CONCETTA
ABBATE
"Spring" Directed by Luciano Munhoz
"Nobody balances the duality of simultaneously beautiful and haunting music better than Concetta Abbate"
-Filmmaker Brian Ariotti
THIS IS ME
Concetta Abbate is a NYC based violinist, singer and composer. She released her first solo album entitled Falling in Time in February 2015 on Waterbug Records. The album was written for mixed ensemble and included original art songs inspired by natural science, folk tales, poetry and everyday objects and sounds. Her upcoming 2020 album titled Mirror Touch is written for solo 5 string violin and voice.
She was a visiting composer in residence at TAKT gallery in Berlin both in 2014 and 2016 and a composer in residence at the Rauschenberg Foundation in 2019. In 2018 she co-composed a dance composition for the Wendy Osserman Dance Company and in 2016 was commissioned to write a piece for Arch Contemporary Ballet. In 2020 she was invited to present her original work, Mirror Touch, at the department of Musicology at the University of Vienna.
As a performer she regularly plays violin and sings with a variety of ensembles in the New York area. Concetta is most known for her collaborative work with poet Cornelius Eady (Kattywompus Press), musical instrument builder Skip La Plante, photographer Vera Comploj and Latin music band Inti and the Moon (Intiluna Records).
Concetta is the musical director of a music education non-profit called "Teacup Music". She holds an undergraduate degree in Cultural Anthropology from Smith College and a masters degree in Music and Music Education from Columbia University. She has received grants from the Rauschenberg Foundation, Brooklyn Arts Council, TAKT Berlin, Department of Cultural Affairs, the Charles Mayer Foundation as well as The Roothbert Fund.
Fleeting sounds scarcely noticed. Paper clips, a dusty book, bright fish in time. Little songs like little shells. Falling in time is a concept album that incorporates poetry, field recordings and instrumentations ranging from String Quartet to Jazz ensemble. The album was released in 2015 on Waterbug Records and was funded through the supportive donations of fans and friends.
Mirror touch is an exploration of empathy. It is a collection of stories told to the composer Concetta Abbate by close friends and family and then retold in the first person. This exercise of perspective switching serves as a way to embody others experiences and help the composer and audience work through their own personal journey. The album is composed for 5 string violin and voice and will be released in 2020. A demo to a single track is available at the link above.
Film Score
Directed by Vera Comploj, this film is an exploration of age, time and beauty. The film was nominated for an award at the Fashion Film Festival in Milan in October of 2017. Concetta provided sound design for this film which incorporated a combination of synthesizer effects and recordings from ice glaciers scraping the floor of the depths of the ocean.
Dance Score
Concetta Abbate worked in collaboration with choreographer Wendy Osserman as well as Composer/Instrument builder Skip LaPlante to create a music and sound score for the production Undermine. The piece premiered at the Theatre for the New City on the Manhattan's Lower East Side in March of 2018. The score included viola, electronics and found objects as instruments including styrofoam boxes and metal bowls.
IN THE MEDIA
Like many violinists, Concetta Abbate is classically trained, just as likely to be found playing Ravel or Paganini as she is her own music. She finds inspiration in poetry, literature and scientific observation. The point of the “pocket-sized songs” on her loosely thematic new debut album, Falling in Time (streaming at Bandcamp) is that despite how distracted we are by the demands of dayjobs, family and (yuck) technology and social media, we mustn’t cut ourselves off from the world around us because it’s so interesting. Abbate isn’t necessarily telling us to stop and smell the roses, although she might encourage us to stop and watch the waves at the river’s edge…or the faces on the platform as the train pulls into the station. Abbate finds meaning and beauty in the seemingly mundane, translating that tersely and imagistically into a series of brief, often barely two-minute songs that could be called chamber pop or art-rock but really defy categorization.
"Some music does not sit well with categorization. One of those certainly is Concetta Abbate's solo debut CD Falling in Time, Pocket-Sized Songs (Waterbug). It is an album of art songs that could well bear a subtitle "Songs of Innocence and Experience" after William Blake, for there is something of both in her whimsical approach. The arrangements are well wrought, with Concetta's violin working with other strings and other instruments sometimes in quasi-classical ways. The songs are original, her voice enchanting. Explorations "in poetry and soundscapes" is how it is put on the inner sleeve. Well, yes. That."
"This sort of passion is the 'it' that one recognizes in the true troubadours whose minds can't help but fill up with bursting melodies."
PERFORMANCE
Bach Allemade in G minor for Solo Violin
Video by 024 Films
Lillian Fuchs Caprice 11
for Solo Viola
Abbate's Sunlight to a Spanish Poet
for solo 5 String Violin/ Voice
TEACHING
Private Lessons
Online & In-Studio
Teacup Music NYC
Teacup Music is an afterschool class for children offered at the Park Church Co-op in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Students learn the basics of playing an instrument as well as singing, songwriting, rhythms, and note naming. Students build their own instruments in weekly art projects and hear performances from guest instructors. The class culminates in a performance at the end of each semester. Email us at teacupmusicnyc at gmail dot com.
From Mozart to Modern
From Mozart to Modern is a music history program most recently offered at the Garden City Public Library. Concetta curates a performance that takes listeners through various stages in western musical history ranging from renaissance through baroque, classical, romantic and modern periods.
Su Casa Songwriting Workshop
Concetta leads Songwriting and Music Composition workshops for senior citizens. The program is funded by Brooklyn Arts Council, The Department of Cultural Affairs and the Department for Creative Aging in an effort to provide artistic programming for Brooklyn's older population. You can watch the seniors live performance of their original work here .
Concetta offers private lessons for all ages on a variety of instruments including mandolin, violin, viola, cello, guitar, voice, and piano. She also teaches songwriting and music theory. Concetta is an experienced private instructor of 10 years and holds a Masters in Music Education from Columbia University Teachers College.
"It was truly a pleasure meeting Concetta for my first ever violin lesson. It is difficult to learn anything at the age 40, especially a musical instrument, but she made it comfortable and easy to understand. She's extremely patient a key quality when teaching a subject such a music to anyone. I would say, give her teaching style a try and you won't regret it. Very knowledgeable indeed."
Winston Thomas
Violin, In Studio
EVENTS
CONTACT
LABEL | Independent
PRESS CONTACT | Email Hello at ConcettaAbbate.com
BOOKING | Email Hello at ConcettaAbbate.com