LSM Newswire

Friday, January 18, 2008

[Toronto] York U Music, Marcuzzi's Cuban Retrospective Jan 24

Please find below more info on Michael Marcuzzi's From Salon to Solar: A Retropective of Cuban Music Jan 24, aspart of York Univeristy Department of Music Faculty Concert Series. Live dance and a large music ensemble bring a century of Cuban music to the Tribute Community's Recital Hall in York U's Accolade East building. Photos and interviews are available upon request.


From Salon to Solar

The Michael Marcuzzi Ensemble offers a Retrospective of Cuban Music

Toronto, January 18, 2008: Michael Marcuzzi headlines the Faculty Concert Series of York University's Music Department on January 24 in a dynamic concert of Cuban music featuring a large ensemble of guest artists with a wide range of instruments, voice and live dance performance. The evening, titled "From salon to solar: A Retrospective of Cuban Music", takes place at 7:30pm in the Tribute Communities Recital Hall in the Accolade East building at York.

Marcuzzi's research and publications focus on Cuba's popular music and its African-derived religious traditions, and these interests have inspired the title and program of his concert.

"A 'solar' is the courtyard of the Spanish-style Cuban tenements, where a lot of improvised music like rumba would be played. 'From salon to solar' is a metaphor illustrating how this retrospective draws from both gentrified European classical music and also from more traditional and African-influenced folk music," Marcuzzi said.

The concert program will span a century of Cuban music, from the early 1900s to the present day. It includes works by composers Lecuona, Romeu and Pedro Louis Ferrer as well as original compositions by Marcuzzi. The musicians will be joined by dancers in traditional costumes: guest artist Orlando Cardoso and Melissa Noventa, a graduate student in York's Dance Department, performing rumba and Afrocuban dance.

Marcuzzi and the dancers will share the stage with guest singers Daniel Stone and Laura Lindo, as well as instructors and graduate students from York's music department. Performers include Ruben Esguerra, Glenda del Monte, Tara Fernandez, David Font-Navarette, Julie Kwan, Rick Shadrach Lazar, Steve Mancuso, Paul Ormandy, Bernardo PadrĂ³n and the 12-member York Latin Ensemble, a charanga-style group playing flute, violin, cello, bass piano and percussion.

Marcuzzi is a multi-instrumental performer, arranger, composer, ethnomusicologist and teacher with broad experience in classical, jazz, Cuban, Latin and popular music. He advanced his training through orchestral studies with trumpeters James Spragg and Barton Woomert of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra; jazz studies with Kenny Wheeler, Herbie Williams, Marcus Belgrave and Donald Byrd; and percussion studies at the Escuela de Superacion Profesional, Ignacio Cervantes in Havana,, Cuba. He has played trumpet as a sideman with artists such as Cleo Laine, Sid Caesar, Al Martino, The Four Tops, The Drifters and The Temptations, and has performed with numerous musicians in Cuba and with many local Latin ensembles. His credits as arranger and composer include work with the Canadian Brass, University of Memphis Jazz Orchestra, and Toronto-based Latin ensembles Orquesta Fantasia and Pacande.

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What: Michael Marcuzzi Ensemble: "From salon to solar: A Retrospective of Cuban Music"
When: Thurs. Jan. 24 at 7:30pm
Where: Tribute Communities Recital Hall, Accolade East Building, York University, 4700 Keele St. [Map]
Admission: $15, students $5.
Box Office: 416.736.5888 | www.yorku.ca/perform/boxoffice

This is the fourth of seven performances in the Faculty Concert Series spotlighting faculty artists in the Department of Music at York University. Upcoming concerts will feature Mark Chambers, Catherine Robbin and Barry Elmes.

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Media Contact:
Amy Stewart, Communications, Faculty of Fine Arts, York University
416.736.2100 ext. 20421 | amy.stewart@yorku.ca

--  Amy P. Stewart Communications, Faculty of Fine Arts York University 4700 Keele Street, Toronto ON Canada M3J 1P3 tel 416.736.2100 ext. 20421 fax 416.736.5447 amy.stewart@yorku.ca www.yorku.ca/finearts

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