For Immediate Release
Media contacts:
Jane Turnis
(719) 389-6138
JTurnis@ColoradoCollege.edu
Leslie Weddell
(719) 389-6038
Leslie.Weddell@ColoradoCollege.
CANADIAN CONTEMPORARY QUARTET QAT
MERGES CULTURES AND MUSIC IN THREE CONCERTS
Ben-Amots chamber opera ‘The Dybbuk’ to feature clarinet, violin, cello, piano, voice
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – March 7, 2007 – Musical minds met across borders, cultures and traditions last year when QAT, a contemporary quartet comprised of passionate 
20-something musicians from Montreal, Canada, contacted composer Ofer Ben-Amots at Colorado College about obtaining the score for one of his pieces for clarinet and cello.
Ben-Amots, an associate professor of music at CC, was happy to forward the score, but he was also very interested in the ensemble and its instrumentation: clarinet, violin, cello and piano. It turns out that it had always been Ben-Amots’ intention to arrange his chamber opera “The Dybbuk” for soprano and quartet, and QAT’s inquiry sparked inspiration.
On March 8, 10 and 11, that meeting of minds, cultures and music will come to life in Packard Hall, 5 W. Cache La Poudre St., as QAT performs three concerts celebrating unlikely synergies. The first concert will feature contemporary Canadian composers’ works; the second and third will also showcase Ben-Amots’ newly arranged chamber opera, in which traditional klezmer influences resonate but emerge with fresh treatments.
The events are as follows:
Thursday, March 8
QAT performs an all-Canadian concert of works by contemporary composers. The program will include “The Sarantine Mosaic” by Éric de Villers; “Néphonème I” by Justin Demarais; “Pièce pour violon et clarinette” by internationally recognized composer Claude Vivier; “Trails of Gravity and Grace” by Allan Gordon Bell; “Secret de Polichinelle” by Ana Sokolovic; and “Monts et merveilles” by Simon Bertrand.
7:30 p.m., Packard Hall, 5 W. Cache La Poudre St., free
Saturday-Sunday, March 10-11
QAT performs Ofer Ben-Amots’ newly arranged chamber opera “The Dybbuk,” based on a play inspired by traditional Jewish themes and stories, and directed by Colorado College drama/dance chair Tom Lindblade. The opera is set to music with traditional klezmer influences present but heard under a new light. These two concerts also will feature works for soprano and ensemble by Czech composer Jan Jirásek and Canadian composer Éric Champagne as well as music by composer Njo Kong Kie. Mezzo-soprano Yaffa Borukhova from the Rome Academy of Music will be featured.
Saturday at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday at 3 p.m., Packard Hall, 5 W. Cache La Poudre St., free
About QAT
QAT first came together in June 2000 at the Milan conservatory of music premiering contemporary Canadian and Italian works for a series called Musica nei cortile. The group, then known as “Les quatre temperaments,” first performed in its current configuration (Xavier Brossard-Ménard, clarinet, Chantal Bergeron, violin, Benjamin Sutton, cello, Sonia Wheaton Dudley, piano) in October of 2004 for a concert series in Montreal called Tentacules, produced by Société Codes d’accès, a Montreal-based organization devoted to the promotion of contemporary music.
In January 2006 QAT was invited by Radio-Canada, the French division of CBC, Canada’s national public radio and television broadcaster, to record works by two Canadian composers: “The Sarantine Mosaic” by Éric de Villers and “Monts et merveilles” by Simon Bertrand. QAT’s most recent event, du magma à l’incandescence, was also produced by Société Codes d’accès in Montreal. This concert featured seven different works by as many composers. All were linked together by an off-stage voice as well as various lighting and staging effects that suggested a different atmosphere for each piece.
QAT is now preparing for a residency at Théâtre La Chapelle, an avant-garde theater in Montreal. This residency will give QAT a chance to benefit fully from all the theater’s technical means and resources. The time spent in this cutting-edge theater will allow QAT to further develop its approach to presenting and performing contemporary music and will set a new stage for its ongoing exploration of the intimate links between the music, the performer and the listener.
