Composer Armando Bayolo will make his Carnegie Hall debut, Sunday October 9 at 7:30pm, with the premiere of Lullabies, commissioned by clarinetist Marguerite Levin for Trio Montage at Weill Recital Hall.

In making his Carnegie Hall debut, Bayolo is fulfilling the sacrifices and dreams of three generations of a musical family who barely survived Cuba’s mid-century political upheaval. Around the time that his mother’s family was granted permission to emigrate from Cuba, in 1967, the future Mrs. Bayolo was “invited” to become the Revolution’s protégé.  The Castro regime would pay for her musical education and groom her to be a star of the concert stage, under the condition that she and her family remain in Cuba in perpetuity.  The family obviously fled to Puerto Rico, and the young woman sacrificed her dreams as a concert pianist to build a new future for her family, learning English, and eventually marrying the senior Mr. Bayolo before moving to the United States.

Armando Bayolo’s Lullabies, for baritone, clarinet/bass clarinet and piano, ca. 15 minutes, consists of 6 movements, alternating between songs and dances that depict scenes of early fatherhood. “Each song in the cycle treats with the various anxieties, fears, uncertainties and, most of all, joys of having young children and the ruminations that leads to. The dances, meanwhile, present musical portraits of my own children in sound.” The work takes on a special meaning, illustrating just how far the Bayolo family has come. “I feel like I’m fulfilling my grandparents’ and mother’s dreams vicariously by succeeding, however humbly, as a musician myself.” And Armando’s accomplishments are more than humble – he has successfully carved out a niche for himself as a new music advocate, award-winning composer, editor at Sequenza 21, professor, and artistic director of DC’s Great Noise Ensemble.

Sunday October 9, 7:30pm

Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall

154 West 57th Street New York, NY

Trio Montage

Marguerite Levin, clarinet

Phillip Collister, baritone

R. Timothy McReyolds, piano

Tickets $30 General Admission through the Carnegie Hall Box Office; Carnegie Charge 212-247-7800 or online ticket service carnegiehall.org.

About Armando Bayolo (From his Website):

ARMANDO BAYOLO

Born in 1973 in Santurce, Puerto Rico to Cuban parents, composer Armando Bayolo began musical studies at the age of twelve. He holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music (B.M. 1995), where his teachers were Samuel Adler, Joseph Schwantner and Christopher Rouse; Yale University (M.M. 1997), where he studied with Roberto Sierra, Jacob Druckman, Ingram Marshall and Martin Bresnick; and the University of Michigan D.M.A. 2001) where he studied with Michael Daugherty, Bright Sheng and Evan Chambers.

Mr. Bayolo’s music, which The Washington Post hailed as radiant and ethereal, “full of lush ideas and a kind of fierce grandeur (which unfold) with subtle, driving power,” encompasses a wide variety of genres, including works for solo instruments, voices, chamber and orchestral music. His music has been commissioned by the Aspen Music Festival, the National Gallery of Art, the Syracuse Society for New Music, Duo 46, The Percussion Plus Project, and the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, among others, and has received performances at venues including the Aspen Music Festival, the Library of Congress, the National Gallery of Art and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Galapagos Art Space and Symphony Space, and, in 2011-12, Barge Music and Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall.

Mr. Bayolo has been featured on Public Radio International’s Studio 360 broadcast on WNYC, on the NPR’s Fresh Ink broadcast, The Washington Post, The New York Times Opinionator Blog, and has contributed to New Music Box and Sequenza21, where he is a contributing editor. He has served on the faculties of Reed College and Hamilton College, where he served as a Consortium for a Strong Minority Presence Fellow from 2006-2008, as well as the music theory faculty of the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Bayolo is the recipient 2008 Brandon Fradd fellowship in music from the Cintas Foundation, and has received awards from Hamilton College, the Minnesota Orchestra Composers Institute, and the American Composers Forum.

A tireless advocate for new music, Mr. Bayolo is the founding Artistic Director and conductor of Great Noise Ensemble, which in just six seasons has become one of the most important forces in contemporary music in the Washington, D.C. region and the Curator for New Music for the Atlas Performing Arts Center in Washington, where he directs a 6-9 concert new music series. He lives outside Washington, D.C. with his wife and two daughters…..Read More