Author: PG

Hailed as “a composer many believe to be the best of his generation” by The New York Times. Mikel Rouse’s works include forty records, seven films, and a trilogy of media operas: Failing Kansas, Dennis Cleveland, and The End of Cinematics. He has received commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, and the Meet the Composer/Reader’s Digest Commissioning Program. Rouse’s compositions have been performed at Lincoln Center, the New York State Theater, and Alice Tully Hall, and throughout the United States and Europe. We chat with him about his work, a new memoir, and upcoming album! Check out more of his work at www.mikelrouse.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:20 — 25.9MB)

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On this episode, local musician, Lars Woodul, and local composer David Wolfson perform experts and discuss their forthcoming multidisciplinary art-song cycle: “Lyricycles.”

Lars Woodul has performed as a soloist in professional opera and concert in the US and abroad, specializing in 20thcentury repertoire. He created roles for premières with New York’s Center for Contemporary Opera, including The Secret Agent and Enemies, A Love Story; Marc Blitzstein’s Sacco and Vanzetti; and Seymour Barab’s License to Marry at the York Theater. On the New York concert stage, he has appeared with the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, Lincoln Center’s Meet the Artist Series, and many others.

David Wolfson holds a PhD in composition from Rutgers University, and has taught at Rutgers University, Montclair State University, Hunter College and Penn State University. He is enjoying an eclectic career, having composed opera, musical theatre, touring children’s musicals, and incidental music for plays; choral music, band music, orchestral music, chamber music, art songs, and music for solo piano; comedy songs, cabaret songs and one memorable score for an amusement park big-headed-costumed-character show. Most recently, his Fortune’s Children was (probably) the first opera to be performed live over Zoom; it and its sequels Changing Fortunes and Family Fortunes make up (almost certainly) the first serialized opera. His CD Seventeen Windows, featuring the solo piano suite “Seventeen Windows” and the Sonata for Cello and Piano, is available from Albany Records, iTunes and Amazon.com.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:06 — 25.7MB)

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Susan Mathisen has worked as an art conservator in both the United States and Europe and as a fundraiser for museums, universities, and other historical agencies. Her extensive museum career started at the Morgan Library while she was still in high school. As a textile conservator specializing in tapestries, she worked at the Smithsonian Institution, the National Gallery of Art, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Villa La Pietra in Florence, Italy. She transitioned to fundraising during her tenure as Administrative Conservator at the Conservation Center at NYU. She has also held development positions at the American Museum in Britain, Meet the Composer, and the American Academy in Rome.

 

In 2007, she founded SAM Fundraising Solutions, a consultancy specializing in fundraising for art conservation and historic preservation and assisting European organizations with their “American Friends” groups. Her clients in the UK include English Heritage, the American Friends of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Museums of Scotland, and in the US the Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation and the Merchant’s House Museum. She has served on several boards, and is currently a member of the Metropolitan Museum’s Textile Conservation Lab Visiting Committee. She is currently working on a book that explores careers in culture.  www.samathisen.com

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:20 — 28.7MB)

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Inwood Art Works On Air welcomes the Executive Director of West Harlem Arts Alliance, Michael Palma Mir. West Harlem Arts Alliance (WHAA) is an independent, 501(c)3 nonprofit arts service organization whose mission is to professionally resource and nurture the artists and arts organizations based in and serving West Harlem and facilitate and develop collaborations through partnerships with local business, educational, civic, and cultural organizations to support the arts in West Harlem. We are going to talk to Michael about WHAA’s mission, upcomin programming, and so much more! www.whaanyc.org

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:59 — 26.5MB)

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Inwood Art Works On Air welcomes Manhattan Borough President, Mark Levine.

We talk to him about his activism, affordable housing for artists, his love for Uptown and so much more! Listen up!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:05 — 29.4MB)

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Kat Modiano is an Award-Winning, Multiple-Genres Flutist, Composer, Educator. She began classical flute training at age nine and received a Bachelor of Music degree with excellence in Classical Flute Performing Arts from Rubin Academy in Jerusalem, where she also studied electronic music composition with Dr. Tzvi Avni and attended jazz courses.

Modiano resided in Copenhagen for over a decade before moving to New York City in 2005 to study composition at New York University with Dr. Dinu Ghezzo. She received her Master of Arts degree in Liberal Studies from Empire State College, in New York City in 2018, specializing in Music for Social Change.

