ASPECT Foundation for Music & Arts Announces
Additional Concert Date
Newscaster and Author Stephen Johnson Returns As Speaker
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 24, 2017
New York, NY – Due to popular demand, Aspect Foundation for Music & Arts’s founder Irina Knaster announced today that a fifth concert has been added to close the foundation’s inaugural season in North America. Described by Epoch Times as “a very welcome addition to the chamber music landscape of New York,” the season opened with a brilliantly curated series of four concerts, bringing world-class artists and acclaimed musical commentators together to enrich the performance experience for New York audiences, as it had done previously in London for five successful seasons. The Foundation has made its home the elegant Italian Academy at Columbia University, creating an ambiance of warmth, intimacy, and hospitality for the concerts, which are programmed thematically. Previous concerts included Bach and Mozart: A Lasting Legacy, Romantic Vienna, Czech Romantics, and Clara Schumann: Artist and Muse. Speakers, or leaders of the “Illustrated Talks,” have included Yale University’s Paul Berry, Columbia University musicologist Dr. Nicholas Chong, and BBC Newscaster and writer Stephen Johnson. This is a new concept for a New York concert series.
On Wednesday, May 17, Aspect Foundation presents Winds of Change: Vienna, St. Petersburg, Paris. The program features three of the most revered works in the wind repertoire. Mozart, who once called his Quintet for Piano and Winds “the best thing I have written in my life” in a letter to his father, utilizes elements of quintessential Viennese Classicism with his signature operatic lyricism and phrasing. Among St. Petersburg’s Mighty Handful, Rimsky-Korsakov became fascinated with writing for winds and brass while Inspector of Naval Bands in the Imperial Russian Navy. The performance concludes with the wind Sextet by Poulenc, of the Parisian Les Six composers in the 1920s. Poulenc’s musical inclinations toward the flamboyant, witty, and poetic come to light in the Sextet. Stephen Johnson returns for his second Illustrated Talk of the season to contextualize these works and their individual histories.
Wednesday, May 17, 2017 at 7:30 PM
The Italian Academy – Columbia University
1161 Amsterdam Ave.
Alexander Kobrin, piano
Joseph Anderer, horn
Alexander Bedenko, clarinet
William Short, bassoon
Anna Urrey, flute
Katherine Needleman, oboe
Illustrated Talk by Stephen Johnson
MOZART Quintet in E-flat major for piano and winds, K. 452
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Quintet in B-flat major
POULENC Sextet FP 100
About ASPECT Foundation
ASPECT Foundation for Music and Arts was established to introduce and promote a novel concert format – “Music in Context.” We aim to transform a traditionally auditory experience into a fusion of various art forms. Our objective is two-fold – to support and promote the artists, and to enlighten and inspire the audience through an intellectually charged collaboration between musicians and speakers.
Our goal is to create a thought-provoking amalgam of performance, lecture, and discussion; and to present not only a recital, but an inspiring synthesis of music, art history and social culture. Ultimately we strive to forge a connection between the artist, the music and the audience. It’s more than a concert…
ASPECT Foundation website
