Composers

Composers, Contemporary Classical, Deaths, Experimental Music, Performers

The Next Generation to Pass

The recent deaths of both George Perle and Lukas Foss are part of the sad but expected passing, of composers who came of age in the 1940s and 50s. But a slight shock went through me with Douglas Britt’s surprising news in the Houston Chronicle blogs that pioneering composer, percussionist, visual and sound artist Max Neuhaus (b. 1939) has just died as well. Neuhaus is from the generation that gives us Lucier, Ashley, Young, Reich, Glass and Riley.

He semi-retired some time ago from pure composition and performance, preferring to focus on sound art and installations (one of which quietly hums day and night just down the street from me here in Houston, a few steps from Rothko Chapel). Neuhaus’ own website gives a good overview of where his imagination took him these past years, and you can pay homage to his earlier self — percussion iconclast and champion of the likes of Stockhausen, Brown, Feldman, Cage — by revisiting his seminal 1960s recordings courtesy of UbuWeb.

by Steve Layton
CDs, Chamber Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, Experimental Music, File Under?, Music Instruments, New York, Performers, Recordings

Various Artists: the language of

Various Artists – the language of

QUIET DESIGN RECORDS


the language of is a compilation CD of ten pieces by eight emerging composers in NYC, many of whom are associated with the Wet Ink Ensemble.  Released by Quiet Design Records in Austin, TX, this compilation is a forward-thinking treatise on a constantly evolving new music scene.  The production, recording, and design chores were undertaken by the composers and their colleagues, thus comprising a very personalized aesthetic. the language of is an essential purchase, not only for its DIY approach, but because it contains a variety of exciting, well executed compositions.  And due to the wobbly legs of the music industry, resourceful composers could do well by using this CD as a business model.

There is an immediacy and yearning to the music featured on this CD.  The emotional content (which, of course, varies from piece to piece) is enhanced by the recording techniques used to create the myriad sound-worlds, an approach that is both startling and engaging.  There is not one ounce of sonic sterility that one might find on pristinely recorded chamber music CDs.  Many of the recording techniques used are in-your-face, close mic’d, compressed, and manipulated to each pieces’ ambient requirements.  Some of the pieces that most represent traditional chamber music are ambient mic’d, a representation that provides a bird’s-ear-view (sorry about that one) for the listener, or an aural realism, if you will.   The variety of production from piece to piece is therefore more akin to the world of rock, jazz, and experimental music.  The packaging, designed by composer Clara Latham, is an attractive and environmentally friendly cardboard cover that features nothing in the form of liner notes (this may be one of my only complaints, but it definitely adds a veil of mystery to the release).

A brief overview of each piece follows after the break: (more…)

by Jeremy Podgursky
CDs, Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, File Under?, Los Angeles, New York, Orchestras

Tonight at BAM: US Premiere of work by Enrico Chapela at Brooklyn’s Nuevo Latino Festival

Saturday night at 8 pm, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, under the direction of Michael Christie, gives the US premiere of Enrico Chapela’s Noctámbulos, a piece for rock trio and orchestra. Chapela will also participate in a panel discussion on Latin American Identity in Music at 4:30 (details below).

Chapela is a composer on the rise; Boosey and Hawkes added him to their roster in 2008 and he’s recently received several high profile commissions. I spoke with him on Thursday about the BAM event and his other activities. Born in Mexico, he started out his musical career as a rock guitarist, playing SXSW with a band in the nineties. He currently resides in Paris, where he’s finished a Master’s degree at the University of Paris and is pursuing a Ph.D. His dissertation topic is the two-hundred year history of symphonic music in Mexico.

An earlier version of Noctámbulos, titled Lo Nato es Neta, can be heard on Chapela’s debut CD, Antagonica. Lo Nato es Neta is scored for rock trio and acoustic quintet. Chapela readily acknowledges the cross-pollination present in the work, “It explores a wide range of rock styles – everything from metal to Pink Floyd to King Crimson.” I hear a fair bit of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention in its juxtaposition of rock solos with angular melodic fragments, spiky post-tonal verticals, and Stravinskyian ostinati.

