The Yellow House Concerts in Santa Barbara presents the first concert of 2012 with the Duo Amantis, featuring celebrated virtuosos Michael Kudirka (guitar) and Tara Schwab (flute), whose performances have been described by the LA Times as "fascinating, captivating, and haunting". The concert takes place on Sunday Jan. 22 at 4pm.
The concert program presented by the Duo Amantis takes the listener on a time travel through three hundred years of dances and folk-tunes as written by French, German, Hungarian, Brazilian and Portuguese composers, dating from 1722 to the XXI century. The Duo Amantis will perform works by Villa-Lobos, bossa-novas from Antonio Carlos Jobim, Romanian and gipsy dances as depicted by Bela Bartok and a collection of dance music and folk-tunes from J.S. Bach to Maurice Ravel to Patricio da Silva.
Michael Kudirka, guitar
With performances described by the Los Angeles Times as "fascinating... captivating... [and] haunting," Michael Kudirka is gaining international recognition as one of the most exciting members of the next generation of classical guitarists. Numerous competition first prizes include the American String Teachers Association, the University of Southern California Concerto Competition, and the Portland International Guitar Competition. He has toured extensively in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Germany, and Japan, and has performed at such notable venues as the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California, the Conservatorio de los Rosas in Morelia, Mexico, the Darmstadt Ferienkurs für Neue Musik in Darmstadt, Germany, and the Ono Guitar School in Osaka, Japan. An active chamber musician, Michael Kudirka has appeared with several chamber ensembles including Music of Changes, Ensemble Green, the Formalist String Quartet, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra, the Cantori Domino Orchestra and Chorus, the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, the USC Symphony Orchestra, and PARTCH.
Michael Kudirka studied guitar with William Kanengiser at the University of Southern California, Miroslav Tadic at CalArts, and both composition and improvisation with Dusan Bogdanovic at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He has performed in masterclasses for many of the world's most brilliant guitarists including Sergio and Odair Assad, Roberto Aussel, Paul Galbraith, Pepe Romero, and David Russel.
A major activist for the creation of new music, Michael Kudirka has commissioned and premiered dozens of new works for the guitar including Song of Ashes by Naomi Sekiya, “May the Bridges I Burn Light My Way…” by Jeffrey Holmes, 13 Ways of Looking at 12 Strings by Bryan Johanson, and 5 Intermezzi by Veronika Krausas to name just a few. An active arranger, Michael has transcribed and performed Jean-Philippe Rameau's Pieces de Clavecin (1724) for guitar duo and is currently working on György Ligeti's Musica Ricercata for guitar duo as well as publishing a polymetrically notated version of Francesco da Milano's Libro Terzo of 1562. He recently received a grant from the American Composer’s Forum to record the guitar works of Jeffrey Holmes.
Tara Schwab, flute
A communicative and exciting soloist, ensemble player, scholar, and teacher, Tara Schwab offers uniquely expressive performances and interpretations of historical and contemporary works for flute. Lauded as “a true technician of the flute,” her playing represents the highest level of virtuosity and refinement, while her focus in performance continues to explore and expand the boundaries of current musical thought and composition. Tara is actively involved in commissioning, editing, arranging, performing, and recording new works for flute, in particular for her premier ensemble Duo Amantis with guitarist Michael Kudirka. Tara’s primary teachers include Molly Barth, Jim Walker, and Brooks de Wetter-Smith, and she has performed in notable venues throughout the United States including REDCAT, Capitol Records, and Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, the Hult Center in Eugene, Oregon, the Interlochen Center for the Arts, and as a soloist with the UNC Symphony Orchestra in Chapel Hill, NC. Tara has been featured on the Global Village with John Schneider, which airs on 90.7FM in Los Angeles, and broadcasts world-wide at KPFK.org. Tara continues to travel, perform, and teach throughout the US, Mexico, and Europe, and Duo Amantis looks forward to the completion of its first full-length recording this winter.
Tara holds a DMA in flute performance with a supporting area in Ethnomusicology from the University of Oregon, where she was awarded the Graduate Teaching Fellowship from 2008-2011. Pursuing the doctoral degree allowed Tara Schwab to synthesize her passion for performance with her interests in musicology, literature, music theory, and oral traditions. Her final research document focuses on the re-contextualization and re-interpretation of historical music using the metaphor and fundaments of rhetoric in light of the musical and aesthetic traditions of the time. Learning to play Baroque and Classical flutes has accompanied Tara’s research, and she enjoys the ability to perform music on both modern and historical instruments.
Her degrees in flute performance from the California Institute of the Arts (MFA) and the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill (BM) evidence her life-long dual emphasis on knowledge and creativity. During her time at CalArts, Tara focused on adventurous concert programming, interdisciplinary collaboration, early music, and improvisation in different styles. Her interest in Latin-American language, music, and culture led her to learn Charanga and Latin Jazz, allowing her the opportunity to study with Nestor Torres and Fay Roberts, two experts in the field, and to perform in jazz projects and festivals in Los Angeles, and Huatulco, Mexico.
