Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra announces its 2019/20 season

"MUSIC WE’VE CREATED, MUSIC THAT HAS SHAPED US, MUSIC WOVEN THROUGH WASHINGTON HEIGHTS’ TAPESTRY OF CULTURES"

Head uptown for the Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra's 2019/20 season of symphonies, concertos, chamber music, and more. Highlights include:

Music from the Caribbean - opening with Puerto Rican composer Angélica Negrón’s What Keeps Me Awake, WHCO's season includes Valerie Coleman's Afro-Cuban Concerto, as well as music by Dominican composers José Dolores Cerón and Bienvenido Bustamante.

Guest artists - joining WHCO this season are acclaimed guest artists Nilko Andreas (guitar), Amos Fayette (violin), Abigail Fischer (soprano), and Patrick Bartley (alto saxophone).

Great works of the past - in addition to celebrating Beethoven's 250th anniversary with his 5th Symphony, this season includes landmarks of orchestral repertoire from Brahms' Symphony No. 4 to Dvořák's Symphony No. 8 .

Composers from Washington Heights - 'Buy Local'? How about 'Play Local'? Featuring works by Aaron Jay Kernis, Jessica Meyer, Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, Peter Gordon, and more, WHCO's 2019/20 season features many works by composers from Washington Heights.

Tickets to all shows: Adults $5 in advance / $7 at the door | Students ages 17 and under FREE | Young listeners welcome

Based in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, the Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra is a professional ensemble that presents affordable and accessible concerts to the community. 2019/20 marks the orchestra’s fifth season. Comprised of musicians from Upper Manhattan, the orchestra presents engaging concerts with a diverse repertoire; including favorite classical works, genre bending crossover pieces, and works by living composers. The WHCO was founded in 2015 by conductor and music director Chris Whittaker. The WHCO strives to engage the people of Washington Heights and neighboring communities through exemplary musical performances and innovative educational programming. The WHCO is a non-profit performing arts organization.

WHCO's 2019/20 Season

What Keeps Me Awake

October 18, 7:00 pm @ George Washington Educational Campus - (549 Audubon Ave.)

October 19, 3:00 pm @ Fort Washington Collegiate Church (729 W. 181st St.)

The Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra kicks-off its fifth season with Angélica Negrón’s probing and wandering soundscape What Keeps Me Awake, Brahms’ simmering 4th symphony, and Villa-Lobos' Guitar Concerto with soloist Nilko Andreas. Friends of WHCO are invited after Saturday's concert for a post-concert reception featuring a neighborhood coffee tasting.

Program

Angélica Negrón: What Keeps Me Awake

Heitor Villa-Lobos: Guitar Concerto, featuring soloist Nilko Andreas

Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98

Arroz con Schnitzel

November 15, 8:00 pm @ Our Savior’s Atonement Lutheran (178 Bennett Ave.)

November 16, 3:00 pm @ Fort Washington Collegiate Church (729 W. 181st St.)

Enjoy a distinctive musical dinner as tasty and diverse as schnitzel and rice! The concert features Washington Heights-native Valerie Coleman’s “Afro-Cuban Concerto,” Mozart’s timeless Clarinet Quintet, featuring WHCO principal strings and clarinetist John Hong, and Arnold Schoenberg’s revolutionary Chamber Symphony that launched his new expressionist style and sparked the creation of the 2nd Viennese school of composition. Friends of WHCO are invited after Saturday's concert for a post-concert reception featuring local food and a group salsa dance lesson.

Program

Valerie Coleman: Afro-Cuban Concerto

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Clarinet Quintet in A, K. 581

Arnold Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony No. 1 in E major, Op. 9

Melodies Pour Out of Me

February 7, 2020 7:00 pm @ George Washington Educational Campus - (549 Audubon Ave.)

February 8, 3:00 pm @ Fort Washington Collegiate Church (729 W. 181st St.)

