Forest Hills Composer Slated For Carnegie Hall Debut

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — The Forest Hills-based composer Sunny Knable already has a long list of musical accolades, and now, in celebration of the release of his second album, he'll get to add yet another: a Carnegie Hall debut.

Knable, the music director for the Church-in-the-Gardens, released his album "Song of the Redwood-Tree: Bassoon Works of Sunny Knable" at the end of January.

Inspired by the Walt Whitman poem of the same name, those compositions are the basis of Knable's Weill Recital Hall next month with bassoonist Scott Pool and pianist Natsuki Fukasawa.

"I had written for the often-underused bass instrument in woodwind quintets and large ensembles but had never fully explored its soloistic capabilities until I had the good fortune of meeting the rollicking performer that is Scott Pool," Knable said of the album.

"It's safe to say that this is only the beginning of a long relationship I will have with this instrument," he said.

Knable, an adjunct professor at Queens College and LaGuardia Community College, has previously composed operas, symphonies, chamber works, song cycles, choral pieces and works for solo piano.

His pieces have won him best composition awards from the Festival of New American Music and the ANALOG ARTS Iron Composers Award.

Song of the Redwood-Tree: The Music of Sunny Knable is Tuesday, March 31 at 7:30 p.m. at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. Tickets start at $28.