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OPERA - NYC - Lang Hall - World Premiere - 25, 26 January 2012
FRENCH LESSONS (French Conversation and Diction Exercises for American Students), Ionel Petroi's surprising and brilliantly composed opera based on Eugene Ionesco's play, is one of the most unique explorations of our world ever imagined.
Mr. Petroi's music breathes with great humor, wit and jubilant rhythms.
... I find your music to be amusing and humorous.
Eugene Ionesco
OPERA
FRENCH LESSONS
Sung in French with subtitles in English
LANG HALL
68th street & Lexington avenue
New York, NY 10065
Composer:
Ionel PETROI
Director:
Susan GONZALEZ
FEATURING
Soprano
Aliya KAMENSHIKOV
Soprano
Ali PENDERGAST
Soprano
Emmanuelle BORDAS
Countertenor
Nicholas TAMAGNA
Baritone
Dewey MOSS
Baritone
Manny RIBES
Bass-Baritone
George HEATH
Piano
Jennifer M CANCELADO
Piano
Tatjana RANKOVICH
Piano
Ionel PETROI
Percussion instruments
Chihiro SHIBAYAMA
Percussion instruments
Samuel BUDISH
About Ionel PETROI
... his "Music of Marrying and Burying," a collection of ragtime-inflected pieces evoking the often frenzied rituals of the Balkans.
...the five selections from "Music of Marrying and Burying" that Ms. Rankovich played were bursting with invention and madcap vitality that often seemed to race headlong into hysteria.
(Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, New York Times)
...Ionel Petroi is a highly original composer.
(The Stone - New York).
...his playing has character, and there are smiles to be had in his music... ...Petroi demonstrates his own skill at orchestration... ...Petroi creates some superb effects with the muted strings and sliding brass...
(Fanfare-USA- Barnaby Rayfield)
Ionel Petroi composes works in the vein of “music relative”, which follow the rhythmic patterns worthy of Stravinsky.
Anne Rey Le Monde, Paris, (France)
...Plus, listen for the Bill Evans-meets-Messiaen stride Balkan stylings of Ionel Petroi.
(WNYC - John Schaefer New York).
The most funniest piece was the world premiere "Les mélodies de Sancho Pança" by Ionel Petroï. This consisted of seven short songs, all but one set to nonsense syllables, with sardonically conventional tonal harmonies. The joke was that the accompaniments, expertly rendered by the Arlekin Quartet and bassist Jim Bergman, constantly warp the familiar chords by quarter-tone, yielding music whose out-of-tuneness undercuts its intentional banality. Baritone Roderick Gomez was the exquisitely suave soloist.
Joshua Kosman Chronicle Music Critic San Francisco Chronicle (USA)
After the suite no. 2 & no 4 of J.S.Bach,the decision of Michael Kevin Jones to introduce the audience to a composition by a contemporary musician Ionel Petroi was a good one. Solo cello compositions have a quality which make even the most eclectic composers more accessible and the brief Cantalena and Dance by the New York-based Yugoslavian born musician was no exception.
Gibraltar Chronicle
Links
• OPERA-BROADWAY WORLD
• http://opera.broadwayworld.com/article/Hunter-College-to-Present-FRENCH-LESSONS-125-20120116
• https://sites.google.com/site/ionelpetroi/
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