OZ ARTS NASHVILLE PRESENTS ALIAS CHAMBER ENSEMBLE’S ANNUAL WINTER CONCERT JANUARY 24, 2017, IN CELEBRATION OF INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY

 

Performance Is Part of OZ Arts’ Local Spotlight Series, TNT

 

NASHVILLE, TENN. – NOVEMBER 30, 2016 – OZ Arts Nashville is pleased to welcome the GRAMMY-nominated, Nashville-based ALIAS Chamber Ensemble for its first performance at the groundbreaking contemporary arts center, January 24, 2017. In this engagement, ALIAS’ annual winter concert, the ensemble will celebrate International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27, 2017) with a program of music designed to mark the occasion with reflection about humanity.

The performance is entitled Reclaiming Peace: Honoring International Holocaust Remembrance Day and will take place at when on January 24, 2017. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at www.ozartsnashville.org. OZ Arts is located at 6172 Cockrill Bend Circle in Nashville, Tenn.

At OZ Arts, ALIAS will perform two instrumental pieces and will also feature spoken word for an evening-length presentation lasting 90 minutes. The first work is a mainstay of 20th-century repertoire: Olivier Messaien’s Quartet for the End of Time, written while the composer was a prisoner in a German POW camp in 1941. The instruments (piano, violin, cello, clarinet) were chosen because they were the only instruments accessible to the prisoners at the time. A devout Catholic, Messaien’s music was often inspired by his commitment to faith. ALIAS members Lee Levine (clarinet), Zeneba Bowers (violin), Watt Walker (cello) and Melissa Rose (piano) will perform the work.

American composer Alexandra du Bois’ string quartet Night Songs will be second on the program and performed by Alison Gooding (violin), Jeremy Williams (violin), Chris Farrell (viola) and Sari Reist (cello). Commissioned by Kronos Quartet in 2005, Night Songs was inspired by the writings of Etty Hillesum, who perished at Auschwitz in 1943. Hillesum’s diary, written during the Nazi occupation in Amsterdam, serves as a record of the escalating anti-Jewish measures imposed by the German Army between 1941 and 1943. A selection of Hillesum’s writings will be read between the musical performances and available in the house programs.

OZ Arts’ Artistic Director Lauren Snelling says she is proud to include ALIAS in the OZ Arts’ artistic season “These are incredible players, and their choice of works for this concert speaks volumes. At a time when our country is experiencing an amplification of divisive rhetoric and violent tendencies, I believe through this deeply emotive music, a reminder of the horrors from our past could illicit a humanitarian response. Or maybe just serve a wake-up call to respect for your fellow man, regardless of differences.”

ALIAS Chamber Ensemble Director Zeneba Bowers said, “We’re excited to partner with OZ for this program. The music is tremendously meaningful – it is art that comes out of an incredible crisis of humanity. I think it’s vital that we study, understand, and learn from history. I hope the presentation of this music helps us to get in touch with that history and its lessons.”

 

About ALIAS Chamber Ensemble
ALIAS is a nonprofit chamber ensemble dedicated to an innovative repertoire, artistic excellence, and a desire to give back to the community. Its wide-ranging repertoire brings Nashville audiences a mix of chamber music that cannot be heard anywhere else.

ALIAS adopts three nonprofit partners each season, and shares the spotlight with one nonprofit at every series performance. This “spotlight” nonprofit partner has the opportunity to share its message with the audience, and receives 100 percent of the ticket price (minus Ticket Leap’s fees) from that concert…no strings attached.

For more about the ALIAS Chamber Ensemble and biographies of its musicians, go to http://www.aliasmusic.org .

 

About OZ Arts Nashville
Since opening in 2014, OZ Arts Nashville, a 501(c)(3) contemporary arts center, has changed the cultural landscape of the city. Housed in the former C.A.O. cigar warehouse owned by Nashville’s Ozgener family, OZ Arts brings world-class performances and art installations to the city, and gives ambitious local artists opportunities to work on a grand scale. The flexible 10,000 square-foot, column-free venue, nestled amidst five acres of artfully landscaped grounds, is continually reconfigured to serve artists’ imaginations, and to challenge and inspire a diverse range of curious audiences.

OZ Arts, under the artistic leadership of Lauren Snelling, has presented luminaries such as Philip Glass and Tim Fain, Tim Robbins’ The Actors’ Gang, Kyle Abraham and Abraham.In.Motion, Peter Brook’s Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, the Trisha Brown Company, and SITI Company/Bang On a Can All-Stars.

Tennessee Things (TNT, the program formerly known as Thursday Night Things) is a curated series of newly created artworks by Tennessee-based artists. Each artist or collective takes advantage of OZ Arts’ 10,000 sf. warehouse venue to create a performance or visual art experience they wouldn’t be able to make in a traditional theater or gallery. In 2016, OZ Arts introduced its newest series, the Artists’ Lounge, which gives artists opportunities to develop work before a live audience, including fellow artists, in the venue’s intimate lounge space.

For more information about OZ Arts Nashville, please visit http://www.ozartsnashville.org/.

 

OZ Arts Nashville Media Contact

Amy A. Atkinson at Amy Atkinson Communications, cell: 615.305.8118, Twitter @AmyAComm or email: amy@amyacommunications.com.

 

TNTs supported in part by