CHAMBER MUSIC FROM THE MILKEN CENTER
In 2024-25, the Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience presents four concerts of uplifting and distinctive chamber music.
4 PM Sunday, January 12, 2025 — COMPOSER PORTRAIT: THE MUSIC OF PAUL SCHOENFIELD
From Milken Center Artistic Director Neal Stulberg:
Paul Schoenfield (1947-2024) was a unique and brilliant musician of decidedly American Jewish Experience. A virtuoso concert pianist and hugely gifted composer who wrote for first-class performers and ensembles, Paul was a devoutly orthodox Jew and a remarkable person. Retiring as professor of composition at the University of Michigan in 2021, he split his time between the U.S. and Israel. His music — a fascinating mashup of klezmer/Hasidic, liturgical, jazz, bluegrass, blues and Americana — is well represented in the Milken Archive. Paul and I both grew up in Detroit, and I intersected with him professionally through the years. One chamber concert is hardly enough to do justice to his range and brilliance, but we’re going to try.
Program:
Four Motets for eight-voice chorus from Psalm 86 (1995)
Tales from Chelm for string quartet (1991)
Carolina Réveille for violin, viola, cello, piano (1996)
Camp Songs for mezzo-soprano, baritone, violin, cello, double bass, clarinet and piano (2001)
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1 PM Sunday, February 4, 2025 —ISRAELI ART SONG: BETWEEN FANTASIES AND REALITIES
A concert/lecture exploring the beauties and complexities of Israeli art song, featuring Israeli-born mezzo-soprano and UCLA lecturer, Iris Malkin, and Israeli pianist and past dean of the Jerusalem Academy for Music and Dance, Ido Ariel. Featured composers include Moses Milner, Paul Ben-Haim, Zvi Avni, Aharon Harlap, Ofer Ben-Amots and Menachem Weissenberg.
Iris Malkin, mezzo-soprano
Ido Ariel, piano
Lani Hall, UCLA
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4 PM Sunday, February 16, 2025 — COMPOSER PORTRAIT: THE MUSIC OF STANLEY WALDEN (Palm Springs)
From Neal Stulberg:
The Milken Center follows its May 2024 residency with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Yehudi Wyner (b. 1929) with Spring 2025 concerts in Palm Springs and Ventura surveying the chamber music of another 90-something wunderkind, Stanley Walden.
Venues for Palm Springs and Ventura to be announced