Tenor Sax Sonata - Premiere Wed. 11 November 2009

PROGRAM

Episodes - Ellen Taaffe Zwilich
Capriccio - Joseph Trapanese
Sonate pour Saxophone Alto et Violoncello - Edison Denisov
Sonata for Tenor Saxophone and Piano - Steve Cohen
Letting Go - Jack Gottlieb
Saxophone Quartet No. 1 - Steve Cohen

Jordan P. Smith - Saxophone
Baris Buyukyildirim - Piano

Joe Lee - Cello

Wonki Lee - Saxophone
Dan Kochersberger - Saxophone
Jay Rattman - Saxophone

Where & When

Pforzheimer Hall (6th Floor)
Manhattan School of Music

Broadway & West 122nd Street

New York, New York 10027

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

8:00 PM

Admission: FREE

The Classical Saxophone - Recital 10/18/09

OVITT Music presents classical saxophonist Javier Oviedo and pianist Helene Jeanney in a recital of music for saxophone and piano. The program will include transcriptions and original music for saxophone and piano.

Concerto for Oboe d'Amour and Strings, BWV.1055 - J.S. Bach/Oviedo
Sonata for alto saxophone and piano - Yvon Bourell
Hot-Sonate - Erwin Schulhoff
Sonata for soprano saxophone and piano - Steve Cohen
Dialogues with Distant Mountains - Debra Kaye
Fantazia - Heitor Villa-Lobos

A "Meet the Artists" wine reception will immediately follow.

Tickets can be purchased at www.muendo.com <http://www.muendo.com> for $25.

For more information about this and other events presented by OVITT Music please go to www.ovittmusic.com.

Kol Ha-amim Tiku Kaf

My friend, Naomi Katz Cohen, leads choirs at the SAR Academy in Riverdale, NY. She's been after me to write a piece for "her kids" for as long as I've known her. This past year (2009), I finally obliged her with something suitable.

I was looking for a psalm text that would lend itself to an up-tempo setting, and I found it in Psalm 47. My original intention was to write a piece for solo voice, but the more I looked at Psalm 47, the more I realized that it would work best as a choral piece, and particularly a piece for a young chorus. The text begins "all peoples clap hands and sing praise to the Lord," so rhythmic clapping would have to be an integral element in the piece, and who can bring that off as convincingly as a bunch of kids?

Naomi and her combined choirs gave "Tiku Kaf" its world premiere May 22, 2009, at a Yom Y'rushalayim assembly at the SAR Academy. My friend Jon Burr was on hand with video and audio equipment, and we have a splendid recording of the event to share with you. Enjoy!

Shameless Self-Promotion

You can help support the arts in America and foster peace in the Cohen household by buying my CD of solo vocal Jewish works, "Shir Chadash" (A New Song).














The CD features soprano Joshana Erenberg and pianst Beth Robin, joined by guest artists Richard Slade (tenor), Joanna Frankel (violinist), Erin Wight (violist) and Evelyn Farny (cellist).

Selections:
1. Psalm 98 (3:59)
2. Psalm 84 (4:52)
3. Y'did Nefesh (3:49)
4. Psalm 121 (3:35)
5. Hashkiveinu (4:20)
6. Adon Olam (2:10)
7. Simeni Chachotam (5:54)

CD Produced by Steve Cohen and Jon Burr

The CD is available at:

AMAZON.COM (CD)

CDBABY.COM (CD and MP3 Downloads)

DIGSTATION.COM. (MP3 Downloads)

Sha-alu Sh'lom Y'rushalayim

I wrote my setting of this text, taken from Psalm 122, verses 6-9, in the summer of 2006. I was attending the North American Jewish Choral Festival up in the Catskills. At the time Lebanon was firing rockets at Israel, and my son was about to leave for Israel to do the Young Judaea Year Course, so the idea of "the Peace of Jerusalem" (and, by extension, the entire State of Israel and all Jewish people worldwide) became a message of great urgency for me.

I'm happy to report that this piece has met with a lot of acceptance. NY's Zamir Choir, led by Matthew Lazar, premiered the piece on 12/24/06, and kept it in their repertoire for the rest of the 2006/2007 season, giving repeat performances at 2 NYC venues and the 2007 NAJCF. It's been performed at Park Avenue Synagogue and Temple Emanu-El. Emanu-El used it this past Friday evening, 8/28/09, and I was able to download the mp3 file from their website. Here it is:

Sha-alu Sh'lom Y'rushalayim

First Entry, 8/22/08

I started this blog on the advice of a friend, but I'm not exactly sure of what to write here.

I'm a composer, arranger, copyist and pianist. I live in a Westchester suburb of New York City. Lately, I'm most active writing Jewish liturgical music, but I also keep active writing chamber, symphonic, choral, vocal pieces (to secular texts) and jazz.

I've just released "Shir Chadash," a CD of my Jewish solo vocal music, featuring soprano Joshana Erenberg and pianist Beth Robin. The CD is available for purchase at Amazon.com, CDBaby.com and DigStation.com.

I'm currently at work on a Tenor Sax Sonata, due to be premiered at Manhattan School of Music (my alma mater), November 11, 2009, assuming I finish it on time.