It’s the summer of 1889, and Antonín Dvořák is on fire. He’s just about to begin composing what would become his eighth symphony, and he writes to his friend with unabashed confidence: “It’s going unexpectedly easily… the melodies simply pour out of me!” This concert features melodically bold music from three centuries. Cerón’s A la caída de la tarde (At the End of the Afternoon) is a beautifully nostalgic and flowing soundscape from the Dominican classical tradition. Music Director Chris Whittaker presents his new violin concerto for former WHCO-concertmaster Amos Fayette. The concert concludes with Dvořák's sublime and melodious 8th Symphony. Friends of WHCO are invited after Saturday's concert for a post-concert reception featuring a local beer tasting.

Program

José Dolores Cerón: A la caída de la tarde

Chris Whittaker: Violin Concerto featuring Amos Fayette

Antonín Dvořák: Symphony No. 8 in G, Op. 88

Above 155th Street

March 20, 8:00 pm @ Our Savior’s Atonement Lutheran (178 Bennett Ave.)

March 21, 3:00 pm @ Fort Washington Collegiate Church (729 W. 181st St.)

A musical snapshot of a time and place: the community of classical composers and performers living in Washington Heights. Featuring works by Aaron Jay Kernis, Jessica Meyer, Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, Peter Gordon, and Joel Hoffman, the Strings of WHCO perform works by a collection of compelling Uptown voices for a concert you’ll only find above 155th street. Friends of WHCO are invited after Saturday's concert for a post-concert reception featuring tastings from neighborhood restaurants.

Program

Peter Gordon: Magic and Transformation

Žibuoklė Martinaitytė: Sort Sol

Aaron Jay Kernis: Sarabanda in Memoriam

Jessica Meyer: Through Which We Flow

Joel Hoffman: Crossing Points

Strings of the Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra

Chris Whittaker, Music Director

Your Distant Destiny

May 15, 7:00 pm @ George Washington Educational Campus - (549 Audubon Ave.)

May 16, 3:00 pm @ Fort Washington Collegiate Church (729 W. 181st St.)

The final program of the season pairs a new chamber orchestra version of Paul Brantley's On the Pulse of the Morning featuring soprano Abigail Fischer with Dominican-composer Bienvenido Bustamante's rarely heard Concierto para Saxofón featuring Patrick Bartley on Alto Saxophone. The season closes with Beethoven's monumental Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, in celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth.

Program

Paul Brantley: On the Pulse of Morning featuring Abigail Fischer, Soprano (New chamber orchestra version, commissioned on the work’s 25th anniversary)

Bienvenido Bustamante: Concierto para Saxofón featuring Patrick Bartley, Alto Saxophone

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67

April 26: NY Phil musicians perform Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra benefit concert

April 26: NY Philharmonic musicians perform a benefit concert for Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra in a homey setting

WHCO presents an evening with violinist Anna Rabinova, cellist Ru-Pei Yeh and pianist Steven Beck at The Lounge in Washington Heights

The Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra is proud to present an intimate evening with highly acclaimed musicians of the New York Philharmonic. The program on Friday, April 26 at 8:00 pm features violinist Anna Rabinova, cellist Ru-Pei Yeh and pianist Steven Beck in a program of classics by Beethoven and Brahms, and Paul Schoenfield's whimsical Cafe Music. 

The evening includes drinks and hors d'oeuvres, and an opportunity to meet the performers and Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra musicians. The event is a fundraiser for WHCO, which has been bringing free high-quality orchestra performances to upper Manhattan audiences for the past four seasons.

The venue is the intimate setting of The Lounge at historic Hudson View Gardens, 128 Pinehurst Avenue in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Tickets for this benefit event are $75, available for purchase at WashingtonHeightsOrchestra.org. Details and performer bios are available at the same link.

The Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra, founded in 2015 by conductor and music director Chris Whittaker, is a professional ensemble that presents free concerts to its Upper Manhattan community. Comprised of musicians from Upper Manhattan, the orchestra presents engaging concerts with a diverse repertoire; including favorite classical works, genre bending crossover pieces, and works by living composers. The WHCO strives to engage the people of Washington Heights and neighboring communities through exemplary musical performances and innovative educational programming. Learn more at WashingtonHeightsOrchestra.org

Hudson View Gardens, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is one of the very first cooperative apartment complexes in New York. Situated on the highest natural point in Manhattan, it overlooks the Hudson River and the scenic palisades of New Jersey. HVG is known for its beautifully manicured gardens, tree-lined private lane and classic Tutor architecture.

The Lounge at HVG, a cozy space complete with a bar, library and fireplace, is host to events for residents of Hudson View Gardens and the public.

CALENDAR LISTING

April 26, 2019 at 8:00 pm

Benefit Concert for Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra featuring:

Anna Rabinova, Violin

Ru-Pei Yeh, Cello

Steven Beck, Piano

Program:

Beethoven: Kakadu Variations, Op. 121a

Elliott Carter: Epigrams

Brahms: Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor, Op. 101

Schoenfield: Café Music

The Lounge at Hudson View Gardens

128 Pinehurst Avenue at West 183rd Street in Manhattan

Tickets: $75, available at WashingtonHeightsOrchestra.org

Directions: Take the A train or #1 train to 181st St or the M4 bus to 183rd St.

Lucid Culture Reviews Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra

Darkly Compelling, Lushly Relevant Orchestral Works in Washington Heights

This past evening a string subset of the Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra played a lush, majestic, sweeping, potently relevant program of works by 20th and 21st century composers. The performance validated conventional wisdom in real estate bubble-era New York: the fringes are where the most cutting-edge artists are supposed to be. Ask yourself how many members of the Philharmonic actually walk to work: it’s a fair bet that a good percentage of this talented ensemble did.

The group echoed Music Director Chris Whittaker’s poise on the podium, at least with as much poise as a string section can maintain playing distinctly troubled music. The central theme was Japanese, comprising works by composers with Japanese heritage, setting up a harrowing look back at the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Fukushima wasn’t addressed, but it might as well have been, considering how plaintive and elegaic the overall ambience was.

Both the opening and concluding pieces, Kenji Bunch’s Supermaximum and Christopher Theofanidis’ A Thousand Cranes opened with percussive rustles from the bass section, a neat pairing. The former was an alternately kinetic and stark interweave of 19th century gospel-inflected pentatonic melody and more distinctly Asian motives. Permeated with the call-and-response of chain gang chants, it spoke for itself as a reminder of how little has changed in over a century.

The showstopper was an understatedly aching, enveloping take of Toru Takemitsu’s Requiem For String Orchestra. Moving gracefully from an austere pavane to stabbing close harmonies that foreshadow Julia Wolfe’s work, and then to to cellular Glass-ine phrasing, the group locked in on its relentless, overcast atmosphere.

Karen Tanaka’s Dreamscape suite often had a similarly circular but more distinctly nebulous effect, their group parsing its starry pointillisms and sparely memorable hooks with delicacy to match their lustre, harpist Tomina Parvanova and concertmaster Mark Chien tracing lively comet tails and deep-space bubbles.

Theofanidis’ piece was inspired by the Japanese tradition of making paper cranes. As the myth goes, producing a thousand of them allows for a wish to come true. That activity became a meme among those stricken with radiation poisoning and all kinds of other horrible illnesses after August of 1945.

The triptych is a hard piece to play, partly because it covers so much ground, emotionally speaking. There was unexpectedly calm jubilance in the opening overture of sorts, which disappeared as reality sank in. The group nimbly tackled the precisely dancing pizzicato section and then let the mournful washes afterward linger. The steady procession up to a decidedly unresolved ending was just as poignant.

The orchestra are staging monthly concerts  this spring: the next one is March 23 at 3 PM at at Fort Washington Collegiate Church, 729 W 181st St. just up the hill from the 1 train, with works by Korngold, Britten, Anna Clyne and Michael Torke. Admission is free; $25 gets you into the reception afterward and for the rest of the season as well.