Miolina

Miolina:

Mioi Takeda & Lynn Bechtold, Violins

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Violin duo Miolina has been called "talented and dedicated" by Arts Birmingham, and described as displaying "aggressive and virtuosic prowess" with "brilliance of sound, technical mastery, and stunning expressivity" by I CARE IF YOU LISTEN. Since their inception in 2012, Miolina has actively presented the music of living composers, including women and minorities, on their concerts and projects. As a small, vital new music ensemble in NYC, they perform a myriad of creative works that inspire the human spirit and connect those in our diverse world. A member of New Music USA’s Impact Cohort, Miolina is creating and shaping the violin duo repertoire of the 21st Century, and have premiered over 70 violin duos thus far. They are currently "Artists in Residence" at Greenwich House Music School in Manhattan. 

 

To date, the duo has had successful performances in NYC at venues such as Brooklyn College, CulturelabLIC, Gallery MC, Greenwich House, KGB Espionage Museum, LeFrak Hall at Queens College, The Met Museum, The Morbid Anatomy Museum, National Opera Center, National Sawdust, New York Public Library, Parsons School of Design, (le) Poisson Rouge, Queens Library, Rockwood Music Hall, The Skyscraper Museum, Spectrum, and Tenri Cultural Institute. Outside of NYC, they’ve performed at SUNY-Albany in NY; Howland Cultural Center in Beacon, NY; St. Paul United Methodist Church and the University of Alabama in Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, AL; Scandinavian Cultural Center in Boston, MA; Rutgers University in Camden, NJ; Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago, IL; UC Irvine in CA; Hoover Library in Hoover, AL; Monk Space in Los Angeles, CA; Pensacola State College in FL; Nordic Northwest in Portland, OR; Center for New Music in San Francisco, CA; St. Stephen’s Church in Seattle, WA; Corner Store Arts and Rhizome in Washington, DC; Koncertkirken in Copenhagen, Denmark; Cité Internationale des Arts, La Fine Gueule, and l'Institut Finlandais in Paris, France; Koendori Classics and Monten Hall in Tokyo, Japan; and Galleri Sagoy in Malmö, Sweden.

 

In 2017, they premiered Victor Kioulaphides' double concerto with the North/South Consonance Chamber Orchestra in NYC. In addition, they have performed on series and festivals such as Birmingham New Music Festival, Circuit Bridges, Composers Concordance, COMPOSERFest, Concrete Timbre, C-Y Series, Electronic Music Midwest, Infuse Présente, JUMP, NWEAMO, and Sonic Circuits, and have had residencies and/or presented masterclasses at CUNY Queens College, The Juilliard School, Rutgers University, Seattle Pacific University, SUNY-Albany, The University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, and UC Irvine. They have also done outreach concerts at The Alabama School for the Deaf and Blind, the Friendly Kitchen in Concord, NH, and at Greenwich House Senior Center and Southbridge Senior Center, both in Manhattan.

 

Miolina specializes in violin duo music that employs the natural beauty and sound of the instruments, with or without electronics and video. They enjoy collaborating on new compositions with composers, as well as discovering hidden gems of the past. They recently started a series of pop-up concerts for children and adults at The Skyscraper Museum that features music inspired by various styles of architecture and NYC history; toured their program of works by living Scandinavian composers around the U.S.; performed a 10th anniversary concert that highlighted graphic and text compositions; and premiered ‘Mushin,’ a collaboration between Miolina, dance company EnterArt, and the NYC Kendo Club, inspired by Lynn’s composition featuring the sounds of kendo. Future dates include the premiere of a new double concerto by composer Max Lifchitz in June 2025, commissioned with funding from NYSCA; their debut in Germany on the Tönkunstler Series in Munich at Steinway Haus' Rubinstein Saal; and two large-scale recording projects featuring works written for Miolina, and nearing completion.

 

In June 2017, Miolina was chosen to join New Music USA's Impact Cohort. They are also grateful recipients of 2024, 2023, and 2022 grants from NYSCA; 2021 and 2015 grants from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; 2019 grants from Adami Foundation, and the American-Scandinavian Foundation; a 2018 grant from the Queens Council on the Arts; a 2017 Japan Foundation NY grant; and 2016 and 2014 grants from New York Women Composers. In 2021, Mioi and Lynn were both chosen to be part of the City Artists Corp, receiving funding from a consortium including the New York Foundation for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, and the Queens Theatre. In 2017, 2019, and 2021, they were chosen for artist residencies at Avaloch Farm Music Institute in New Hampshire, and in 2021-22, they had a residency at the Collaborative Arts Research Institute/University of Alabama.

 

Miolina is a 501(c)3 non-profit and can be found on facebook, Instagram, Soundcloud, and Vimeo. https://www.miolinanyc.com/

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