Contact:  Reva Cooper, (718) 965-0486; revacooper@earthlink.net

MELODIA WOMEN’S CHOIR PRESENTS “SWEET INTERLUDE”

Saturday and Sunday, November 17 and 18

At St. Peter’s Church (Chelsea), Manhattan

ALL-FEMALE PERFORMANCE OF VIVALDI’S GLORIA IN D MAJOR AND CONTEMPORARY WORKS, INCLUDING WORLD PREMIERE OF BECCA SCHACK’S NEW COMMISSIONED PIECE: IN MY END IS MY BEGINNING, BASED ON T.S. ELIOT

Melodia Women’s Choir, the 32-voice ensemble praised by Margaret Juntwait for its “ringing tones,” will perform Sweet Interlude, baroque and contemporary works, plus the world premiere of Becca Schack’s new commissioned work In My End Is My Beginning, on Saturday November 17 at 8 PM and Sunday November 18 at 4 PM at St. Peter’s Church, 346 West 20th Street, New York City, New York. Melodia will be joined by an all-women instrumental chamber ensemble.

Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door. For the Sunday November 18 performance, Seniors (65+) and Students $15.00.  For information, call (212) 252-4134, or visit Melodia Women's Choir - Buy Tickets

The centerpiece of the program, conducted by Cynthia Powell, will be Antonio Vivaldi’s Gloria in D Major, RV 589.  Many scholars believe that Vivaldi  originally composed his Gloria for the women and girls of the 18th century Ospedale della Pietà (hospital/orphanage), where he was working at the time as composer and music teacher.  Melodia will be giving a rare performance of the Gloria as it would have been performed in Vivaldi’s time.

Becca Schack’s In My End Is My Beginning is a piece in four movements based on excerpts from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, and contemplates the fragility of life.  The composer has written numerous classically-driven pieces for full orchestra and chamber groups. She was a finalist in the 2004 John Lennon Songwriting Contest (Electronic Category) and she received honorable mention in two ASCAP Young Composers competitions, the first one at age eleven. Her compositions have been played by members of the New York Philharmonic and she has performed at the Apollo Theater and Lincoln Center in New York, as well as in Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and London.

The balance of the program will include:

Wir Eilen Mit Schwachen from Cantata 78, by J.S. Bach;

Five Hebrew Love Songs, by Eric Whitacre (poem by Hila Plitmann)

She Weeps Over Rahoon, by Eric Whitacre (poem by James Joyce)

Lift Thine Eyes from “Elijah” by Felix Mendelssohn

Melodia Women’s Choir creates, discovers and performs works for women’s voices, and the repertory of the ensemble includes an eclectic mix of rarely performed classical and contemporary works. It has rediscovered numerous neglected works, presenting U.S. and New York premiere performances of pieces by Peter Warlock, E.J. Moeran, and Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel in celebration of her 200th birthday. Their Spring 2007 concert, Shout Sister Shout! celebrated female composers and ensembles from 12th to 21 centuries, and their November 2006 concert featured the World Premiere of Allison Sniffin’s new commissioned work: Hear Me With Your Eyes, based on love poems of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. 

The group was founded in 2003 by Jennifer Clarke, an arts consultant who has worked with London’s Royal Festival Hall, Royal Court Theatre, and companies in New York including Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana and Dancing in the Streets. The ensemble appeared last year in the Symphony Space Wall to Wall Stravinsky marathon.

Cynthia Powell, Melodia’s Artistic Director and conductor since its inception, also serves as Artistic Director of Stonewall Chorale, has directed the choral program of Sarah Lawrence College and was a guest conductor at the Festival Internacional de Coros in Havana, Cuba.  Equally at home as a pianist and organist, she has toured with Meredith Monk's opera, Atlas and Celebration Service in Europe, at the Spoleto USA Festival, the Walker Arts Center and Lincoln Center 2000 Festival and performed at the Spoleto, USA Festival in a revival of Monk's opera, Quarry.

An accomplished composer, conductor and lecturer, Eric Whitacre’s works have entered the standard choral and symphonic repertories. Most recently, Whitacre has  received acclaim for Paradise Lost, a cutting edge musical combining trance, ambient and techno electronica with choral, cinematic and operatic traditions. Winner of the ASCAP Harold Arlen award, this musical also won Whitacre the prestigious Richard Rodgers Award for most promising musical theater composer. He has received composition awards from the Barlow International Composition Competition, the American Choral Directors Association and the American Composers Forum. The first recording of his music was hailed by The American Record Guide as one of the top ten classical albums of 1997. In 2001, he became the youngest recipient ever awarded the coveted Raymond C. Brock commission by the American Choral Directors Association.

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