About Ofer Ben-Amots
Born in Haifa, Israel, Ofer Ben-Amots gave his first piano concert at age nine and at age 16 was awarded first prize in the Chet Piano Competition. Following composition studies with 
Joseph Dorfman at Tel Aviv University, Ben-Amots studied at the Conservatoire de Musique in Geneva, Switzerland with with Pierre Wismer and privately with Alberto Ginastera. Ben-Amots is an alumnus of the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, Germany, where he studied with Martin Redel and Dietrich Manicke and graduated with degrees in composition, music theory, and piano. Upon his arrival in the United States in 1987, Ben-Amots studied with George Crumb and Richard Wernick at the University of Pennsylvania where he received his Ph.D. in music composition. Currently on the faculty of Colorado College, Ben-Amots is an associate professor of music composition and theory.
Ben-Amots’ works, performed regularly in concert halls and festivals worldwide, interweave folk elements with contemporary textures, along with unique imaginative orchestration. His music has published by Baerenreiter, Kallisti Music Press, Muramatsu Inc., Dorn, and Tara Publications. It can be heard on Naxos, Vantage, Plæne, Stylton, and other recording labels.
His awards include the 1994 Vienna International Competition for Composers; the 1988 Kavannagh Prize for his composition “Fanfare for Orchestra”; the Gold Award at South Africa’s 1993 Roodepoort International Competition for Choral Composition; first prize at the 1991 Kobe International Competition for Flute Composition in Japan for his piece “Avis Urbanus” for amplified flute; the 1999 Aaron Copland Award and the Music Composition Artist Fellowship by the Colorado Council on the Arts. Ben-Amots is a member of the Board of the Milken Archive of American-Jewish Music. In addition, he is a Jerusalem Fellow of the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity and its artistic director for North America since 1997.
About Tom Lindblade
Tom Lindblade hails from Minnesota, and came to Colorado College from Stanford University. Since 1982, he has been an active theater professional in the San Francisco Bay 
area, directing, musical directing, and conducting more than 50 productions for TheatreWorks, the Magic Theatre, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Solo Mio Festival (Climate Theatre), and California Shakespeare Festival. Lindblade writes extensively on contemporary performance, publishing articles in Comparative Drama, Theatre Survey, and New Art Examiner on subjects as varied as John Jesurun, George Coates, Robert Wilson, and David Saunders. He is a contributor to the anthologies Apocalypse Then and Now and The Semiotic Bridge, and translated Peter Szondi's essay "Ibsen" for “Ibsen: Critical Essays.” His book “Tactical Measures: The Interaction of Drama and Music” establishes a cross-artistic critical vocabulary with which to discuss Shakespeare and Wellmer, Brecht and Adorno, Beckett and Schopenhauer, and Wilson and Pavis. Lindblade is a member of the American Society for Aesthetics, the American Society for Theatre Research, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and the International Theatre Institute. He serves as an on-site evaluator for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. He chairs the Colorado College drama/dance department.
About Yaffa Borukhova
Mezzo-soprano Yaffa Borukhova is originally from Dushanbe, Tajikistan, and has lived in Colorado for the past 11 years. She earned her bachelor of music degree from the University 
of Denver’s Lamont School of Music, and is completing her postgraduate studies in vocal performance at the Accademia Internazionale delle Arti in Rome, Italy. She has assisted and directed for the Lamont School of Music Opera, John Hand Theater, as well as played in local theaters of Colorado. She was honored with two first-place awards in the NATS competition, Partners in Scholarship Award, and the Recital of Distinction Award. For the past two years she has worked as the Cantorial Intern at Congregation Emanuel of Denver, where she performed as the soloist for the High Holidays. She recently released her new album of contemporary Russian romances. Besides her solo performances, she has sung the role of Charlotte in “Werther”, Maddalena in “Rigoletto,” Third Lady in “The Magic Flute,” Beatrice in “Beatrice et Benedict.” Currently she is involved in a women’s quartet in Rome, Italy under the direction of Gaetano Stella.
All three concerts are sponsored by the CC music department and the Donner Canadian Program at Colorado College. For information, directions or disability accommodation at the events, members of the public may call (719) 389-6607.
About Colorado College
Colorado College is a nationally prominent, four-year liberal arts and sciences college that was founded in Colorado Springs in 1874. The college operates on the innovative Block Plan, in which its 1,945 students study one course at a time in intensive 3½-week blocks. For more information, visit www.ColoradoCollege.