Duo Amantis
Duo Amantis was formed at the California Institute of the Arts. As specialists in contemporary music, they have developed a repertoire consisting of major works of the 20th and 21st centuries and original transcriptions of music from the traditional canon. They have also worked personally with living composers to create new compositions for flute and guitar. As a multi-faceted ensemble, the Duo Amantis also specializes in music of the Renaissance and Baroque eras, performed on period instruments.Notable soloists in their own right, Tara and Michael have performed individually at such venues as the Walt Disney Concert Hall (Los Angeles), the Palace of Fine Arts (San Francisco), Capitol Records (Los Angeles), Paramount Studios (Los Angeles), the Hult Center (Oregon), the International Jazz Festival (Huatulco, Mexico), the Conservatorio de los Rosas (Mexico), the Darmstadt Ferienkurs für Neue Musik (Germany), the Ono Guitar School (Japan), as well as the REDCAT theater (Los Angeles), the Norwalk Library, the Braille Institute of Los Angeles, the Sandler Pacific Palisades Chamber Music Series, and Beall Hall at the University of Oregon as a duo.Tara and Michael are active and versatile chamber musicians, and perform frequently as guest artists with a variety of ensembles including the Formalist Quartet, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra, Cantori Domino, the UO Opera, the PARTCH ensemble, the Eugene Symphony, the Corvalis Symphony, Beta Collide, the Taumbu International Ensemble, and the USC Opera.
The concert program presented by the Duo Amantis takes the listener on a time travel through three hundred years of dances and folk-tunes as written by French, German, Hungarian, Brazilian and Portuguese composers, dating from 1722 to the XXI century. The Duo Amantis will perform works by Villa-Lobos, bossa-novas from Antonio Carlos Jobim, Romanian and gipsy dances as depicted by Bela Bartok and a collection of dance music and folk-tunes from J.S. Bach to Maurice Ravel to Patricio da Silva.
Concert Details:
Title: Time Travel with Flute and Guitar
Date: Sunday, January 22, 2012
Time: 4 PM
Venue: The Yellow House
Tickets: https://yellowhouseconcerts.ticketleap.com/
Date: Sunday, January 22, 2012
Time: 4 PM
Venue: The Yellow House
Tickets: https://yellowhouseconcerts.ticketleap.com/
Michael Kudirka, guitar
Michael Kudirka studied guitar with William Kanengiser at the University of Southern California, Miroslav Tadic at CalArts, and both composition and improvisation with Dusan Bogdanovic at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He has performed in masterclasses for many of the world's most brilliant guitarists including Sergio and Odair Assad, Roberto Aussel, Paul Galbraith, Pepe Romero, and David Russel.
A major activist for the creation of new music, Michael Kudirka has commissioned and premiered dozens of new works for the guitar including Song of Ashes by Naomi Sekiya, “May the Bridges I Burn Light My Way…” by Jeffrey Holmes, 13 Ways of Looking at 12 Strings by Bryan Johanson, and 5 Intermezzi by Veronika Krausas to name just a few. An active arranger, Michael has transcribed and performed Jean-Philippe Rameau's Pieces de Clavecin (1724) for guitar duo and is currently working on György Ligeti's Musica Ricercata for guitar duo as well as publishing a polymetrically notated version of Francesco da Milano's Libro Terzo of 1562. He recently received a grant from the American Composer’s Forum to record the guitar works of Jeffrey Holmes.
Tara Schwab, flute
Tara holds a DMA in flute performance with a supporting area in Ethnomusicology from the University of Oregon, where she was awarded the Graduate Teaching Fellowship from 2008-2011. Pursuing the doctoral degree allowed Tara Schwab to synthesize her passion for performance with her interests in musicology, literature, music theory, and oral traditions. Her final research document focuses on the re-contextualization and re-interpretation of historical music using the metaphor and fundaments of rhetoric in light of the musical and aesthetic traditions of the time. Learning to play Baroque and Classical flutes has accompanied Tara’s research, and she enjoys the ability to perform music on both modern and historical instruments.
Her degrees in flute performance from the California Institute of the Arts (MFA) and the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill (BM) evidence her life-long dual emphasis on knowledge and creativity. During her time at CalArts, Tara focused on adventurous concert programming, interdisciplinary collaboration, early music, and improvisation in different styles. Her interest in Latin-American language, music, and culture led her to learn Charanga and Latin Jazz, allowing her the opportunity to study with Nestor Torres and Fay Roberts, two experts in the field, and to perform in jazz projects and festivals in Los Angeles, and Huatulco, Mexico.
Duo Amantis
 |
| Duo Amantis Tara Schwab & Michael Kudirka |
