Welcome to the Cygnus Ensemble
Celebrating the release on Furious Artisans of new Cygnus recordings of works by
Frank Brickle
Tuesday, October 25, 8PM at the
Brazilian Endowment for the Arts
"The Cygnus Ensemble has long distinguished itself as one of New York's finest new-music ensembles
(and has brought about a remarkable amount of excellent music for its unusual
configuration).".....Carson Cooman, Fanfare Magazine
Recent & upcoming-->
..........Cygnus recording of Harold Meltzer's Brion has been released by Naxos.
...........NY Times has selected Brion as one of the best recordings of the year! Times Picks!
..........Reviews: San Francisco Chronicle & Newmusicbox & Sequenza21 (more reviews in the works)
NEA awards funds for Cygnus to do an all Frank Brickle CD with Furious Artisans.
New Works in the works by David Rakowski, Jason Sagebiel, Jeff Nichols, Andrew Waggoner, Eva Wiener, Dylan Lardelli.
Concerts:
-----Cygnus @ Sarah Lawrence (Dec. 14)--featuring Mohammed Fairouz's Three Fragments of Ibn Khafajah
-----@ Vassar (Jan. 28); @ CUNY Graduate Center (May 17);
-----& on May 19 @7:30:
.................Babbitt's Swan Song No. 1, with new works by 4 generations of Babbitt students--
.................Peter Westergaard, Frank Brickle, Jonathan Dawe, David Fulmer
Program:
Milton Babbitt---> Swan Song No. 1
Peter Westergaard--> new work
Frank Brickle-->Farai un vers
Jonathan Dawe--> Babbitt Ballet
David Fulmer--> Milton Madrigal
About
With its pairs of plucked strings, bowed strings and woodwinds, the band has a precedent in the Elizabethan “broken consort”.
The members are: Tara Helen O'Connor, flute; Robert Ingliss, oboe; William Anderson and Oren Fader, classical and electric guitars/mandolin/banjo; Calvin Wiersma, violin; Susannah Chapman, violoncello.
Cygnus has given a concert series in New York City since 1996. Concert tours include Russia, Holland, Denmark, Poland, Mexico, and the U.S. Recent honors include a Pulitzer Prize finalist (“Brion,” by Harold Meltzer, written for Cygnus), and a commissioning award from Chamber Music America (Akemi Naito’s “Mindscape; Four Poetic Images”. Cygnus is had two works featured on Art of the States, presently, Wuorinen's Sonata for Guitar and Piano--http://artofthestates.org
Recent highlights include a new chamber opera at the Guggenheim Museum, Works and Process series: Jonathan Dawe's “Prometheus”, the premiere performance and recording of Matthew Greenbaum’s “Nameless” (Cygnus, Momenta String Quartet and 3 singers), and performances and master classes at the Festival of New American Music in Sacramento, California. Cygnus has released two recordings of new music on the CRi, and Bridge labels. Upcoming: Mario Davidovsky's latest work, Ladino Songs--February 26 at Bargemusic.
Dedicated to helping the next generation of composers, Cygnus is in residence at Sarah Lawrence College, and at the City University of New York's Graduate Center. In 2005 Cygnus expanded its Sarah Lawrence residency through the Chamber Music America residency program.
