and the Piccolo Spoleto Festival. He is the director of Alchymey, an early music vocal ensemble based in Los Angeles, and he co-directs The Ascending Voice, a triennial sacred a cappella music festival and symposium at Pepperdine University. Lincoln lives, composes and teaches in Malibu, CA where he is an Associate Professor of Music at Pepperdine. More information may be found at www.nlincolnhanks.com.
Ivan Moody bio
Ivan Moody, British composer, was born in London in 1964, and studied composition with Brian Dennis at London University, William Brooks at York University and privately with John Tavener. He also studied Orthodox theology at the University of Joensuu, Finland. Moody is active as a conductor, having directed ensembles such as Voces Angelicae, the Kastalsky Chamber Choir (Britain), Capilla Peña Florida (Spain), Cappella Romana (USA), the Choir of the Cathedral of St George, Novi Sad, (Serbia) the KotorArt Festival Choir (Montenegro), the Orthodox Choir of the University of Joensuu (Finland) and Ensemble Alpha (Portugal); and as a widely-published musicologist.
Moody's compositions show the influences of Eastern liturgical chant and the Orthodox Church, of which he is a member and priest (of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople).[1] His Canticum Canticorum I, written for the Hilliard Ensemble, was a great success in 1987 and remains his most frequently-performed work, and in 1990 he won the Arts for the Earth Festival Prize for Prayer for the Forests, subsequently premièred by the renowned Tapiola Choir of Finland. One of his most important works is the oratorio Passion and Resurrection (1992), based on Orthodox liturgical texts, premièred in 1993 by Red Byrd and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under Tonu Kajuste at the Tampere Festival. In 1996 it was given its North American premiere by Cappella Romana. The Akathistos Hymn (1998), the composer’s largest work to date, was written for Cappella Romana following these performances.
Since 1990, he has lived near Lisbon, Portugal, where he was until 1998 Professor of Composition at the Academia de Artes e Tecnologias, Lisbon. He has been involved in the construction of a database for the Portuguese Contemporary Music Centre, is currently a Research Fellow of the CESEM research unit at the Universidade Nova in Lisbon and collaborates regularly with the Department of Orthodox Theology at the University of Joensuu, Finland. In 2005 he was elected the first Chairman of the International Society for Orthodox Church Music. Moody’s music is recorded on the Hyperion, ECM, Sony, Telarc, Gothic and Oehms labels.