THE JAZZ AT BARD SERIES PRESENTS “REIMAGINING MAHLER"
WITH THE URI CAINE ENSEMBLE ON SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14
“Caine's supple playing and high-minded reinterpretations reflect Samuel Coleridge's assertion that 'genius of the highest kind' involves the power to modify or transform an old work into something entirely new."-Michelle Mercer, New York Times
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.-The Jazz at Bard series and the Bard Music Festival present the program “Reimagining Mahler," with the Uri Caine Ensemble on Saturday, September 14. The concert begins at 8:00 p.m., in Olin Hall, and admission is $20; $15 for senior citizens, students, faculty, and staff; and free for Bard students. Caine will also offer a free lecture demonstration about his work reinterpreting Mahler's music, beginning at
4:00 p.m. in Bard Hall.
Organized by two Bard alumnae, Raissa St. Pierre '87 and Sheila Moloney '84, the Jazz at Bard series is an ongoing effort to bring internationally recognized jazz performers to the Hudson Valley region. Moloney says the Caine program was chosen to “continue the exploration of the musical influences of Gustav Mahler, the subject of this year's Bard Music Festival."
John Walters, of the London Guardian, wrote, “Uri Caine is a king among princes, a consummate musician who sounds great whether playing Bach, accompanying Don Byron on Puccini's Nessun Dorma, wrangling an ambitious avant-jazz ensemble around the music of Mahler . . . . . He is prolific, hugely proficient, and ambitious-a bit of a monster."
Caine's ongoing exploration of Gustav Mahler's music has been described by London's Independent as “becoming part of the essential repertoire of our time." The Mahler project grew out of Caine's scoring an accompaniment to a silent film during the JMT Records festival at New York City's Knitting Factory in 1995, and continues to this day. Caine has released two critically acclaimed recordings that focus on reinterpreting Mahler. A third recording, based on a Mahler song cycle, is due out at the end of this year.
One of these recordings, Urlicht/Primal Light, was awarded the “Composer's Hut" award for the Best Mahler CD of 1997 by the International Mahler Society. The recording, Gustav Mahler in Toblach, is a live version of Caine's performance at the Gustav Mahler Festival in Toblach/Dobbacio, Italy, in 1998.
Among Caine's ten other recordings are Sphere Music, Toys, Blue Wail, The Sidewalks of New York, his version of Schumann's “Dichterliebe" song cycle Love Fugue, a new version of The Goldberg Variations, Solitaire, Rio, and Bedrock3. Caine has also recorded a jazz piano trio project with Drew Gass and Ben Perowsky, to be released soon.
Caine composed music for a ballet that premiered at the Vienna Volksoper in June 2000; and created a work based on his Goldberg Variations. The latter, choreographed by Val Canipoaroli, was performed by the Pennsylvania Ballet. Caine's new version of the Diabelli Variations, for Concerto K
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