Christopher O'Riley, Piano

From his groundbreaking transcriptions of Radiohead to his unforgettably sublime interpretations of repertoire classic and contemporary, pianist Christopher O’Riley has redefined the possibilities of classical music. He has taken his unique vision to both traditional classical music venues and symphonic settings, as well as to entirely new audiences on the radio, at universities and even clubs. As host of the most popular classical music radio show on the air today, National Public Radio’s From the Top, Mr. O’Riley works and performs with the next generation of brilliant young musicians, demonstrating to audiences, with humor and a lack of pretense, that these young artists are as characterful and diverse in their personal lives as they are in their music-making. In 2007 From the Top will be filmed for public television in Zankel Concert Hall at Carnegie Hall. An interpreter and arranger of some of the most important contemporary popular music of our time, Chris lives by the Duke Ellington adage, “there are only two kinds of music, good music and bad.” His first recording of Radiohead transcriptions, ”True Love Waits” (Sony/Odyssey) received 4 stars from Rolling Stone and was as critically acclaimed as it was commercially successful. His second set of music from the British alt-pop outfit, entitled “Hold Me to This: Christopher O’Riley plays the music of Radiohead,” was released on World Village/Harmonia Mundi to a similarly enthusiastic response.   In April 2006, his third set of transcriptions was released on the same label.  Entitled “Home to Oblivion;   An Elliott Smith Tribute,”  Mr. O’Riley this time tackles the deeply emotional and complex work from the troubled singer/songwriter who died prematurely in 2003.

Just as his radio show and his contemporary classical recordings have created extraordinary buzz, so have his performances in traditional classical context. In November 2004, Mr. O’Riley toured the U.S. with the world-famous Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Orchestra visiting 10 cities in 2 weeks, playing Bach, Mozart and Lizst concerti. He recently appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, the Minnesota Orchestra, the symphonies of Pittsburgh, Atlanta and Baltimore. The illustrious group of conductors with whom he has collaborated includes Marin Alsop, David Zinman, Leonard Slatkin, John Williams, Neeme Järvi, Bobby McFerrin, Hans Graf, Yoel Levi, Hugh Wolff and Andrew Litton.

O’Riley studied with Russell Sherman at the New England Conservatory of Music.  Christopher O’Riley makes his home in Los Angeles.  His radio show can be found on-line at www.fromthetop.org. His personal website is at www.christopheroriley.com.

Decadancetheatre is made up of female dancers from the US and Japan.  Although we don’t all speak the same verbal language, hip-hop is our shared form of communication—an urban folk culture we acquired in the clubs and on the streets of the different cities where we grew up.  Ready to move out of dancing in the background, we joined together to create a new outlet for hip-hop performance. Women have not yet established a serious presence in hip-hop culture, particularly in hip-hop dance culture.  Decadancetheatre is out to change that by taking hip-hop—the style, the attitude, the energy, and the female dancers--out of the background of music videos and into the forefront of theatrical performance. 

Decadancetheatre creates hip-hop ballets. Much like how traditional choreographers use the vocabulary of ballet, we use the vocabulary of hip-hop to tell the stories of the hip-hop generation. We feel the popularity of the movement genre, loosely called “hip-hop” represents a global youth culture phenomenon that merits artistic exploration and experimentation.   To us, hip-hop is a fusion of various underground dance styles.

Decadancetheatre also incorporates graffiti, DJing and MCing into our work as these three elements complete the diverse culture of hip-hop and are necessary for its communication and preservation. Hip-hop is an energy, a heartbeat, a philosophy to make something out of nothing, until your voice is heard. 

DECA Awards

2004 Time Out New York Audience Choice Bessie Award nomination, Behind the Beat

2004 FringeNYC Excellence in Choreography, Decadance Vs. The Firebird

Established in 1988, NSF enriches the lives of Middle Tennesseans with bold, innovative and relevant productions, setting the community standard of excellence in productions of Shakespeare and other classic theatrical works.  

