Composers Concordance official site | Composers Concordance Records | Composers Concordance 2016-2017 Season

Staying in rotation for 32 years in NYC is a rare feat. In the case of a new music presenting organization, it requires not only diligence and cognizance of achievements of the past, but also an ethic of keeping one’s ear to the ground for emerging stylistic and technological developments, as well as talented new composers on the scene. Composers Concordance strives to present contemporary music in innovative ways, with an emphasis on thematic programming. It has also created a record label, Composers Concordance Records, with distribution by Naxos. Directors Gene Pritsker and Dan Cooper co-curate the programs, and lead the CompCord Ensemble, Chamber Orchestra, String Orchestra, and Big Band. Associate Directors are Milica Paranosic, Peter Jarvis, Svjetlana Bukvich, and Melissa Grey. Composers Concordance’s overriding vision is to promote contemporary music, composers, and new works as a rightful and respected part of society. Good music, performed and recorded well, pushing the boundaries of sound and composition.

“For the past 30 years, Composers Concordance has been a booster for local composers, through both its concerts across the city and a record label.” -The Wall Street Journal. “Enterprising new music organization” -The New York Times. “The Composers Concordance folks are unpredictable and at times refreshingly irreverent in a reverent sort of way….ingenious fun” -Classical-Modern Music Review. “Edgy…boisterous…demanding our attention” -San Diego Story. “These men and women are creating exciting music with elements of jazz, world music and many experimental techniques blended with equal parts classical tradition and playing techniques.” -Asbury Park Press. “There is considerable evidence to show that Composers Concordance may be one of the most exciting labels in American contemporary music.” -JazzdaGama.

Miranda Cuckson official site

Violinist MIRANDA CUCKSON is a favorite of audiences for her performances of a range of repertoire and styles, from classical works to the most current creations. Having grown up immersed in the standard repertoire, she has in recent years become one of the most sought-after performers of contemporary music. Downbeat magazine recently stated that she “reaffirms her standing as one of the most sensitive and electric interpreters of new music.” As a soloist and chamber musician, she appears in major concert halls, as well as at universities, galleries and informal spaces. She performs at such venues as the Berlin Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall, Library of Congress, Teatro Colón, Miller Theatre, 92nd St Y, Guggenheim Museum, Bargemusic, Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery of Art, BAM, Strathmore, Monday Evening Concerts in LA, Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music series, and the Marlboro, Bard, Lincoln Center, Roaring Hooves, Bridgehampton, Portland, Music Mountain and Bodensee festivals. She made her Carnegie Hall debut playing Piston’s concerto with the American Symphony Orchestra. Miranda is director of Nunc, member of counter)induction, and was an inaugural curator at the cutting-edge venue National Sawdust. She is on the faculty at Mannes School of Music and studied at Juilliard, where she received her doctorate and the Presser Award.

Borislav Strulev official site

Russian-American cellist Borislav Strulev quickly gained a reputation as a musician of exceptional temperament, charismatic personality and virtuoso technique. The great American pianist Byron Janis said of Borislav Strulev: “He plays as if he were to the cello born. His sound, phrasing, coloring and technique already place him in position to follow the Russian tradition of cello playing. Watch this young man, and more importantly, listen to him.” Since his U.S. debut at the Kennedy Center in 1993 Borislav Strulev’s career began to develop rapidly. Audiences on some of the world’s most prestigious stages have been fascinated by a “soloist … with a rich, singing tone” (The New York Times, the music critic wrote). Cello by French master Jean Baptiste Vuillaume, Paris, 1844 c. sounded in Сarnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall and David Geffen Hall, Merkin Hall — Lincoln Center (New York), Kennedy Center (Washington), Orchestra Hall (Chicago), Kravis Center and Van Wezel Hall (Florida), Auditorio de Madrid and Auditorio de Leon (Spain), Auditorio de Torino (Italy), Musikverein Wien Golden Hall (Vienna), Suntory Hall (Tokyo), Berliner Philharmonie (Berlin), Salle Gaveau (Paris), Tchaikovsky Concert Hall (Moscow), Big and Small Hall of The Moscow Conservatory, the Moscow International House of Music, Big Hall of St-Petersburg Academic Philharmonic named after D.D.Shostakovich, Mariinsky Theatre Concert Hall (St-Petersburg).

