Centenary Year Celebration of the piano music of Alan Hovhaness (1911- 2000) See www.hovhaness.com
Red Hedgehog £12/£9 concessions box officeMark Swartzentruber
Ghazal no.1 op.362 2' 1930
Orbit 7'
Mystic Flute op.22 2' 1937
Pastorale no.1 op.111/1 5' 1952
Jhala op.103 5' 1951
Vanadour op.55/1 2' 1945
Farewell To The Mountains op.55/2 2' 1946
Alessandra Celletti
Visionary Landscapes op. 214
- I (Allegro rubato) - II (Allegretto) - III Evening Bell (Allegro misterioso, molto rubato) - IV (Allegro brillante) - V Midnight Bell (Andante rubato)
Twelve Armenian Folk Songs op. 43
- Based on Armenian mountain village tunes 1943
Three Haikus op.113
- I Andante - II - III Adagio 1965
Vision of a starry night
- From Sonata Ananda op. 303 1977
Mark Swartzentruber was born in Washington DC and studied piano with John Ogdon and Michel Block in the USA before moving to London to study with Maria Curcio, the eminent protege of Artur Schnabel. He made his British debut in 1991 at London's South Bank and has since performed throughout Europe, the USA and the far east. His London appearances have included solo recitals in the South Bank's Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room, St John's Smith Square, and Wigmore Hall -- where he has performed regularly. These programmes reflect his love of the central core of the piano repertoire: Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin and Schumann. His recent festival visits include the Brighton and Bruges internationals. He has been broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, Radio 4 and Classic FM.
In 1994 Sony Classical released Swartzentruber's debut album of late Schubert sonatas to critical acclaim and in 1999 he became the founding artist of Solo Records. Mark Swartzentruber is a highly regarded and committed teacher and has given master classes in Britain, Ireland and Korea. As a testament to his versatility, he has collaborated on recordings, broadcasts and live performances with traditional Chinese and Japanese musicians and was Musical Director of the Shoestring Players Theatre in North Carolina.
He now lives in London.
Alessandra Celletti, has a musical background that stems from a pure classical base developing in a genre which is barely identifiable in some stereotype or pre-existing cliche. Her musical and artistic experiences detour into a very personal and creative musical world, turning the attention primarily to the color of sound and the dynamic balance between the notes. Hard to label and difficult to catalog in orthodox ways, she's able to move transversely from one genre to another with only one inescapable common denominator: the piano. Her kind of music resists any labeling, being extremely flexible, and mixing up apparently incompatible styles: from classical to rock, from pop to minimal, through experimental.
Her debut in 1994 with the album "Les sons et les parfums", dedicated to compositions by Debussy, Ravel and Satie. In 1997 "Journey to Prague" and in 1998 Alessandra released four albums dedicated to the music of Gurdjieff/De Hartmann, Erik Satie, Scott Joplin and Philip Glass. Her interpretation of "The Premier Gnossienne" was chosen by the director Guy Ritchie for the soundtrack of the film "Revolver." In 2006 Alessandra finally devotes an entire album to her own compositions: in "Who will give me wings" she is author, performer and producer. And yet, a year later, she published "The Golden Fly", sixteen original compositions for piano, followed, later in 2008 by "Way Out", for the prestigious British label LTM, 16 tracks where the sound of piano blends with naturalness and balance with the rhythmic power of the drums.
Collaborations have always contributed to the evolution of Alessandra's artistic research; with the ethno-rock group Agricantus, with the Swedish conceptual artist Paulina Wallenberg Olsson and with the saxophonist Nicholas Alesini and the English composer Mark Tranmer (aka GNAC), with whom she recently released the album "The Red Pages". The free movement of sounds has also made possible the meeting between Alessandra Celletti and one of the leading exponents of contemporary experimental electronic music, Hans Joachim Roedelius. The mutual musical interest came out stronger and materialized in "Sustanza di cose sperata" ("Sustanza of things hoped for") an album recorded entirely in the studio in the winter of 2009, published by the north American label Transparency, simultaneously with "Alessandra Celletti plays Baldassare Galuppi" an album dedicated to six sonatas by Baldassare Galuppi, a venetian author of the eighteenth century from whose vast production Alessandra has selected six sonatas originally written for harpsichord. In the concerts Alessandra Celletti's aim is to create a sound path and develop the potential of interaction between different musical languages (classical, avant-garde, pop, improvisation). Curiosity and the drive for researching new expressions lead her to the experiment new paths, even for the eldest repertoire, as for the project "Alessandra Celletti plays Baldassarre Galuppi".
Alessandra Celletti's music is a kaleidoscope in which the various nuances of her art of composition find space, an imaginary visual and audio world, that with tenacity and tireless, swirling enthusiasm, Alessandra Celletti chooses to represent.
A special latest experience is "Sketches of Sagawea", a printed cardboard box containing a book and CD in a limited edition of 200 numbered copies, a work with 5 new songs that Alessandra Celletti has created especially for al-kemilab "an alchemical laboratory of modernity ", the creature of the artist and producer Gianni Maroccolo, who's currently involved in the project "Beautiful" with Howie B.
A new album has been released, once again for Transparency titled: CRAZY GIRL BLUE.
Alan Hovhaness see Dedicated website