CELEBRATING THE EARTH, MAY 3 - 4 AT ST. LUKE IN THE FIELDS

Force of Nature: Celebrating the Earth performed by Melodia Women's Choir

Melodia Women s Choir/Cynthia Powell, Artistic Director, now celebrating their fifth season and acclaimed by WNYC for their elegance and ringing tones, has scheduled several spring performances: on Saturday and Sunday, May 3 and 4, 2008, they will present Force of Nature: Celebrating the Earth, music about the natural world, at St. Luke in the Fields Church in New York City.
487 Hudson Street
New York, NY
212-924-0562
Saturday May 3 at 8 PM
Sunday May 4 at 4 PM.
Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door, discounts for students and seniors: $20 in advance, $15 at the door.
Call 212-252-4135, or visit www.melodiawomenschoir.org.

The program will feature Samuel Barber's Sure On This Shining Night; Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály s Mountain Nights Songs Without Words For Women s Voices; Ronald Perera's Earthsongs; Zhou Long's Four Seasons, a setting of ancient Chinese poetry; A Goodly Heritage by British composer Gordon Jacob; Spring Song by Israeli composer Yehezkel Braun; Hotaru Koi (Firefly) by Japanese composer Ro Ogura; and Wellsprings (New York Premiere) and Contemplations (U.S. Premiere) by Welsh-born composer Hilary Tann.

For these concerts, Melodia is partnering with Water is Life Kenya, a project that brings water to drought-affected regions of Southern Kenya. Water is Life Kenya was founded by Joyce Tannian, a former member of Melodia, who moved to Southern Kenya to dedicate her life and energy to drilling wells so people have easier access to clean and safe water. The project is funded by money raised by Joyce Tannian and her family and friends in the U.S. $1 of each ticket sold will be donated to Water is Life - Kenya. Tax deductible donations may also be made by visiting www.kenyawaterislife.com.

Working with the Maasai community, the project has just completed its first well in Imisigyio, already visited by more than 800 women daily and sustaining the lives of their families and livestock. The drilling of the new well means that the 10-12 hours a woman used to spend fetching water every day are now reduced to 2 or 3. Water is Life Kenya helps people improve their lives, and preserve their culture and customs by giving them a chance to survive in an environment catastrophically affected by global warming.

Following the May 3-4 concerts, Melodia Women s Choir will be featured at the Symphony Space Wall to Wall Bach May 17, performing excerpts from Bach Cantatas 4 and 78. They then return to Symphony Space June 5 as guest artists with the New Amsterdam Symphony in Gustav Holst s The Planets, and in selections from the Melodia repertoire. Melodia is also currently sponsoring its first Women Composers Commissioning Competition, and the deadline for submissions is April 1, 2008. Details on all these events are available at www.melodiawomenschoir.org.

Melodia Women s Choir creates, discovers and performs works for women s voices, and the repertory of the ensemble includes an eclectic mix of rarely performed classical and contemporary works. Their recent concert, Sweet Interlude, presented the World Premiere of Becca Schack s In My End Is My Beginning, and Vivaldi s Gloria in D in the all-female setting for which it was probably intended. Previous concerts have celebrated female composers and ensembles from 12th to 21 centuries, and premiered Allison Sniffin s Hear Me With Your Eyes, based on love poems of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Melodia has rediscovered numerous neglected works. The group was founded in 2003 by Jennifer Clarke, an arts consultant who has worked with London s Royal Festival Hall, Royal Court Theatre, and companies in New York including the American Music Center, Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana and Dancing in the Streets. The ensemble appeared last year in the Symphony Space Wall to Wall Stravinsky marathon.

Cynthia Powell, Melodia s Artistic Director and conductor since its inception, also serves as Artistic Director of Stonewall Chorale, has directed the choral program of Sarah Lawrence College and was a guest conductor at the Festival Internacional de Coros in Havana, Cuba. Equally at home as a pianist and organist, she has toured with Meredith Monk's opera, Atlas and Celebration Service in Europe, at the Spoleto USA Festival, the Walker Arts Center and Lincoln Center 2000 Festival.