With performances and commissions spanning Europe, Israel, Japan, USA and Canada, Modiano’s work includes acoustic and electroacoustic music in the following idioms: contemporary, classical, contemporary-improvisation, progressive-jazz, tango, electronic-acoustic live soundtracks to silent films, and music for choreography. She also performs therapeutic concerts at nursing homes, hospices, shelters, detention centers, and charity concerts for social causes. As an educator, Modiano teaches flute locally and globally, including teaching interactive music appreciation groups. www.modianomusic.net

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:22 — 26.9MB)

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Carlitos Jatubey and Christoper Amarante are part of the driving forces behind the Mangu

Aqui franchise. Which is a Dominican romantic comedy set in New York City. Mangu 2, which premiered last night, follows the path of Young Robert, and expounds on the struggles and resilience of a Dominican family living in the United States. Carlitos is the writer, and Christoper plays the role of “Young Roberto.” Listen in as we talk about their work in front and behind the camera of Mangu Aqui.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:08 — 16.6MB)

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Welcome to a special concert edition of On Air featuring the Inwood Chamber Players performing a chamber concert featuring lively dance pieces for Woodwind Octect, which include some arrangements by Inwood resident, Gilbert Dejean. We titled the concert “Dances through the Centuries” in tribute to the selections you’ll here from the composers that make up this light and joyful program, which was recorded live on February 25, 2024. 

Program:

Ferenc Farkas – Contrafacta Hungarica

·       Basse Danse

·       Gagliarda

·       Passamezzo

·       Saltarello

·       Interlude

·       Heiduckentanz

 

Gordon Jacob – The Elizabethan Fancies

·       The Carman’s Whistle

·       A Toye

·       Quodling’s Delight

 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Menuet from Symphony No. 39

 

Johannes Brahms – Hungarian Dances 3 and 7

 

Antonin Dvorak – Slavonic Dances 9 and 15

 

Emile Waldteufel – Skaters Waltz

 

Peter Lawrance – Boogie

Musicians:

Michele Farah – Oboe 1

Ellen Gruber – Oboe 2

David Valbuena – Clarinet 1

Jackie Gillette _ Clarinet 2

Karl Kramer – Horn 1

Sara Dellaposta- Horn 2

Patti Wang – Bassoon 1

Gilbert Dejean – Bassoon 2

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:11 — 51.4MB)

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Lou Burno has worked as a professional bass player since the early 1960s, playing with both commercial and jazz groups. He performed with jazz legends John Mehegan, Dill Jones, Zoot Sims, Carmen Leggio, Toots Thielmans, and Bucky Pizzarelli, among others. He attended the Manhattan School of Music where he received both BMus and MMus degrees. After his training at Manhattan, he was a member of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra for four seasons, and then moved to Vienna, Austria to study with Ludwig Streicher at the Vienna Hochschule für Musik.

On returning to NYC in the late 1970s, he became a free-lance player, concentrating on both Broadway and concert work. Since his return he’s been a member of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, American Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Pops. Among the many Broadway shows he’s performed on are “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” “End of the Rainbow,” and “Guys and Dolls.” Lou has also performed on the soundtracks to many major Hollywood films. He worked in Elaine Stritch’s band for eleven years on her one-woman Broadway show, “Elaine Stritch at Liberty,” and her night club appearances at the Carlyle Hotel. He appears in the 2012 documentary film about her, entitled “Shoot Me.” Check out www.thebridgeportjazztrio.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:52 — 26.4MB)

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Regina has lived in a multi-cultural, multi-generational Northern Manhattan Michell-Lama Cooperative since 1960. She grew up there as did her children. In 2008, after retiring as a social worker, she became a volunteer curator at an art gallery in her local spiritual home, bringing a diverse range of artists to share solo and group exhibitions.

 

Her own themed exhibitions began in 2013. At her Rabbi’s suggestion, she brought artists, poets, and dancers together on the themes of surviving war and thriving. After hearing survivors give thanks to those who helped them, she went on to honor community neighbors and others on the themes of being thankful, volunteering, making choices, being a human angel, celebrating a spiritual home, welcoming the stranger, and lives that have been disrupted. Her next themed exhibition, set to open in early February 2024, is named Time to Meet Mother Nature.

 

Regina is also a photographer whose photo Pigeons was chosen by Artists Unite-MTA’s Subway Elevator Project of 2013 for the 190^th St. “A” train station, and her photo Fx Cam – Ft. Tryon Tree was chose by the NMAC postcard project of 2017. She has displayed her collages and assemblage art at Our Savior’s Atonement Lutheran Church’s Creations Projects, and RING Garden’s annual Art in the Garden. For more info: HebrewTabernacle.org

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:08 — 16.6MB)

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