Pet Projects/Programs

The Ladies Who Lunch

Beginning and ending at “lunch,” this recital serves up solo piano pieces written about, by and for women. With a smorgasbord of styles that today’s music comes in, the all-American program features works of Bill Evans (trans. Distler), Meredith Monk, Eric Moe and Stephen Sondheim, as well as premieres by Ted Wiprud (Pacita’s Lunch), Daniel Rothman (The Nature Poem) and Jorge Martín composed with the pianist in mind.

For the icing on the cake (or the clotted cream on the scone), Golan is joined by “lightning sketch artist” Freedman, who cooks up a series of drawings in real time to accompany Martín’s Piano Fantasy based on a Saki tale of bestial high tea.

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Innocence Lost

Innocence Lost, a program for voice and piano, has ten of today’s most compelling American composers from a variety of backgrounds writing songs in response to two visionary cycles from the cusp of the last century. Inspired by the Berg Seven Early Songs and Debussy’s Chansons de Bilitis are scores by Tom Cipullo, Sebastian Currier, David Del Tredici, Lee Hyla, Joe Kerr, Jorge Martin, Eric Moe, Eleanor Sandresky, Anna Weesner and Daniel Rothman. For more information about the project, how it was conceived, the artists who developed it, and ways it can be adapted for educational purposes, click here

The CD of Innocence Lost is in the Discography with sound samples!

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An American Spectrum for Clarinet/Piano

Clarinetist Eric Mandat is well known as a composer as well as a specialist in extended technique for winds. He and Jeanne first worked together in graduate school. Now as long-standing advocates of today’s composers, they have developed a series of duo-programs devoted to American music that showcase the versatile ways that composers utilize the wonders of these instruments and the range of expression intrinsic to each. Programs have included such composers as Currier and Cowell and been brought to universities from coast to coast, with each visiting artist appearance including a teaching component relevant to the host presenter.

Soundclips of the Duo’s offerings:

Jorge Martín: Nocturne No. 1

Sebastian Currier: Intimations excerpt

Copland: Sonata excerpt

Eric’s own compositions for solo clarinet often use multiphonics, microtonality, and on rare occasions air-clarinet technique, as demonstrated in the photo above.

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Collections & Recollections

An homage to the pianist’s father, this diverse program weaves together music from Russia to America, from romantic to contemporary, from art song to Yiddish Theatre and Broadway. Composers include Tom Cipullo, Clarke, Ives, Tchaikowsky, Rachmaninoff, Berg, Abraham Ellstein (arranged by Ms. Golan) and Gershwin. Above is the view from the pianist’s childhood bedroom window.

Hear a few soundclips from the program:

Rebecca Clark: The Seal Man

Charles Ives: Memories

Ellstein: Abi Gesunt (If you’ve got your health)

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An Evening with Leo Ornstein

Features works that span the stylistic range and duration of Ornstein’s 80-year compositional career. In addition to his stunning Sonata for Two Pianos, Jeanne Golan and Christopher Oldfather each perform solo works.

“So organic, so powerful and in many places so beautiful…this concerto should be heard soon again.” So wrote Olin Downes in the New York Times in 1925 upon hearing Leo Ornstein premiere his Piano Concerto. Ornstein arranged this piece to be performed as the Sonata for Two Pianos. Rarely performed since, it is the centerpiece of this program devoted to Ornstein’s life and work.

See American Handstands for a recording of the Sonata for Two Pianos!

For more information on Leo Ornstein who died recently at the age of 109(!) and access to all of his scores, visit www.poonhill.com, a site created through a labor of love by the composer’s son, Severo.

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A Musical Block Party!

A youth concert featuring a smorgasbord of 20th century composers and styles from the neighborhood and beyond.

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