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The New York Viola Society Presents
Garth Knox - Viola Spaces

November 19, 2009, 7:30 p.m.

Church of Christ and St. Stephen's
(West 69th Street between Columbus and Broadway)

Admission: New York Viola Society members: free.
General Admission:$15. Seniors: $10. Students: $5.

Performers: Garth Knox (viola and viola d'amore), Beth Meyers, Amelia Hollander Ames and Kirsten Swanson (Violas), Lauren Radnofsky (Cello)

Program

Hans Werner Henze - Serenade (solo viola)

Akira Nishimura - Whirl Dance (solo viola)

Garth Knox - selections from Viola Spaces:
Beside the Bridge (2 violas)
Ghosts (3 violas)
Harmonic horizon (3 violas)
In between (2 violas)
Rapid repeat (4 violas)

Garth Knox - Malor me bat for viola d'amore and cello

György Ligeti - Hora Lunga from the Viola Sonata (solo viola)

Garth Knox - Viola Spaces with cello:
Nine fingers
One finger
Up, down, sideways, round

Garth Knox - Viola Spaces: Variations on Marin Marais for 4 violas

About the Performers:

Garth Knox was born in Ireland and grew up in Scotland. Being the youngest of four children who all played string instruments, he was encouraged to take up the viola, and he quickly decided to make this his career. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London with Fredrick Riddle, where he won several prizes for viola and for chamber music. Thereafter he played with most of the leading groups in London in a mixture of all repertoires, from baroque to contemporary music.

In 1983 he was invited by Pierre Boulez to become a member of the Ensemble InterContemporain in Paris, where he had the chance to do much solo playing (including concertos directed by Pierre Boulez) and chamber music, touring widely and playing in international festivals.

In 1990 Garth Knox joined the Arditti String Quartet, playing in all the major concert halls of the world, working closely with and giving first performances of pieces by most of today's leading composers including Ligeti, Kurtag, Berio, Xenakis, Lachenmann, Cage, Feldman and Stockhausen (the famous "Helicopter Quartet").

Since leaving the quartet in 1998, Garth Knox has given premieres by Henze (the Viola Sonata is dedicated to him), Ligeti, Schnittke, Ferneyhough, James Dillon, George Benjamin and many others. He also collaborates regularly in theatre and dance projects and has written and performed a one-man show for children.

Improvisation is also an important part of his musical activity, and he has performed with George Lewis, Steve Lacy, Joel Léandre, Dominique Pifarély, Bruno Chevillon, Benat Achiary, Scanner and many others. He appears on the Frode Haltli CD Passing Images. In the past decade he has begun to write his own music, and is much in demand for theatre, dance and film scores as well as concert pieces and instrumental works.

Garth Knox now lives in Paris playing recitals, concertos and chamber music concerts all over Europe, the USA and Japan. His solo CD with works from Ligeti, Dusapin, Berio, Kurtág and others (MO 782082) won the coveted Deutsche Schallplaten Preis in Germany, and his subsequent CD "Spectral Viola" (edition zeitklang) has been highly acclaimed.

Recent projects include exploring the possibilities of the viola d’amore in new music, with and without electronics, resulting in new works for this instrument as well as his recent CD "D'Amore" (ECM New Series 1925) which features old and new music for the viola d'amore. In addition, he has composed "Viola Spaces" (published as Schott ED 20520) made up of eight works exploring techniques such as sul ponticello, glissandi, tremolo, etc. These pieces are based on a simple concept - a particular way of causing the strings to resonate. Although conceived as a series of concert studies, these pieces soon take on a life of their own, creating vast musical (viola) spaces to which you can bring your own stories and pictures. They can be heard on the 2009 CD "Garth Knox - Viola Spaces" (Mode 207).

Beth Meyers is a founding member of the flute/viola/harp trio, "janus", and is committed to broadening the trio repertoire through working with composers and artists alike. janus is set to release it’s debut collobarative album in early 2010. Beth is also a member of the band, QQQ (viola, hardanger fiddle, acoustic guitar and drums) whose album “Unpacking the Trailer” (New Amsterdam Records) was called “georgeous … a bold statement of purpose disguised as an unpretentious lark” (Time Out NY).

As an orchestral violist, Beth has played with groups such as the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Richmond Symphony, Aspen Festival Orchestra, and the Lucerne Festival Academy. She has performed with ensembles including the Theater of a Two-Headed Calf, Alarm Will Sound, So Percussion, Da Capo Chamber Players, Signal, and she currently subs in the pit orchestra of the Broadway musical, “Wicked”.

Beth's study of improvisation has found her at venues such as The Knitting Factory, the Bowery Poetry Club and Brooklyn’s Monkeytown. As a recording artist, she is featured on album’s including Alarm Will Sound’s “Steve Reich – The Desert Music” (Cantaloupe), Clare and The Reasons “The Movie” (Frogstand) and Sufjan Stevens’ “the BQE” (Asthmatic Kitty). Beth has worked with composers and artists including Darol Anger, Harrison Birtwistle, Pierre Boulez, Martin Bresnick Helmut Lachenmann, Gregoire Maret, and Meredith Monk. She can also be heard singing Reich-ian “do’s” with So Percussion in Music for 18 Musicians and Drumming.

