Duologue Festival 2023: Bowers Fader Duo | Popebama | Miolina
$25 ($20 student/senior); $30 festival pass; fees apply for online orders
- Jessica Bowers, mezzo-soprano
- Oren Fader, guitar
- Erin Rogers, saxophone
- Dennis K. Sullivan II, percussion
- Mioi Takeda, violin
- Lynn Bechtold, violin
Miolina presents the first ever Duologue Festival, celebrating NYC's best duos. The festival will take place over two evenings, on Thu Sept 28 and Fri Sept 29, 2023. Duologue will highlight original works, as well as new and recent works by living composers. The host venue is the Renee Weiler Concert Hall at Greenwich House Music School (46 Barrow St, NYC 10014). Accessible from the 1/A/B/C/D/E/F/M trains.
About Bowers Fader Duo
Of the Bowers Fader Duo, The American Record guide has stated "The deep oak of Jessica Bowers' lower range and the lush honey of her higher range mix well with the steady and sensitive guitar playing of Oren Fader." In Opera News, "Mezzo-soprano Jessica Bowers and guitarist Oren Fader are to be commended just for helping to expand the art-song catalogue...reminding listeners of the genre's innate power as a vehicle for storytelling."
https://www.bowersfaderduo.com/About Popebama
About Miolina
Called "talented and dedicated" by Arts Birmingham, and described as displaying "aggressive and virtuosic prowess" with "brilliance of sound, technical mastery, and stunning expressivity" by I CARE IF YOU LISTEN, violin duo Miolina has been attracting audiences since their inception in 2012. Mioi Takeda and Lynn Bechtold are creating and shaping the violin duo repertoire of the 21st Century and have premiered 50 duos and counting. To date, the duo has had successful performances in NYC at venues such as Brooklyn College, Culturelab LIC, Gallery MC, Greenwich House Music School, KGB Espionage Museum, (le) Poisson Rouge, The Morbid Anatomy Museum, National Opera Center, National Sawdust, Parsons School of Design, Queens College LeFrak Hall, Queens Library, Rockwood Music Hall, Scholes Street Studio, Spectrum, and Tenri Cultural Institute. Outside of NYC, they’ve performed at the Howland Cultural Center in Beacon, NY; Hoover Library, St. Paul United Methodist Church, and the University of Alabama in Birmingham, AL; Scandinavian Cultural Center in Boston, MA; Rutgers University in Camden, NJ; Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago, IL; UC Irvine, in Irvine, CA; Monk Space in Los Angeles, CA; Pensacola State College in FL; Center for New Music in San Francisco, CA; University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, AL; Corner Store Arts and Rhizome in Washington, DC; Koncertkirken in Copenhagen, Denmark; Cité Internationale des Arts, La Fine Gueule, and l'Institut Finlandais in Paris, France; Koendori Classics and Monten Hall in Tokyo, Japan; and Galleri Sagoy in Malmö, Sweden. In 2017, they premiered Victor Kioulaphides' double concerto with the North/South Consonance Chamber Orchestra in NYC, with Max Lifchitz, conductor. In addition, they have performed on series and festivals such as Birmingham New Music Festival, Circuit Bridges, Composers Concordance, COMPOSERFest, Concrete Timbre, C-Y Series, Electronic Music Midwest, Infuse Présente, JUMP, NWEAMO, and Sonic Circuits, and have presented masterclasses and worked with composition students at CUNY Queens College, The Juilliard School, Rutgers University, and UC Irvine. They have also done outreach concerts at The Alabama School for the Deaf and Blind, the Friendly Kitchen in Concord, NH, and at Greenwich House Senior Center and Southbridge Senior Center, both in Manhattan.
