
Sounds of Arts Festival 2016
Line-Ups

SOAF2015 is made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and administered by the Queens Council on the Arts.
Sounds of Arts Festival (SOAF) is MuSE's annual week-long arts festival in Queens (New York) every November!
The Secret Theatre (BIG THEATRE)
4402 23rd Street, Long Island City, NY 11101
Subway: E, M, G Train: 23 St. - Ely Ave.
7 Train: Court Sq. Station
__________________________________________
Tickets: General Admission $15 advance / $20 at the door
Seniors & Students with ID $12 advance / $14 at the door
__________________________________________






Program A NEW ORCHESTRA WORKS BY NEW YORK COMPOSERS
"A Meeting of Symphonic Minds"
Saturday, November 14, 2015 at 7:30pm
*FREE ADMISSION - RSVP by filling out the form (Click the "Reserve" icon below.)
(Venue suggests $5 donation at the door)
(at the corner of Linden Place)
Orchestra conducted by David Stech
PROGRAM (order TBD)
Alicia Lieu - Passacaglia
Deborah Lau - Jazz and Arancini
Kit Goldstein Grant - Baby Bear Gets His Popcorn
Jude Thomas - Shadows
Matt Weber - Warring Kingdoms
Eimi Tanaka - The Current
Hany Rizkalla - Impulses for Small Orchestra
Terence Petersen - The Machine
Mavis Pan - Death and the Maiden
Holland Albright - Run Away With My Thoughts
Ruth Ansell - Sonata So Easy
Peter Jan - The Heroine
Matt Mezzacappa - Don Quixote
Derek Simon- Neural Networks
Charlie Martin Casál- Danzón(sito)
Neil Radisch - Fantasy / Toccata - Part 2
Kathleen Rivera - Approximations : Strange Return
Program B CLASSICAL CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Tuesday, November 17, 2015 at 8pm
at The Secret Theatre
4402 23rd St, Long Island City, NY 11101
LUCIDITY CHAMBERISTAS, a Queens-based string ensemble
Eugene Takahashi, conductor
J.S.Bach: Violin Concerto, A minor, BWV 1041
Alba Potes: Reflexiones for Violin, Viola, Cello and String Orchestra
Bela Bartok: Romanian Folk Dances Sz.68
Antonin Dvorak: Serenade for String Orchestra, E major, Op. 22
Program C JAZZ
Thursday, November 19, 2015 at 7:30pm
at The Secret Theatre
4402 23rd St, Long Island City, NY 11101
This program features jazz composers and their groups perfroming original tunes. Ticket price includes both sets.
MARK WADE TRIO (7:30pm)
Award-winning bassist and composer Mark Wade brings his dynamic trio to the stage to perform selections from his internationally acclaimed debut CD “Event Horizon". Come hear a lineup of Wade’s original compositions that Downbeat Magazine says “...linger in realms more akin to mystery and invention...” and The Vertical Spin as having “...an immeasurable quality I long for as a music lover.”
CHRIS BIESTERFELDT (8:30pm)
Chris Biesterfeldt is a guitarist and composer based in Brooklyn with two critically acclaimed CDs. Phineas got a 4 ½ star review in Downbeat earlier this year and Urban Mandolin was featured on NPR in 2013 (he’s also been playing mandolin the last few years). Although Chris is jazz based, other genres of music he plays - R&B, Funk, Brazilian, African, etc. - also influence his composing.
Chris Biesterfeldt – guitar
Ben Stivers – keyboard/piano
Chris Tarry – bass
Eric Halvorson – drums
Program D MUSICAL
3 Shows:
Friday, November 20, 2015 at 8pm
Sunday, November 22, 2015 at 7pm
Monday, November 23, 2015 at 8pm
at The Secret Theatre
4402 23rd St, Long Island City, NY 11101
THE CLACKAMAC PIONEERS
written by Chris Widney & Mark T Evans
Directed by Dan Dinero
Music directed by Noriko Sunamoto
Megan Tomei, assistant director
Lena Dubrusin, choriographer
Synopsis: In 2008 The United States began a program to relocate 60,000 Bhutanese
refugees. “The Clackamac Pioneers” is the fictional tale of the Bahadur family’s journey from a refugee camp in Nepal to a small, soccer-obsessed town in suburban Oregon. Struggling to fit in at Clackamac High School, young Jenuka draws on the Bhutanese tradition of sorcery and witchcraft to turn the soccer team into winners. Suddenly popular, so why isn’t Jenuka happy?
