UNIVERSE OF DREAMS BRINGS DAZZLING HUBBLE IMAGES TO GPAC
12/04/08
WHAT: A Universe of Dreams with Neal Conan and Ensemble Galilei
WHEN: Friday, January 23, 8 p.m.
TICKETS: Single tickets are $25, $30, and $35, plus handling fee, and are available now by calling (901) 751-7500 or online at www.GPACweb.com.
Box Office Hours: Monday through Friday between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. and noon on day of performance. All major credit cards accepted.
WHERE: Germantown Performing Arts Centre
1801 Exeter Road
Germantown, TN 38138
CONTACT: For more information or to arrange an interview with the artist(s), please contact Carrie Corbett at (901) 751-7501 or carrie@GPACweb.com.
IMAGES: See attached
ARTIST WEB: Ensemble Galilei - www.egmusic.com
Neal Conan - www.npr.org/about/people/bios/nconan.html
A Universe of Dreams presents music, poetry, and stories with spectacular projected imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope.
Narrated by Neal Conan, host of NPR's Talk of the Nation, this concert marries music to words in a way that is both compelling and beautiful.
The evocative music of the Celtic/Early Music Crossover group Ensemble Galilei presents the perfect backdrop for works by some of the finest poets in America. A Universe of Dreams includes text from Stanley Kunitz, Jim Harrison, William Shakespeare, and a re-telling of a Navajo Creation Myth, all performed with images from the Hubble that have transformed our understanding of the universe.
Neal Conan
Award-winning journalist Neal Conan is the host of Talk of the Nation, the national news-talk call-in show from NPR News. Conan brings three decades of news and radio experience to the show, which reaches nearly 3 million listeners a week on more than 280 NPR member stations.
A familiar voice on NPR for the past quarter century, Conan has worked as a reporter based in New York, Washington, and London-he served as NPR's Bureau Chief in both New York and London-and anchored NPR live coverage of events including national political conventions, inaugurations, and an impeachment. For five years, he hosted Weekly Edition: The Best of NPR News. Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Conan played a major role anchoring NPR's continuous live coverage, a part he reprised during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2004, in Des Moines, Iowa, he hosted the first radio-only presidential candidates' debate since 1948.
On the other side of the microphone, Conan has also served as editor, producer, and executive producer of NPR's flagship evening newsmagazine, All Things Considered and, at various times, acted as NPR's foreign editor, managing editor, and news director.
Conan's awards include a Major Armstrong award for his coverage of the Iran-Iraq War, a prestigious Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University award as part of NPR's coverage of the Gulf War, another duPont and a George Foster Peabody Award for his part in NPR's Coverage of Sept. 11 and yet another duPont for NPR's coverage of the war in Iraq. During his time at All Things Considered, the program won numerous awards, including the Washington Journalism Review's Best in the Business award.
During the 2001 baseball season, Conan took a leave of absence from NPR News to work as the play-by-play announcer for the Aberdeen Arsenal of the independent Atlantic League. He filed a series of commentaries about life on the fringe of professional sports for Morning Edition and later wrote a book about his experiences, Play By Play: Baseball, Radio and Life in the Last Chance League.
Ensemble Galilei
Ensemble Galilei is an ensemble of players from both classical and Celtic traditional backgrounds, playing Irish and Scottish airs and dance tunes, Early and Medieval music, and original compositions.
Hanneke Cassel, fiddle
"Exuberant and rhythmic, somehow both wild and innocent, delivered with captivating melodic clarity and an irresistible playfulness," says the Boston Globe about Hanneke Cassel's playing. Such charismatic fiddling has brought native Oregonian Hanneke Cassel many honors and awards. She is the 1997 U.S. National Scottish Fiddle Champion, she holds a Bachelors of Music in Violin Performance from Berklee College of Music, and she has performed and taught across the U.S., Scotland, England, Sweden, Austria, China, Italy, Hungary, New Zealand, Australia, France, and Canada.
Allison Edberg, Baroque violin
Allison Guest Edberg is a member of Olde Friends, Ensemble Galilei, ViVaCe, Ensemble Voltaire, the Mirabel Classical Quartet, and is concertmaster of the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra. She was a recipient of the Willi Apel Scholarship in baroque violin at Indiana University where she studied with Stanley Ritchie. With him she appeared in recital at Chicago's Quigley Chapel in 2002. The Chicago Sun Times called her performance of the Telemann E-flat Fantasie "impeccable, with unerring intonation and an austere beauty." (November 11. 2002). She has collaborated in recent years with Apollo's Fire, the Washington Bach Consort, La Monica, and Early Music Southwest, and is frequently featured at the Bloomington Early Music Festival. Ms. Edberg has toured nationally and has recorded for the Electra and Centaur CD labels.
Kathryn Montoya, recorders, whistle, oboe
Kathryn Montoya is completing a doctorate at Indiana University, where she studied historical oboes with Washington McClain and recorder with Eva Legêne. She holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and Indiana University. Ms. Montoya has performed with many ensembles, including Apollo's Fire, The Newberry Consort, Ensemble Arion, the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Opera Theatre, Aradia Ensemble, and the Washington Bach Consort. She is a recipient of the prestigious Performers Certificate at Indiana University and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Germany. Kathryn was a finalist in the American Bach Soloist Competition and has appeared as a soloist with the Bloomington Early Music Festival Orchestra and the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra. In the summer of 2005 she performed with the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra in the world premiere of Johann Mattheson's Boris Goudenow and was on faculty at Oberlin's Baroque Performance Institute. Kathryn has recorded for the Naxos label.
