Tomorrow is the big day! Our second concert of the season is Saturday, February 23, featuring works by RICHARD BROOKS, PATRICIA LEONARD, DONALD HAGAR, CARL KANTER, and CHRISTOPHER MONTGOMERY. The venue is the Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space, Broadway at 95th. The concert starts at 7:30 pm, and tickets are $15. A bargain for great new music!

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Good news from TAMARA CASHOUR. She won first prize in the New York Treble Singers 2007 Composition Contest “For Women Only”. Her winning composition, entitled GIRLY HURLY BURLY, will be world-premiered April 1, 2008 by NYTS, at Christ and St. Stephens Church, Manhattan. The composition, scored for Womens Choir (SSAA), 2 violins, piano and “special surprise instrument”, is a setting of the witches’ Act I opening scene and Act IV cauldron song from The Scottish Play … uh;… MACBETH ! The piece also includes both speaking and singing roles for soloists.

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Tonal Center Trio, a trio comprised of TIFFANY DUMOUCHELLE (soprano), STEPHEN SOLOOK (percussion), and Adam Berokwitz (clarinet), will premiere RICHARD RUSSELL‘s new comic (yet dramatic!) piece, The Duel, next Friday, February 29. This concert is sponsored by the Lawyers Orchestra, and is being presented by their concert series, Friday Evening Chamber Music. The concert has a rush hour start time: 6pm, and the venue is the Bar Association, 42 West 44 Street (between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.) Other composers on the bill are Gordon Stout, David Maslanka, David Loeb, Frederic Rzewski, and Ney Rosauro. (An admission charge is still being determined, but estimate $15.)

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JOSPEH PEHRSON writes: The Composers Concordance is taking its act to the streets of the new Harlem and the upscale Settepani Restaurant, 196 Lenox Avenue  (Malcolm X Blvd.) at 120 Street, NYC on Tuesday, March 4, 2008, 8PM.  Come be part of this historic and revitalized area as we break bread (they feature their breads) with the B3+ ensemble, a dynamite brass trio consisting of legendary bass trombonist Dave Taylor, Austrian trumpet-composing genius Franz Hackl and the ultimate virtuoso John Clark on horn. We have commissioned composers to write new works for the occasion:  some acoustic, some acoustics and electronic, and all fun.  Every note is new, and all the composers will be there to talk about their works, stand by the bar, and take it out to the streets of Harlem. Composers include Charles Coleman, Dan Cooper, James Holt, Chris McIntyre, Joseph Pehrson, Gene Pritsker, Laura Schwendinger, Daniel Wohl and the three members of B3+! This is going to be a good time and a new space for works of our time. Come be a part of it. Tickets are $10. www.composersconcordance.org.

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Two New Chamber Operas by MARTIN HALPERN. Following up on its enthusiastically received production of Martin Halpern’s chamber operas in October, 2007, the Brooklyn Music School Playhouse will present the world premieres of two new chamber operas by Mr. Halpern on Friday, March 7 and Saturday, March 8 at 8 P.M. and on Sunday, March 9 at 3 P.M.

The first opera, The Dwarf Trees, based on a Japanese Noh drama, will again feature soprano Judith Barnes, artistic director of Brooklyn’s Vertical Player Repertory opera company, and veteran VPR tenor Aram Tchobanian. Baritone Nathan Baer, a winner in this year’s Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, will join them in his debut appearance at BMS. Instrumentalists will be Jill Sokol, flute, and Brian Snow, cello. Ms. Barnes and Mr. Baer, together with bass-baritone Peter Ludwig, will also be featured in the second opera, The Damned Thing, based on a radio play of Mr. Halpern which has won the Bronze Windmill Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Instrumentalists will be Jill Sokol, flute, and Yuliya Basis, piano. The production will be staged by Elizabeth Falk, with sets and lighting by Michael Broughton and costumes by Dixie Rich. Mr. Halpern will again be music director and will again introduce both operas with a description of their dramatic and musical intentions.

The Brooklyn Playhouse is located at 126 St. Felix Street, right around the corner from the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) and a minute’s walk from the Atlantic Avenue stop of the 2, 3, 4, 5, R and Q trains and the Long Island Railroad. There is also ample parking at the lot across from BAM. Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for seniors and students. They may be reserved online by calling 718-638-5660, Extension 10.