May 9, 2012

Cayuga Chamber Orchestra Season Finale: Mozart Mass

Here's an excerpt from the article in the Ithaca Times, written by Jane Dieckman.  For the complete story, please click here to be taken to the Ithaca Times site.

"Our remarkable Cayuga Chamber Orchestra closes its 35th season this Saturday evening, May 12, with a special concert—special for the conductor and the instrumental soloists, and because of the major choral work on the program. The orchestra, under its music director, Lanfranco Marcelletti – joined by two Youth Competition winners, the Upstate New York Chorus, and four vocal soloists – is playing music by Frank Proto (no, not that Frank Proto), Peter Tchaikovsky, and W. A. Mozart. The concert in Ford Hall starts at 8 p.m., preceded by the orchestra’s annual silent auction starting at 6:45 p.m.

The concert opens with a surprise..."

Click here to read the entire story

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September 21, 2011

When I caught up last week with the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra’s peripatetic music director, Lanfranco Marcelletti, he was in São Paolo for his niece’s wedding. On a leave of absence from his faculty position at UMass Amherst, he is spending this academic year in his native city of Recife on Brazil’s northeastern coast, managing a training program for young orchestra musicians...

Marcelletti is not on leave from the CCO, however, and he is to be back in Ithaca – he will be conducting all four orchestra concerts – for opening the 35th season this Saturday evening, September 25, at 8 p.m. in Ford Hall. A pre-concert talk is scheduled for 7:15 p.m. This first concert is special, as Mayor Carolyn Peterson has issued a proclamation declaring September 25, 2011 Cayuga Chamber Orchestra Day in Ithaca...

Click here to read the entire story

 

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July 22, 2011

Marcelletti Renews Contract With CCO

The Lansing Star included our latest press release in today's edition, announcing that Maestro Marcelletti has signed a new three year agreement with our Orchestra.

"This group is a hidden treasure, and I have many hopes for our future together," Marcelletti stated.

To read the full press release in The Lansing Times. click here.

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March 3, 2011

The Ithaca Times featured an article yesterday that talks about the tremendously exciting collaborative performance to take place on March 5th at the Hangar Theatre.  The CCO is proud to be bringing together some of the great local talents in Ithaca for a completely unique, and powerful event unlike any other.

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Here's an excerpt from the article:

"The Four Seasons project grew out of the warm friendship between Maestro Marcelletti and Rachel Lampert. Right at the start they were talking about how they might work together. And in September their first collation, a show of music, dance, and text called "Dancing in the Kitchen with the CCO," was successfully mounted as part of the Kitchen Theatre's present season. The idea of doing Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" with dancers came from Lampert, who also suggested using the Hangar Theatre (reopened last June after major renovation) for this project, especially as the program fit the theater's capital campaign tagline, "A Hangar for All Seasons." For Marcelletti, who very much wants to present classical music in new ways and to try different venues, this kind of show with music and dance was a dream come true."

Click here to read the entire story at the Ithaca Times website.

 

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Chamber Effect

by Jane Dieckmann
First appeared: September 16, 2009 - Ithaca Times

"I am very excited about this program," says Lanfranco Marcelletti concerning the opening concert of the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, which takes place at 8pm this Saturday, Sept. 19, at Ithaca College's Ford Hall. Although the orchestra's new music director is beginning his second season, this program is the first he has planned, along with the assistance of his music advisory committee of five orchestra members.

Reflecting the season's theme of old world meeting new, the program comprises a Strauss overture and a Haydn symphony, with three pieces by Brazilian composers sandwiched in between. And to reinforce the new world, Raïff Dantos, considered the leading cellist of Brazil today, will be soloist in two of the Brazilian works.

Opening the concert with a bang is the lively and familiar overture to the beloved comic operetta Die Fledermaus (The Bat) by the waltz king, Johann Strauss Jr. After its Vienna premiere in 1874, this popular and entertaining work has played successfully everywhere and is often performed on New Year's Eve, due to its second act champagne party. In this overture you can hear not only waltzes but also the countdown to midnight in the music.

To start off the Brazilian segment, the orchestra will play the ninth (and final) piece of a suite written by that country's best-known composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos, called Bachianas Brasileiras. With each part written for different forces, No. 9 is scored for strings (and chorus, and is sometimes performed this way).

Villa-Lobos, as the title suggests, is paying tribute to the great master Johann Sebastian Bach, by using counterpoint and various baroque dance suite movements, which alternate with Brazilian dance rhythms. One section has a fugue in 11/8 time, with very much of a Brazilian feeling. (Marcelletti has often performed the fourth, written for piano and orchestra). Of course, nine is a magic number - think of the nine symphonies of Beethoven, for example - and Villa-Lobos was indeed very conscious of the old world when writing this music.

Marcelletti considers himself really fortunate to have Raïff Dantos, whom he calls the "most important cellist in Brazil," here in Ithaca for this concert. The two musicians grew up in cities just 50 miles apart in northeastern Brazil and have crossed paths many times in their careers. When they last talked, Dantos told Marcelletti that he would be doing three concerts in the U.S. this month and that he would be in New York. "Okay; you can come to Ithaca and play with my orchestra," Marcelletti told Dantos.

Dantos has performed and recorded with major orchestras in South America and also is an acclaimed chamber music player. He is recording a lot of Brazilian music, Marcelletti told me, and many composers are writing pieces for him. He will perform the Elegia for Cello and String Orchestra by Raimundo Penaforte (born 1961) and the Concerto for Violincello, Opus 53, by Liduino Pitombeira, born 1962.

Both composers also come originally from northeastern Brazil, and both have studied in the U.S. Marceletti told me that concertmaster Linda Case, who serves on the advisory committee, knows the work of Penaforte and wanted the orchestra to play it. The elegy is a "very sweet piece," Marcelletti says, written originally for piano and cello and then orchestrated. The concerto by Pitombeira is a more contemporary piece, a serious work that goes beyond the usual Brazilian rhythms and style and presents something very different for the audience. Both works are rather short and have not been performed in the U.S. before now.

To close the concert, the Haydn symphony (No. 103 in E flat major, called Drum Roll) was something everyone wanted to do this year, as it is the 200th anniversary of the composer's death. When asked why he picked this symphony - after all, there are 104 to choose from ¬- Marcelletti said he wanted one that the orchestra had not done before and that was scored for the whole group to play.

Marcelletti liked the idea in the introduction, where the timpani opens the season with a drum roll. The symphony also has a little solo for the violin, and as his idea was to include works throughout the season that show off different orchestra members, here was the chance to feature his concertmaster Linda Case.

And here, too, is an interesting way to learn about music of the new world and to enjoy some familiar old world music. Lanfranco Marcelletti also promises something extra - "This will be a concert with a few surprises!"