From Salon to Solar

The Michael Marcuzzi Ensemble offers a Retrospective of Cuban Music 

 

 

TORONTO, January 18, 2008 -- Michael Marcuzzi headlines the Faculty Concert Series of York University’s Music Department on January 24 in a dynamic concert of Cuban music featuring a large ensemble of guest artists with a wide range of instruments, voice and live dance performance. The evening, titled “From salon to solar: A Retrospective of Cuban Music”, takes place at 7:30pm in the Tribute Communities Recital Hall in the Accolade East building at York.

 

Marcuzzi’s research and publications focus on Cuba’s popular music and its African-derived religious traditions, and these interests have inspired the title and program of his concert.

 

“A 'solar' is the courtyard of the Spanish-style tenements, where improvised music like rumba would be played. “From salon to solar” is a metaphor illustrating how this retrospective draws from both gentrified European traditions and also from African-derived folk music,” Marcuzzi said.

 

The concert program will span more than a century of Cuban music from the late 1800s to the present day, including works by Lecuona, Romeu, Piñeiro and Pedro Louis Ferrer. The musicians will be joined by guest artist Orlando Cardoso and York graduate student Melissa Noventa, performing rumba and Afrocuban dance.

 

Marcuzzi and the dancers will share the stage with guest singers Daniel Stone and Laura Lindo, as well as instructors and graduate students from York’s music department. Performers include Ruben Esguerra, Glenda del Monte, Tara Fernandez, David Font-Navarette, Julie Kwan, Rick Shadrach Lazar, Steve Mancuso, Paul Ormandy, Bernardo Padrón and the 12-member York Latin Ensemble, a charanga ensemble of flute, violins, cello, bass, piano and percussion.

 

Marcuzzi is a multi-instrumental performer, arranger, composer, ethnomusicologist and teacher with broad experience in classical, jazz, Cuban, Latin and popular music. He advanced his training through orchestral studies with trumpeters James Spragg and Barton Woomert of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra; jazz studies with Kenny Wheeler, Herbie Williams, Marcus Belgrave and Donald Byrd; and percussion studies at the Escuela de Superacion Profesional, Ignacio Cervantes in Havana, Cuba. He has played trumpet as a sideman with artists such as Cleo Laine, Sid Caesar, Al Martino, The Four Tops, The Drifters and The Temptations, and has performed with numerous musicians in Cuba and with many local Latin ensembles. His credits as arranger and composer include work with the University of Memphis Jazz Orchestra, California State University (LA) Latin Ensemble, the San Francisco-based ensemble Candela and Toronto-based Latin ensembles such as Orquesta Fantasia, Cimarrón, and Pacandé.

 

 

What: Michael Marcuzzi Ensemble: “From salon to solar: A Retrospective of Cuban Music”
When: Thurs. Jan. 24 at 7:30pm
Where: Tribute Communities Recital Hall, Accolade East Building, York University, 4700 Keele St. [Map]
Admission: $15, students $5.
Box Office: 416.736.5888 | www.yorku.ca/perform/boxoffice

 

This is the fourth of seven performances in the Faculty Concert Series spotlighting faculty artists in the Department of Music at York University. Upcoming concerts will feature cellist Mark Chambers, mezzo soprano Catherine Robbin and jazz drummer Barry Elmes.

 

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Media Contact:
Amy Stewart, Communications, Faculty of Fine Arts, York University
416.736.2100 ext. 20421  |   amy.stewart@yorku.ca