Chamber Music

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

Be There or Be Ionian!

Locrian Chamber Players

Have you heard the Locrian Chamber Players yet? If not, you’re missing out. The group has a unique mandate: they only play pieces less than a decade old. This results in stimulating, varied, and stylistically catholic programs.

With members that include some of New York’s finest performers of contemporary music – pianist Emily Wong, flutist Diva Goodfriend-Koven, and violinist Calvin Wiersma among them – the music is exquisitely well-prepared. Admission: FREE.

Locrian’s next show is this weekend, Saturday, January 31 at 8 PM, 10th Floor Performance Space, Riverside Church, and features these works:

Milton Babbitt: Little Goes a Long Way

Earle Brown: Special Events

Nils Vigeland: Aurochs and Angels

David Dzubay:  Kukulkan

To reach Riverside Church by subway, take the 1 or 9 train to 116th street. By bus, take the M4 or M104 to Broadway and 120th Street. Enter Riverside Church at 91 Claremont Avenue (one block west of Broadway, between 120th and 122nd streets). Parking is available at the Riverside Church garage, located at 120th Street and Riverside Drive.

Cello, Chamber Music, Click Picks, Contemporary Classical, Video

Dakujem!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqwsCoO1zxQ[/youtube]

After the split, there’s been plenty of attention paid to Prague and the Czech Republic; far fewer take notice of Slovakia and its capital, Bratislava. Strange, when you consider that the city is less than 40 miles from Vienna. That should tip you off that there just might be some serious music-making happening in Bratislava, and thanks to a young web-savvy musician we can confirm it with our eyes and ears.

Andrej Gál is a cellist in Bratislava, member of the Slovak Chamber Orchestra, Zwiebel String Quartet, Veni Ensemble, Melos-Ethos Ensemble, Ostravská banda and newly established Quasars ensemble (whew!). Luckily for us, he’s also a happy YouTube user. Gál has made available a number of performance videos that happen to include him as a member, and the collection features a unusually choice selection of contemporary composers and stellar performances: Bartók, Grisey, Murail, Lachenmann… and this great piece by a Slovak composer I’d never heard before, Vladimír Godár (b. 1956 / The embedded video is part one; you’ll find part two at the link above to the whole collection). Bravo Andrej — not only for your fine playing, but for taking the simple step of using the web to bring us the news half a world away.

Chamber Music, Composers, File Under?

Kirchner is 90: Claremont plays at Miller tonight

Miller Theatre at Columbia University continues its Composer Portraits series with a 90th birthday celebration for composer Leon Kirchner. The concert will include performances of a recent piece for flutist Paula Robison, the Claremont Trio playing Kirchner’s Trio No. 1, and the 1960 Double Concerto for violin, cello, winds, and percussion. The show starts at 8; there’s a talk onstage with the composer; tickets range from $7-$25. 

Broadcast, Chamber Music, Click Picks, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, Improv, Video

A Tale of Two Riffs and Two Rituals

What better way to ring in the year than to take in a couple ensembles, from opposite ends of the spectrum, showing in much the same way what the whole point of playing is?

Wojciech Kilar is a Polish composer from the same 60’s group that gave us Penderecki and Gorecki, but is notable for his detour into film music (Like Coppola’s Dracula). This is his utterly simple/hard 1988 piece Orawa (there are a bunch of other video performances of this on YouTube, but this one with Agnieszka Duczmal conducting the Chamber Orchestra “Amadeus” has them all beat for pacing and enthusiasm. Just ignore that couple-second blast of other music at the start):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri-RNT03DL8[/youtube]

 

For all his jazz-lite leanings, David Sanborn (with Hal Willner’s savvy music coordination) has always had my eternal gratitude for hosting one of the most phenomenal major-network music offerings, NBC’s Night Music, which ran between 1988 and 1990. Not least for this wonderful clip of Sun Ra and the Arkestra taking us all to a higher plane:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsKDbuCsTkk[/youtube]

Two really different approaches perhaps, but both seem to work some of the same ground and head to the same place in the end. May what we attempt in the coming year get lucky enough to find that place too, at least once or twice…

Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Musical Notes From All Over

The Manhattan edition of the Sequenza21/Lost Dog Ensemble concert–as seen in the New York Times–is happening tonight at 8 pm at the Good Shepherd Church, 152 West 66tth Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam).   Admission is free, as in you don’t have to pay to get in.  This is your last chance to see a Sequenza21 concert until we save up enough money to have another one so don’t miss it.

Our friends at Other Minds in San Francisco invented the New Music Séance in 2005, and after two sold-out editions, they’re back with a third.  The event will feature three concerts of hypnotic, spiritual and rarely-heard musical gems spanning the past 100 years, offered in the intimate candlelit surroundings of Bernard Maybeck’s 1895 Arts and Crafts-style Swedenborgian Church in San Francisco. Performers Sarah Cahill (piano) (you go girl) , Kate Stenberg (violin), and Eva-Maria Zimmermann (piano) will channel new music’s progenitors alongside composers of today, in works for solo piano and violin piano duet.

