Event Info:
We encourage you to purchase tickets directly from the EMPAC box office. You'll avoid paying any service fee, and we'd love to meet you.
Stop by Monday through Friday 9 AM to 6 PM, or two hours prior to any performance. (Box Office hours subject to change.)
You may also purchase tickets by calling 518.276.3921.
SOLOS^2 series —
Sopranos + Piano
Listening is an art, and in search of the perfect environment in which to practice it, humans have devoted millions of hours and the heroic efforts of architects, engineers, and craftspeople. EMPAC is a product of that quest. In its SOLOS^2 series, a diverse array of performers will guide listeners through aural space, using strings, brass, percussion, amplification, and voices to fully explore the potentials of timbre and musical directionality.
For the first installment of this series we’ll listen to sounds we know well: two high (soprano to be exact) female voices and piano in various combinations. Joining us will be three members of the New York City and Chicago-based International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), who you might remember rendered a jaw-dropping version of Kurtag’s Grabstein für Stephan as part of the Inaugural Concert. Gaudeamus Prize winning soprano Tony Arnold, soprano Haleh Abghari, and pianist Jacob Greenberg from ICE will perform.
Curator: Micah Silver
Tickets are REQUIRED for this event
Bios:
Soprano Haleh Abghari. Image: Jill Steinberg
Soprano Toni Arnold. Image courtesy the artist
Pianist Jacob Greenberg.
Image: Liz Linder
HALEH ABGHARI:
Haleh Abghari is a native of Iran and makes her home in New York City, where she remains an active performer of new music. She has performed as a singer, actor, and voice-over artist in the U.S., Canada and Europe to critical acclaim. The New York Times hailed her work in Georges Aperghis’ Recitations for Solo Voice as “a virtuoso and winning performance” and the Washington Post described her voice as “. . . [a] high, dry, sweet and piercingly pure soprano.”
Abghari is an original member of Mouths Wide Open (MWO), an ad hoc group of volunteers dedicated to promoting active citizenship, civic dialogue, and finding new forms of political expression through the arts. With MWO, she produced and created two performance events featuring renowned performers and commentators: Breaking the Silence at Symphony Space in opposition to the War on Iraq and The Republic in Ruins: A Performance Collage of Music and Spoken Word in response to the RNC 2004 at Washington Square Church. She has been heard on WNYC, WBAI, and Air America among other radio stations and she is a featured soloist on a new CD recorded by composer and baritone saxophone player Fred Ho and The Afro-Asian Music Ensemble.
TONY ARNOLD:
Clarity, depth, imagination, and vocal beauty mark the performances of soprano Tony Arnold, who is internationally recognized for her interpretation of the contemporary repertoire. In 2001 she became the first vocalist ever to win the prestigious Gaudeamus International Interpreters Competition, and later that year took top honors at the McMahon International Music Competition. Since those triumphs she has been widely sought as both a concert and recording artist.
Tony Arnold's early musical training included piano, woodwind, and composition studies at the Peabody Preparatory Institute and the Maryland Center for the Arts. She received a bachelors degree in voice from Oberlin College in 1990, and a masters degree in orchestral conducting from Northwestern University in 1993. Her diverse musical background includes several music directorships at the collegiate level. She has received fellowships to the Aspen Music Festival, both as a conductor and a vocalist.
JACOB GREENBERG:
Pianist Jacob Greenberg’s work as a soloist and chamber musician shows a deep engagement with music old and new. Mr. Greenberg’s recent concerto appearances include Messiaen’s Sept Haïkaï at Oberlin College and Bartók's Concerto #1 at Northwestern University, and his solo recitals in the current season center on works of Ives, Busoni, and Schoenberg. He has worked with composers as diverse as George Crumb, Gyorgy Kurtag, Harrison Birtwistle, and Tan Dun, and he frequently plays his own works in recital.
In March 2001, Mr. Greenberg collaborated with soprano Tony Arnold in her first-prize appearance at the International Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He received the special award for Outstanding Accompanist at the 2001 Louise D. McMahon International Music Competition, again in collaboration with Ms. Arnold. Their recording of Elliott Carter’s Of Challenge and of Love was released in spring 2003 by Bridge Records.
Mr. Greenberg joined the faculty of the University at Buffalo in the fall of 2003.