Author: Christian Carey

Choral Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Holiday Tunes

A little palette-cleanser to shift our focus away from stimulating discussions of academe – after all, school is only out for a short while – what ‘holiday’ music do you admire?

This week, I’ve been listening to Anonymous 4’s Wolcum Yule around the house, enjoying both the Renaissance pieces and Maxwell Davies’ “A Calendar of Kings.” A ‘guilty pleasure’ is Vaughan Williams’ Hodie.

Boston, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Orchestral, Orchestras, Photographs

Break a Leg?!?

Wendy plays Ken’s viola concerto with BMOP! Hear harmonies analyzed from Wendy’s ankle bone!

Friday, November 14, 2008 / 8:00pm – 10:00pm

Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory

290 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA

The amazing violist Wendy Richman plays Ken Ueno’s concerto Talus, with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the incomparable Gil Rose.

Here’s the program:

Martin Boykan Concerto for Violin and Orchestra / Curtis Macomber, violin

Robert Erickson Fantasy for cello and orchestra / Rafael Popper-Keizer, cello

Arnold Schoenberg Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra / BMOP Principals

Elliott Schwartz Chamber Concerto VI: Mr. Jefferson / Charles Dimmick, violin 

Ken Ueno Talus, concerto for viola and orchestra / Wendy Richman, viola 

Tickets for this concert are available at the Jordan Hall Box Office. Call (617) 585-1260 or visit the box office at New England Conservatory (30 Gainsborough Street), Monday – Friday 10am-6pm, Saturday 12pm-6pm. The box office opens at 6:30pm on the day of the concert. 

For an explanation of x-ray picture and how it relates to the piece: http://www.kenueno.com/performancenotes.html#Talus

Cello, Chamber Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Fire in July Gig on Nov. 12

This just in from singing cellist Jody Redhage:

Hi friends, I’m excited to announce that my new website is up and running!  Please visit www.jodyredhage.com.

Also, Fire in July is playing a really fun show this Wednesday, Nov. 12 at the Players Theatre in the Village. We’re sharing the night with fellow chamber pop band alice. Please see the details below. Hope everyone is well!

All best, Jody


FIRE IN JULY
Wed., Nov. 12, 2008
8:00 pm alice
9:00pm Fire in July
Music on MacDougal Series
The Players Theatre
115 MacDougal St. (between W 3rd and Bleeker)
New York, NY  10012
212-475-1449 / Tickets $20; in advance: 212-352-3101

www.myspace.com/fireinjuly

FIRE IN JULY

Jody Redhage, voice/cello/compositions
Ken Thomson, clarinets
Alan Ferber, trombones
Fred Kennedy, drums/percussion
with special guest Tim Collins, vibraphone

Bang on a Can, Chamber Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, Just Intonation

Interview with Terry Riley

Thursday morning I talked with composer Terry Riley, who is in New York this week to collaborate with the Bang on a Can All-Stars in the US premiere of his work Autodreamographical Tales at Le Poisson Rouge on 8 November.

Riley is famous for being one of the “Big Four” of American minimalist composers (the others: LaMonte Young, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass). But while his early works, such as A Rainbow in Curved Air, Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band, and the seminal In C, were musical rallying cries during minimalism’s ascendance in the 1960s, Riley’s been involved with many other important pieces, styles, and activities since then. His palette encompasses North Indian music, jazz, electronics, various intonation systems, and increasingly in recent years, projects incorporating guitar and spoken word.

As an admirer of his music, it’s somewhat frustrating to read review after review in which he’s asked to talk about the importance of In C and his work is then pigeon-holed as minimalist in style. In planning for the interview, I promised myself that both minimalism and In C would be off-limits. When the composer mentions in passing an upcoming performance of In C (April 24, 2009 at Carnegie Hall, but you didn’t hear that from me), I tell him of my secret pact and he enthusiastically agrees! Instead, we focus on recent, current and future projects.

Riley says, “Autodreamographical Tales started out a while ago as a piece for radio in which I narrated and played all the instruments. There were overdubs and samples. The Bang on a Can All Stars wanted me to create a new version of the piece to perform with them. My son Gyan, who’s also a guitarist and composer, helped me to orchestrate the piece. While there are still a few samples, we’ve figured out how to perform live many of the things that were looped or overdubbed.”

“The piece is based on a dream journal that I was keeping at the time. Some of my dreams had evocative images and stories that I felt would work well in the piece for radio and, now, in this new version for Bang on a Can. We got together and rehearsed it this past summer during a week-long residency in Italy. A performance there was the world premiere and this one in New York is Autodreamographical Tales’ second performance.”

Riley also spent time this past summer in New England at Bang on a Can’s Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA. “It was an inspiring setting: a number of talented composers and performers, the galleries, and so many excellent concerts.”

