Töne und Spiegel ein Abend mit der Sopranistin Kathryn Wieckhorst

Montag, 7.10.2024, 21 Uhr  

Töne und Spiegel

ein Abend mit der Sopranistin Kathryn Wieckhorst

Werke von D. Felsenfeld und H. Kenty

 

aus dem Programm

Howie Kenty                                 The Halls Within the Mirror

eine Solo-Mini-Oper über innere Kämpfe,
Kindheitserinnerungen und einen tragischen Vorfall.

Daniel Felsenfeld                       The Law Falls Silent

                                                 3 Songs für a cappella Sopran

The coup happened, and what can one do but do what one does, 

which in my case is to write music. I set these seminal texts by Emma Lazarus, 

Thomas Paine, and Ralph Waldo Emerson because how could I not. 

And I loved the nudity of the solo voice singing these important words, 

unadorned, unafraid.

Felsenfeld was born in Washington, D.C., raised primarily in Southern California and currently resides in Brooklyn with his wife, writer Elizabeth Isadora Gold, and child August. He attended the University of California, Santa Barbara where he got his undergraduate degree in composition. He did his Masters and Doctoral work at the New England Conservatory where he studied with Arthur Berger and Lee Hyla. He is a composer and is also an author, having written three books published by Amadeus Press as well as hundreds of articles. In 2007 a "Talk of the Town" piece in The New Yorker magazine noted several writers whom Felsenfeld met at the MacDowell Colony who used his last name in their novels.

Howie Kenty is a Brooklyn-based composer and performer, occasionally known by his musical alter-ego, Hwarg. His music, called “remarkable” with “astonishing poetic power” by the International Compendium Prix Ars Electronica, is stylistically diverse, encompassing ideas from contemporary classical, electronic, rock, ambient, sound art, and everything in between. His works are often politically oriented, and occasionally incorporate visual and theatrical elements. Throughout all of his creations runs the idea that the experience of a piece is more than listening to the music; there is a wholeness of vision and an awareness of environment that attempts to fully draw the audience into his works. 

Besides composing and performing regularly, Howie is half of the electronic operatic duo Ju-eh+Hwarg and plays guitar in the progressive rock band The Benzene Ring. He recently earned his PhD in Music Composition from Stony Brook University, studying with Matthew Barnson, Margaret Schedel, and Dan Weymouth. He regularly collaborates with artists of all types in the NYC area, and is a faculty member of the Kaufman Music Center, teaching music technology, composition, and theory. 

Howie's “Scherzo; Dance.” received an Honorary Mention in Prix Ars Electronica 2008, and his “We Have Less Time Than You Think” won a first prize commission at Shanghai Electronic Music Week 2013. After performing his “An Impetuous Old Friend” in the 2013 Concert Artist Guild Competition, PUBLIQuartet was awarded the Sylvia Ann Hewlett Adventurous Artist Prize and chosen as the New Music/New Places Ensemble. Recent recognition includes residencies at the Copland House (2017), the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (2018), and the Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus (2019), as well as first prize commission in the 2017 Null-state Chaosflöte competition, and competition winner in both the 2018 Open Space Festival of New Music and the 2018 RED NOTE New Music Festival Composition Workshop.