LABA ARTs Festival
MUSIC by Amir Shpilman • “Hineni Shlach'eni” (Here I Am, Send Me!)
A new musical work featuring a chamber choir and four cantorial soloists based on the description of the prophetic appointment of Isaiah, and the symbolic eating of fire as an act of purification. Inspired by Isaiah 5:24, "Therefore as the tongue of fire devoureth the stubble, and as the chaff is consumed in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust."
Amir Shpilman Composer / Artistic Director
Recipient of the Rubin Goldmark Scholarship in Music and the Noah Creshevsky Award in Experimental Music, Shpilman has been a member of the ConTempo ensemble led by Pianist Ursula Oppens. Shpilman is also the founder of the CUNY New Music Festival, which each year brings together composers and performers of innovative music from New York for a series of concerts under a unified theme. Shpilman attended master classes and lessons under the guidance of Brian Ferneyhough, Piereluigi Billone, Rebecca Saunders, Germán Toro-Pérez, Raphaël Cendo and Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf. He also collaborated with a variety of performers and ensembles, such as the International Contemporary Ensemble, MIVOS String Quartet, IKTUS Percussion project and more. In 2012 Shpilman founded Ensemble Moto Perpetuo, a New York based chamber orchestra specializing in contemporary music and collaborative creations. His recent vocal work Darkness premiered in September 2012 by Baritone Leigh Melrose and Pianist Anna Tilboork at the Frankfurt Alte Oper, Germany. His new piece Hedef for seventeen instruments will be premiered by members of Ensemble Intercontemporain and Ensemble Modern under Matthias Pintscher in Heidelberg, Germany, April 2013. Recently, Shpilman developed a particular interest in chaotic forms as they are expressed through musical means. Fascinated by forms that synthesize the inherent multiplicity of music while reflecting back a unified vision or idea, Shpilman aspires to develop the ability to translate the relationship between structure and volatility. He believes that contemporary music serves as a vehicle for meaningful discourse, opening the possibility of viewing the same shape, gesture or subject matter from many different perspectives.
U$35 Age limit: All ages