MIFA Victory Players at Pro Arte Musical

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 4, 2023

PUERTO RICO’S PRESTIGIOUS PRO ARTE MUSICAL INVITES MIFA VICTORY PLAYERS FOR CONCERT AND RESIDENCY IN SAN JUAN

Pro Arte Musical will feature the MIFA Victory Players in " El Puerto Rico, The Rich Port" as its annual gala concert January 14, 2023, at the Sala Sinfónica Pablo Casals Concert Hall San Juan, Puerto Rico

Holyoke, MA - MIFA Victory Theatre is pleased to announce that the historic Pro Arte Musical company of San Juan has invited the MIFA Victory Players ensemble to perform El Puerto Rico, The Rich Port in its entirety at its annual Gala concert on January 14, 2023, in San Juan. El Puerto Rico, The Rich Port is inspired by Puerto Rico and is a unique contemporary classical music cycle. The Pro Arte invitation also includes a residency for the Victory Players at the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico. For more information and tickets, visit https://proartemusical.com/gran-exaltacion-a-la-composicion-musical-contemporanea/

The Victory Players is a visionary project of MIFA, the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts and a key feature of the festival’s conception for the restoration and reopening of the historic Victory Theatre in Holyoke, MA. Musicians and composers from around the world are selected for an annual residency in Holyoke where they rehearse and develop new musical works around a central theme. Works are given public hearings in progress and the finished compositions both refresh the medium and become ambassadors for the voice and sound of a renewed theater, a renewed City of Holyoke, and a region with a direct impact on its communities.

El Puerto Rico, The Rich Port is the Victory Players first completed project. Starting in 2017 Music Director Tianhui Ng began commissioning composers and selecting works inspired by the island of Puerto Rico and recruiting musicians to collaborate with them. Live workshops of the resulting El Puerto Rico, The Rich Port 1 & 2 began in June 2018 and 2019 at Holyoke’s El Mercado, a performance space run by Nueva Esperanza in Holyoke’s Puerto Rican Cultural District. Holyoke's population is 51% Puerto Rican. Because of Covid, El Puerto Rico 3: Identity Duets was co-presented virtually in 2020 and 2021 on NEPM (New England Public Media), and Holyoke Media. The overwhelmingly positive response to these virtual NEPM broadcasts led to a wider hearing and a co-production collaboration with Boston's GBH recording and videoing the whole cycle in 2021 at Boston's GBH Fraser Performance Studio. The recording includes interviews with the composers. All 10 MIFA-commissioned pieces are now available thanks to GBH on CRBClassical.org and Nepm.org.

These same musicians and composers will travel with Music Director Tianhui Ng to San Juan to perform the cycle live. The concert features Belén by Johanny Navarro, Prints of Lost Breath by José J. Peña Aguayo, a premiere by Carlos Carrillo titled Y dicen que cuando Guabancex se encoleriza…, What My Mother Wrote by Christian Quiñones, Isla Verde by Omar Surrillo and more.

Invited by Pro Arte’s president, Myrna M. Rivera Cardona, and executive director, José M. Camuy Maymí, the MIFA Victory Players will be part of the oldest musical society in Puerto Rico. Pro Arte Musical was founded in 1932 with renowned Puerto Rican pianist Elisa Tavárez to promote musical culture on the island and establish lasting artistic ties between music lovers in Puerto Rico and other countries. Pro Arte Musical has featured many celebrated musical artists such as Heifetz, Segovia, Rubinstein, Arrau, Schwarzkopf, Stern, Pitiagorsky and Tibbet; dancers such as Alicia Markova and Maria Tallchief and opera singers such as Zinka Milanov, Grace Moore, Jean Madeira, Leonard Warren and Jan Kiepura.

"This concert is a wonderful way to experience together the richness of sound and emotion coming from contemporary artists transforming their being of Puerto Rico and the World into music. It's an exciting time for MIFA Victory Theatre because the project underscores the spirit of modern Holyoke. With the ensemble's dedicated talent, the composer's fertile imaginations and Tian's eloquent baton it's no surprise that this very moving concert is getting international attention.” - Don Sanders MIFA Victory Theatre Executive Artistic Director

Pro Arte Musical is just one of the many engagements for the Victory Players coming up in 2023. Stay tuned and check out our complete digital series El Puerto Rico 4 is available with our gratitude to CRB Classical (GBH Music) on

www.classicalwcrb.org/el-puerto-rico and to New England Public Media (NEPM) on www.nepm.org/el-puerto-rico.

Learn more about the Victory Players: www.mifafestival.org/victoryplayers & here: www.victoryplayers.org

COMING SOON! Next MIFA Victory Players project in Holyoke is Si Se Puede, new contemporary classical Mexican American music.

Made Possible By

The Irene E. & George A. Davis Foundation

Friends of MIFA Victory Theatre

Mass Cultural Council

Victory Theatre Catalyst Donors Donald and Michele D'Amour

_________________________

Contact: Emily Mann

Phone: 413.540.0200

Email: info@mifafestival.org

Donald T. Sanders, Executive Artistic Director

Kathy McKean, Managing Director