Eos Orchestra
Image/Sound/Image
Thursday – November 13, 2003
Zankel Hall at Carnegie
57th Street at Seventh Avenue
T: 212.247.7800 – Carnegie Hall Box Office
www.EosOrchestra.org
Thursday – November 13, 2003: 7:30 PM
The Eos Orchestra, with Artistic Director and conductor Jonathan Sheffer, debuts at Zankel Hall at Carnegie on Thursday, November 13 at 7:30 pm, in a program entitled Image/Sound/Image. The evening will explore the interplay of film and music and begins with the world premiere of a film suite created by conductor Jonathan Sheffer. Continuing its association with Philip Glass, Eos will perform the New York premiere of his Concerto for Harpsichord and Orchestra with soloist Paolo Michele Bordignon, and the New York premiere of his suite from The Hours, arranged by Michael Riesman, who will also be performing as piano soloist. A unique presentation of Schuberts Symphony No. 2 will conclude the concert, as video artists Sam Taylor-Wood, Brandon Smith, Leo Villareal, and Janaina Tschape, present visual accompaniment to each of the symphonys four movements.
I have sought here to jump back and forth across the divide of image and sound, said Eos Conductor and composer Jonathan Sheffer. I have always thought the essential difference between film music and concert music is that film music is composed within the constraints of a pre-existing narrative. It therefore becomes interesting to listen to film music as something that is essentially a response to a visual that imposes rigid restraints of gesture and time upon composition.
Philip Glass, one of Americas most celebrated composers, applied his research in India, North Africa, and the Himalayas to his own compositions and, by 1974, had created a large body of work in a distinct idiom. His early music inspired pieces by the Mabou Mines theater company, which he co-founded; he later formed his own performing group, the Philip Glass Ensemble. This period reached its apogee with Einstein on the Beach, a landmark in 20th century music-theater presented at BAMs 1984 Next Wave Festival (and revived in 1992). Glass work since that groundbreaking piece has included opera, film scores, dance music, symphonic work, and string quartets. In 1995, Glass was made a Chevalier de lOrdre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. He earned an Oscar nomination in 1998 for his score to Martin Scorseses film Kundun, and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Score in 1999 for Peter Weirs The Truman Show.
Sam Taylor-Wood graduated from Goldsmiths College in 1990. Her work in photography and film is distinguished by an ironic and subversive use of the media, replete with a latent but explosive energy. In films like Noli Me Tangere (1998), and photographs such as Wrecked (1996) and the Soliloquy series (1998-2000), Taylor-Wood explores the boundaries between the sacred and the profane, fusing religious imagery informed by Renaissance and Baroque painting with the secular, urban and contemporary landscape that she inhabits. Since her solo exhibition at White Cube in 1995, Taylor-Wood has had numerous solo shows including Fundación “La Caixa”, Barcelona, Kunsthalle, Zurich, Louisiana Museum, Humlebæk, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC, Fondazione Prada, Milan and Matthew Marks Gallery, New York. In 1997 she received the Illy Café Prize for Most Promising Young Artist at the Venice Biennale and was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1998. The Hayward Gallery, London hosted a major survey of Taylor-Wood’s work in 2002, followed by an extensive exhibition of her works at the Musée d’Art Contemporaine de Montréal in the same year.
Paolo Michele Bordignon made his recital debut in Florence, Italy, and has since appeared throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, performing as both harpsichordist and organist in repertoire from the Renaissance to newly commissioned works. Mr. Bordignons diverse engagements have ranged from recitals at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the debut show of designer John Gallianos fur collection. Mr. Bordignon recently appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the English Chamber Orchestra, and the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra. He attended Aston Magna Academy and pursued advanced research at the Bach Archiv Leipzig and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Mr. Bordignon is the recipient of awards from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Theodore Presser Foundation.
Jonathan Sheffer, a composer and conductor, continues to win acclaim by melding elements of theater and thematic programming into traditional concert form. As founder and artistic director of the Eos Orchestra, Mr. Sheffer has garnered both national and international recognition. In addition to his many achievements with Eos, he has conducted prominent orchestras in the United States and in Europe, and has returned three times to lead the Seattle Symphony. Recent guest conducting engagements include the New World Symphony, Pacific Music Festival, Orchestra Filharmonica di Roma and the American Ballet Theatre. For two summer seasons, Mr. Sheffer has appeared at the Ravinia Festival with Eos. During the 2002 season, Mr. Sheffer made his conducting debut at the New York City Opera leading John Philip Sousas The Glass Blowers. He is also Artistic Director of Red {an orchestra}, a new chamber orchestra in Cleveland modeled after Eos. During the summer season of 2003, he made his debut at the Spoleto Festival conducting the Juilliard Orchestra and served as a visiting artist/scholar at the American Academy in Rome.
The Eos Orchestra is setting new standards for imaginative musical programming. In its non-traditional concerts, the Orchestra focuses on the rediscovery of important neglected works and composers combining a range of visual and theatrical elements on the concert stage.
