Briefs II

Music for Interesting Times
with Gina Crusco

Briefs II

Featuring performances by
Giuseppe Bruno, piano with composer Roberto Scarcella Perino
Wang Guowei, erhu
Adrienne Danrich, soprano

The artists in conversation with
Gina Crusco, Underworld Productions

The event will take place live on the Zoom platform
In order to participate, RSVP and you will receive an e-mail with invitation link to the event by 4pm on February 24
If you don’t receive the link by then, contact us at casa.italiana@nyu.edu

The holidays (even Valentine’s Day) are behind us, but Music for Interesting Times is still celebrating: Beethoven’s birthday, Lunar New Year, and Black History Month! Briefs II features Roberto Scarcella Perino’s new piano sonata with its homage to Beethoven, performed by Giuseppe Bruno; Wang Guowei of Music from China playing the erhu; and Adrienne Danrich, soprano of This Little Light of Mine, singing Spirituals and more. Join Gina Crusco as the music and the conversation continue.

In ENGLISH.

The works of Roberto Scarcella Perino, composer, include five operas, two piano concertos, five piano sonatas, movie scores, three ballets, chamber music and choral pieces. His music has been commissioned, performed, and recorded by ensembles and soloists throughout Europe, Asia and the United States, including Orchestra Arturo Toscanini, Orchestra Regionale Toscana, and Exclusive Saxophone Quartet. June 2021 will see the world premiere of A Sweet Silence in Cremona, his new opera with librettist Mark Campbell, commissioned by NYU Florence and Casa italiana Zerilli-Marimò. He is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the NYU Italian Department and a Scholar in Residence at the American Institute for Verdi Studies. Every summer, Roberto teaches a course on Italian Opera at NYU in Florence.

Giuseppe Bruno, pianist, performs repertoire from Mozart to contemporary music as a soloist and chamber musician. He has performed with the Berlin Philharmonic Octet; with orchestras in Italy, the US, Greece, Ukraine, and Germany; and with  conductors including Spiros Argiris and Roberto Abbado. He has recorded for RAI, Vatican radio and WDR in Cologne. Maestro Bruno is currently Director of the “Giacomo Puccini” Conservatory in La Spezia, and Visiting Professor at Rubinstein Akademie, Düsseldorf.

Wang Guowei has been hailed by New York Times and Washington Post as a “master of the erhu” and has performed with such luminaries as Yo-Yo Ma. He has been a soloist on this Chinese two-string fiddle with the Ying Quartet, Third Angle New Music Ensemble, Continuum, New Jersey Symphony and Ornette Coleman. Formerly concertmaster of the Shanghai Traditional Orchestra, he has appeared as Artistic Director of the ensemble Music From China at colleges, cultural institutions and festivals across the U.S. Wang Guowei taught Chinese music performance at NYU from 2004 to 2006 and is currently Artist-in-Residence in Chinese Music Performance and Director of the Williams College Chinese Ensemble, and co-director and conductor of the Swarthmore College Chinese Ensemble.

Susan Cheng (interpreter for this event) has maintained a life-long devotion to the promotion and development of Chinese music in the U.S. She founded Music From China in 1984 and serves as Executive Director as well as performer on yangqin (hammered dulcimer) and daruan (bass guitar).

The voice of EMMY® award-winning soprano Adrienne Danrich has been described as “fresh liquid-silver”, “radiant”, and having a “sensual timbre and dramatic truth” by Opera News. She has performed, covered, and workshopped leading roles with Lyric Opera Chicago, San Francisco Opera, The Metropolitan Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Tulsa Opera, Opera Pacific, Sarasota Opera, Dayton Opera, Kentucky Opera, Annapolis Opera, Opera Delaware, Baltimore Concert Opera and Fort Worth Opera. She has also performed at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall, and appeared in the NBC broadcast of The Sound of Music, Live! Her one-woman show, This Little Light of Mine: The Stories of Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price, was written under a commission from Cincinnati Opera and nominated for an EMMY®; Ms. Danrich personally won the EMMY® for on-camera talent as performer and narrator. Ms. Danrich is currently engaged in creating virtual programs that feature global artists and invite listeners to participate in the experience.

Gina Crusco leads Casa Italiana NYU’s Music Listening Club and recently curated Europa’s Opera for Casa, Maison Française, and Deutsches Haus. She has led groups and taught at New School University, Bard College, Riverdale Y, Integral Yoga Institute, and FIT. Gina is a retired opera singer and director who is busier than ever.

Music for Interesting Times presents creative responses to lockdown through conversation and live musical performance with artists as nearby as Casa Italiana’s home in the West Village and as distant as Italy and beyond.