Broadway '79 by Victor Kioulaphides rehearsed by the Dutch Mandolin Chamber Orchestra Het CONSORT

Broadway '79 by Victor Kioulaphides, as explained by the composer: is an instrumental jazz ballad, scored for two soloists in alternation, playing one "chorus" each, joining on the refrain, twice over the orchestra of first and second mandolins and mandolas, plus "walking bass" mandoloncello. In this performance by Het CONSORT conducted by Alex Timmerman the original instrumentation is, with permission of the composer, of course, enlarged with a guitar section and a bass. The latter instrument being a Chitarrone moderno; a standing guitar-like bass with a fretted fingerboard that is plucked with the right-hand fingers (no bow here). An instrument also that finds its right place in plucked orchestras as is the case here (and was in the glory days of Italian Mandolin Orchestras c. 1890-c. 1940).
Broadway '79 was commissioned by the well known Italian mandolinist Carlo Aonzo who premiered the work on 03-29-2009, during his New York Mandolin Workshop.

Kioulaphides further elaborates that: "Broadway '79 is my own celebration, shared musically with all my mando-friends, of my 30 years in New York. As many of you know, the Big Apple went virtually bankrupt between 1974 and 1975. When I arrived, it was still an indescribably rough, grimy, crime-infested, down-on-its-luck kind of place. Yet, what an AMAZING place it was! New York was then truly the Great City of the Arts: every other loft was an avant-garde art gallery, every other basement housed a performance-art company, there were jazz clubs galore! I spent many, many happy hours in those legendary jazz clubs, listening to the likes of Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, and countless others. Emerging in le ore piccole, the wee hours past midnight, from those suffocatingly smoky clubs, greeted by the night chill --and... *ahem*... ever-so-slightly buzzed-- with ALL that music still ringing in my ears, left an indelible impression on me".

This video of Broadway '79 by Victor Kioulaphides played by the Dutch Mandolin Chamber Orchestra Het CONSORT directed by Alex Timmerman was made on 18 September 2009 during a public rehearsal just before their concert in the Saint Nicolas Church in Bancigny, France. The mandolin soloists, Sebastiaan de Grebber and Ferdinand Binnendijk are both members of the orchestra.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Broadway
• '79
• Victor
• Kioulaphides
• Mandolin
• Mandolino
• Mandoline
• Orchestra
• Het
• CONSORT
• Alex
• Timmerman