Beth is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music (BM and MM) and has studied with George Taylor and John Graham. She currently lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and enjoys teaching pilates and riding her road bike whenever possible.

Graduating from the Eastman School of Music with a Bachelor’s degree in Viola Performance in 2004, violist Kirsten Swanson spent 2005-2007 as Assistant Principal and section violist with the Charlotte Symphony. An extensive orchestral musician since high school, Kirsten has played with the North Carolina Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, West Virginia Symphony, Vermont Symphony, and Aspen Festival and Chamber Orchestras, to name a few. Chamber music being her first love, Kirsten co-founded the Atticus String Quartet, a semi-professional quartet based in Eastern North Carolina. She was a regular on the Honor’s Chamber Recitals during college and was even featured on Eastman’s promotional cd distributed across the world. She has collaborated with such artists as Jon Nakamatsu, Calin Lupano, Garth Knox, and members of the Pacifica and JACK quartets. An avid fan of contemporary music, Kirsten has premiered new works by Eastman and World composers and has worked with many living composers as a member of Ossia and Musica Nova, new music ensembles at Eastman, and HGNM, the new music ensemble at Harvard. Her principal teachers include Joanne Bath, John Graham, and Roger Tapping.

Amelia Hollander Ames is the founder and artistic director of Con Vivo, an organization that produces chamber music concerts in the diverse neighborhoods of Jersey City, NJ. She is also an active freelance violist in the New York City area, and is on the violin and viola faculty of the Third Street Music School Settlement.

From 2004—2007, Amelia was the violist of the award-winning Israel Contemporary String Quartet (ICSQ), with whom she performed throughout Israel and on tours to the U.S., Canada, and Asia. With the ICSQ, Amelia collaborated with composers such as Josef Bardanashvili, Judd Greenstein and Steve Reich, and with luminaries of the Israeli music, dance and theater worlds. The ICSQ was featured several times on Israeli national television and radio. While living in Tel Aviv, Amelia also performed with the Tel Aviv Soloists Ensemble, collaborating with Andras Scholl and Tabea Zimmermann, and was on faculty at Jerusalem’s Hasadna Conservatory.

Amelia has performed at such festivals as IMS Prussia Cove, the Singapore Arts Festival, Kneisel Hall, and Schleswig-Holstein, and has toured Europe and Asia several times with the Verbier Festival Orchestra. In the summers of 2008 and 2009, she traveled with Cultures in Harmony to Mexico, where she conducted the youth orchestra of the Ollin Yolitzli Cultural Center of Mexico City and performed concerts and led workshops for children, elderly communities, and indigenous villages in Michoacan.

Amelia has recorded for the Naïve, Nonesuch and Tzadik labels. An active improviser, she has performed with Anthony Braxton, Joe Maneri, Butch Morris, and Matana Roberts, among others, in a variety of settings. While completing her Masters degree at the New England Conservatory, Amelia spent much of her time studying in the Contemporary Improvisation department there. Her Bachelors in Viola Performance is from the Eastman School of Music. Viola teachers include Martha Katz, George Taylor, and Karen Ritscher. Amelia has played in masterclasses given by Heidi Castleman, Lawrence Dutton, Jesse Levine, Thomas Riebl, Yitzhak Schotten, Karen Tuttle, and Tabea Zimmermann.

Cellist Lauren Radnofsky is gaining notice as a persuasive advocate of contemporary music. She has performed at venues and festivals ranging from Carnegie Hall, the Lucerne Festival, and the Ojai Music Festival to the Bang on a Can Marathon, Joe’s Pub, (Le) Poisson Rouge, Wordless Music Series, and The Stone in New York City. She has worked with a wide range of artists including Pierre Boulez, Steve Reich, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Meredith Monk, Garth Knox, and the Ensemble Intercontemporain.

Lauren Radnofsky made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2006 with the American Composers Orchestra at Zankel Hall, as the soloist in a concerto for cello and live electronics composed by Brad Lubman, with a video installation by Crush + Lovely. In December 2007 she made her debut with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, performing Kaija Saariaho’s Amers for cello and ensemble with electronics. In the Spring of 2010, Radnofsky will perform Lachenmann’s solo cello work Pression at venues including Columbia University’s Miller Theatre and EMPAC. She can be heard on John Zorn’s Tzadik label.

Radnofsky is also cellist and founding co-artistic director of the NYC-based new music ensemble SIGNAL, recently hailed by The New York Times as “one of the most vital groups of its kind.” Under her direction, Signal has embarked on an ambitious array of projects, including a 2010 tour with Helmut Lachenmann, the premiere recording of Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe’s collaborative multi-media work Shelter, a five-evening program of works for medium-large ensemble by Steve Reich, and the co-commission and premiere of a new work for Reich’s 75th-birthday year, 2011.

Ms. Radnofsky holds degrees from the Walnut Hill School and The Eastman School of Music, where her principal teachers were Benjamin Zander, Pamela Frame, and Steven Doane. Lauren also attended the HFK Bremen, Germany, where she studied with Alexander Baillie.