Following a dream of creating a Shakespearean theatre company in Nashville, a group of local actors produced the first free-of-charge Shakespeare in the Park production of As You Like It with a modest budget of $500 and no technical support. That summer the organization’s founders were encouraged by the more than 1,000 audience members who attended the six performances, and the Nashville Shakespeare Festival was born. During its eighteen-year history, the NSF has grown into one the region’s leading professional theatres and the local authority on the works of William Shakespeare. Each summer more than 10,000 audience members attend NSF’s annual Shakespeare in the Park production at Centennial Park which is designed to be accessible to people from all cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. As always, these fully-staged, professional productions are presented free of charge to the public.

In 1992, in response to the need for an arts-in-education program in the Metropolitan Nashville public schools, the Nashville Shakespeare Festival developed a fifty-minute, four-actor adaptation of Macbeth. The tour was so well received that NSF developed a series of fifty-minute versions of the Bard’s most well-known works as “Shakespeare Samplers” consisting of scenes from some of the most popular Shakespearean plays. These abridged productions toured to middle and high schools throughout the state as well as regional colleges and universities. Over 120,000 students – many of whom have never experienced live theatre before – have been introduced to Shakespeare through NSF’s interactive workshops and energetic performances. These tours have led to rewarding partnerships with the Nashville Institute for the Arts [NIA] and the Tennessee Performing Arts Center’s Humanities Outreach in Tennessee [TPAC/H.O.T.], which assist NSF in producing other classics such as The Belle of Amherst, The Little Prince, and Rip Van Winkle to supplement the company’s Shakespearean offerings. The Nashville Shakespeare Festival is an active member of the Shakespeare Theatre Association of America [STAA] and will host the annual STAA conference in 2007.

I Musici de Montréal

Founded by ‘cellist and conductor Yuli Turovsky, I Musici de Montréal is a chamber orchestra of 15 musicians that presents a vast repertoire extending from the baroque to the contemporary. The orchestra presents a busy schedule of over 100 concerts per season throughout the world including three prestigious series in Montreal. This extraordinary amount of activity places I Musici amongst the most important touring orchestras in Canada.

Since its beginnings, I Musici has maintained an exclusive recording contract with Chandos Records of England and has, to date, released 43 CDs that are distributed in more than 50 countries around the world. These recordings have won the orchestra and Maestro Turovsky many awards, including a Diapason d’Or for their 1988 recording of Shostakovich’s 14^th Symphony and a 1992 Penguin Guide Rosette for their Concerti grossi, opus 6 by Handel. I Musici’s recording of Handel has since become a reference recording of the highest standard.

Yuli Turovsky

In December of 1998, the Conseil québecois de la musique gave two Opus Awards to the orchestra for Recording Event of the Year and Best Recording - contemporary music for a CD grouping works by Gorecki, Pärt and Schnittke. In 1999, I Musici was awarded the Grand Prix des Arts by the Montreal Urban Community for their exceptional contribution to music presentation in and around Montreal.

In August 2001, BBC Music Magazine named I Musici’s 40th recording the CD of the Month, calling it a "Russian tour de force." The program of Miaskovsky, Schnittke and Denisov was thus honoured around the world. In April 2002, I Musici was nominated for another Canadian Juno Award for Best Classical Album of the Year. The ensemble had previously won a Juno for their recording of Ginestera, Villa-Lobos and Evangelista. Furthermore, the orchestra’s recording The Modern Cello has received rave reviews from the prestigious Parisian magazine Diapason, which called the orchestra’s interpretation "virtuosité étincelante".

Under the dynamic and visionary direction of Maestro Yuli Turovsky, who also performs as cello soloist with the orchestra, I Musici has performed in some of the greatest halls in the world: New York’s Lincoln Center, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Germany, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Kioi Hall in Tokyo and the Conservatoire de Musique in Luxemburg, among others. Public enthusiasm and the critical acclaim that underlines the ensemble's precision, cohesion and virtuosity of performance, as well as the brio and distinctive sound of the orchestra, confirm I Musici’s importance on the world’s musical stage.

“The Incredible String Band”  — The Independent, London
“I Musici de Montréal is a decided virtuoso group” — South China Morning Post, Hong-Kong
"Whiplash precision and tension” — Stereo Review, New York