New Music concerts to include premieres

Staff report

jefferson

The New Music Guild will present a concert featuring guest artists White and Charnofsky at 7 p.m. Jan. 30 at First Congregational Church, 41 E. Jefferson St.

The duo – who combine classical, Latin, popular and improvised music – will also perform at 4 p.m. Jan. 31 at Sts. Peter and Paul Church, 421 Covington St., Youngstown. Admission to both concerts is free.

Flutist Linda White performs regularly with classical guitarist Robert Gruca in the Gruca White Ensemble, ensemble-in-residence at the Cleveland Music Settlement. An avid chamber musician, she frequently premieres new works for the Cleveland Composers Guild. She also directs the Flautrageous Flute Choir and coordinates a chamber music program for adult amateurs.

Eric Charnofsky is a collaborative pianist, composer and music instructor. Originally from Los Angeles, he currently teaches at Case Western Reserve University, and has taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He performed as orchestral pianist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra.

A graduate of The Juilliard School of Music, he received Composer of the Year honors from the Ohio Music Teachers Association in 2012.

The duo will feature the Ohio premiere of Youngstown composer Robert Rollin’s “Chicklet’s Odyssey” (2013). The piece was commissioned by Pittsburgh flutist Suzanne Levinson, who requested a composition about her amusing pet parrot, Chicklet.

Rollin’s “Five Pieces for Flute and Piano on Legends of the Seneca Indians” (1984) will also be played. Its publisher nominated it for the Pulitzer Prize and the Ohio governor gave it a Special Recognition Award. The Native American legends were the work’s main source material, but the composer also used Seneca melodies and tunings.

Charnofsky’s “Two Pieces for Flute and Piano” will receive its Youngstown premiere.