SOLI Chamber Ensemble

SOLI is joining in national celebration of chamber music

SOLI Chamber Ensemble, winner of 2013 CMA/ASCAP Adventurous Programming Award, concludes its 2012-2013 Season, YEAR OF THE NEW, with a unique program entitled POWER OF THE STORY. The program will be a part National Chamber Music Month, a nationwide initiative to draw attention to small ensemble performance.

SOLI’s program is one of hundreds taking place across the country this May as part of this second annual series. Last year, participants in all fifty states took part in events showcasing ensemble music of all styles, including classical, jazz, world, and early music, as well as contemporary and experimental works informed by emerging technologies and innovative performance techniques.

Chamber Music America, the national network of ensemble music professionals and the organization behind National Chamber Music Month, has encouraged ensembles and presenters, both well-known and emerging, to utilize this month to increase public awareness of chamber music performance and to attract new audiences within their own communities.

Renowned baritone Timothy Jones and internationally recognized flutist Angela Jones-Reus will join SOLI for their final program of the 2012-2013 season, Power of the Story. Amichai Songs by Daniel Asia (The World Premiere and SOLI’s sixth commission of the season) will be the centerpiece of the program that celebrates the voice and the story. Originally written for Asia’s newly recorded Symphony No. 5, these songs are inspired by the poems of famous Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai.

The program will continue with Frederic Rzewski’s Coming Together. With its powerful text taken from a letter written by Sam Melville, an inmate killed in the 1971 Attica prison riots Coming Together is a superb example of ‘activist’ music, a composition motivated by social issues (in this case the situation 40 years ago at Attica penitentiary in New York, and the ongoing impact of incarceration as a means of implementing criminal justice in societies).

Our third and final “Women in Music” featured work is Judith Shatin’s Werther, inspired by Goethe’s novel, “Sorrow of Young Werther.” The Opera San Antonio’s Artistic Director Tobias Picker’s setting of I am in Need of Music by poet Elizabeth Bishop, Jeffery Mumford’s further evolving, and the World Premiere performance of Daniel Asia's solo clarinet work The Jane Set will round out the program.

Chamber Music America defines chamber music as works for small ensembles of 2–10 members, playing one to a part and generally performing without a conductor.

“Chamber music is a vibrant and diverse field,” said Margaret M. Lioi, CEO of Chamber Music America. “It includes contemporary music, jazz, world music, Western classical, and styles that draw from all of these. National Chamber Music Month will showcase the richness of chamber music through performances in urban and rural areas across the country, and we are thrilled that so many presenters and ensembles are participating.”

For information on other performances taking place across the country during National Chamber Music Month, visit www.chamber-music.org.