The piece was entered in a composition competition, but didn’t place. Happily, one of the judges dissented from the majority and separately arranged a commission for the Dresden Sinfoniker. The result: Noctámbulos, a revisioning of Lo Nato es Neta that features the rock trio as concerto soloists. It also incorporates more improvisation.

This is an exciting time for Chapela. He’s playing the guitar part in the premiere. Simultaneously, he’s working hard to finish a commission for the LA Philharmonic. “At first, I thought it would be too much to be the solo guitarist at the Brooklyn Philharmonic performances while trying to finish the piece for LA. But then I realized, who could ask for a better gig than this? Between practicing and writing, I told my wife to not expect to see me much for a couple of months!”

CROSSING BORDERS: A discussion on Latin American identity in music

Saturday, January 31, 2009 / BAM Hillman Attic Studio, at 4:00PM

Moderated by Carmen Helena Téllez / Invited panelists: Gabriela Lena Frank, Enrico Chapela, and Paul Desenne

NUEVO LATINO MAINSTAGE – Saturday January 31, 2009 at 8:00 PM

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House

Michael Christie, conductor; Virginie Robilliard, violin; Chapela Trio; Enrico Chapela, guitar; Jesús Lara, bass; Luis Miguel Costero, drums

Gabriela Lena Frank: Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout (NY Premiere of string orchestra version)

Paul Desenne: The Two Seasons (NY Premiere)

Enrico Chapela: Noctámbulos (US Premiere)

by Christian Carey
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.

by Christian Carey
Composers, Contemporary Classical, Deaths, Obits

A Composer’s Composer

George Perle died this weekend, at the ripe old age of 93. Little-known and little heard by the general audience, Perle was a name virtually every composer of the last half century knows. His book Serial Composition and Atonality passed through most of our hands at one point or other in our study; it and his later Twelve-Tone Tonality caused a lot of us to seek out performances and recordings of his poised, extremely lucid and limpid works.

Big-name appreciation is rare enough anymore for composers, as to almost seem a fluke. Given that, the place to pay attention to is who composers themselves appreciate. George Perle certainly had that kind of “cred”, and he’s still alive and vital for his comrades-in-music.

by Steve Layton
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. 

by Christian Carey
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Orchestral

Five Things about Absolute Ocean

I heard the world premiere of Absolute Ocean by Augusta Read Thomas in Houston Thursday night at Jones Hall.
1. Thomas spoke before the concert about her compositional process and specifically about Absolute Ocean. Her talk was engaging, direct and charming; Thomas included showing the audience some of the manuscript score, and explained how 15 seconds of music might take five hours to score by hand!
ART talking before the concert
2. Absolute Ocean is a work for Soprano, Harp and Orchestra in three movements from poetry by ee cummings commissioned by the Houston Symphony. The soloists, soprano Twyla Robinson and harpist Paula Page, performed with conviction and panache – putting the music first without extraneous movement or distractions. The texts were projected (not always coordinated, but hey, they were there!) on each side of the stage and added to the performance.
3. The opening “Graceful” movement was pointilistic and bright. Robinson pulled pitches from nowhere and was matched beautifully by Thomas’ instrumental colors and combinations. Page was often backed by four percussionists and divisi solo strings.
4. Perhaps the most charming of all was the second movement, “Playful, spry and jazzy.” Hans Graf was direct and precise with the orchestra, making it easy for the musicians to move in and out of the lines deftly. Again Robinson caught the feeling perfectly of cummings text and Thomas’ frolicsome and vivacious score. Page was purely color for the most part, but had a chance to shine with a cadenza between this movement and the finale. Evidently this cadenza was added later at Page’s request – which certainly went more to weigh the harp part…I would not call Absolute Ocean a double concerto, but rather an orchestral work for soprano with a prominent harp part. I had heard it referred to as a concerto – and would be disappointed as such – luckily it is such a wonderful work, the nomenclature is not important.
5. “Resonant and elegant” finished the 18 minute work and the short first half (the second half was Mahler’s Fourth Symphony) of the concert. The finale paints the words with creative combinations, and has a satisfying and direct ending. Absolute Ocean is a complete success for the Houston Symphony, and kudos to Graf for adding such a gorgeous work to the symphonic world.
There are two more performances of Absolute Ocean, Saturday night at 8pm and Sunday afternoon at 2:30pm. There is another pre-concert talk Saturday at 7:10pm open to all ticket holders. The 2009-10 season has just been announced for the HSO, and includes another Houston Symphony Commission, for chorus and orchestra by Kevin Puts.

by John Clare
Broadcast, Click Picks, Composers, Contemporary Classical

Heading North

clockwise from top left: John Rea, Claude Vivier, Emily Hall, Aaron GervaisMaybe it’s all that cold, dark and ice; stuck inside with nothing else to do for a lot of days must be conducive to composition. At least it feels that way with regard to Canada, since this huge but relatively sparsely-populated space has what seems a disproportionate number of composers that I just love.

