Month: November 2009

Bang on a Can, CDs, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, New York, Odd, Performers

Multiple goodness

bagpipeJust a few weeks ago over at our CD Review section, Jay Batzner wrote about the new Julia Wolfe Dark Full Ride CD: “Each piece transfixes me.  I am writing my own music differently because of this disc.  I am so glad that Julia Wolfe exists, is writing music, and that such talented performers play the hell out of her stuff.”  It’s a really interesting Ride, each piece intensely working over some greater or lesser multiple of the same instrument.

If you’re a skeptical “show me” kind of person, free as a bird tomorrow (Nov. 10th) in NYC and maybe just a little crazy, you can test your own reaction to all of these works and the performers. The normal CD release concert has been jettisoned for this one, instead having each of the four pieces performed separately in venues familiar and not-so, scattered around Manhattan:

At 11 AM Matthew Welch is guaranteed to absolutely fill the air as he plays LAD on bagpipe with 8 more bagpipes on tape, at Roulette, 20 Greene Street (between Canal and Grand);

At 12 noon, the title piece Dark Full Ride for 4 drumsets (manned by the Talujon Percussion Quartet — David Cossin, Tom Kolor, Michael Lipsey and Matt Ward) will pound out at Dauphin Human Design, 138 West 25th Street, 12th Floor (between 6th and 7th Avenues);

At 1 PM Robert Black and the Hartt Bass Band will rock Wolfe’s Stronghold for 8 double basses, at the Chelsea Art Museum, 556 West 22nd Street (corner of 11th Avenue);

Finally at 2:30 PM Lisa Moore, Lisa Kaplan, Blair McMillen, Timo Andres, Kate Campbell and Isabelle O’Connell, all conducted by Sam Adams, will undertake the epic my lips from speaking for 6 pianos at Faust Harrison Pianos, 205 West 58th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues).

julia wolfeJulia herself will be tagging along to each performance; if you happen to spot this face in the crowd you might go and say hi & thanks to the woman who penned all this glorious madness. It’s all free and open to whoever makes it, so pack a lunch, put on those walking shows and have a great hike!

by Steve Layton
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Performers, Piano

“Somebody handed me a hammer”

So recalls Felix Heltmann of then-West Berlin, in a comment over at the BBC, “and without question I just started pounding away at the Wall. I was so excited that I got exhausted after some time and I gave the hammer to my other mate who started hammering away too. What a night…”

To celebrate that night on this night, NYers might want to head to Le Poisson Rouge, where admirable pianist Heather O’Donnell will be in town — she herself has lived in Germany now for some years — to give a commemorative concert thanks to the Wordless Music series. On the bill will be Walter Zimmermann‘s the missing nail (at the river), for piano & toy-piano, and Wüstenwanderung; Oliver Schneller‘s Five Imaginary Spaces and Tomorrow…, both for for piano & electronics; and Charles Ives‘ Three Quarter-Tone Pieces for Two Pianos (new version for piano & electronics).

Heather’s also taking her show on the road the next few days: tomorrow the 10th she’ll be at An die Musik in Baltimore with music of Schneller, Ives and Schumann; the 12th she’ll repeat that recital at the Goethe Institut in Boston; and the 15th she’s at the Ethical Society in Philadelphia doing Zimmermann, Ives and Schumann.

by Steve Layton
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Miller Theater

November portraits

portraits

Miller Theatre at Columbia University is running a great little series of composer portrait concerts this month:

Saturday, Nov. 7th, Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006) is featured, with Chicago’s Fifth House Ensemble doing the honors. The program includes Ustvolskaya’s Trio (1949), Piano Sonata No. 6 (1988), Octet (1949-1950), Composition 2 (1972-1973), Piano Sonata No. 4 (1957), Composition 3 (1974-1975).

Then on Tuesday, Nov. 17th, we get a full plate of a true American “gnarly” individualist, Ralph Shapey (1921-2002). Miranda Cuckson (violin, viola, and artistic director), Charles Neidich (clarinet), William Purvis (horn), and Blair McMillen (piano) will join conductors Donato Cabrera and Michel Galante, The Argento Chamber Ensemble, New York Woodwind Quartet and Talujon Percussion Quartet for this rare panoramic essay of Shapey’s work: Five for violin and piano (1960), Interchange (1996), Movements (1960), Etchings (1945), Concerto for clarinet and chamber group (1954), and Three for Six (1979).

Things round off with a concert on Sunday, Nov. 22nd, devoted to Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho (1952- ). Violinist Jennifer Koh will join the International Contemporary Ensemble and conductor Brad Lubman in a concert full of gems: Terrestre (2002), Graal théâtre (violin concerto) (1994, rev. 1997), Lichtbogen (1985-1986), and Solar (1993).

