VOICE OF AMERICA
Premiere

Monday, March 8, 2010     7:30 PM
Gallery Nord 
 Tuesday, March 9, 2010     7:30 PM
Ruth Taylor Recital Hall
Trinity University
Thursday, March 11, 2010     7:30 PM
Blue Star Contemporary Art Center
Main Gallery

What:                    SOLI Chamber Ensemble concerts
Where:           Monday: Gallery Nord, 2009 NW Military Drive
                Tuesday: Ruth Taylor Recital Hall, Trinity University      Thursday: Blue Star Contemporary Art Center, 116 Blue Star
Admission:          Monday & Thursday: $20 at the door (students half price with ID)
Tuesday: $20 at the door, free for Trinity students, staff and faculty (non-Trinity students half price with ID)
Tickets available online for all concerts at: http://www.solichamberensemble.com/

“ driving, infectious music that brimmed with vitality…” 
    — Andrew Druckenbrod, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about Diego Vega

SOLI Chamber Ensemble, San Antonio’s premier contemporary chamber group, continues their 2009-2010 Season, “Voice of America.”  The second exciting concert, “Premiere” will take place on Monday, March 8 at 7:30pm at Gallery Nord, Tuesday, March 9 at 7:30pm in Ruth Taylor Recital Hall on the campus of Trinity University, and Thursday, March 11 at 7:30pm in the main gallery at Blue Star Contemporary Art Center.  Pre-Concert talks will be free for ticket holders each evening at 7pm with the ensemble and the composers.

The concerts feature the WORLD PREMIERE of Isaiah Putman’s Systemic Secrets and Animal Space Stations that won the first SOLI Student Composition Competition.  Putman, a San Antonio native, is an undergraduate at Trinity University studying composition and piano.  On Systemic Secrets and Animal Space Stations, scored for piano trio, he says, “I dislike when composers give their newest composition a title and hope that listeners will get some kind of meaning out of the relationship between the music and the title, which generally has some kind of story or picture to it.  This generally ruins the music for me.”

SOLI Chamber Ensemble also presents the NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE of Diego Vega’s Divertimento, written in January 2009.  Vega is one of the most active and performed Colombian composers. His music has been performed in some of the most important concert halls in the United States, Europe and Latin America by ensembles such as the Cuarteto Latinoamericano, Eighth Blackbird, Ensemble X, Alea III, the Colombian National Symphony, the Bogotá Philharmonic, the Youth Orchestra of the Americas, the Maîtrise de Notre-Dame de Paris, the Quintet of the Americas, and internationally acclaimed soloists like pianist Stephen Prutsman, clarinetist José Franch-Ballester, cellist Andrés Díaz, and flutist Bradley Garner, among others. Diego has written commissioned works for the Colombian National Symphony, Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, the Cornell Symphony and the Cornell Chorus, and the Salvi Foundation and the Cartagena International Music Festival. Vega has also been awarded the National Prize of Music in Composition in 2004, the Ensemble X composition competition in 2004, Alea III 20th anniversary prize in 2002, one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the Year in 1996 in Colombia, and prestigious scholarships such as Fulbright and the Sage Fellowship at Cornell University.

PREMIERE features two works hand crafted by Timothy Kramer written for SOLI Chamber Ensemble: Cycles and Myths, and Key Fragments.  Kramer's works have been performed widely throughout the United States and Canada – from Carnegie Hall to college campuses - and in Europe, South America, and Asia with performances by major symphony orchestras (Indianapolis, Detroit, Tacoma, San Antonio) chamber groups (North/South Consonance, ONIX Ensemble, Luna Nova, Detroit Chamber Winds) and university ensembles (Michigan State, Arizona State, Indiana University, Florida State).  He has also been a featured composer at the San Antonio International Piano Competition, the Mostly Women Composers Festival in New York City, the Midwest International Clinic in Chicago, and at national conferences of the American Guild of Organists, the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, the Society of Composers, Inc. and the College Music Society.

These concerts are presented as part of Contemporary Art Month in San Antonio, and are supported by Office of Cultural Affairs, City of San Antonio, Copland Fund for Music, Russell Hill Rogers Fund for the Arts.

The program for these concerts will include:
 
Isaiah Putman: Systemic Secrets and Animal Space Stations

Timothy Kramer: Cycles and Myths

Timothy Kramer: Key Fragments

Diego Vega: Divertimento