Force of Nature: Celebrating the Earth performed by Melodia Women’s Choir

Melodia Women s Choir/Cynthia Powell, Artistic Director, now celebrating their fifth
season and acclaimed by WNYC for their elegance and ringing tones, has scheduled
several spring performances: on Saturday and Sunday, May 3 and 4, 2008, they will
present Force of Nature: Celebrating the Earth, music about the natural world, at
St. Luke in the Fields Church in New York City.
487 Hudson Street
New York, NY
212-924-0562
Saturday May 3 at 8 PM
Sunday May 4 at 4 PM.
Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door, discounts for students
and seniors: $20 in advance, $15 at the door.
Call 212-252-4135, or visit www.melodiawomenschoir.org.

The program will feature Samuel
Barber‘s Sure On This Shining Night; Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály s Mountain Nights Songs Without Words For Women s Voices; Ronald Perera‘s Earthsongs; Zhou
Long‘s Four Seasons, a setting of ancient Chinese poetry; A Goodly Heritage by
British composer Gordon Jacob; Spring Song by Israeli composer Yehezkel Braun;
Hotaru Koi (Firefly) by Japanese composer Ro Ogura; and Wellsprings (New York
Premiere) and Contemplations (U.S. Premiere) by Welsh-born composer Hilary Tann.

For these concerts, Melodia is partnering with Water is Life Kenya, a project that
brings water to drought-affected regions of Southern Kenya. Water is Life Kenya
was founded by Joyce Tannian, a former member of Melodia, who moved to Southern
Kenya to dedicate her life and energy to drilling wells so people have easier access
to clean and safe water. The project is funded by money raised by Joyce Tannian and
her family and friends in the U.S. $1 of each ticket sold will be donated to Water
is Life – Kenya. Tax deductible donations may also be made by visiting
www.kenyawaterislife.com.

Working with the Maasai community, the project has just completed its first well in
Imisigyio, already visited by more than 800 women daily and sustaining the lives of
their families and livestock. The drilling of the new well means that the 10-12
hours a woman used to spend fetching water every day are now reduced to 2 or 3.
Water is Life Kenya helps people improve their lives, and preserve their culture
and customs by giving them a chance to survive in an environment catastrophically
affected by global warming.

Following the May 3-4 concerts, Melodia Women s Choir will be featured at the
Symphony Space Wall to Wall Bach May 17, performing excerpts from Bach Cantatas 4
and 78. They then return to Symphony Space June 5 as guest artists with the New
Amsterdam Symphony in Gustav Holst s The Planets, and in selections from the Melodia
repertoire. Melodia is also currently sponsoring its first Women Composers
Commissioning Competition, and the deadline for submissions is April 1, 2008.
Details on all these events are available at www.melodiawomenschoir.org.

Melodia Women s Choir creates, discovers and performs works for women s voices, and
the repertory of the ensemble includes an eclectic mix of rarely performed classical
and contemporary works. Their recent concert, Sweet Interlude, presented the World
Premiere of Becca Schack s In My End Is My Beginning, and Vivaldi s Gloria in D in
the all-female setting for which it was probably intended. Previous concerts have
celebrated female composers and ensembles from 12th to 21 centuries, and premiered
Allison Sniffin s Hear Me With Your Eyes, based on love poems of Sor Juana Inés de
la Cruz. Melodia has rediscovered numerous neglected works. The group was founded in
2003 by Jennifer Clarke, an arts consultant who has worked with London s Royal
Festival Hall, Royal Court Theatre, and companies in New York including the American
Music Center, Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana and Dancing in the Streets. The ensemble
appeared last year in the Symphony Space Wall to Wall Stravinsky marathon.

Cynthia Powell, Melodia s Artistic Director and conductor since its inception, also
serves as Artistic Director of Stonewall Chorale, has directed the choral program of
Sarah Lawrence College and was a guest conductor at the Festival Internacional de
Coros in Havana, Cuba. Equally at home as a pianist and organist, she has toured
with Meredith Monk’s opera, Atlas and Celebration Service in Europe, at the Spoleto
USA Festival, the Walker Arts Center and Lincoln Center 2000 Festival.