Chione Quintet , Michael Maiorana “Pillars of Air and Light” – Virtual Courtroom Concert

This performance will be an archival program in the format of an audio presentation. Photo by Leta Rose Albrecht.

Featuring: 

Alexandra Berndt, bassoon
Bethany Gonella, flute
Susan Miranda, oboe
Weily Grina-Shay, clarinet
Allison Akins, horn

About the Program: 

Recorded February 2020

Twin Cities-based Chione Quintet performs MN composer Michael Maiorana’s “Pillars of Air and Light,” a five-movement piece for woodwind quintet inspired by five paintings of trees by Dutch artist Jacoba van Heemskerck. 

About the Performers:

Chione is a Twin Cities-based woodwind quintet comprised of innovative and cross-disciplinary women. The unique and evolving medium provides an outlet to explore and create new sounds while redefining and rediscovering lesser known music. Chione is committed to collaborating with professionals of all genres and creative outlets, with particular interests in commissioning new pieces and performing works by women artists. Throughout each endeavor, Chione aims to reach a wide range of audiences with the hopes of inspiring contemporary and aspiring artists as well as supporters of the arts.

Since Chione’s inception, the ensemble has performed live on Classical Minnesota Public Radio, they have performed as pop-up classical artists representing Classical MPR at the 2017 Saint Paul Winter Carnival Beer Dabbler as well as the Current’s 2018 Rock the Cradle event.  Chione will hold their 3nd annual quINTENS!VE Chamber Music Camp in August, working with middle and high school students through coaching and performing chamber music.  Chione performs numerous self-presented performances throughout the year in venues such as the Schubert Club, Macphail Center for Music, Icehouse Minneapolis, Can Can Wonderland and the Woman’s Club.  In March of 2018 Chione made their debut as Courtroom Concert Artists at the Schubert Club, performing a concert of works written solely by women.  Throughout the 2018-2019 school year Chione has had the pleasure of performing their “Story Time with Chione” program with elementary schools throughout Minnesota as Classical Minnesota Public Radio Class Notes Artists. 

About the Composer:

Michael Maiorana (b. 1990, Detroit, MI) is a composer living in Minneapolis. After graduating from Grinnell College in rural Iowa, he studied composition, harmony, and counterpoint at the European American Musical Alliance in Paris. Michael was recently awarded a 2020 ACF Create grant from the American Composers Forum to write a multi-movement choral work setting a speech about social welfare by Harry Hopkins.

Michael has participated in local composition workshops including VocalEssence Remix, Magpies & Ravens Lineage and the Nautilus Composer-Librettist Studio, and has also attended the Lehigh University Choral Composition Forum and the University of Missouri Kansas City Composition Workshop. His music has been performed by such ensembles as Lumina, newEar, Zeitgeist, 10th Wave, the Princeton Singers and andPlay. He is a member of the American Composers Forum and ASCAP. More information and music at www.maioranamusic.com.