David Taylor official site

Receiving B.S. and M.S. degrees from Juilliard, DAVID TAYLOR started his playing career as a member of Leopold Stokowski’s American Symphony Orchestra, and by appearing with the New York Philharmonic under Pierre Boulez. Simultaneously, he was a member of the Thad Jones Mel Lewis jazz band, and recorded with groups ranging from Duke Ellington to The Rolling Stones. He has appeared and recorded with major jazz and popular artists including Barbara Streisand, Miles Davis, Quincy Jones, Frank Sinatra, and Aretha Franklin. Mr. Taylor has won the NARAS Most Valuable Player Award for five consecutive years, and has also been awarded the NARAS Most Valuable Player Virtuoso Award, an honor accorded no other bass trombonist. He has been a member of the bands of Gil Evans, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis, George Russell, Jaco Pastorius, Charles Mingus, Michelle Camillo, Bob Mintzer, Dave Matthews, the Words Within Music Trio, and B3+. In 1998 Taylor performed on four GRAMMY nominated CDs: The J.J. Johnson Big Band, Dave Grusin’s West Side Story, the Joe Henderson Big Band, and the Randy Brecker Band. The latter two CDs were chosen for GRAMMYs. David Taylor is also on the faculties of the MSM and Mannes. He plays Edwards bass trombones exclusively.

Steven Beck at nyphil.org

American pianist Steven Beck was born in 1978. He is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where his teachers were Seymour Lipkin, Peter Serkin and Bruce Brubaker.Mr. Beck made his debut with the National Symphony Orchestra, and has toured Japan as soloist with the New York Symphonic Ensemble. Other orchestras with which he has appeared include the New Juilliard Ensemble (under David Robertson), Sequitur, the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, and the Virginia Symphony.Mr. Beck has performed as soloist and chamber musician at the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, Miller Theater, Steinway Hall, Tonic, and Barbes, as well as on the New York Philharmonic Ensembles Series and WNYC; summer appearances have been at the Aspen Music Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, the Greenwich Music Festival, the Woodstock Mozart Festival, and the Wellesley Composers’ Conference. He is an Artist Presenter and regular performer at Bargemusic (where he recently performed all of the Beethoven piano sonatas), performs frequently as a musician with the Mark Morris Dance Group, and has performed with the New York City Ballet. He has worked with Elliott Carter, Henri Dutilleux, George Perle, and Charles Wuorinen, and has appeared with ensembles such as Speculum Musicae, the Da Capo Chamber Players, the Manhattan String Quartet, the Pacifica String Quartet, The Metropolis Ensemble, New York Philomusica, the New York New Music Ensemble, Mosaic, the Lyric Chamber Music Society, the Omega Ensemble, Ensemble Sospeso, the Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble, Counterinduction, the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, the East Coast Composers’ Ensemble, the Fountain Ensemble, Friends and Enemies of New Music, Lost Dog, and Antisocial Music. He is a member of the new music ensemble Future In Reverse (FIRE) as well as the notorious Knights of the Many-Sided Table. His recordings are on the Albany, Bridge, Monument, Mulatta, and Annemarie Classics labels.

Mark Kostabi official site

Artist and Composer Mark Kostabi was born in Los Angeles in 1960 to Estonian immigrants. Raised in Whittier, California, he studied drawing and painting at California State University, Fullerton. Kostabi moved to New York in 1982, and by 1984, emerged as a leading figure in the East Village art scene where he cultivated a provocative media persona by publishing self-interviews reflecting on the commodification of contemporary art. By 1987, his work was widely exhibited in New York galleries as well as prominently throughout the United States, Japan, Germany and Australia. He inspired extensive international press coverage in 1988 when he founded Kostabi World, his Manhattan art studio, which employs numerous painting assistants and idea people. Beginning in the early 1990s Kostabi’s work has been widely exhibited throughout Italy. Kostabi established a second home in Rome in 1996. Dividing his time between Rome and New York enabled him to dramatically enhance his presence in the Italian art scene.

Kostabi produces a weekly cable TV show, The Kostabi Show, where noted art critics and celebrities compete to title his paintings for cash awards.

From 2000 to 2010 he wrote an advice column for artists, Ask Mark Kostabi, for Artnet.com.

Kostabi has designed album covers for Guns ‘N’ Roses (Use Your Illusion) and The Ramones (Adios Amigos), Jimmy Scott (Holding Back The Years), Seether (Holding Onto strings Better Left to Fray) and numerous products including a Swatch watch, a Bloomingdales bag, Alessi vases, Rosenthal espresso cups, and a Giro d’Italia pink jersey.

