Choir to Perform World Premiere of ‘Ithaka’

The Ithaca College Choir will perform the world premiere of George Tsontakis’s Ithaka at the 21st Choral Composition Contest and Festival on Saturday, November 11, at 7:00 p.m. in Ford Hall in the James J. Whalen Center for Music. Also appearing at this free event will be six area high school choirs singing newly composed works. The purpose of the annual competition, sponsored by the School of Music, is to encourage the creation and performance of new choral music. Other events on that day will include master classes conducted by the Ithaca College Women’s Chorale and the Ithaca College Choir.

Tsontakis, who has received a lifetime achievement award in composition from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, based Ithaka on a 1911 poem of the same name by Constantine Cavafy, a poet who was born in Greece but lived most of his life in Alexandria, Egypt. The poem, addressed to Odysseus as he is about to return home from the Trojan War, reminds him that the value of his trek will lie in the journey itself, not the destination. "Ithaka has given you the beautiful voyage," the poet writes. "Without her you would have never set out on the road."

"This a cappella piece has presented some unique challenges for the choir because of the varied vocal techniques and rhythms used in the composition," says Lawrence Doebler, conductor of the Ithaca College Choir. Doebler, along with Arnold and Thomas Broido of Theodore Presser, a music publishing company, selected Tsontakis as this year’s composer. The School of Music commissions a new work each year as part of the festival.

Tsontakis has also been commissioned to write compositions for pianist Yefim Bronfman, flutist/conductor Ransom Wilson, mezzo-soprano Kimball Wheeler, the Aspen Chamber Symphony, and the Aspen Wind Quintet. His orchestral music has been performed by the symphonies of Baltimore, Minnesota, Seattle, and Honolulu, as well as by the Hudson Valley Philharmonic and the American Composers Orchestra. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Koussevitzky Foundation, and the MacDowell and Yaddo colonies.

The six high school choirs competing in the festival are from Corning West, Cortland, Ithaca, Vestal, Ward Melville, and West Genesee. Contest winners will be determined by a committee composed of five School of Music faculty members and administrators.

For more information call Alex Dippold at 274-3717.