june21

Lower East Side Performing Arts, Inc. Annual Benefit and Solstice Celebration 383 Grand Street Community Space June 21, 2008 PROGRAM Chamber music program composed by Elodie Lauten Poetry by Michael Andre Violin solo from Gypsy Variations performed by Julianne Klopotic Avant-premiere Cello Solo: Memory of my mother performed by Kurt Behnke New York premiere Sex and Pre-anti-post-modernism Doube Bass solo and narration performed by Rafael DeStella Second performance Justification by Faith for soprano and flute Mary Hurlbut and Andrew Bolotowsky World premiere LESPA thanks Michael Andre and all the performers for their generous contributions.
ARTISTS
	Julianne Klopotic, violinist, received degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of Music, BM, and an award from the Gold Key National Honors Society for students of exceptional merit, and the Mannes College, MM, in New York City where she was a scholarship student. Julianne appears as soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player, teacher, improviser and arranger. In collaboration she has worked with composers, song writers, bands, and recording artists from Philip Glass to popular songwriter Natalie Merchant. Orchestrally, she has been a member of the Jupiter Symphony, Riverside Symphony, The Philadelphia Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. She has appeared on national television on VH1, MTV, “The Tonight Show,” Rosie O’Donnell, and performed live at Merkin Hall for National Public Radio. Awards include: the “New Sounds” , Winner Artists International Solo Competition, and Who’s Who in American Music.
	A native New Yorker, Jonathan Hirschman began playing lead guitar in Village clubs as a teenager. He has performed with countless bands from metal to blues to R&B and is known on the scene as a powerful improviser. In 2002 Elodie Lauten produced his first solo album of Tunes from the Lower East Side (Studio 21). He then became a core member of the Elodie Lauten Ensemble working microtonally and with experimental textures. With Lauten he has recorded Harmonic protection Circle, featured on WNYC and the WOOT Festival in 2004. He was featured as a soloist in the production of Lauten’s The Death of Don Juan at Franklin Pierce College in 2005.
	A unique and innovative instrumentalist, Rafael DeStella pushes the boundaries of the Double Bass, covering repertoire from classical to jazz and world music. An active chamber and virtuoso soloist, DeStella has appeared in recitals throughout the world. With orchestras, he has performed under conductors Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, James DePriest, Jahja Ling, Kurt Masur, David Robertson, and James Conlon. Born in Colombia, South America and self-taught until the age of 20, he was accepted on full scholarship to the graduate program of the Juilliard School in New York, from which he graduated in 1999 with a Master’s degree studying with the late David Walter. His intense involvement in the preparation and presentation of contemporary works has led to the creation of countless new repertoire for the Double Bass. Committed to education and outreach, Rafael DeStella is also dedicated to working with the new generation of musicians as a teaching artist.
	Andrew Bolotowsky learned his remarkable technique with Willard Kincaid, Elaine Shaffer and Jean-Pierre Rampal. He graduated from the New School for Social Research after finishing a thesis on Baroque Ornamentation. He has performed over 3,000 solo recitals and worked with the Westchester Philharmonic and Brooklyn Philharmonic orchestras, Downtown Music Productions, Music Downtown, American Festival of Microtonal Music, Soho Baroque Opera, Muse (Colonial American Music), the Delbartin Baroque Ensemble and the New Amsterdam Baroque Ensemble. He has appeared on the radio on WQXR, WBAI, WNCN, WNYC and on television on NBC abd CBS. Equally at ease in Baroque and early music, contemporary music, jazz and experimental music, he has recorded for a wide variety of labels: Orion Master Recording, Golden Age Records, Opus 1, Station Hill Records, Frog Peak, 4Tay, Sonic Muse, XI, Stereo Society, CRI, Newport Classics and Pitch.
Kurt Behnke received his Bachelors and Masters Degrees in cello performance from Indiana University, where he studied with Fritz Magg while attending the master classes of Janos Starker. Overseas study included a semester in Vienna at the Hochschule für Musik and Darstellende Kunst. He has participated in the Aspen Music Festival, the Spoleto Festival of Two Worlds in Italy, and the orchestra of the Graz Vocal Institute Festival in Austria. Recently, Kurt has been a member of the Bear Valley Symphony summer festival orchestra in California’s High Sierra Nevada mountains. Currently, Kurt free-lances around the New York and New Jersey area, playing primarily chamber music concerts and special o
Lyric soprano Mary Hurlbut has performed with Downtown Music Productions, Gravesend Players, American Landmark Festivals, Brooklyn Baroque, Music Downtown, The Lark Ascending, American Festival of Microtonal Music, The New Music Consort, Cygnus Ensemble, The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble and SoHo Baoque Opera. She has recorded for 4tay, Frog Peak and Tarmac. Her lovely sound combined with an exceptional ear and musicianship has made her an interpreter of choice in contemporary music, and she has premiered works by John Cage, Jim Theobald, Jackson Mac Low, Anne Tardos, Franz Kamin, Harold Seletsky, Dan Levitan, and many of Elodie Lauten’s neo-operas. Venues include Merkin Hall, Symphony Space, La Mama La Galleria, The Knitting Factory, Roulette and Carnegie’s Weill Hall. Teaching engagements include The American Musical and Dramatic Academy, Greenwich House Music School, Bronx House Music School and The Vaughn College of Aeronautics. She studied voice with Antonia Lavanne, Angelica Lozada, Priscilla Woodley,Chiara Carrerell and piano with Elka Kirkpatrick, Michel Ashmore and Bernice Sjogren. She holds a Master’s from Mannes College of Music.
Michael Andre is the editor of Unmuzzled OX, an occasional magazine of poetry, art and politics which began in 1971 as a quarterly and has produced 16 volumes. Andre edited and published two books by Gregory Corso, Earth Egg and Writings from OX. His opera, Orfreo, with music by Elodie Lauten, premiered at Merkin Hall in 2004. The two also collaborated on Sex and Pre-anti-post-modernism and S.O.S. W.T.C. He has two widely-available anthologies of selected poems: Studying the Ground for Holes (1978) and Experiments in Banal Living (1998). He has worked as a critic for The Montreal Gazette, Art News, Art in America and the The Village Voice. His autobiographical essay was published in 1991 by Gale. He hosted radio shows in Chicago and New York. He has read his poetry in London, Frankfurt and Paris, at various venues in New York including the Public Theater, St. Mark’s Poetry Project, and the Bowery Poetry Club as well as at numerous universities and galleries throughout Canada and the United States. Since 1992, Andre has written a column called “New York Letter” for the Small Press Review. His frequent blogs can be found at: http://unmuzzledox.blogspot.com/.
	Elodie Lauten’s opera The Death of Don Juan, where electronics are a background to the live performance of musicians and singers has just been reissued on CD by the label Unseen Worlds, her 27th release to-date. Originally composed and released in 1985, it is now listed in Wikipedia as “one of the major postminimalist works of the 80s”. Lauten’s opera Waking in New York was listed in Sequenza21 as one of the most influential works of the last three decades. Her Variations on the Orange Cycle for solo piano was included in Chamber Music America’s Best Works of the 20th century list. In January 2008 Lauten’s music was featured in the Seattle Chamber Players’s Classics of Downtown program along with major names in the industry. In May 2008 a new composition for flute, violin and tape was premiered in New York by Downtown Music Productions. Currently Lauten’s digital artwork is on display on the Cybergallery66 website. Official website: http://www.elodielauten.net.