Tomorrow, famed microtonal/just intonation composer Ben Johnston turns ninety. To celebrate his 90th birth year, the Kepler Quartet releases the third and final volume of their series of Johnston’s string quartets in April on New World.
Read moreIn honor of International Women’s Day, violinist Ariana Kim has released a video of her performance of Augusta Read Thomas’s Incantation for solo violin (1995). I’ve long loved Incantation – it is one of Thomas’s most beautiful works: poignant, supple, and exquisitely well-paced. Kim’s current project is Routes of Evanescence, a recording of works by women composers.
Read moreThis week in New York, Austrian Cultural Forum celebrates the music of Georg Friedrich Haas. Haas, currently MacDowell Professor of Music at Columbia, is a thoughtful and innovative composer. The two programs curated by ACFNY, both free (with reservations), are excellent opportunities to hear two different facets of his creativity. On Wednesday February 24th at 7:30 PM at the ACF, JACK Quartet performs String Quartet No. 3 In iij. Noct., a piece that occurs in total darkness. On February 26 at 8 PM at Bohemian National Hall (321 East 73rd Street), the Talea Ensemble presents the following program of large ensemble and
Read moreEminent composer, college professor, and Lutoslawski scholar Steven Stucky has died, aged 66. The cause was brain cancer. Below, listen to one of his beguiling works, the Notturno movement from Serenade for Wind Quintet.
Read moreOn February 12-14 and February 19-20, ECCE Ensemble premieres Switch, a new opera by my friend and colleague composer John Aylward. Directed by Laine Rettmer and conducted by Jean-Phillipe Wurtz, the piece features two vocalists: soprano Amanda DeBoer Bartlett and bass-baritone Mikhail Smigelsk. The project is part of ECCE’s year-long residence at Le Laboratoire, a new multimedia space in Cambridge that combines visual arts, music, the sciences, and even olfactory stimulating exhibits. To whet your appetite, below is a video of Aylward’s Ephemera. WHAT: World premiere of the contemporary opera Switch WHEN:February 12-14+ February 19-20 at 7:00 p.m. WHERE: Le
Read morePOSTPONED DUE TO WEATHER! Thanks to Joshua Banks Mailman for this post about Augustus Arnone’s Babbitt recitals. Augustus Arnone performs Milton Babbitt’s Time Series and other solo piano works at Spectrum, Sunday January 24, at 2pm This year marks the centenary of the legendary composer Milton Babbitt (1916-2011). To my ears, his extensive body of piano works especially channels his singular charm as a raconteur. Over the decades a number of pianists have championed some of Babbitt’s major piano works, for instance Robert Helps and Robert Miller performing and recording his Partitions (1957) and Post-Partitions (1966) in early days and much more recently
Read morePierre Boulez, one of the great composers and conductors of our time, has passed away.
Read moreThe extraordinary pianist and composer Paul Bley, has passed away.
Read morePianist Jenny Q. Chai is a versatile artist. Her repertoire includes works by contemporary Europeans such as Phillipe Manoury and Marco Stroppa (her dissertation topic), and she recently recorded an excellent portrait CD on Naxos of music by Nils Vigeland. She also performs standard repertoire, such as Robert Schumann and Claude Debussy. On January 10, in a program entitled Where is Chopin? (subtitled “Steampunk Piano 2”), Chai creates a juxtaposition of Carnaval by Schumann with brand new pieces that feature artificial intelligence, performing the music of Jaroslaw Kapuscinski, a Stanford University-based composer who uses the AI program Antescofo. It supplies
Read moreChristmas Across Centuries The Tallis Scholars Church of St. Mary the Virgin Miller Theatre’s Early Music Series December 5th Church of St. Mary the Virgin On Saturday December 5th at New York’s Church of St. Mary the Virgin, the Tallis Scholars, directed by Peter Phillips, presented a program that included two composers firmly ensconced in their wheelhouse. Sacris Solemniis and Gaude, Gaude, Gaude by John Sheppard (c. 1515-1558), with long held chant notes offset by passages of sumptuous counterpoint and spare plainsong, provided context and set the stage for the later Renaissance work on the program, Thomas Tallis’s Missa Puer
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