Duo Diorama: New Music Concerts

New musical inventions that provoke, awaken and inspire

Duo Diorama

Brings their Tour de Force to the Music Gallery

Saturday, January 17, 2009

For Immediate Release ’Äì Toronto, December 16, 2008: New Music Concerts returns to the Music Gallery on Saturday, January 17, 2009 to present Canada’Äôs Duo Diorama, comprised of Chinese violinist Minghuan Xu and Canadian pianist Winston Choi. The program includes Affulgat sol omnibus animalibus, a solo piano piece composed especially for Choi by Brian Current, and Bright Sheng’Äôs The Stream Flows for solo violin performed by Xu. Together, Xu and Choi pay tribute to Elliott Carter’Äôs centenary with his Duo for violin and piano. The concert also includes the Canadian premiere of works written for Duo Diorama by John Austin, Marcos Balter and most recently John Melby’Äôs Concerto for violin, piano and computer.

Minghuan Xu and Winston Choi are compelling and versatile artists who perform in an eclectic mix of musical styles, ranging from the great standard works to the avant-garde. It is a partnership with a startlingly fresh and powerful approach to music for violin and piano. The two renowned soloists, also husband and wife, can effectively blend their distinctive personalities together to create a unified whole. The duo’Äôs name ’Äúdiorama’Äù defines its artistic ideals. In visual arts, a diorama is a scene or story reproduced on cloth transparencies with various lights shining through to produce changes in effect. In the case of Duo Diorama, the musicians’Äô performances create an illusion of colour and three-dimensionality, transporting the listener to another time and place. ’ÄòTogether they form a regular tour de force’Äô, comments NMC artistic director Robert Aitken.

Programme:

John Austin (USA, b.1934) ’Äì Three Translations (2008)

Brian Current (Canada, 1972) ’Äì Affulgat sol omnibus animalibus (2007)

Elliott Carter (USA, b.1908) ’Äì Duo (1974)

Bright Sheng (China/USA, b.1955) ’Äì The Stream Flows (1990)

Marcos Balter (Brazil/USA, b.1974) ’Äì Re: (No Subject) (2004)

John Melby (USA, b.1941) ’Äì Concerto for violin, piano and computer (2008)

Duo Diorama

Minghuan Xu, violin; Winston Choi, piano

Saturday January 17, 2009

7:15 Illuminating Introduction with the artists; 8PM Concert

Music Gallery, 197 John Street, Toronto

Tickets: $33 (regular)/$20 (seniors/arts workers/Music Gallery members)/$10 (students)

New Music Concerts

157 Carlton Street, Suite 203 Toronto ON M5A 2K3

416.961.9594 / fax 416.961.9508

nmc@interlog.com / www.NewMusicConcerts.com

New Music Concerts gratefully acknowledges the support of The Canada Council for the Arts; Toronto Arts Council; The Department of Heritage through Arts Presentation Canada; The Province of Ontario through the Ontario Arts Council & the Ontario Arts Foundation Endowment Fund; The Goethe Institut; The Julie-Jiggs Foundation; The Koerner Foundation; The McLean Foundation; Roger D. Moore; The SOCAN Foundation; The Imperial Tobacco Canada Foundation; The Amphion Foundation Inc.; The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc.; Edward Epstein and Gallery 345