2009 Season Features Piece for Turkish Ud, Flute and String Trio by LA Composer Münir Beken

Award winning chamber ensemble Pacific Serenades opens 2009 season with “The World Is Our Community” featuring works by Beethoven and Mozart plus Memories of a Shoehorn for ud, flute and string trio by LA composer Münir Beken

Saturday, February 7, 2009; 8 pm; at a private home in Valley Glen
Sunday, February 8, 2009; 4 pm; The Neighborhood Church in Pasadena
Tuesday, February 10, 2009; 8 pm; The UCLA Faculty Center
Calendar Summary follows press release
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LOS ANGELES, Calif. The composer John Steinmetz has referred to Pacific Serenades as one of his “favorite renegade organizations.” But, as the opening performances of its 23rd season – “The World Is Our Community,” which will take place on Saturday, February 7 at a private home in Valley Glen at 8 p.m.; Sunday, February 8 at the Neighborhood Church in Pasadena at 4 p.m.; and Tuesday, February 10 at the UCLA Faculty Center at 8 p.m. – proves yet again, the award-winning chamber ensemble has held fast to one tradition.

Since its founding in 1982, Pacific Serenades has made a point of including, in every program, not only music by classical music titans revered throughout the ages like Beethoven, Mozart and Brahms but new works by composers with ties to Southern California whose commissions are performed worldwide.

Receiving its World Premiere at the February series of concerts is Memories of a Shoehorn for ud, flute and string trio by Münir Beken, a former conductor of the State Conservatory Orchestra of Istanbul who moved to Los Angeles in 2007 to become Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at UCLA. Memories of a Shoehorn was inspired by the shoehorn Beken’s father, an amateur singer in Turkey, carried with him to musical gatherings at other peoples’ homes, where he’d remove his shoes as custom dictated.

Also on the program are Beethoven’s String Trio in C minor, Op 9, No. 3 and Mozart’s Flute Quartet in D major, K. 285.

“I can’t think of a more wonderfully rebellious way to indicate the value of a new piece than to show that it is part of a long, rich tradition of beautiful music,” says Mark Carlson, Founder and Artistic Director of Pacific Serenades.

A composer whose recording of his works, “The Hall of Mirrors”, was a winner of the Chamber Music America/WQXR Record Awards for 2001, Carlson is also an accomplished flutist. Joining him in the performances of “The World Is Our Community” are violinist Kathleen Lenski, violist Roland Kato and David Speltz on cello.

Lenski, a founding member of the Angeles String Quartet – which won a Grammy Award in 2001 after recording the complete string quartets of Joseph Haydn for Philips Classics – has appeared as soloist with such orchestras as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, and the St. Louis Symphony. She has also served as soloist and concertmaster of Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra as well as soloist and leader of the Oregon Bach Festival Chamber Orchestra.

Roland Kato, described by the Los Angeles Times as “a brilliant virtuoso, playing with the perfect combination of energy and eloquence,” has been a member of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra since 1976 and, in 1987, was appointed Principal Violist by Iona Brown. As a guest artist, Kato has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the New York New Music Ensemble and has appeared as a soloist at such festivals as the Festival Casals in Puerto Rico, the Grand Canyon Chamber Music Festival, the Oregon Bach Festival, and the Festival Internacional de Musica in Costa Rica, among many others. Kato’s transcription of Prokofiev’s Music for Children was recently given its New York premiere, while his arrangement of Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite was premiered at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts by the New Hampshire-based Apple Hill Chamber Players in Washington D.C.

As a member of the Musical Offering ensemble, cellist David Speltz has performed at the Library of Congress and Lincoln Center in Washington D.C., the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico, and recorded on the Nonesuch label. Here in Los Angeles, Speltz appears regularly not only with Pacific Serenades but in chamber music series throughout Southern California, including Chamber Music in Historic Sites, the Bing Chamber Music Series at Caltech, and series sponsored by the South Bay Chamber Music Society and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. A member of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra during Sir Neville Marriner’s tenure, Speltz served as principal cellist of the California Chamber Symphony for eight seasons and, in 1989, was invited by Helmuth Rilling to serve as principal cellist of the Bachakademie in Stuttgart, Germany.

Münir Beken will join the ensemble for the World Premiere of Memories of a Shoehorn for ud, flute, and string trio. An accomplished master of the ud who has worked with many eminent artists of Turkish classical music, Beken has also performed compositions written especially for him by American composers Melodie Linhart, Eric Flesher, and Christopher Shainin.