All concerts kick off at 8PM. Columbia University’s Miller Theatre is located north of the Main Campus Gate at 116th St. & Broadway on the ground floor of Dodge Hall. For tickets, call the Miller Theatre Box Office at 212/854-7799, M–F, 12–6PM, or they can also be purchased online.

by Steve Layton
Commissions, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Premieres

N.C. without the Y.

I’ve just been informed via press release, that our s21 blogging regular Lawrence Dillon is a “mid-career composer.”  It’s nice to know that he’s only half-done making great music and not already washed-up!

Said release was about the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts LINKS Commissioning Awards, and the four composers who’ll be getting premieres thanks to it, at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) in Winston-Salem — whose composer-in-residence just happens to be… yes, Lawrence Dillon. And one of which is by… yes, Lawrence Dillon. But since his is the odd man out location-wise and not first up, I’ll hold off that one to tell you about a couple others:

First up is Laura Kaminsky‘s Wave Hill, in Watson Hall at UNCSA Saturday, November 7, 2009 with pianist Allison Gagnon and Violinist Kevin Lawrence.  The composer writes: “Wave Hill is a multi-movement work inspired by the eponymous 28-acre public garden and cultural center in the Bronx overlooking the Hudson River and Palisades. Wave Hill’s mission is to celebrate the artistry and legacy of its gardens and landscapes, to preserve its magnificent views, and to explore human connections to the natural world through programs in horticulture, education and the arts. Celebrating this special place through music, the piece evokes the garden’s changing landscape at different times of day and throughout the four seasons.”

Then on January 12, 2010, again in Watson Hall, David Maslanka will offer up an as-yet-untitled new work for two pianos and percussion, to be performed by The CanAm Piano Duo (Christopher Hahn and Karen Beres).

OK, now we can take a quick jaunt out of town and meet up with… yes, Lawrence Dillon. On January 15th, 2010 his brand-spanking-new String Quartet No. 4: The Infinite Sphere will be heard in Wolf Trap, Virginia, performed by The Daedalus String Quartet. The latest in Dillon’s Invisible Cities string quartet cycle, the fourth takes its inspiration from Pascal’s reference to an “infinite sphere, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” The piece taps the potentials of classical circular forms and techniques to create an exuberant, wheels-within-wheels showcase for a virtuosic ensemble.

Leaving… yes, Lawrence Dillon… and rounding out this little tour of “mid-career” folk, we need to get back to Winston-Salem and then the Stevens Center by May 21, 2010, when Randall Woolf‘s new work Native Tongues will see light of day under conductor Ransom Wilson, the UNCSA Symphony Orchestra and “beatbox flutist” Greg Pattillo. Even the orchestra will be getting their chance to rap & scratch on this one, so it promises to be one lively affair.

To purchase tickets for these UNCSA concerts, or for more information, call (336) 721-1945 or visit www.uncsa.edu/performances.

by Steve Layton
American Music Center, Auction, Composers

Hey bidder bidder!

do i hear $50?Like to own a piece of potential history? Or maybe just somebody to lug your bags around? Grab some fare or flair, from fluff to full, all to be had at the American Music Center’s 70th anniversary online auction fundraiser. Proceeds will support the Center’s ongoing programs, which have been working to build a national community of artists, organizations, and audiences creating, performing, and enjoying new American music for a good chunk of the last century.

The list of auction items is eclectic, to say the least. I’m not really seeing the musical value in a gift certificate for some beef, or tickets to a comedy club (except maybe to feed that starving artist, and give them a few ideas for that next absurdist chamber opera)…  But there are quite a few truly special treats to be had: how about tickets to the New York City Opera complete with backstage tour? A private salon concert by the wonderful violinist Jennifer Koh? Commission your dream piece from Steven Stucky or Robert Xavier Rodriguez? Get some personal consulting on your composerly career from market-savvy composer Alex Shapiro? Vocal coaching with Paul Sperry? And my personal favorite — name your own David Rakowski piano étude!

The material’s even better for you autograph hounds: not only signed sketches and manuscripts from the likes of Stucky, Bernard Rands, Augusta Read Thomas, Tobias Picker, there’s the conductor’s score of  Three Occasions by Elliott Carter, signed by the grand old man himself! For the ‘multiples’ collector, there are special “Pulitzer Prize Packages” — each of which includes both a signed CD and signed score of their prize-winning composition — from Bernard Rands, David Lang, John Corigliano, and Melinda Wagner. All this and more, more more!

The bidding opens Thursday Nov. 5th and runs through Nov. 20th. Some seriously good stuff, some seriously useful stuff, some seriously silly stuff — no matter, it all goes to benefit the efforts of the most fundamental and over-arching organization in the U.S., for the advocacy of New Music and the people who make and play it.

by Steve Layton