Tag Archives: East 104th Street

MUSICA DE CAMARA PRESENTS SOPRANO CAMILLE ORTIZ IN A SPRING CONCERT

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CAMILLE ORTIZ IN A SPRING CONCERT

Musica de Camara Inc. presents a concert, “Painted By Sea and Sun”, at the Museum of the City of New York, featuring the soprano Camille Ortiz on Sunday, April 5th, 2009 at 3 pm. The Museum os located at 1220 Fifth Avenue at East 104th Street in New York City. Admission is free. Ms Ortiz will sing works by Jesus Guridi, Enrique Granados, Hugo Wolf, Claude Debussy and Heitor Villa Lobos. She will be joined at the piano by Jeanne-Minette Cilliers.

Camille Ortiz was born in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico and completed her Master’s Degree of Music at the Manhattan School of Music under the tutelage of Joan Patenaude-Yarnell. She appeared in the Festival of Interpretation of Spanish Song in Granada, Spain where she worked with the acclaimed Spanish mezzo soprano Teresa Berganza. In Italy, she sang leading opera roles with the Centro Studi Lirica and at the Scuola di Leonardo da Vinci in Rome, she completed her Italian studies. Among the numerous venues in which she has been presented in concert are the Carlos Chavez Hall at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma of Mexico, the Sala Manuel de Falla in Granada, Spain, the Tenri Cultural Institute and the Bruno Walter Auditorium. She has been the subject of a nationally broadcast television program on the network Telemundo and last season, after participating in a Master Class conducted by the renown soprano Martina Arroyo, Ms. Ortiz won accolades for her opera portrayals in the subsequent concert “Prelude to Performance” at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College. A winner of the 2008 Gerda Lissner Foundation Award and a finalist in the coveted 2009 Liederkranz Competition, she is founder-director of ALMA, an organization that promotes Hispanic American classical repertoire.

Currently on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music, South African pianist Jeanne-Minette Cilliers has been called “a pianistic poet” and has garnered rave reviews for her color-rich and imaginative performances. Much in demand as a collaborator, she has performed in Austria, Germany, Israel, Japan, Sweden, South Africa and across the United States. She fosters a strong interest in contemporary music and her recording of Dominick Argento’s “Andre Expedition” will be released next season. Ms. Cilliers has earned both her Bachelor and Master’s Degress of Music with distinction at the University of Michigan, while studying with fellow South African Anton Nel who is a Naumberg Competition Gold medalist. Ms. Cilliers remains the first and only recipient of an Artist Diploma in Vocal Accompaniment from the Manhattan School of Music. Her upcoming schedule of performances include appearances in New York City, San Francisco, Sweden, South Africa and the Caribbean.
Now celebrating its 29th Year, and founded by soprano Eva de La O, Musica de Camara has presented Puerto Rican, Hispanic and non-Hispanic classical musicians in concert in major concert venues such as Alice Tully Hall; Lincoln Center, the Merkin Concert Hall; Kaufman Cultural Center as well as community centers, schools, colleges, churches and museums. The organization also travels to public schools in under-served communities with its Lecture Demonstration Program.

This concert has been made possible in part with the support of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Council, the New York State Senate and Assembly, the East Harlem Chamber of Commerce, the Museum of the City of New York, the Con Edison Company, Bronx Lebanon Hospital, Consultiva Internacional of Puerto Rico, EMK Enterprises, Deloitte LLP, First Republic Bank, Credit Suisse, Fiddler – Gonzalez – Rodriguez PSC, the Delmar Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

MNN is officially out of PRdream’s new media loft

PRdream/MediaNoche, the first new media gallery and digital studio of Upper Manhattan, and Manhattan Neighborhood Network, the community access organization for Manhattan, opened a satellite public access, cable television facility in PRdream’s loft on East 106th Street in 2004. This past Friday, December 1, they met to finalize the terms of MNN’s departure which was set for Wednesday, December 13. According to Judith Escalona, Director of PRdream.com and MediaNoche, “the split was long in the making.” The two organizations, one small and the other large, are remarkably different in their uses of media and their ultimate aims.

PRdream/MediaNoche seeks to utilize digital technology and the internet to advance an agenda that opens a dialogue among artists and filmmakers worldwide while maintaining a strong community base. That agenda involves the production, exhibition and distribution of digital artwork and films. It also involves an ongoing theorizing and critique of media practices.

Manhattan Neighborhood Network is mandated by the franchise agreement between the city of New York and Time-Warner, to provide free training in video production and programming time to the residents of Manhattan over the designated public access channels in Manhattan. They also have a website at http://www.mnn.org. Public Access television came into being in the seventies, as an enticement created by the cable companies who wanted to install coaxial cable in city streets.

Neither organization plans to leave Spanish Harlem aka El Barrio. PRdream first came to El Barrio in 1999 to showcase an unique film festival called Nuyorican Cinema at the Julia de Burgos Cultural Center and later opened its new media loft on East 106th Street in order to collect the oral histories of the Puerto Rican diaspora. This work continues unabated and can be seen online at http://www.prdream.com.

They later expanded their activities by creating the first new media gallery and digital film studio of Upper Manhattan, MediaNoche, and The Handball Court Summer Film Festival, screening international films at sunset by projecting them on the handball court wall on East 106th Street. This past summer, they launched MediaNoche_wifi, offering free wireless internet access on East 106th Street and White Park.

PRdream/MediaNoche will continue its activities from its new media loft. Check out http://www.prdream.com and http://www.medianoche.us.

In a move that involves temporarily downsizing, MNN will occupy a smaller space on Lexington Avenue, according to Dan Coughlin, the Executive Director of Manhattan Neighborhood Network, while they prepare for a permanent residence on East 104th Street, where they are in the process of purchasing the delapidated firehouse located there. The sale of the firehouse by El Museo del Barrio was surrounded by controversy by community residents who saw the loss of a cultural asset. The building has been closed for two decades and shows the wear of disuse and neglect.

For Escalona, it’s all part of a process of cleaning house and streamlining activities at PRdream/MediaNoche. “We’ve reached a point of growth that necessitates refocusing and assessment in order to continue to deliver smart, good quality work.” 2006 was apparently a great year for the organization which hosted the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition “In the Making.” They also completed a webcast that featured an international dialogue of the work of Diogenes Ballester with El Museo de la Historia de Ponce, and The Caribbean University of Puerto Rico, this past September.

PRdream/MediaNoche has also collaborated with the Center of Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, El Museo del Barrio, the Museum of the City of New York, and El Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, and the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. PRdream.com and MediaNoche have been featured on WABC-TV, WCBS-TV, NY1, The New York Times, NY Daily News, NY Post, El Diario, Hoy, El Mercurio (Chile), Siempre, Tiempo, and After Image, as well as international publications and web sites.