Miller Time
Hey, the new Miller Theater schedule is out. Some great-looking programs, including the New York premiere of Iannis Xenakis’s only opera, Oresteia. Composer Portraits are: Peter Lieberson, Oliver Messiaen (centennial celebration), Marc-Andre Dalbavie (world premiere of his cello concerto), Jefferson Friedman (world premieres for pianist Simone Dinnerstein and indie-rocker Craig Wedren), Milton Babbit (complete string quartets—first time in one evening), Georg Friedich Haas (U.S. premiere of In Vain, his intense 75-minute tour-de-force for 24 players), Arlene Sierra (says here that ICE performs a world premiere by this intriguing young American living in London), Leon Kirchner (90 birthday celebration) and
Jason Eckardt (world premiere of his song cycle Undersong).
Anybody know what’s intriguing about Arlene?
One of my favorite pieces of his. When I started studying with him I was working on a Bishop song cycle too. I wasn’t aware that Carter had just finished his and we had picked the same poems! That’s what broke the ice between me and my teacher. We’d start every lesson after that talking about modern poetry, Lowell, Stevens, et al.
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Robert, who are some of the poets that you have set in your song cycles, or did you write the texts yourself?
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By the way, the idea of the Jason Eckardt/ Laura Mullen song cycle ‘Undersong’ made me think of the great Elliott Carter/ Elizabeth Bishop song cycle, ‘A Mirror on Which to Dwell’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bishop
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Mullen
Robert, who are some of the poets that you have set in your song cycles, or did you write the texts yourself?
*
By the way, the idea of the Jason Eckardt/ Laura Mullen song cycle ‘Undersong’ made me think of the great Elliott Carter/ Elizabeth Bishop song cycle, ‘A Mirror on Which to Dwell’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bishop
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Mullen
I wish that I had been fortunate enough to get performances of all of my song
cycles. At least a third of my works have never seen the light of day.
I’d love to have the opportunity to hear these concerts — perhaps most especially the new Jason Eckardt/Laura Mullen song cycle. (I know the Georg Friedich Haas work from its recording.)
New York City and Boston are highly fortunate to enjoy these outstanding series; and I personally wish the Library of Congress or the new downtown Harman Center for the Arts, in D.C., could import more of them.
Any relation to Roberto Sierra?
She seems like another Yale-Michigan composer: someone who’s well connected and whose work has a great deal of energy. Interesting, to be sure.