10th Annual CompCord Festival: Name 2 Chemist-Composers of Georgian Extraction

Gene Pritsker — Science Poems (world premiere)
Debra Kaye — At Liberty
Fletcher Henderson — Gin House Blues

Name 2 Chemist-Composers of Georgian Extraction, Cooper's music trivia question is the basis the third concert of the festival, featuring music inspired by Alexander Borodin, Fletcher Henderson, and humorous and/or science-inspired poetry. Performed by the CompCord ensemble on Saturday, May 21st at Gallery MC in NYC.

Featured compositions include Gene Pritsker's Science Poems on poetry of Roger Aplon, Robert C. Ford, and Erik T. Johnson; Debra Kaye's At Liberty; and a new arrangement of Fletcher Henderson's The Gin House Blues.

About the Festival: From May 1st to June 4th, Composers Concordance presents its 10th annual festival, entitled ‘Science.’ Five concert programs feature new music compositions inspired by science's method, modes of inquiry, and breakthrough discoveries in various fields, as well as its celebrated researchers and objects of study. At an array of NYC venues, numerous fun premieres, virtuoso performances, and an eclectic range of styles, presented in quick tandem, remain empirically observable phenomena within the universe of the Composers Concordance series.

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About Composers Concordance

Staying in rotation for 40 years in NYC is a rare feat. In the case of a new music presenting organization, it requires not only diligence and cognizance of achievements of the past but also an ethic of keeping one's ear to the ground for emerging stylistic and technological developments, as well as talented new composers on the scene.

Composers Concordance, founded in 1984 by Joseph Pehrson and Patrick Hardish, advised by Otto Luening, strives to present contemporary music in innovative ways, with an emphasis on thematic programming. Directors Gene Pritsker and Dan Cooper co-curate the programs and lead the CompCord Ensemble, Chamber Orchestra, String Orchestra, and Big Band. Associate Directors are Milica Paranosic, Peter Jarvis, Debra Kaye, and Seth Boustead.

Composers Concordance has also created a Naxos-distributed record label: Composers Concordance Records, co-directed by Peter Jarvis. Composers Concordance's overriding vision is to promote contemporary music, composers, and new works as a rightful and respected part of society. Good music performed and recorded well, pushing the boundaries of sound and composition.

http://www.composersconcordance.com

About Gene Pritsker, guitar

Composer/musical polymath Gene Pritsker has written over nine hundred compositions, including chamber operas, orchestral and chamber works, electro-acoustic music and songs for hip-hop and rock ensembles. His compositions employ an eclectic spectrum of styles, that are influenced by his studies of various musical cultures.

He is the founder and leader of Sound Liberation, an eclectic hip hop-chamber-jazz-rock-etc. ensemble. He also Co-Directs Composers Concordance. Gene's music is performed all over the world at internationally recognized festivals and by highly respected ensembles and performers.

He co-founded the Grammy-nominated Absolute Ensemble with Kristjan Jarvi and has been a composer in residence and guitarist since its creation in 1993. He worked closely with jazz fusion legend Joe Zawinul and has orchestrated major Hollywood movies, including Cloud Atlas, for which he wrote additional music and composed his Cloud Atlas Symphony. He is also the lead orchestrator for such TV series as Babylon Berlin, Jett, Netflix's Sense8, and Messiah. Gene is the lead orchestrator and has additional music in the 2021 film The Matrix Resurrections.

"My music is extremely eclectic, for me music has no bounds – I view the world of music as one big genre. My motto for my art is ending the segregation of sound vibration."

Gene is also a guitarist/rapper/Di.J./ and producer he incorporates each of these musical attributes to create music that is "not designed for easy listening or to melt into the background. It is insistent. It demands attention and curiosity." (New York Newsday) "Mischief-maker and cultural blender-in-chief, Pritsker is a serious artist, yet much of his work is witty and irreverent. Anyone can draw a mustache on the Mona Lisa, but few musicians draw it as artistically and creatively as Gene Pritsker." (Raymond Tuttle, Fanfare Magazine)

https://www.genepritsker.com/

About Adriana Valdés, soprano

Cuban born Adriana Valdés Santibáñez, studied violin at Manuel Saumell in Cuba, and majored in Voice at the Escuela Superior de Música (Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, INBA) in Mexico City. Adriana has been a Soloist Soprano in Mexico, the United States, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Honduras.

She is the Winner of four National Competition Prizes in Mexico: First Place and The Roberta Peters Prize by Opera de San Miguel, and Second Prize and First Zarzuela Prize by Contest Carlo Morelli in Mexico.

https://www.adrianavaldessoprano.com/