Bloomingdale School of Music continues its 2022/23 Faculty Concert Series at the David Greer Concert Hall, 323 West 108th Street, NYC. The upcoming season will feature rarely heard classical and jazz music for various instruments and voices performed by Bloomingdale’s outstanding faculty and guest artists. Concerts will be presented in Bloomingdale’s state-of-the-art concert hall and will spotlight music from around the world including Italy, Puerto Rico, Hungary, Russia, and our very own New York City. The series continues with New Beginnings on Friday, March 3, 2023 at 7pm and Celebrating Roberto Sierra on Friday, March 17, 2023 at 7pm, presented both in-person and on livestream. 

For over 20 years Bloomingdale has presented its faculty, as well as guest artists, in concerts including classical music, jazz, and world music. Bloomingdale’s Free Faculty Concert Series has established itself a vital part of the musical life of the Upper West Side, taking place most Fridays at 7pm in Bloomingdale’s David Greer Concert Hall. These events are free and open to the public. Visit bsmny.org/events/ for more information and to RSVP.

New Beginnings

Friday, March 3, 2023 at 7pm

Tickets available here

The music in this concert explores, through imagery and metaphor, the way universal themes of nature, inventiveness and past experience of all kinds create new beginnings.

Program

“Les Confidences d’un Jouer de clarinette Opus 141” by Charles Koechlin

No. 4 L’appel du Matin

No. 7 Réveil

No. Sonnerie de Waldhorn à la fète d’Eckerswir avant le bal

“The Great Train Race” by Ian Clarke

“Scènes de la foret” by Mel (Melanie) Bonis

3. Invocation

4. Pour Artêmis

“Sheltering Suite” by Wendy Griffiths

My Corona

Jumping Bean

Climbing the Walls

Dream Song

Lamentation

Dance Messianique

“2-Bit Contraptions” by Jan Bach

“Being a Collection of Diverse and Sundry Musical Amusements for a contaminated Rainy Afternoon”

Second Lieutenant

Calliope

Gramaphone

Pinwheel

Musicians

Lisa Pike, horn

Karen Demsey, flute

Elizabeth Rodgers, piano

Celebrating Roberto Sierra

Friday, March 17, 2023 at 7pm

Tickets available here

Roberto Sierra (b.1953) was born in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico and is one of the most important composers of our time. This program features recent works for solo piano that explore the colorful and virtuosic range of the instrument.

Program

“Piano Sonata No. 9” (2021)

    Animado

    Expresivo

    Preciso

“Album for the Young” (2021)

    Danza folklórica

    Gotas de lluvia

    Noche estrellada

    Danza latina

    Canción

    Toccatina

    Tormenta

    Otoño

    Estudio

    Nieve

    En el lago

    Meditación

    El perro persiguiendo su cola

    Claro de luna

    Postludio

“Piano Sonata No. 7” (2021) 

(for the left hand alone)

I

II

III

IV

Musicians

Marc Peloquin, piano

Additional upcoming concerts in the series include:

The New Latin American Guitar

Friday, March 31, 2023 at 7pm

This program celebrates the diversity of Latin American guitar music from the 20th and 21st centuries, exploring connections composers have made with the rich variety of cultures and musical styles.

Music for Piano & Guitar: Bach, Carulli, and Giuliani

Friday, April 21, 2023 at 7pm

This program will feature Trio Sonatas by J.S. Bach arranged for piano and guitar by José Maldonado as well as early 19th century works by Mauro Giuliani and Ferdinando Carulli.

Kaleidoscope of Moods

Friday, May 5, 2023 at 7pm

Violist Aundrey Mitchell joins faculty pianist Judith Olson in a program of evocative character pieces by Robert Schumann, Rebecca Clarke, Nino Rota, and Astor Piazzolla.

Into the Future! A Modern Jazz Odyssey of Woodwind Music

Friday, May 19, 2023 at 7pm

Saxophonist Daniel Bennett presents a concert of Modern Jazz for all ages including music by Daniel Bennett, Lennon and McCartney, Gustav Holst, Harold Arlen and Joni Mitchell.

The Piano Music of Bartok

Thursday, June 2, 2023 at 7pm

Judith Olson and her students perform solos and duets by 20th century Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, whose 400-plus works for piano include two landmark educational collections: For Children and Mikrokosmos. The centerpiece of the concert, Musiques nocturnes, is an impressionistic and magical evocation of a Hungarian landscape at night.

Masks are required for everyone when entering performance and event spaces in the BSM building.

About the Artists

Karen Demsey has premiered numerous works nationally and internationally. She has performed as a soloist throughout China, and on concert tours of Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Croatia, Slovenia, and Turkey. Her solo album, “Recollections of the Inland Sea,” internationally distributed on Capstone Records, features music for flute and marimba. She is Co-Director of the Artists International Award-winning chamber group, UpTown Flutes, and is featured on their four albums including the most recent, Streaming Dreams. She is Professor Emerita of Music at William Paterson University of New Jersey.

