We are excited to share the link to one of our composers' Huffington Post feature. Vivian Li's debut CD "Growing in the Cracks" is now available. Check out the feature here. Check out the CD here. The debut at Carnegie Hall mentioned in the article? That was "Anywhere That's Wild," played by Bateira at Weill Hall. Congratulations from all of us!
We are so excited to be taking the stage at Weill Recital Hall on Monday night at 7:30 pm next week. Please have a look at the clip from last week's rehearsal below, courtesy of Doug DaSilva. The first half of the concert will be presented by Duo Anova. The Bateira Trio will take the stage for the second half of the program which includes 15 Minutes of Fame: fifteen one-minute long works written especially for Bateira, Vivian Li's Anywhere That's Wild, and finally, Schulhoff's Concertino for Flute, Viola, and Double Bass.
I hope many of you will be joining us on Monday, January 27th to experience this exciting new music presented with our one-of-a-kind color palette. I continue to be surprised by the many different sounds, timbres, moods, and emotions this instrumentation is able to create, and working with these two fantastic guys is always a pleasure. This program has stretched me as a flute player and as a musician. I know Satoshi and Conway are with me when I say this is a performance not to be missed! Leave a comment below, send us an email, or go to http://www.carnegiehall.org for further details. Looking forward to seeing you all. We will be out in the lobby to greet our wonderful audience following Monday's performance! After busy summers that took the members of the Bateira Trio far and wide, we are back together again! Yesterday, we had our first photo shoot, the fruits of which are already starting to pop up on the site. This one being my personal favorite: With a new Facebook page, a recording project nearing completion, and our Carnegie Hall debut on the horizon, this is looking like a very busy season for Bateira. Thanks so much for visiting! Please leave us a comment or send us a note via the Contact Us tab.
It all began with a traffic jam. Well, technically it began with a nice cup of coffee and an optimistic point of view, one that had me thinking I could make it in my car (parked at East 20th Street and 1st Avenue) on up to the upper west side in about half an hour to pick up Conway at 10 AM. Unfortunately for me, it took nearly an hour due to the closure of the Park Avenue Tunnel, which burrows beneath Grand Central Station. It happens to be a fantastic way to go... most of the time. By the time I reached Conway, he had mosyed his way up to West 96th Street and West End Avenue, which conveniently is the entrance to the West Side Highway, AND he had a bagel and cream cheese for me. We Bateira's look out for one another! After quickly solving the problems of the world and filling in the holes of each other's life story during the two hour car ride, we arrived in West Hartford, CT. Conway and I stopped at Tangiers International, where we acquired gyros and falafel to feed a hungry Bateira Trio. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but I am here to tell you, never judge a book by its cover. Baklava for all! We headed off to the Hartt School, a mere 10 minutes away, to meet Satoshi and our recording engineer, Matt Baltrucki. Matt was ready for us, all set up early, and we began warming up. After a few quick individual spot checks, we started the group sound check. Another quick pause to listen in the studio for balance, then we were on to business. Though we had discussed starting the session off with something easier, we began with Vivian Li's piece: Anywhere That's Wild. As our most challenging work of the day's recording project, we wanted to start on this piece fresh. We worked our way through a very ambitious and challenging rep list, each of us expecting that we might tire out or have to cut it shorter, but in the end, we made it through everything! Tracks included: Li - Anywhere That's Wild Schulhoff - Concertino for Flute, Viola, and Bass Palestrina - Gloria Faure - Pavane J.S. Bach - Siciliana from the E-flat Major Flute Sonata Pergolesi - Trio Sonata Marlow - El Enigma and Bolero Clasico Satoshi, Sandy, Conway As soon as we were satisfied with our work, being the Bateira Trio, we went out to eat :) A proud alumna of the Hartt School of Music and a former West Hartford resident, I wasted no time initiating my New Yorkers to the best burger in town: Plan B Burger Bar. If you've never been, and you find yourself hungry in Hartford, you should go. Great beer selection, burgers, and hot wings. Just the place for the post-recording session appetite! Tired but with a satiated tummy, I waved goodbye to my talented trio mates as they headed back to NYC. Satoshi is flying to Vail, Colorado tomorrow morning VERY early for the NY Philharmonic's Residency at the Bravo Vail Music Festival. Following quick stops at the Marlboro Chamber Music Festival and Tanglewood, I will join him to perform in the second half of the festival next week. And Conway will be keeping busy at Manhattan Center's Sound Stage recording the score for the upcoming feature film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, directed by Ben Stiller.
Yesterday and today Satoshi, Conway, and I all met at John Wion's apartment on the upper west side for rehearsal. We had hoped to rehearse at Avery Fisher Hall this week, but when we discovered those rooms would no longer be available to us, John saved the day by offering to let us rehearse in his beautiful home! John is the former Principal Flute of the NYC Opera and one of my most special and influential teachers. We really dug into the Schulhoff and the Li yesterday, spending three hours on only those two works. Today, we covered a lot of ground, running and rehearsing pieces by Palestrina, Pergolesi, Bartok, Bach, and Marlow, and putting the finishing touches to Schulhoff and Li. The heat has this Pacific Northwesterner pretty tired out. Not sure how everyone keeps focused and working hard when it is 90+ degrees. Needless to say, after a hard day of rehearsal, I am ready to rest! I wanted to share a couple of pictures I have floating around from the past several weeks. Perhaps I can get them into the gallery as well. We work hard, but we also love to relax afterward and have a good time together. The photo on the left is the Bateira Trio following a planning meeting held at Carmine's Italian Restaurant. The photo on the right was taken after a recent performance at the NYC Composer's Circle with one of our favorite composers, Vivian Li! Check back for my blog entry after our recording session, which is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon! Based on how things were sounding and feeling today, I am extremely optimistic about the results. Hopefully those will be up on the site as well very soon.
Ciao! Welcome to our new website! Its creation and launch have been in the works for a few weeks. We are excited to have a web presence and keep everyone informed of the group's activities. Please have a look around, and leave a comment on the blog here or send a contact form letting us know what you think.
At our rehearsal today, in addition to playing great music, we spent some time planning out our schedule for the next couple of weeks. With three busy performing musicians, it can be difficult to coordinate! We are excited to be going into the recording studio on July 17th to capture the sounds of Bateira. With the results, we hope to more readily share our sound with a wider audience. Included on our session repertoire list is Schulhoff's Concertino, originally written for flute, doubling piccolo, viola, and double bass. We also plan to capture Vivian Li's composition, written especially for Bateira, entitled Anywhere That's Wild. Consisting of four movements, each with its own unique challenges, we will be working to efficiently use every moment of our rehearsals leading up to the session. The rest of the works to be recorded have been arranged, rewritten, and transcribed for our ensemble by Conway and Satoshi. Meanwhile, Sandy and Satoshi will be performing in the NY Philharmonic's Summer Classics concerts. If you're in the area, make sure to check them out! Concerts are both at Avery Fisher Hall and in many of New York City's public parks before the orchestra departs to Vail, Colorado for a two week residency. Visit nyphil.org for details. |
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