Kostabi is also known for his many collaborations with other artists including Enzo Cucchi, Arman, Howard Finster, Tadanori Yokoo, Enrico Baj and Paul Kostabi. Kostabi performs concerts internationally both as a soloist and with other musicians including Ornette Coleman, Jerry Marotta, Tony Levin, Tony Esposito, and Paul Kostabi. His compostions have also been performed independently by Rein Rannap, Kristjan Jarvi, Maano Manni, Delilah Gutman and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra. His CDs include I Did It Steinway, Songs For Sumera and New Alliance.

Kostabi is the subject of numerous documentary films, most notably Bottom Line: The Kostabi Phenomenon directed by Peter Bach, Con Artist directed by Michael Sladek, and Jedermann directed by Paul Tschinkel. Kostabi has a prominent role in the Emmy award winning documentary The Art of Failure: Chuck Connelly Not for Sale directed by Jeff Stimmel. “Full Circle: The Kostabi Story”, directed by Sabrina Digregorio for Atena Films, has premiered at Anthology Films Archives in New York and and at Domus Talenti in Rome. “My Italy” directed by Bruno Colella, currently in production in Italy, is a docu-comedy starring Kostabi, H.H. Lim, Krzysztof Bednarski and Thorsten Kirchhoff: 4 non-Italian artists who chose to live in Italy. The famous art critic Achille Bonito Oliva has a prominent role as narrator/commentator in the film.

Retrospective exhibitions of Kostabi’s paintings have been held at the Mitsukoshi Museum in Tokyo (1992) and the Art Museum of Estonia in Tallinn (1998). The famous Italian art historian and curator, Vittorio Sgarbi, curated a vast exhibition of 150 Kostabi paintings at the Chiostro del Bramante in Rome in 2006. Kostabi’s work is in over 50 permanent museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the National Gallery in Washington D.C., the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome and the Groninger Museum in Holland.

His permanent public works include a mural in Palazzo dei Priori in Arezzo, Italy, a large bronze sculpture in the central square of San Benedetto del Tronto, Italy, and a bronze portrait of Pope John Paul II in Velletri, Italy.

Kostabi has been profiled on 60 Minutes, Eye to Eye with Connie Chung, A Current Affair, Nightwatch (with Charlie Rose), The Oprah Winfrey Show, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, Nonsolomoda, West 57th, CNN, MTV and numerous television programs throughout Europe and Japan. In print he has been featured in The New York Times, People, Vogue, Architectural Digest, The Face, Playboy, Forbes, New York Magazine, The Sunday Telegraph, Domus, Corriera Della Sera, Panorama, Artforum, Art in America, ARTnews, Flash Art, Arte, Arte In and Tema Celeste. The many books published about Kostabi include Sadness Because the Video Rental Store Was Closed, Kostabi: The Early Years, Conversations with Kostabi, The Rhythm of Inspiration, Mark Kostabi and the East Village Scene 1983-1987 and Mark Kostabi in the 21st Century.

Arkady Leytush official site

One of World’s most gifted conductors, ARKADY LEYTUSH has directed orchestras in Europe and the United States to great acclaim. Critics as have described him as “a conductor in the Grand Russian Tradition” and his dynamic interpretations have made him an audience favorite. Leytush’s artistry is known throughout the former Soviet Union, but it was not until 1994 that he gained recognition in the United States when he, on a week’s notice, made a stunning debut with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, replacing Yuri Temirkanov. Since 1980 Leytush has worked with a wide variety of Orchestras including Novosibirsk Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre (Russia), New World Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, New York Chamber Symphony, Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquestra Filarmonic De Buenos Aires, Orquestra Nacional Do Porto, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Academic Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, The National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, The National Symphony Orchestra of Odessa, Crimea Academic Philharmonic Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Nizhny Novgorod Academic Symphony Orchestra, The Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon Le Zion, Kremlin Orchestra, Plovdiv Philharmonic, Varna Philharmonic, Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, The National Latvian Symphony Orchestra, among others. Arkady Leytush made numerous Transcriptions and Orchestrations of music by composers such as J.S. Bach, Buxtehude, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Czerny, Chopin, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, Liadov, Cui, Glazunov, Dargomyzhsky, Artsibushev, Sokolov, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Shostakovich, Mayer, Poulenc, Albeniz, Guastavino, Sisler, Milhaud, Piazzolla, Jobim, Ellington, among others.