Quintet of the Americas

Quintet of the Americas is one of the longest-running wind quintets in North America. Established in Bogotá in 1976 and based in New York City since 1979, Quintet of the Americas (QOA) has spent over three decades commissioning over 70 works, performing over three hundred concerts throughout the United States, and in Canada, the Caribbean, South America and Eastern Europe, and recording eight CDs.

Members

Awards and recognition
  • 2003 Jerome Composers Commissioning Program grant for commissioning Robert Paterson
  • 2002 NEA/Chamber Music America Special Commissioning Award to commission and tour Vision III for quintet, electronics and 32 folk instruments, by Judith Sainte Croix
  • Year Unknown ASCAP-CMA Award for Adventuresome Programming
  • Year Unknown ASCAP-CMA Award for Adventuresome Programming

History

Notable recitals have included a Carnegie Hall debut featuring three commissions for quintet with orchestra, Carnegie Hall American Music Week Series at Weill Recital Hall; Bermuda International Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Inter-American New Music Festival in Puerto Rico, Bar Harbor Festival, Chautauqua, Pan American Music Festivals at the Library of Congress and the O.A.S., Festival Internacional de Música Contemporanea in Bogotá, Colombia, First International Congress on Women in Music; two Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors Festivals, retrospective concerts for Karel Husa, David del Tredici, Ursula Mamlok, Ann McMillan and contemporary music concerts for the American Composers Orchestra's Sonidos de Mexico and Sonidos de Cuba festivals.

Working with community organizations to bring new music and composers to audiences in community spaces, every year the Quintet reaches hundreds of under-served people in Queens, New York, their only experience with new music being through the Quintet's programs. The Quintet has received five Chamber Music America Residency Program Grants – (1994–95, 1995–96, 1996–97, all in Chicago) sponsored by the Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Foundation and two residencies in Queens, NY. The Quintet has also held residencies at Austin Peay State University (TN); Northwestern University (IL) and Hunter College (NYC); and abroad at the Kharkiv Special Secondary Music School in the Ukraine and the Conservatory of Music in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia. They have performed outreach programs for Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concerts, Lincoln Center Inc., Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the 92nd Street Y, Midori and Friends, Fondaçion Batuta in Colombia, Queens Symphony, and Young Audiences of Indianapolis; and been Artists in Residence at New York's Americas Society and New York University.

Special programs have included Sephardic music, Native American music, music influenced by jazz; music by women composers, music from Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia, music from the African Diaspora, commissions for the Hudson River Quadricentennial; commissions for a program based on the Hubble Space Telescope photographs; and commissions based on the memories of seniors in Queens.

Recordings

The Quintet has recorded four CDs of contemporary American music by Pauline Oliveros, Amy Rubin, Lee Hyla, Christopher Culpo, Elliott Sharp on Quintet of the Americas Self Portrait (CRI), Roberto Sierra, William Thomas McKinley, Ilan Rechtman on Discovering the New World (MMC), Jacob Druckman, Steven Mackey, Jeffrey Wood, Ursula Mamlok, Julia Wolfe, Stuart Balcomb on Never Sing Before Breakfast, (Newport Classics), and Karel Husa (New World). Four additional CDs have also been released -Sounds of Brazil Gaudencio Thiago de Mello, Ernesto Nazareth, Pixinguinha, Ricaro Romaneiro, and Marcelo Zarvos, XANGO, (music of Villa-Lobos), Souvenirs, (works by Barber, Bernstein, Gershwin, Gottschalk, J.P. Johnson, Joplin, and Ory), and Dancing in Colombia (MSR).

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