Release (2010/02/22)

Donal Fox:
Composers OutFront!
“Transformations, Variations, and Improvisations”

Mon., Feb. 22, 2010, 6 PM
Queens Library at Flushing, NY
FREE ADMISSION

Composer/pianist Donal Fox offers a solo concert presented by American Composers Orchestra and Queens Public Library at Flushing. Fox will perform “Transformations, Variations, and Improvisations” of music by Chopin, Ellington, Bach, Gershwin, Monk, Schumann, Scarlatti, Fox, and more.

American Composers Orchestra and the Queens Library at Flushing will present Composers OutFront! featuring internationally acclaimed composer, pianist, and jazz and classical improviser Donal Fox on Monday, February 22 at 6 PM. The library is located at 41-17 Main Street in Flushing. Admission is free and no tickets or reservations are required. Mr. Fox will perform a solo program of his own music, as well as his interpretation of music by Chopin, Ellington, Bach, Gershwin, Monk, Schumann, Scarlatti, and more.

Donal Fox recently performed as soloist with ACO during the orchestra’s season-opening concert in November at Carnegie Hall.The New York Times praised the piece that Mr. Fox both wrote and performed in as soloist, Peace Out for Improvised Piano and Orchestra, writing, “The piece opens with a fitful section, all gnashing brass, spiraling strings and searing harmonic angst. Mr. Fox’s piano playing, bursting with violent, keyboard-spanning runs, drove the music. A searching middle section quotes fragments of a Charlie Parker blues tune, ‘Now’s the Time.’ After a steely solo piano cadenza, the piece concludes with a pensive finale based on a descending, and strangely haunting, four-note refrain.”

ACO’s annual Composers OutFront! series puts composers on the stage, bringing audiences closer to the creative process and making connections between composers’ roots as performers and their music for the concert hall. The series presents composers who will have major works performed by ACO during the concert season. In keeping with ACO’s eclectic musical programming, featured composers come from diverse backgrounds in jazz and improvised music, rock and pop, classical, and world music. Composers OutFront! events take place throughout the city in unusual spaces including community centers, museums and galleries, libraries, and other non-traditional venues for classical music.

This concert is part of Composers Now, a festival celebrating the music of our time at venues throughout the city from February 22 through 28, 2010. Visit ComposersNow.org for more information.

Donal Fox, composer-performer

Donal Fox‘s numerous awards include a Guggenheim fellowship in music composition and a fellowship from the Bogliasco Foundation, and he is a three-time nominee for the CalArts/Alpert Award in the Arts. He served as the first African-American composer-in-residence with the St. Louis Symphony and was a special guest artist at the Library of Congress in a program recorded for National Public Radio. Mr. Fox recently premiered his Monk and Bach Project at Jazz at Lincoln Center, his orchestra piece, Hear De Lambs A-Cryin, commissioned by the Albany Symphony Orchestra for The Spiritual Project, the world premiere of Peace Out, My Brother at Carnegie Recital Hall, and his Scarlatti Jazz Suite Project at Ozawa Concert Hall in Tanglewood. He has been Composer-in-Residence at Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus (Germany), Tyrone Guthrie Centre (Ireland), Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Liguria Study Center (Italy), Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival, among others. He has recorded as composer and pianist for New World Records, Evidence Records, Music & Arts, Passin’ Thru Records, Yamaha’s Original Artist Series, and Wergo Records. His works are published by Margun Music, G. Schirmer and Leonellis Music. He is a recent recipient of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award in Music.

In 2004, Fox was a featured performer in American Composers Orchestra’s Improvise! festival, where he gave the New York premiere of T. J. Anderson’s piano concerto, Boogie Woogie Concertante. His numerous awards include a 1997 Guggenheim Fellowship in music composition. He has performed and premiered his innovative music projects at such concert halls and establishments as Jazz at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Knitting Factory Main Stage, Roulette Club, La Guardia Concert Hall, Blue Note Jazz Club, Ozawa Concert Hall, etc., and major festivals around the world.

Admission and Directions

Admission to this event is free. The Queens Library at Flushing is located at 41-17 Main Street in Flushing. It is accessible via the Q12, Q13, Q17, Q19, Q20A, Q20B, Q25, Q26, Q27, Q34, Q44, Q58, Q65, Q66, and QBx1 buses; the number 7 subway to Main Street (last stop); and the Long Island Railroad Port Washington line to Flushing-Main Street.