Lisa Pike holds degrees from the Manhattan School of Music (B.M.), The Juilliard School (M.M.) and SUNY Stony Brook (D.M.A.). She performs with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, NYC Ballet, ABT, Long Island Philharmonic, NY Pops, Radio City Music Hall Orchestra, Center for Contemporary Opera, Little Orchestra Society, Brooklyn Philharmonic, American Ballet Theater, North/South Consonance, New Jersey Symphony and original instrument groups American Classical Orchestra, Rebel, New York Collegium and Concert Royal. She was a featured performer at the 1999 International Horn Society Symposium. Her festival appearances include Spoleto USA/Italy (soloist), Connecticut Early Music Festival (soloist), Caramoor, Vermont Mozart Festival (soloist), Bard Festival and Yale at Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. Lisa is the solo horn on the Grammy Award-winning recording of Samuel Barber’s opera Antony and Cleopatra (New World Records) and served as solo horn on Orchestra New England’s Grammy nominated recording of The Orchestral Music of Charles Ives. She has recorded for RCA Victor, Koch International, Music Minus One, Musical Heritage, CBS and numerous television commercials and movie soundtracks. She has worked with popular artists Sir Elton John, Billy Joel, Andrea Bocelli, Brian Wilson, The Moody Blues, Tony Bennett, Rod Stewart, Mannheim Steamroller, Ray Charles, Patti Lupone, The Three Irish Tenors, and Chita Rivera. Lisa served as orchestra contractor and performer on Barry Manilow’s CD Two Nights Live. She toured extensively as principal horn with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet Company across Canada and the United States, Andrea Bocelli, the Canadian company of Phantom of the Opera to Alaska and Hawaii, also the Canada-wide tour of the Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber and has appeared in over thirty Broadway shows in NYC. Currently she teaches at William Paterson University, Kean University, Teachers College Columbia University, Felician College, Bloomingdale School of Music and is a teaching artist/ consultant at the Fiorello LaGuardia High School of Music and Art & the Performing Arts and Frank Sinatra School of the Arts. Dr. Pike who possesses New York State certification for Music (k-12) also serves as a New York State adjudicator for the NYSSMA Music Festival.

Collaborative pianist Elizabeth Rodgers holds degrees from Manhattan School of Music. She is in demand as a recitalist with singers and instrumentalists, including the distinguished soprano Judith Raskin, and in chamber music, orchestral, choral, and operatic repertoire. She performs regularly with Downtown Music, Music Under Construction, American Chamber Opera, New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players, American Landmark Festivals, and Libero Canto. Teaching experience includes Manhattan School of Music, Bard and William Paterson. A strong advocate of performing the works of living composers, she has premiered music by Miriam Gideon, Marc-Antonio Consoli, Wendy Griffiths, Tom Addison, Carolyn Lord, Joelle Wallach, Robert Dennis, Justine Chen, and Melissa Shifflet. She has recorded with Opus 1, Grenadilla, CRI, Musical Heritage, New World, and Albany.

A New York Times critic recently declared that Marc Peloquin’s “energetic approach yielded a performance that was refreshing and alive. Individual lines rang out with remarkable definition and clarity.” The pianist, called an “innovative ivory tickler’ by Time Out New York, has centered his career on the music of living composers. He has collaborated with some of the most important composers of our time, many of whom have written works written for him including David Del Tredici, Ned Rorem, and Tobias Picker. Marc has recorded on the Albany, C.R.I., Naxos and Urtext labels.

His passion and advocacy of new music have taken him to a wide range of venues including The Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, Miller Theatre at Columbia University, Merkin Concert Hall and Bargemusic in New York City. He has also performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C, The Chicago Cultural Center, The Gardner Museum in Boston as well as the American Academy in Rome, the Darmstadt International Festival in Germany and the Cultural Center of Roubaix, France.

He has had a longstanding piano partnership with fellow BSM piano faculty member Roberto Hidalgo as the Split Second Piano Duo. Hailed by The New York Times as “gifted, musically curious pianists, who also have active solo careers … the performances were first rate.” They have given performances in the United States and in Mexico including at the Palacio des Belleas Artes and in Vera Cruz with the Xalapa Symphony. Since 2014 they have presented an annual concert of the August to April Season at the Round Top Festival Institute in Texas.

Marc has been a longstanding member of the BSM piano faculty and is also the curator of the faculty concert series. He has served on the faculties of The New School University, The Brooklyn Conservatory and the 92 St Y. He has given masterclasses at such institutions as the National Conservatory of Music, Mexico City, Bennington College and Phillips Academy Andover and has given lecture recitals at Boston University School of Music, Universidad EAFIT (Medellin, Colombia), Mannes College New School for Music, Sarah Lawrence College and the University of California, Berkeley, CA.

Founded in 1964, Bloomingdale School of Music is dedicated to the belief that music changes lives and everyone should have access to high-quality music education regardless of economic status, race, religion, ability level, or gender. Bloomingdale is a music-driven community center where all are welcome to join and learn about music from top faculty. We are dedicated to our mission – to make music education accessible to all who want to learn – and remain focused on supporting this mission through our values. www.bsmny.org