We return to the subject of his son, a talented musician in his own right who encouraged the elder Riley to explore composing for the guitar. “Gyan came home with all of these recordings of the guitar: he was just crazy about it and wanted to share his enthusiasm with me. We listened to all sorts of players, especially classical and Brazilian artists.”

During the past two decades, Riley has created a number of works for the instrument, including the solo collection Book of Abbeyozzud and Cantos Desiertos, a beautiful set of pieces for flute and guitar. When I comment that Riley has managed to combine expected, idiomatic passages with some very fresh-sounding guitar writing, he replies, “It was challenging to write for the guitar as a non-guitarist. I really worked hard to learn about the instrument: there’s a lot to know in order to compose effectively for it.”

New music guitarist David Tanenbaum, Gyan’s principal instructor, has also been the beneficiary of several recent works for the instrument, including a 2008 piece for national steel and synthesizer entitled Moonshine Sonata. Riley says, “The national steel for which I wrote the sonata is a special model, redesigned so that it’s tuned in just intonation. The company that made the instrument for David loaned me one while I was composing the piece; it’s amazing how resonant, how loud it is all by itself – it doesn’t need amplification!”

Tanenbaum and Gyan Riley, along with violinist Krista Bennion Feeney, premiered another 2008 Riley work: the Triple Concerto Soltierraluna. The concerto form is one to which Riley is drawn of late: a project in the pipeline is a violin concerto commissioned by a symphony orchestra in Bari, Italy for soloist Francesco D’Orazio. “I don’t approach the concerto form in the conventional manner, as this heroic thing; I like to find ways to integrate the soloist into the ensemble; to foster interactions between them that you don’t get in the big Classical or Romantic pieces. In a sense, what I’m writing is more akin to the concerto grosso form.”

Since the 1970s, Riley has frequently collaborated with the Kronos Quartet, producing a number of pieces for them. He’s currently at work on another, titled Poppy Nogood and the Transylvanian Horns. The title refers to one of Riley’s best known early works, Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band; but this successor also includes the Kronos group playing some newly adopted instruments. The “Transylvanian horns” in question are called “stro instruments:” string instruments fitted with trumpet or trombone bells. The composer seems to relish the challenge of learning about and composing for these hybrid instruments. Even when called upon to revisit ideas from his past, Terry Riley is ever eager to try something new.

Chamber Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Quartet for the End of Time at Merkin on Tuesday

Charles Neidich and friends are performing Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time and music by Israeli composers. The program is below, and you can check out the notes over at my blog.

Moshe ZormanHora

Arnaud Sussmann, Violin; Vincent Balse, Piano 

Menachem WiesenbergLike Clay in the Potter’s Hand

Gal Nyska, Cello; Vincent Balse, Piano 

Paul Ben HaimPastorale Variee Op. 31b

Moran Katz, Clarinet; Vincent Balse, Piano 

Olivier MessiaenQuartet for the End of Time 

Charles Neidich, Clarinet; Arnaud Sussmann, Violin; Gal Nyska, Cello; Vincent Balse, Piano

CDs, Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Recordings

Sampling your way through Sunday brunch

Sunday Music: CD Samplers in the Era of Pandora
Sunday Music Volume 4

Big Helium Records BHRSM004 / www.bighelium.com

Unlike the album driven days of yore, today it’s all about the mix. From purchasing single tracks digitally at online stores such as Itunes and Amazon to the internet radio sensation Pandora, which tailors ‘stations’ to a listener’s preferences, music is presented as eminently accessible; instant gratification, inevitable. While all aforementioned methods of mix are exciting in their potential for discovery, surfing the impossibly commercial Itunes or using Pandora’s efficient but sometimes ham-fisted engine is unlikely to provide the enlightening swerves and hidden treasures found on the best mixtapes and compilation CDs.
Sunday Music, promoted by Barnes and Noble and released by Big Helium, has to cast a wide net; but despite this, the fourth volume of the series is an intriguing mix of classical and crossover-classical fare. There are chestnuts such as Magdelena Rozena’s fluid rendition of Lascia chi’io Piange from Handel’s Rinaldo and Bernstein’s Somewhere from West Side Story: Symphonic Dances. Also included are current favorites: Hilary Hahn playing Bach beautifully and Sting singing a lute song: Robert Johnson’s Have you Seen the Bright Lilly Grow. While no one will mistake the latter for Rogers Covey-Crump or Andreas Scholl anytime soon, his crooning take on the Elizabethan repertory has introduced a number of listeners to its charms.
True, some of the pop-oriented moments – Lisa Gerrard’s evocative but somewhat out-of-place instrumental The Unfolding and Craig Armstrong’s regrettably New Age take on Be Still My Soul – dilute the classical bent of the CD and may raise the eyebrows of purists. Rather, what makes Sunday Music 4 better than your average comp disc are its adventurous classical choices. The inclusion of up and comer Eric Whitacre’s Lux Autumque, with its lush cluster chords and ambient atmosphere, is a master stroke, as is Anna Netrebko’s glorious rendition of O Silver Moon from Dvorak’s Rusalka. Pepe Romero playing Rodrigo and a Schubert Impromptu performed by Wilhelm Kempf round out the disc in handsome fashion. While designed for the Sunday brunch set, this CD promises to keep things interesting and may well spur on many a conversation about classical music discoveries; something that keeps the spirit of the mixtape/comp CD very much alive.
Contemporary Classical

