Electric Earth Concerts presents Auréole Trio (flute, viola and harp), Saturday evening, September 7 at 7:30pm at Congregation Ahavas Achim, 84 Hastings Avenue, Keene, New Hampshire. The program will include two works by pivotal classical Israeli composers: Paul Ben-Haim’s Chamber Music (1978) and Lior Navok’s Veiled Echoes (2008) as well as Rameau’s Piece de Clavecin, Claude Debussy’s Sonate and a selection of Celtic reels and dances.
Paul Ben-Haim is called “the father of Israeli Classical Music”. As an early émigré to Palestine following the first world war, Paul Frankenburger, the young German conductor fled Europe to find his musical roots in Palestine and changed his name to Paul Ben-Haim. In Palestine, he became fascinated with the modes and forms of traditional Jewish music and began writing in a new style that incorporated the high German Romantic tradition and the melodies of his Jewish roots. His music is evocative of a time and place where the European tradition intersected with other “mysterious” musical and cultural influences from the far reaches of the continent and beyond. The young composer, Lior Navok (1971), has been strongly influenced by Ben-Haim’s melding of the two worlds of modality and form. His Veiled Echoes is three-movement work of whimsy and color. Claude Debussy’s Sonate (1915) is considered by many to be one of the masterpieces of 20th Century chamber music. The Sonate, written for flute, viola and harp was the first for this instrumental combination. It is one of the composer’s final expressions of his artistic journey, as it reflects backward to Medieval and Renaissance textures and modalities and forward to the world of new forms and instrumental colors.
Aureole: A halo; a light or luminous area surrounding a celestial body.
Critics and audiences alike hail Aureole as “radiant,” “exquisite,” “masterful,” “performing with uncommon brilliance.”
This unique blend of instruments — consolidating the entire orchestral palette into its three essential components — performs with an infinite array of colors and sounds.
The variety and scope of Aureole’s repertoire appeals to audiences of all ages and backgrounds. The trio’s music ranges from the late 19th Century, spans the 20th, and ventures into the 21st Century’s cutting edge.
Their concerts and recordings also include a wide variety of popular and folk music from the Celtic, Latin, Indian, Baroque and Classical traditions. Inspired by the combination, some of the most imaginative and creative musicians and composers of our time — Ravi Shankar, George Tsontakis, Jacob Druckman and Roberto Sierra– have masterfully composed and arranged for Aureole.
The repertoire also includes many significant and powerful works by Twentieth Century composers, including Claude Debussy, Sofia Gubaidulina, Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, Sir John Tavener, Toru Takemitsu, Harrison Birtwistle and Kaiji Saariaho.
Aureole was formed in the fall of 1987, after playing together at Marlboro Music Festival. They have performed for the Saint Louis and Chicago Chamber Music Societies, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the National Gallery in Washington, DC, in honor of the opening of the Barnes Exhibition, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, to open the Cezanne Retrospective. In addition Aureole has participated in many artist-in-residence programs around the country.
Aureole has performed on A&E Television Network’s “Holiday in New York”, on the Bravo Television Network, and has been interviewed and featured frequently on NPR’s “Performance Today”.
Aureole has recorded extensively for Koch International to great critical acclaim. Their debut disc, “Aureole,” was short-listed for three Grammy awards, and their lullaby disc, “Dreamscape”, with soprano Heidi Grant Murphy, was selected by Parenting Magazine as Recording of the Month. In addition, the trio has released six other discs, with two more -– Celtic music and a collection of new programmatic compositions –- to be released in 2006-07.
Individually the members of Aureole; Laura Gilbert, flute and co-artistic director of Electric Earth Concerts, Mary Hammann, viola, and Stacey Shames, harp, have active solo and chamber music careers, appearing as members and guests with such ensembles as Musicians From Marlboro, Orpheus, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Brandenburg Ensemble, The Bach Aria Group, the Brentano and Saint Lawrence quartets, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic.