Miolina specializes in violin duo music that employs the natural beauty and sound of the instruments, with or without electronics and video. They enjoy collaborating on new compositions with composers, as well as discovering hidden gems of the past. Their future productions include performances of the whole cycle of 34 violin duets by Luciano Berio; a new double concerto by composer Takuma Itoh; a program of works by all-Scandinavian composers, featuring premieres by composers Mauro Godoy Villalobos, Ann Rosén, and Tomi Räisänen. Recent recordings include 'à la BAMA,' featuring 6 new works by Alabama composers from the Birmingham Art Music Alliance, and the track 'Kirlian' on Flower Cat's recent album 'Symbolic Gesture.' Their self-titled debut album was released on Composers Concordance Records, distributed by Naxos, in 2018, and they can be heard on 2020's 'Le Passager,' performing Jean-Baptiste Favory's UNISONO V, released on ACEL Records. All are available on iTunes, Amazon, Bandcamp, Spotify, or YouTube. In June 2017, they were chosen to join New Music USA's Impact Cohort. Support through New Music USA's NYC New Music Impact Fund was made possible with funding from The Scherman Foundation's Katherine S. and Axel G. Rosin Fund. They are also recipients of 2021 and 2015 grants from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; 2019 grants from Adami Foundation, and the American-Scandinavian Foundation; a 2018 grant from the Queens Council on the Arts; a 2017 Japan Foundation NY grant; and 2016 and 2014 grants from New York Women Composers. In 2017, 2019, and 2021, they were chosen for artist residencies at Avaloch Farm Music Institute in New Hampshire. Miolina is a 501(c)3 non-profit.
https://www.miolinanyc.com/About Jessica Bowers, mezzo-soprano
About Oren Fader, guitar
About Erin Rogers, saxophone
About Dennis K. Sullivan II, percussion
About Mioi Takeda, violin
Recognized for her "superb eloquence and purity of tone" in Fanfare, Japanese violinist Mioi Takeda earned her reputation as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player, and as a seasoned new music specialist in town. As Miolina's artistic director, her mission is clear: Encourage composers to write music for violin duo employing the natural beauty and sound of the instruments, without limitations. She also hopes to expand the violin-duo repertory for future generations. Mioi wants to help rediscover neglected violin-duo compositions by old masters, and to share the joy of current violin-duo music with her audiences.
In addition, Ms. Takeda has performed with new music groups, including North/South Consonance as concertmaster, SEM Ensemble, and Composers Concordance, giving countless premieres. She has also performed with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, American Symphony Orchestra, Washington Square Festival, Scandia Symphony, Stamford Symphony, Strathmere Orchestra, The Japan Philharmonic, and The New Japan Philharmonic. Ms. Takeda's performances can be heard on North/South and Naxos Recordings.
Mioi was a scholarship student of Dorothy DeLay and Masao Kawasaki at The Juilliard School, and she earned a Doctorate of Musical Arts from The City University of New York under the guidance of Itzhak Perlman. She also enjoys doing yoga and watching The Big Bang Theory when she is not playing the violin. Mioi is on the board of New York Women Composers.
She has been the recipient of grants from City Artists Corp, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment, and Queens Theatre.
https://www.miolinanyc.com/mioiAbout Lynn Bechtold, violin
Violinist/composer Lynn Bechtold, a native of Pittsburgh, has appeared in recital throughout the U.S., Argentina, Canada, France, Holland, Japan, and Switzerland. An advocate of new music, she has worked with composers such as Derek Bermel, Carter Burwell, Gloria Coates, George Crumb, Beatriz Ferreyra, John Harbison, and Morton Subotnick, and has premiered works on the Tribeca New Music Festival and the Princeton Composers' Series. In 2001, she gave the premiere of Violynn, a work for violin and electronics written for her by Alvin Lucier. All About Jazz noted her for her "virtuosity and technical expertise," I CARE IF YOU LISTEN pointed out her "brilliance of sound, technical mastery, and stunning expressivity," San Diego Story called her "unapologetically dominating," and Strings Magazine labeled her "impressive" and "close to the edge."
https://www.violynn.net/