Locrian Chamber Players this Saturday at Riverside Church

Dear Friends,
 
You are cordially invited to a concert of The Locrian Chamber Players this Saturday, August 23 at 8PM in the 10th Floor Performance Space of Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Drive, New York.
The Program:
 
Charles Wuorinen: Duo Sonata (NY Premiere)
 
Charles Wuorinen: Josquiniana
 
Louis Andriessen: Miserere (U.S. Premiere)
 
Sebastian Currier: Night Time
 
Hayes Biggs: Sultry Air, Balmy Breezes (World Premiere)
 
The Players:
Calvin Wiersma and Curtis Macomber, violin; Dan Z. Panner, viola; Greg Hesselink, cello; Erin Lesser, flute; Anna Reinersman, harp; Blair McMillen, piano.
 
A reception will follow the concert.
 
Best to all,
 
David Macdonald
Contemporary Classical

Bad news from Tanglewood: The BSO press release

BSO MUSIC DIRECTOR JAMES LEVINE LEAVES TANGLEWOOD TO UNDERGO SURGERY

    BSO Music Director James Levine regrets that he will have to withdraw from the balance of the 2008 Tanglewood season. Because of a cyst causing pressure and discomfort, Levine will undergo surgery this week to have a kidney removed. The procedure has been described by Levine’s doctors as curative, with no other treatment necessary and with every expectation for a complete recovery. The anticipated recuperation period is six weeks -leaving ample time to prepare and conduct the season openings of the BSO and the Metropolitan Opera in September.

    “It is extremely frustrating that I need to have this surgery now,” said Levine. “My projects at Tanglewood have been planned so carefully and coordinated in such detail by the Festival administration. I especially regret not being here with Elliott Carter for his 100th birthday celebration, which I was looking forward to more than I can say. And I’m very disappointed at having to miss concerts with my colleagues in the BSO, as well as my work with the young musicians of the Tanglewood Music Center.”

    Mark Volpe, BSO Managing Director, expressed the sentiments of everyone at the Festival: “All of us at Tanglewood are very disappointed that James Levine will not be with us for his remaining concerts this summer,” said BSO Managing Director Mark Volpe. “However, we are primarily concerned for Jim’s health and well-being, and that everything be done to ensure a complete recovery so that he returns as soon as possible to his musical life with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Metropolitan Opera.”

    The 2008 Tanglewood concert schedule, which offers 67 ticketed performances and runs through Labor Day weekend, will not be disrupted, with all concerts to take place as originally scheduled. An announcement about guest conductors scheduled to take over Maestro Levine’s remaining Boston Symphony Orchestra and Tanglewood Music Center concerts will be forthcoming. Maestro Levine led the BSO, a cast of international soloists, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus in the opening weekend of the Tanglewood season, leading a performance of Berlioz’ monumental Les Troyens, July 5 and 6. Also last week, Maestro Levine led the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in a performance of Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony.

Tanglewood, located in Lenox, MA, is the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. For complete details about the 2008 Tanglewood season, visit www.tanglewood.org.

Contemporary Classical

New Music Duo Hybrid Groove Project Drops Latest Hit “HGP Anthem”

Peabody faculty member David Smooke sent this along for your delectation:

Summer’s just beginning and Hybrid Groove Project, the genre-bending new music duo from Baltimore, is already heating things up with their number one summer jam, “HGP Anthem.” In the grand tradition of the great hip-hop conflicts like Tupac v. Biggie Smalls, Dr. Dre v. Eazy-E, and 50 Cent v. Kanye West, “HGP Anthem” brings some much needed antagonism to a new music genre more accustomed to passive aggressive behind-the-back battiness than brive-bys and street corner stompings.

“By droppin’ this track we’re showing all these new music fakers who the real playaz are,” say Sacawa and Spangler. “It’s like we’re telling everyone, ‘Yo, we’re hot, and you’re not,’ you feel us? Like, y’all need to get out of the game. Plus, we need to show love for Bmore, you know what we’re sayin’?”

Indeed, new music will soon regret its unofficial partnership with indie rock with the release of Hybrid Groove Project’s latest hit, the number one summer jam of 2008. But don’t call it a comeback, Hybrid Groove Project’s been making heads nod since 2004. Just hope it’s not too late to return those skinny jeans.

Yo, check it out here, y’all.