Archive for February, 2009

The Peterson- Cody Gallery, LLC will present an exhibit of new landscape paintings by Gallery artists from March 6th through March 28th, 2009. An opening night reception will be held on Friday, March 6th from 5:00pm – 7:30pm in conjunction with the West Palace Arts District First Friday Artwalk.

Among the works included in the exhibit are 4 new oil on canvas paintings of the Grand Canyon by California artist Peter Holbrook. Holbrook will also present several new – and very popular- oil on paper studies of national parks and monuments. Also presenting new landscape works are Colorado artist Desmond O’Hagan, New York artist Gordon Inyard, California artist Craig Nelson and New Mexico artist Stephen Day.

The Peterson Cody Gallery, LLC is located at 130 West Palace Ave, Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Gallery specializes in contemporary realism and continuously exhibits the work of approximately 20 established artists from across the United States and Canada. The phone number is (505)  820-0010. The Peterson-Cody Gallery, LLC is open daily. Its website is www.PetersonCodyGallery.com.

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Will March weather in Albuquerque defy or affirm the old adage in like a lion, out like a lamb? Whatever the weather or time of year, Albuquerque BioPark is the place to visit to see lions, lambs and nearly every kind of animal in between.

Media Photo Op:  Members of the media are invited to ABQ BioPark for photos and video of lions and lambs for March 1st weather stories.

Albuquerque Biological Park hours are 9:00am to 5:00pm daily. Same day combo admission to all facilities is $12 for adults; $5 for seniors and children. New Mexico BioPark Society membership confers free general admission to all BioPark facilities and discounts to many special events. (No member discounts to River of Lights.) Find out more about becoming a BioPark Society member at nmbioparksociety.org.

The Albuquerque BioPark is an accessible facility and a division of the City of Albuquerque’s Cultural Services Department.  For special assistance in visiting the BioPark, please call 311 locally or (505) 768-2000 (Relay NM or 711).

The New Mexico Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven Festival concludes with what Beethoven himself called his finest work: Missa Solemnis. Three performances, March 20, 21 and 22, will be conducted by NMSO Music Director Guillermo Figueroa. The nationally acclaimed NMSO Chorus also takes the stage with soprano Yali-Marie Williams, mezzo Gabriela Garcia, tenor Richard Clement and bass Ricardo Lugo.

Written over a five-year period and premiered in 1824, Beethoven regarded Missa Solemnis as his greatest work, superior even to his other well-known choral work, his Symphony No. 9. A less-than-orthodox Catholic, Beethoven was nonetheless obsessed with writing the mass. Anton Schindler, Beethoven’s friend and biographer, wrote that the composer seemed so absorbed in the work that his personality changed during the writing of it, seemingly disconnected from the earthly and transported to another world.

Yalí-Marie Williams is a winner of Placido Domingo’s Operalia Competition. She holds a master of music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music and a bachelor of music in vocal performance from the Juilliard School. She has already achieved success in opera roles as Violetta Valery in La Traviata for L’Opera de Montreal, Manitoba Opera, Opera Festival of New Jersey, Connecticut Grand Opera, Opera de Puerto Rico, Jacksonville Symphony and Annapolis Opera. Other roles include Anna Maurant in Street Scene for the Aspen Music Festival, Desdemona in Otello with Tampa Opera, Antonia in Les Contes d’Hoffman with Tulsa Opera, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte with Hawaii Opera, Marguerite in Faust with Chautauqua Opera and the principal soprano lead of Pontalba in Thea Musgrave’s world premiere Louisiana Purchase with New Orleans Opera.

Gabriela García is familiar to NMSO audiences from her performance in the lead role of Marcelina Barelas in the world premiere of Time and Again Barelas by Miguel del Aguila, the Albuquerque Tricentennial opera commissioned by the NMSO in 2006. As a returning member of the Santa Fe Opera’s Apprentice Program, García made her main stage debut as Dorothée in Cendrillon during the 2006 season, and also covered the role of Trinculo in The Tempest. Other operatic roles include Maddalena and Countess Ceprano (Rigoletto), Cherubino (Le Nozze di Figaro), Siebel (Faust) and Stéphano (Roméo et Juliette) with Puerto Rico’s Teatro de la Opera; Mrs. Quickly (Falstaff) with Israel’s International Vocal Arts Institute; Prince Orlofsky (Die Fledermaus) with Puerto Rico’s Fundación de Zarzuela y Opereta; Carmen (Carmen) with the Seagle Music Colony; Ursule (Béatrice et Bénédict) with the Aspen Music Festival and the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra; Dido (Dido and Aeneas) with the Intermezzo Young Artist Program; Kate Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly) with Opera de Puerto Rico; and a Bridesmaid (Le Nozze di Figaro) with the New York Grand Opera.

Grammy Award-winning tenor Richard Clement has performed with most of America’s major orchestras and music directors, bringing tonal beauty and superb musicality to repertoire from the baroque to the contemporary. He recently earned particular acclaim for the title role of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with the North Carolina Symphony and Sacramento Choral Arts Society and Orchestra.  In addition he premiered and recorded Theofanides’ The Here and Now with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony. Clement studied voice at Georgia State University and the Cincinnati Conservatory. He was a Tanglewood Music Festival Fellow, has been a member of the Houston Grand Opera Studio and was a recipient of the Richard Tucker Music Foundation Jacobson Study Grant.

Bass Ricardo Lugo will be joining the Metropolitan Opera for the 2008-09 season in productions of Macbeth, La Gioconda, Adriana Lecouvreur, and Salome. He is a recipient of an Opera Index Award, a Liederkranz Foundation Award and a finalist in the regional auditions of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in New Orleans. He is also a recipient of the Justino Diaz Scholarship given at the Metropolitan Opera Auditions-District of Puerto Rico. He has recently performed with the San Francisco Opera, Opera Orchestra of New York, Opera de Puerto Rico and the National Opera in Washington. Lugo studied at the Julliard School and the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico.

Missa Solemnis will be the only work performed in these concerts.

The NMSO devoted a major portion of its 2008-2009 season to honor the works of classical music’s giant: Ludwig van Beethoven. Fourteen performances between January and March comprised the NMSO’s Beethoven Festival, treating audiences to three symphonies, four concerti, a choral mass and a variety of other Beethoven masterpieces. Other highlights of the festival included the Emperor piano concerto, the Fifth Symphony, a special concert with pianists Awadagin Pratt and Orli Shaham, and much more.

The Friday performance will begin at 8 p.m. at Popejoy Hall, also the site of the Saturday performance starting at 6 p.m. The Sunday performance takes place at the National Hispanic Cultural Center’s Albuquerque Journal Theatre at 2 p.m. Tickets for these performances are priced from $10 to $60, and may be reserved by calling (505) 881-8999, online at nmso.org or in person at the NMSO Box Office at 4407 Menaul NE (just east of Washington) in Albuquerque. A limited quantity of student rush tickets will be sold at $8 each, limited to two tickets per student with valid ID and available beginning 90 minutes prior to showtime at the Popejoy Hall and NHCC box offices.

The New Mexico Symphony Orchestra is the official orchestra of the State of New Mexico, serving over 130,000 people each year through its Classics, Pops and Symphony Under the Stars series, as well as many free NMSO Family Concerts. The NMSO is the largest non-governmental provider of music education in New Mexico and has also been recognized by the Mellon Foundation for its innovative community engagement efforts. In its 76th season, the NMSO is under the baton of Guillermo Figueroa, the symphony’s tenth music director, and Resident Conductor and Chorus Director Roger Melone. For more information about the NMSO, visit nmso.org.

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