Morton Feldman’s Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello
“Breathing of the Sound Itself:” An Evening with Morton Feldman
This year, Trio Fadolín received a grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council to perform several concerts, the first of which is coming right up on October 9th. We’re going to perform Morton Feldman’s final composition, “Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello” (1987) in the main hall of the New York Studio School, where Feldman was the Dean from 1969 to 1971.
Go ahead, look up a recording of this piece. It’s challenging for the performers and listeners in all the ways we’re not used to be. It’s long (75 minutes), nervously quiet, full of prickly silences and wisps of sound. It’s notated in a style that will have a performer’s pulse racing while someone in the audience may let out a sigh. I expect to come out of this experience somehow changed, and perhaps you will, too.
This is an incredibly special piece to perform in a living-breathing artist studio, where the composer worked, where the hum of the lights, the creaks of the floorboards, the faint smell of paint — all add to the magic.
We are grateful to be collaborating with the wonderful pianist Dan Tepfer whom I have called to play on several of my film scores.
See you out there! –Ljova
On Wednesday, October 9, 2024, at 6:30pm, the New York Studio School will host a concert of work by the groundbreaking composer Morton Feldman, who was Dean of NYSS from 1969 to 1971. Acclaimed pianist Dan Tepfer will join the celebrated ensemble Trio Fadolín (Sabina Torosjan, Ljova, Valeriya Sholokhova) in a performance of Feldman’s final composition, “Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello” (1987). At nearly seventy-five minutes, the work is emblematic of the longer works of the composer’s late career when he asked himself, “What would I write if I just didn’t think about the length—what would I write if I didn’t think about the audience?” This event is one of many this year that commemorates the 60th anniversary of NYSS.
==> Extremely limited tickets available by donation. For tickets, please click here.
This project is made possible in part with funds from Creative Engagement, a regrant programs supported by the funding agencies The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) in partnership with the City Council, the Howard Gilman Foundation, and administered by LMCC.
The piano is generously provided by Yamaha.
LJOVA (Lev Zhurbin) was born in Moscow, Russia, and moved to New York with his parents, composer Alexander Zhurbin and writer Irena Ginzburg, in 1990. He divides his time between composing for the concert stage, contemporary dance & film, leading his own ensemble LJOVA AND THE KONTRABAND, performing with and composing for TRIO FADOLÍN, as well as a busy career as a violist, fadolínist & musical arranger. Among recent projects are commissions from the City of London Sinfonia, The Louisville Orchestra, a new work for Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, a string quartet for Brooklyn Rider, a clarinet quintet for Art of Élan, and works for The Knights, Sybarite5 and A Far Cry, as well arrangements for the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, tenor Javier Camarena, conductors Gustavo Dudamel and Alondra de la Parra, songwriters Ricky Martin, Natalia Lafourcade and Carlos Vives, composer/guitarist Gustavo Santaolalla and Osvaldo Golijov. Ljova frequently collaborates with choreographers Aszure Barton, Damian Woetzel, Christopher Wheeldon, Katarzyna Skarpetowska (with Parsons Dance).
Ukrainian-American cellist VALERIYA SHOLOKHOVA is an in-demand soloist and chamber musician based in New York City. Valeriya has made recent appearances on notable stages such as Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, David Geffen Hall, The Kennedy Center, Metropolitan Museum, and Saturday Night Live. In 2022, she performed the US Premiere of Peteris Vasks’ Cello Concerto No. 2 in Boston, Massachusetts. The same year, Valeriya co-founded Trio Fadolin, which received Chamber Music America’s Ensemble Forward Grant and has recorded an album of newly commissioned works for the ensemble. Valeriya currently holds the position of principal cellist of a number of chamber orchestras, including Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra, New Orchestra of Washington, and The Refugee Orchestra Project.
SABINA TOROSJAN, originally from Tartu, Estonia, has been an active freelance performer since graduating from The Juilliard School having studied with Sally Thomas and Lewis Kaplan. She plays regularly with Ensemble Mise-En and RAM whose focus is in contemporary music from around the world. She has recorded with iconic folk singer Pete Seeger, Jennifer Hudson, composer and guitarist Terry Champlin, as well as appearing on SNL. Sabina enjoyed being the violinist for the Off Broadway production of “Fiddler On The Roof in Yiddish” for its entire run ending in 2020.
DAN TEPFER is a French-American jazz pianist and composer. The New York City-based Tepfer, has recorded and performed around the world with some of the leading lights in jazz and classical music, from Lee Konitz to Renée Fleming, and released eleven albums of his own in solo, duo and trio formats. Tepfer earned global acclaim for his 2011 release Goldberg Variations / Variations. His 2023 return to Bach, Inventions / Reinventions, an exploration of the narrative processes behind Bach’s beloved Inventions, became a best-seller, spending two weeks in the #1 spot on the Billboard Classical Charts. Tepfer has composed for various ensembles beyond jazz. In 2024-2025, he’ll premiere three new major commissions: a suite for choir and piano in memory of his mother, a chorister at the Paris Opera; a song cycle for jazz great Cécile McLorin Salvant and string orchestra; and a symphonic work featuring algorithms and visuals. Tepfer’s honors include first prizes at the 2006 Montreux Jazz Festival Solo Piano Competition, the 2006 East Coast Jazz Festival Competition, and the 2007 American Pianists Association Jazz Piano Competition, as well as fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2014), the MacDowell Colony (2016), and the Fondation BNP-Paribas (2018, 2021 & 2024).
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