|
 White Plains, NY - Downtown Music presented 34 Noonday Getaway concerts during its 2007-2008 season and featured a wide variety of artists in a variety of artistic offerings.
The final four concerts in May are equally diverse and feature returning artists, retaining continuity in the concert series’ artistic mission. Featured artists are pianists Larry Weng on May 7, Elizaveta Kopelman and Anna Gourfinkel on May 14, mezzo soprano Annette Spann Lewis on May 21 and Mariachi Real de Mexico on May 28th. The free half-hour programs take place Wednesdays at 12:10 pm from September through May at Grace Church, downtown White Plains.
Pianists have been a large part of Noonday artistic offerings, and the May concerts will open with two programs featuring three pianists. The first, on Wednesday, May 7, Larry Weng, major prize winner of the 2006 New York Piano Competition, returns to Downtown Music with a program of two Nocturnes, Op. 62, by Chopin and four Intermezzi and Rhapsody of Op. 119 by Brahms. Weng was featured in the opening orchestral concert of Downtown Music’s 2006-2007 season as a featured soloist with the Downtown Sinfonietta. Originally from China, he began his piano studies at the age of five at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School. Recently, Weng performed Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with the Fort Worth Symphony and solo recitals in New York City, Washington D.C. and Buffalo. He has been hailed as a “fine musician with a bright future” by Paul Badura-Skoda. 20 year-old Weng is currently in his last year at Columbia University, completing his Bachelors in Economics and is also a student at the Juilliard School, where he is a student of Jerome Lowenthal. Larry Weng appears under the auspices of The Stecher and Horowitz Foundation, organizers of The New York Piano Competition.
During the 2006-2007 concert season, duo-pianists Elizaveta Kopelman and Anna Gourfinkel introduced their Noonday audience to a breath-taking program of music for piano four-hands by Schubert and Tchaikovsky. They return for another program on May 14, this one entitled “Legends & Fairy Tales for Piano Duet” – a program that features the music of Dvořák, Ravel, Bizet and Tchaikovsky. Kopelman has appeared in recital in London’s Wigmore Hall and Barbicon Centre and Weill Recital Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York. She has appeared as soloists with the London Chamber Orchestra and London Philharmonic. Anna Gourfinkel is on the prestigious piano faculty of Eastman School of Music. A graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, she has performed throughout Europe and North America with the Borodin Quartet and has recorded for the Melodya label. Gourfinkel is also a noted accompanist for young Russian musicians in international competitions. Residents of Westchester County, Anna Gourfinkel and Elizaveta Kopelman are a mother and daughter artistic team. They perform together often in collaboration with Anna’s husband and Liza’s father, violinist Mikhail Kopelman.
New Rochelle native and member of the distinguished Metropolitan Opera Chorus, mezzo soprano, Annette Spann Lewis, returns on May 21 and offers another program into the world of song and aria. She offers a program of operatic arias, folk songs and spirituals. As a member of the Met chorus, she performs regularly in supporting roles along side the world’s leading operatic artists. A graduate of Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Lewis received a Bachelor of Arts in Voice and Masters in Music Education. Lewis is a former member of the board of directors for the Westchester Philharmonic and was recently featured in concert by Mid-America Productions.
Founded in 1991 in New York City, Mariachi Real de Mexico returns on May 28 to close the Noonday Getaway Concerts season with an outdoor program of music from Mexico and the Caribbean. This six-member group has performed on the David Letterman Show on CBS, and “The Spirit of Mexico” on WNET 13, and as featured artists in The Latin Grammys. They have performed at Madison Square Garden, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Rockefeller Center and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. The group is directed by Ramón Ponce, who founded the Mariachi Academy of New York, the first mariachi education program of its kind in North America.
Noonday Getaway Concerts are presented free to the Westchester community and are supported by the generous contributions of its audience and the Friends of Downtown Music. The series returns in mid-September with a new slate of programs and artists. Announcements will be made mid-summer. Stay tuned!
 |
