Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival: Virko Baley at 85
$25 ($10 student)
- Yuliya Basis, piano
- Andrii Didorenko, violin
- Julia Henderson, cello
- Timothy Hoft, piano
- Gleb Kanasevich, clarinet
- Olga Pasichnyk, soprano
- Anastasia Petanova, flute
- Ginevra Petrucci, flute
- Valeriya Sholokhova, cello
- Laura Spitzer, piano
- Sean Statser, percussion
Virko Baley — Soliloquies and a Dialogue (world premiere)
Virko Baley — Nocturnal No. 7 "Introitus"
Virko Baley — Dreamtime (selection)
Virko Baley — Treny IV
Virko Baley — Uniforms of Snow: No. 10, Interlude 2: Tren (NY premiere)
Famed Ukrainian-American composer Virko Baley celebrates his 85th birthday with the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival. Baley, one of the most eminent Ukrainian composers to settle in the West, is a Distinguished Professor of Composition at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and a Grammy-winning record producer. He has earned an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, citing him for music that is "dramatically expansive of gesture, elegant and refined of detail and profoundly lyrical."
This evening features the world premiere of his Soliloquies and A Dialogue for flute (Anastasia Petanova) and piano (Timothy Holt), plus selections from Dreamtime for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion; two movements from his evocative Nocturnals for solo piano; and Postludium: Tren, heard in its NY premiere. The heart of the program is Treny IV for two cellos and soprano, the culmination of a stirring four-movement work Baley wrote in response to the losses of his mother and two close friends, to a text by Polish Renaissance poet Jan Kochanowki. Baley calls it "the work's emotional epicenter and its final resolution...I think what I am after is capturing some kind of internal truth (with a small 't')." Treny IV will be sung by soprano Olga Pasichnyk.
About Yuliya Basis, piano
https://unismusicprogram.pike13.com/staff_members/5877398-yuliya-basis#/list?dt=2024-02-28<=staff
About Andrii Didorenko, violin
A New York-based violinist and composer Andrii Didorenko was born in Dnipro, Ukraine, to a family of professional violinists. Andrii took his first violin lessons with his parents and made his debut with an orchestra at the age of 10. He earned his graduate and postgraduate degrees from Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, and appeared as a soloist with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra and Moscow Camerata Chamber Orchestra. From 1999 to 2004, Andrii lived in Taiwan where he taught, performed, and debuted as a composer. Since moving to New York in 2006, Andrii performs regularly as a soloist and chamber musician. Most of his works have been premiered, published, and recorded in the US; among his compositions are virtuoso pieces for solo violin, a double concerto, various chamber works, and student pieces. Since the start of the war, he has written several pieces inspired by Ukrainian folk music.
https://www.didorenkomusic.com/about/