Play It Forward

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

6:30 – 7:05 p.m.

An evening of music to support the Greenwich House Music School Scholarship Fund
featuring faculty performances by

Brandee Younger
Miolina
Taka Kigawa

Performers also include GHMS Scholarship students Jeffrey Sussman, Naya Melvani and Nikita Melvani!

Enjoy the live-streamed concert from the comfort of your home with a Little Owl gift basket and fine wine from the private collection of board member Mark Rudd delivered right to your door.

This year, Play It Forward will be a tribute to the Greenwich House Music School faculty. Covid-19 has hit everyone hard, in many ways, but it has especially hit the arts and the faculty members of GHMS. Concerts have been canceled, live performances are a ghost of what they once were, and many students have moved away, or are afraid to begin learning a new instrument remotely. Many faculty had to file for unemployment for the very first time in their lives. Brandee Younger, Mioi Takeda, Lynn Bechtold and Taka Kigawa will be playing to showcase the immense talent of the Music School’s faculty, and as tribute to the challenges they and their peers have faced this year. Please join us in supporting our amazing faculty.

Ticket Sales Close on December 1st, 5:00 p.m.

Harpist Brandee Younger is a classically-trained musician playing in the avant-garde tradition of her sonically forward predecessors Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane. As well versed in performance art as she is in the art of creative risk-taking, Brandee Younger challenges commonly-held notions in her quest to make the harp a more relevant force in today’s music.

Ms. Younger’s ability to seamlessly inject the harp into arrangements and venues where it has been overlooked is a testament to her dedication to the instrument. She delivers a consistently fresh take on the timeless instrument as a performer and leader of the Brandee Younger Quartet.  Known for expressive interpretations of traditional harp repertoire as well as her continuing work with a diverse cross-section of musical talents, Brandee is a creative linchpin whose nuanced presence and willingness to push boundaries makes her irreplaceable on record and in performance.

She has graced the stage with jazz leaders and popular hip-hop and r&b titans including Ravi Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Jack Dejohnette, Reggie Workman, Common, Salaam Remi, John Legend, Maxwell and Lauryn Hill. Her fourth album Soul Awakening was released in June of 2019 and her original composition “Hortense” can be heard on the original Netflix Concert-Documentary by Beyoncé; Homecoming.

Called “talented and dedicated” by Arts Birmingham, and described as displaying “aggressive and virtuosic prowess” with “brilliance of sound, technical mastery, and stunning expressivity” by I CARE IF YOU LISTEN, violin duo Miolina has been attracting audiences since their inception in 2012. Mioi Takeda and Lynn Bechtold are creating and shaping the violin duo repertoire of the 21st century. Miolina specializes in violin duo music that employs the natural beauty and sound of the instruments, with or without electronics and video. They enjoy collaborating on new compositions with composers, as well as discovering hidden gems of the past.

In June 2017, they were chosen to join New Music USA’s Impact Cohort. They are also recipients of 2019 grants from Adami Foundation, and the American-Scandinavian Foundation; a 2018 grant from the Queens Council on the Arts; a 2017 Japan Foundation NY grant; 2016 and 2014 grants from New York Women Composers; and a 2015 grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. In 2017 and 2019, they were chosen for artist residencies at Avaloch Farm Music Institute. Miolina is a 501(c)3 non-profit. Their self-titled debut album was released on Composers Concordance Records, distributed by Naxos, in 2018, and they can be heard on 2020’s ‘Le Passager,’ performing Jean-Baptiste Favory’s UNISONO V, released on ACEL Records. All are available on iTunes and Amazon.

Critically acclaimed pianist Taka Kigawa has earned outstanding international recognition as a recitalist, soloist, and chamber music artist since winning First Prize in the prestigious 1990 Japan Music Foundation Piano Competition in Tokyo, and the Diploma Prize at the 1998 Concurs Internacional Maria Canals De Barcelona in Spain. His repertoire is extremely large and varied, ranging from the baroque to avant-garde compositions of today. His accolades include being heralded by The New York Times as a “phenomenon,” and The New Yorker  as “an artist of stature.”  His New York City recital in 2010 was chosen as one of the best concerts of the year by The New York Times. His New York City recital in August 2011 was picked as one of the most notable concerts in the 2011-2012 season by Musical America. Also his Buenos Aires recital in April 2014 was chosen as one of the best concerts of the year by Argentina’s leading paper, La Nación.

He has performed extensively as a recitalist and soloist in New York, Washington DC, Boston, Cleveland, Paris, Milan and Barcelona, with appearances in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Kosciuszko Foundation, Severance Hall in Cleveland, Cité de la Musique, and Salle Gaveau in Paris, Plau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, and Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. He frequently tours in his native Japan, appearing in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagano and Kyoto, both as a recitalist and a soloist with orchestra and in chamber music groups. He has performed with such distinguished institution as The Cleveland Orchestra. He has been a featured artist on many television and radio networks throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. He has collaborated closely with such renowned musicians as Pierre Boulez, Myung-Whun Chung and Jonathan Nott. Also he premiered the last solo piano piece of Yusef Lateef, the jazz legend, in New York City in 2013. Taka Kigawa is a Steinway Artist.