STARRING: Surya Garg, Paolo Solis, Sneha Raja, Ratnesh Dubey
with Jordan Zauha, Jordan Stovall, Rachel Drayke, Lena Dabrusin,
Katrina Abreau, Mary McDonnell, Anthony Castellano, Austin Bowen,
David Gaynor, Tav Rich, Melissa Slaughter, Alicia Dee Leduc,
Sarah Oravetz, Teddy Mueller, and Yukino Kikuta
Program E CABARET
Saturday, November 21, 2015 at 7pm
at The Secret Theatre
4402 23rd St, Long Island City, NY 11101
New musical theatre songs performed by emerging actors!
Program and performers TBA.
STARRING: Elaine Baez, Leigh Fitzjames, Janaki Gerard, Devin Lloyd,
Mary McConnell, and Rose Marie Rupley
Program F NEW MUSIC
Sunday, November 22, 2015 at 2pm
at The Secret Theatre
4402 23rd St, Long Island City, NY 11101
IKTUS PERCUSSION
CADILLAC MOON ENSEMBLE
Program G OPERA
Tuesday, November 24, 2015 at 8pm
at The Secret Theatre
4402 23rd St, Long Island City, NY 11101
BELOVED PREY
written by Kento Iwasaki & Cris Ryan
The Traveling Opera Company
Beloved Prey - a traveling opera with the Japanese koto. Based on a true story about a lioness who adopts a baby antelope, and an antelope mother who seeks to rescue her child. Featuring masked singers in kimonos expressing our animal nature, Beloved Prey is an operatic dance drama with traditional Noh theater influence. The work is a bridge between the traditional and current moment, Europe and Japan, the animal and the human. The singers are accompanied by the western violin, an exotic array of percussion, and the koto; an instrument at the heart of Japanese traditional music. Featuring collapsible sets similar to room screens, the singers dance with their shadows in this intimate opera.
KENTO IWASAKI
Founder of The Traveling Opera Company, Kento Iwasaki is a classically trained composer and koto performer. His goal is to create music that acts as a bridge between the traditional and current moment, fusing old and new, East and West, helping us connect with our ancestors. He studied koto with Satomi Fukami and Yoko Reikano Kimura and received training in opera composition from Libby Larsen, John Corgliano and and William Bolcolm. He also received training in the art of collaboration at the Nautilus Music-Theater/New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio. Previous composition teachers include Mark Jurcisin, Matthew Greenbaum and Richard Danielpour.
CRIS RYAN
Cris Ryan is the librettist and costume designer for Beloved Prey. Ryan's costume designs have made various appearances on Chinese national television shows, such as Day Day Up and Super Boy, as early as 2010. Upon relocating to New York City in 2012, Ryan has worked under designer Matthew Hemesath on musicals and film productions, such as Legally Blonde and John Wick. That same year his writing was discovered by composer Kento Iwasaki, describing Ryan as having a poetic voice particularly inclined for opera libretti. Ryan's first libretto was evaluated by composer Mark Stambaugh, who praised the duo to develop operatic works. In May 2014, Ryan attended the John Duffy Institute, where he studied opera theatrics with mentors including Libby Larsen, John Corgliano and Michael Korie. In the future, Ryan intends to write a handful of new works that will innovate the traveling opera movement.
THE DUO
When we were invited to the Duffy Composer’s Institute to workshop an opera scene we composed, we were inspired by our mentors to do an opera that radically redefines what opera is. We began playing with the idea of a portable opera featuring a lioness who adopts a baby antelope. Libby Larsen, one of America’s greatest opera composers responded very enthusiastically to our synopsis and project idea. So did Diane Wondisford, President of Music-Theater Group (which produced Tan Dun’s ‘Marco Polo’). This compelled us to take on this crazy new opera idea - an opera that would never fit the mold of what would be performed in an opera house.