Basso Moderno Duo Performs with Sonia Megias Lopez

Basso Moderno Duo will premier several lyrical new works for solo bass and piano and will host a conversation with Spanish composer Sonia Megias Lopez on Thursday, November 2, 2006, at 7:30 PM at the Woman's Club or Arlington, 700 S. Buchanan St. Arlington, VA 22204. Tickets will be available at the door, $20 general, $10 students and seniors.

The performance will include newly commissioned pieces by Yoko Ono, James Niblock, Lee Hoiby, Larry Bell and Sonia Megias Lopez and a recently discovered score by Alan Hovhaness. Pieces to be premiered are, "Serenade in the Bells' Garden" - Jan Freidlin (Israel), "Dialogue: Pro et Contra" - Felix Yanov-Yanovsky (Uzbekistan), "Aria" - Leslie Adams (USA), "Dance Across the Sea" - Sigmund Lillebjerka (Norway) and "Blue Heron" - Pauline Oliveros (USA).

The Basso Moderno Duo has commissioned over one hundred lyrical works for solo bass and piano by some of the world's most prominent and exciting living composers. Composers from over thirty countries have written specifically for Allan Von Schenkel's virtuosic and highly individualized manner of playing. Kristen Benoit's piano playing is a perfect complement to the intense voice of the solo bass. Benoit is a focused musician who is able to share, with the listener, her devotion to the piano. This program is designed to delight and surprise audiences with a combination of lush sounds, tasteful writing and lyricism.

Sonia Megias Lopez of Almansa, Spain, composes accessible music in a variety of genres including choral, film, theater, band and chamber music. She graduated with honors from the Academy of Music Santa Cecilia in Muricia . In 2003, Lopez was awarded the Socrates-Erasmus fellowship to study at the Conservatorio di Tartini in Trieste, Italy. In addition to composing, she sings with the Chamber Choir of the Autonomic University of Madrid.