The  marathon features three distinct concerts tomorrow, December 6, 2008: Concert I, “Birds in Warped Time” at 1pm; Concert II, “Deep River Dreams” at 4pm; and Concert III, “Ruth Crawford and Her Milieu” at 8pm. The final concert will be preceded by a special discussion of Ruth Crawford by Professor Judith Tick of Northeastern University, Crawford’s biographer. All events take place at Swedenborgian Church, 2107 Lyon Street, San Francisco. Tickets are on a sliding scale (individual concerts / 3-concert series): SEER ($25 / $65), MEDIUM ($40 / $110), PSYCHIC ($60 / $170). (Forget it, Jake.  It’s Chinatown.) Complimentary refreshments are provided for all ticket-holders, and series tickets at the PSYCHIC level include 6pm buffet dinner with the artists. The first two editions of the New Music Séance were sold out, and seating is limited to 100 persons per show, so early ticket purchase is recommended. Tickets are on sale now, at www.BrownPaperTickets.com or by calling (800) 838-3006. For information, visit otherminds.org or call (415) 934-8134.

And Lower East Side Performing Arts, Inc. will present Zendora Dance Company and the music of the lovely and gifted Elodie Lauten in a special Holiday Benefit on Tuesday, December 9 – 7:30 PM at Lafayette Bar & Grill, 54 Franklin Street (between Broadway and Lafayette) in Manhattan.

The program will be a special avant-premiere with improvisations from the Zendora Dance Company based on the second act of The Two-Cents Opera, Elodie Lauten’s semi-autobiographical fantasy about writing an opera where real, surreal and supernatural co-exist.  Hmmm…. looks like a pattern developing here.  Suggested donation for this benefit event is $10. For reservations or more information, please call 212-388-0202 or visit http://www.geocities.com/lesperformingarts for program information.

Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, Experimental Music, Improv, Music Events, New York, Piano

Interpretations Season #20 Artist Blog #4 — JB Floyd, Raphael Mostel

This Fall marks the twentieth season of provocative programming in New York City brought to you by Interpretations. Founded and curated by baritone Thomas Buckner in 1989, Interpretations focuses on the relationship between contemporary composers from both jazz and classical backgrounds and their interpreters, whether the composers themselves or performers who specialize in new music. To celebrate, Jerry Bowles has invited the artists involved in this season’s concerts to blog about their Interpretations experiences. Our fourth concert this season, on 20 November, features composer-performers JB Floyd and Raphael Mostel at Roulette.

JB Floyd:
My concert on the Interpretations Series on November 20th will mark the third time that I have presented my compositions on this prestigious series. These concerts have featured my works for flute and piano, vocal pieces for Thomas Buckner and the Yamaha Disklavier™ and keyboard works that combine the unique features of the Yamaha Disklavier™ as a concert piano and as a controller keyboard.

Though my music is mostly notated there are usually opportunities for improvisation within each composition. Having worked on many occasions with Thomas Buckner I am particularly looking forward to our work together on a new piece of mine, In Crossing The Busy Street for baritone voice and Yamaha Disklavier™. The poem is by Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore a poet whose works inspire musical representation.

Other compositions are for the Yamaha Disklavier™ and will be performed by my talented protégé, Liana Pailodze who is an Artist Diploma candidate at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. It is an honor to be included on this celebrated series that is celebrating its 20th Anniversary.

Raphael Mostel:
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Bela
I am haunted by Bela Bartok. He composed certain musical ideas which pursue me, and unbidden keep coming back to mind. My Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Bela is an attempt to exorcise this musical “possession” using one particularly searing turn from Bartok’s Piano Sonata. I’ve enlisted help from John Cage, Morton Feldman, Leonard Bernstein, Gyorgy Kurtag and many others. Wallace Stevens’ poem seemed to bless this exorcism. My apologies to triskadecaphobes.

A Letter to Benoit Mandelbrot, or, Authenticity
I’d written to Benoit Mandelbrot, the father of fractal geometry, asking if he’d never wondered why — since visual representations of fractals are so beautiful — the supposed musical representations of fractals are not? I offered to explicate mathematically. He wrote back inviting elaboration, which I did. But my explanation, he said, “mystified” him. My Letter to Benoit Mandelbrot is a further meditation on music, self-similarity and cheating.

Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers

NÜÜDISMUUSIKA

He doesn’t sing or play the cello (as far as I know) but one of my favorite composers in the whole wide world is Erkki-Sven Tüür, another of those masterful Estonians we hear a lot about.  I would say that even if I didn’t know that he is a faithful and longtime reader of Sequenza21.  But, I digress.  The Estonian Philharmonic Choir, with the  Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Tõnu Kaljuste, will be performing two of Erkki-Sven’s choral pieces next Monday night at The Community Church of New York, 40 East 35th Street.  There are also pieces by Tõnu Kõrvits and somebody named Arvo Pärt.

Here’s the best part.  The concert is free, as in you don’t have to pay anything to get in.

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.

Bang on a Can, Chamber Music, Composers, Downtown, Minimalism, Music Events, New York

Watch Out for David Lang

David Lang, who you will recall won this year’s Pulitzer with his piece The Little Match Girl Passion, will be submitting himself to the hard-hitting S21 interview next week.  I’ll be asking him what he plans to do about the financial meltdown, the war in Iraq, and whether he stands by his selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate.  Or something–I haven’t written the questions yet.

In the meantime, those of you who live in New York may want to know that Wordless Music is presenting a concert of Lang’s music next Wednesday, November 5th, at Le Poisson Rouge (158 Bleecker Street, New York).  Doors at 7:00, show starts at 7:30.  The show will consist of the American premiere of his piece Pierced with the Real Quiet.  Special guests include the Flux Quartet and Theo Blackmann singing Lang’s version of Lou Reed¹s Velvet Underground song “Heroin.”  Both pieces appear on Lang’s new Naxos disc, which I’ve been listening to a lot and recommend.