Meanwhile, Beken’s own composition is not his first venture pairing the ud – a pear-shaped, stringed instrument that is the predecessor of the lute – with western musical instruments. “It’s always a challenge to join the sounds of these instruments,” Beken readily acknowledges. “It’s like mixing olive oil and vinegar. No matter how much you shake the bottle, it separates, and you recognize the individual elements.”

Those “elements,” Beken explains, include Turkish scales and modes, plus ornamentations and rhythms inspired by traditional Turkish music.

“People love the established masterworks, and justifiably so,” adds Carlson. “But we also all have an intense desire to hear something of our own time and place. Unfortunately, many people feel alienated by some of the trends of contemporary music, and so their trust has to be re-won. But when they hear a new work that embraces melody in some fashion or another, their ears perk up.”

Tickets for the February 7 concert and post concert reception at a private home are available for $55/person. Tickets for performances at The Neighborhood Church in Pasadena and the UCLA Faculty Center are $32/person. Full time student tickets are available at the door only, at Neighborhood Church and UCLA, for $5. To purchase tickets or learn more about season subscriptions, visit www.pacser.org or call 213.534.3434.

The Neighborhood Church is located at 301 N. Orange Grove Blvd. in Pasadena. The Gamble House museum, next door to the church, offers a discounted tour at $8/person to Pacific Serenades patrons on concert dates only. Tours begin promptly at 2 pm and at 2:40 pm and last approximately one hour. Reservations are required and must be made at least 48 hours in advance of the concert date by calling 626.793.3334, ext. 16.

The UCLA Faculty Center is located at 405 N. Hilgard Ave. on the UCLA campus in Westwood. Parking is available for $9 in Lot 2. In addition, prior to each concert, dinner at the UCLA Faculty Center is available for Pacific Serenades patrons. Reservations can be made by calling 310.825.0877.

Directions and additional information about private home concerts are mailed to ticket holders upon receipt of their order.

The mission of Pacific Serenades is to generate new chamber music by commissioning works and presenting them alongside standard repertoire in intimate concert settings, emphasizing Southern California musicians. For more information about Pacific Serenades, its upcoming season, musicians and composers, visit www.pacser.org or call 213.534.3434.

ABOUT PACIFIC SERENADES
Founded in 1982, Pacific Serenades is one of the longest performing ensembles on the west coast, featuring many of the most acclaimed musicians in Southern California -including principals from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, The Pasadena Symphony and the Long Beach Symphony. Yet, while most chamber ensembles offer either all-new music or all-traditional repertoire, Pacific Serenades makes a point of including both at each concert.

“It’s very important for people to hear-and play-a new piece in the context of masterpieces of the past,” says founder Mark Carlson. “I really want new music to be heard as part of an ongoing tradition, rather than as a new art form with no roots.”

By June 2009, Pacific Serenades will have commissioned and premiered 94 new works by 51 different composers, with many of these works receiving as many as 50-60 additional performances worldwide following their premieres. Carlson, himself, is the recipient of more than 40 commissions and has composed works for the National Shrine in Washington, DC and the New West Symphony, among others, as well as many individual musicians.

Concerts currently take place at three venues, each selected to replicate the smaller, more intimate environment in which chamber music historically was performed: the Neighborhood Church in Pasadena; the UCLA Faculty Center; and a private home in Los Angeles. In addition, Pacific Serenades gave its first New York concert, at Carnegie Recital Hall, in September of 1994, and its first San Francisco concert in January of 1998.

Recently, Pacific Serenades won its second Adventurous Programming Award from ASCAP and Chamber Music America, in addition to a CMA/WQXR Record Award, in 2001, for its first CD, Mark Carlson’s The Hall of Mirrors. The ensemble’s latest CD, Border Crossings – featuring new works by Enrique Gonzalez-Medina, Robert Livingston Aldridge, Mark Carlson, and Miguel del Aguila – illustrates how the composers – two, Latin American-born and two, overtly influenced by Latin American music – have artistically crossed the border between the United States and Latin America.

“The Latin-born composers brought those influences with them when they moved here, and the others of us actively went to Latin America, seeking them,” explains Carlson.

A third CD, entitled “War Scrap: that we may have peace”, will include music by John Steinmetz, Larry Lipkis, and Mark Carlson. CDs may be purchased through Pacific Serenades’ website, www.pacser.org or by calling 213.534.3434.