Dancing with Ancestors November 3rd
“Dancing with Ancestors” – Music for Guitar and Strings from Latin America
Ellsworth Community Music Institute (ECMI) offers its next Midday Concert @ 1:00 on October 20th with the Alchemy Band.
Violinist Robert Lehmann, Director of String Studies and Orchestral Activities at the University of Southern Maine’s Osher School of Music (USM), "a sensitive musician with a technique up to just about anything” (Portland Press Herald). Robert Lehmann is Professor of Music at the Osher School of Music at the University of Southern Maine where he conducts the Southern Maine Symphony Orchestra and the Portland Youth Symphony Orchestra. In addition to his duties at USM, he is Music Director of the North Shore Philharmonic Orchestra and the White Mountain Bach Festival. He holds degrees in Violin Performance from the University of the Pacific, the Eastman School and Boston University, and has been a fellow at the Aspen Festival's American Academy of Conducting and at the Conductors Institute at Bard College. Dr. Lehmann has concertized as violinist and conductor, in his native Mexico, throughout the US, Central America, Europe, and Ukraine. He has been of frequent guest conductor with the Portland Symphony, Portland Ballet, and has conducted All-State and Festival Orchestras from Maine to California and Hawaii. He has been an adjudicator the National Orchestra Festival at the ASTA National Convention and is in demand as a performer, conductor, teacher, speaker, and is listed in Who's Who in American Music.
Kimberly Lehmann viola, a player with “considerable interpretive moxie, backed with a solid technique and rich tone" (Portand Press Herald). Kimberly Lehmann, originally from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, received her Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance from the University of Minnesota and her Master of Music in Violin Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music. Her principal teachers were Lea Foli, Harold Wippler, Catherine Tait and Camilla Wicks.
About 20 years ago, after receiving a beautiful viola that belonged to her husband Robert's grandmother, Kim fell in love with the viola and grew to prefer the deep, mellow sound and the wonderful chamber music writing for the instrument.She is a member of the Portland Symphony Orchestra and has been a member of the South Dakota Symphony, the Colorado Springs Symphony and the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra. She performed with the Eastman Philharmonia in residence at the Heidelberg Schlossfestspiele, at the National Orchestral Institute, and with the Boston Academy of Music. She regularly performs with PORT Opera, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Portland Ballet, and ChoralArt and has appeared as guest violist with the DaPonte String Quartet and Venticordi. Kim, along with her husband Robert, has performed concerts in Mexico, Germany, France and Austria as the Lehmann Duo.
USM’s new cello professor Rebecca Hartka. Cellist Rebecca Hartka brings joy, stylistic versatility and passion for cross cultural connection to the art of music making. With playing described by the Hanoi Times as “… magical and eloquent” she has performed in venues throughout the United States with international appearances in Cuba, Italy, Turkey, Mexico, Vietnam and Thailand.
Hartka collaborates with Barbara Lysakowski in Duo Déja vu and in Duo Mundo (with Grammy nominated guitarist and composer Jose Lezcano), performing recently with indigenous Quechua Ecuadorian musician Inti Cachimuel at the Nubanusit Community in Peterborough, NH. Their 2017 recording Colors Couleurs Colores Cores (Becsta records) “displays a high degree of heart and total control” (Michael Johnson). Recital appearances include venues such as the Mariposa Museum Saugerties Pro Musica; the French Cultural Center and on the Tedx stage.
Lauded Boston-based guitarist Aaron Larget-Caplan, “a unique talent not to be missed” (Washington Post). Aaron has released 10 critically acclaimed solo records, as well as performing for wildly enthusiastic audiences and critics across the globe. His 10 critically acclaimed solo albums for Stone Records and Tiger Turn have earned over 5 million streams since 2021. His recent albums include an all-Spanish album Spanish Candy (2024), his own compositions on honey cadence (2023), an all-Bach album God’s Time (2023), and three volumes for his New Lullaby Project: New Lullaby, Nights Transfigured, Hushed. Larget-Caplan has received numerous awards including from the Société Académique Arts-Sciences-Lettres of Paris, France for his trailblazing work in music, and Musician in Residence at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Canada.
A lover of new, he has premiered over 110 solo and chamber compositions, and his groundbreaking arrangements and recording of the music of John Cage are the first to be sanctioned by the Cage Estate.
A multi-volume anthology of scores featuring commissions written for his New Lullaby Project are published by the American Composers Alliance alongside his first collection guitar solos. He is the director of the Spanish music and dance ensemble ¡Con Fuego! and the Boston-based concert series of Now Musique.
PROGRAM
The quartet will perform a program of Latin-American music for guitar and strings that explores the notion of music that dances with the ancestors.
MANUEL M. PONCE Quartet, for guitar, violin, viola, cello (1946)
NICOLAS BENAVIDES Rinconcito (2018)
ASTOR PIAZZOLLA from Histoire du Tango:
Bordello 1900 (guitar/violin)
Café 1930 (guitar/viola)
Revirado (guitar/cello)
ROLAND DYENS Tango En Skai (1985)