Sue Richards, Celtic harp
Sue Richards is a collector of tunes, mostly Celtic and Scandinavian. She has played the harp, both pedal and Celtic, since childhood, and found it to be the perfect instrument for her passion. To this end, she has won the Scottish Harp Society of America championship four times, studied and taught in Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and recorded with many friends, a natural outgrowth of a good party or session. She has sat in with the Chieftains and played for President and Mrs. Clinton. She also performs with "HEN" harp duo and "Harp and Fool" with mime Mark Jaster. Her solo recordings are on the Maggie's Music label.
Carolyn Anderson Surrick, viola da gamba
Carolyn Anderson Surrick was born on May 31st. Marin Marais, the great 17th century gambist was also born on that date. Probably a coincidence. He had nineteen children. She does not. She does however, love the viola da gamba and all that it can do. She also is driven to create things, which has been useful in her work with Ensemble Galilei since it is her job to make things happen. She is, after all, the ringleader and navigatrix of the band. Its been almost eighteen years of collaborating, conspiring, whispering, and learning and, honestly, it's one of the coolest jobs on earth.
Carolyn has a BA in music from UCSC, and an MA in musicology from GWU, started her recording career in 1977 and has never looked back. She has recorded and produced many projects since then, has built a couple of houses, and would rather travel by horseback than car. She lives with her family outside of Annapolis, Maryland in a house made from a 120 year-old barn. Life is good.
Danny Mallon, percussion
Danny holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in classical orchestral percussion from the Mannes College of Music in NYC, where he has been a faculty member since 1991. In addition to three recordings with Chatham Baroque on the Dorian label, he can also be heard on Pifaro's Dorian recording. He has recently recorded with the Baltimore Consort, Brio and on Ron McFarlane's solo recording on the new Dorian, Sona Luminus label. As well as recording spots for TV, radio and film, he has performed with Jordi Saval's period orchestra, "Le Concert Des Nations,"; The Baltimore Consort; Ensemble Galilie; Rebel; Apollo's Fire; The NY Collegium; Artek; AmorArtis Chorus and Baroque Orchestra and with Paula Robison and Ken Cooper. His festival appearances include Spoletto; the Berkeley Early Music Festival; the Madison Early Music Festival; the east Coast Baroque Dance workshop; the International Festival of Latin American Renaissance and Baroque Music in Bolivia and the Festival of Baroque Music in San Louis Potosi, Mexico.
Jackie Moran, percussion
Born in Thurles, Co. Tipperary, Jackie immigrated to Chicago with his family at age 10. Displaying the intense zeal of a natural-born musician, he was firmly ensconced in the Chicago Irish music scene by the young age of 14. Several prestigious awards later, he'd proven his mettle in Ireland, as well. Jackie has been a founding member of many popular performing groups: Comas, Gan Bua, The Drovers, Wilding, The Otters, Trinity Irish Dance Company. On the cutting edge of the Irish music scene, he has toured with Riverdance, and has performed and recorded with some of the top Irish musicians in the world, including Kevin Burke, Dennis Cahill, Liz Carroll, John Doyle, Martin Hayes, Paddy Keenan, Larry Nugent, and John Williams, among others. Jackie's percussive stylings have even been featured in a number of major motion pictures: Backdraft (1991), Blink (1993), Traveller (1997), The Road to Perdition (2002).
Ginger Hildebrand, violin
Ginger Hildebrand holds a Master's degree in guitar performance from the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore where she worked with Manuel Barrueco; and she studied both violin and guitar in her undergraduate work at Dickinson College. She claims her ability to perform on many instruments is due more to her lack of focus than any abundance of talent. She's been performing professionally since she was 19 with her husband David, focusing on authentic early American music and instruments. Together they've provided music for documentaries, PBS specials, and on stages at Williamsburg, Mt. Vernon, the Smithsonian, and the like. They have released five CDs and two children. Ginger also teaches privately and does educational outreach for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra through their Arts Excel program. She is thrilled to be touring with Ensemble Galilei this season.
Rosie Shipley, fiddle
A native of Baltimore, Maryland, Rosie has been playing the fiddle since she was three years old. She learned her first Irish tunes at the age of eight from master fiddler Brendan Mulvihill. As a teenager, Rosie attended the Gaelic College of Celtic Arts and Crafts on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, where she became well versed in Cape Breton-style fiddling. Rosie tours internationally with Irish singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Gerry O'Beirne and has appeared as a guest fiddler and pianist with the Irish-American band, Cherish the Ladies. Rosie's most recent CD, Well Kept Secrets, is a collaboration with singer/guitarist Lisa Moscatiello. Upon its release, Well Kept Secrets was hailed "a masterpiece" by Sing Out! Magazine, and "an achingly beautiful recording," by The Washington Times. Rosie is currently recording a duo CD with Gerry O'Beirne.