And now the Canadian Music Centre has made it awfully easy for YOU to love them as well; at their site you’ll now find a service called CentreStreams, which offers streaming access to the Ann Southam Audio Archive. This comprises a huge number of concert and radio recordings made by the CBC, of Canadian composers A to Zed. Not only that: where else could you find 41 (!) archival recordings of seminal Canadian composer Claude Vivier‘s music — with no less than 6 (!!) different versions of Pulau dewata — all at your computer’s beck and call? They also have a nifty feature that can give you a random paylist by genre (piano, orchestra, vocal, etc.), so your listening experience is never the same twice. Many composers even have the scores of works freely available as PDF files.

You do have to register (free) to get the streams, but it’s quick and painless. CentreStreams is accessible from the CMC homepage, but even easier is heading to the “find a composer” section and browsing the alphabet. Besides the established names there’s also a fair collection of the young guns as well, so you can be right expert on contemporary Canadian music in no time! Personal favorites old and new, that I can pretty well guarantee for excellence, are John Rea, Claude Vivier, Emily Hall, Aaron Gervais (all four pictured above), José Evangelista, R. Murray Schafer, Melissa Hui, John Mark Sherlock, Linda Catlin Smith, Allison Cameron, Rodney Sharman, Monique Jean, Gyula Csapo, Louis Dufort, Gilles Tremblay, John Kosrud, Chiyoko Szlavnics… the list goes on and on. What better way to pass a little of your own closed-in winter days, than discovering some new favorite piece or composer?

by Steve Layton
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, Electro-Acoustic, Experimental Music, Music Events, New York, Opera

Interpretations Season #20: Artist Blog #5 — Robert Ashley

Robert AshleyInterpretations continues its twentieth season of provocative programming in New York City. 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. Produced in tandem with La Mama ETC and Performing Artservices, the centerpiece of the series this year is a two-week, three opera, 10 performance, mini-retrospective of the recent works of Robert Ashley: Dust, Celestial Excursions, and Made out of Concrete.

Robert Ashley’s operas will be at La Mama ETC from 15-25 January 2009.
For more information:
S21 Calendar
Interpretations

Mr. Ashley has been kind enough to take some time from his busy rehearsing schedule to write about the ensemble he’s gathered over the past thirty years or so, as a sort of self-interview:

WHO ARE THE ENSEMBLE MEMBERS?

The ensemble now is (alphabetical order in singers / in slight order of importance in technical)

ROBERT ASHLEY: voice
SAM ASHLEY: voice
THOMAS BUCKNER: voice
JACQUELINE HUMBERT: voice
JOAN LA BARBARA: voice

TOM HAMILTON does audio engineering in all stages of the opera, assists me in realizing the composition in the electronic studio prior to performance; he’s the mixing engineer and advisor in rehearsals; he does performance sound processing and mixing of the performance; he’s in charge of recording of the performance and mixing the sounds from the performance for the CD recording.

CAS BOUMANS is the performance sound designer (audience loudspeaker placement and sound monitor arrangements for the performers. Microphone placement.)

DAVID MOODEY does stage and light design.

MELANIE LIPKA is the production stage manager (off-stage timing of what goes into the performance.)

“BLUE” GENE TYRANNY is the synthesizer performer in Dust and Celestial Excursions

JOAN JONAS is the dancer/performance artist in Celestial Excursions

WHEN DID YOU START WORKING WITH THEM?
It’s various, but compared to the life of most ensembles I’ve been working with all of them for a long time, not only in their jobs now with the ensemble, but as musicians and designers.

(more…)

by Robert
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.

by Christian Carey