Concerts

Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Premieres

Dillon’s baby comes home

Fresh off its German premiere, composer and S21 blogger Lawrence Dillon‘s newest string quartet begins making its rounds of the U.S. this week, under the completely able fingers and bows of the Emerson String Quartet.

From the Invisible Cities String Quartet Cycle, String Quartet No. 5 combines elements of chaconne, passacaglia and theme-and-variations. The piece takes the Welsh tune “All Through the Night” through, as the Lawrence writes, “a dizzying and dazzling journey from twilight to twilight.”  The movements are Twilight – Variations; Dream – Chaconne; Dream – Passacaglia, and Variations – Twilight. The piece was commissioned by the Emerson Quartet and an anonymous donor, in honor of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

The U.S. premiere performances will happen Saturday, April 10, 7:30 PM at Watson Chamber Music Hall of University of North Carolina School of the Arts (1533 S. Main Street in Winston-Salem) and then Wednesday, April 14 at Meany Hall, the University of Washington (15th Ave, NE and NE 40th St., Seattle). The programs will also include works by Schubert, Barber, Ives and Dvorak.  Future performances of the Quartet are scheduled for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Here’s wishing this particularly well-travelled baby a bright future.

by Steve Layton
Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Remembering

Readers who are reasonably close to Hattiesburg, Mississippi may enjoy two outstanding performances (including a world premiere) happening this week, involving the music of Edwin Penhorwood (Thursday, April 8 at 7:30 at Main Street Baptist Church).

Penhorwood is on the faculty of Indiana University, and is most known for his contributions to American art song and the comic opera Too Many Sopranos.  The University of Southern Mississippi Choral and Orchestral Departments joined forces to commission a new work from Penhorwood, An American Requiem.

Rather than commemorating a specific event, An American Requiem memorializes several (such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina), while also bringing attention to issues such as the environment.  As well, one of the movements is dedicated to the memory of five music students from the Jacobs School, lost in a 2006 plane crash.  The Requiem combines traditional mass texts (both Latin and English), American hymnsong and original poetry by Callum MacColl.  Dr. Gregory Fuller, Director of Choral Activities at Southern Miss, will be leading the orchestra.  The following night, Southern Miss faculty Taylor Hightower (tenor) and Kerrin Hightower (soprano) will give a recital of Penhorwood’s art songs.

by Steve Layton
Birthdays, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Happy Geburtstag Helmut!

Helmut Lachenmann, 75 years old this year. How does the news strike us? If a composer in Europe, a better than 60%-70% chance that this is an important milestone. If a composer in America, less than 40%-30% chance of the same reaction. As a mainstream American classical concert-goer, the number is probably closer to 10% or less.

In the last couple decades, the influence of Lachenmann upon all kinds of composers has been immense, as have been the names of Franco Donatoni, Brian Ferneyhough, Beat Furrer, Gerard Grisey,Tristan Murail, Wolfgang Rihm, Kaija Saariaho… Yet the other thing they all share is how little they appear on the general American concert stage, and so the practically non-existent impact they’ve made on the minds of the average concert-goer.

To which the average concert-goer responds “I don’t know, it’s all just horribly weird sounds to me”;  The unsympathetic composer responds “that’s because it sucks”, or “that’s just that elitist Euro-formalist bullshit.”

I tell you, it’s enough to make me think of Teabaggers and Green Party folks! In the end, if someone were to sit down — without their piled baggage of cultural assumptions blocking all ingress — and just listen, they’d find the common thread: all of these people just write music, some combination of sound and idea that totally engages their heart and mind, and can also that of  anyone else who opens themselves to it. From a short interview a couple years ago, here is the “Euro-formalist” speaking about what is truly important in his music:

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

These aren’t the words of the hermetic formula-maker locked in the laboratory; they’re the words of a man simply in love with music, its history, instruments, people and ideas.

Lachenmann’s birthday is getting some respect in the form of a series of concerts devoted to his work:

Last Thursday SIGNAL, with the JACK Quartet, cellist Lauren Radnofsky and Lachenmann himself as both soloist and speaker, kicked off their celebratory “march” through New York in Buffalo, Friday hit Rochester, and Saturday were on to Troy (review)– all this to culminate Thursday, April 1st in NYC’s Miller Theatre (116th St. & Broadway on the ground floor of Dodge Hall, 8PM, $25/15, 212-854-7799). The event includes an onstage discussion between Lachenmann and Seth Brodsky, as well as five works: Wiegenmusik (1963), Pression (1969-1970), Ein Kinderspiel (1980), String Quartet No. 2 “Reigen seliger Geister” (1989), “…Zwei Gefühle…” (1991-1992).

Coming up on the flank, this Tuesday March 30th the East Coast Contemporary Ensemble will make their own contribution to the festivities, at Good Shepherd Church (152 West 66th Street, NYC, 8PM, $20/10, 212-877-0685), with a number of chamber works featured.

If you’re curious to finally catch up but not in the area, there are a lot of recordings of Lachenmann’s music available; one of the best bets is to get an introduction from the good folk at La Folia. Dan Albertson’s 2004 survey is an especially good starter, and a quick search on their site will provide you with many more perceptive reviews for further listening.

by Steve Layton
Cello, Click Picks, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Video

Composing and Listening Out Loud

Saturday, March 27th at 7:30pm CDT, anyone in driving range of Birmingham, Alabama should be paying UAB’s Hulsey Recital Hall (950 13th Street South) a visit. Back last year, Meet the Composer’s Met Life Creative Connections Program gave some funding for a program of new compositions by three composers (Connecticut-based Alphonse Izzo, Aleksander Sternfeld-Dunn from Washington State, and Alabama resident Craig Biondi), all written for the fantastically able chops of cellist Craig Hultgren.

What’s that, you say you’re not going to be anywhere near Birmingham just then? Why son, you’re as close as that little screen in front of your face! That’s because the concert will be streamed live courtesy of USTREAM; all you have to do is click that link I just gave you and you’re there (they’ll also be streaming the pre-concert discussion, slated for 6:00pm CDT).

The program’s title is Listen Out Loud, and what made the run-up to this one so interesting is that for the past few months, each of the composers has been blogging about their experiences while composing their respective piece. At the blog Composing Out Loud, you can follow the genesis and fruition of each of the composer’s ideas.

Each composer will present a work for solo cello, and a work for cello with ensemble. Izzo’s solo cello piece The Madcap Laughed is the composer’s surrealist tribute to Syd Barrett, the late founder of Pink Floyd. Hultgren is joined by Katherine Fouse on piano and Denise Gainey on clarinet for the premiere of Izzo’s Memory Theater.

ASO English horn player Erica Howard and Hultgren engage in an intimate dialogue in Aleksander Sternfeld-Dunn’s “...and I will love the silence…”. Dramatic contrast follows with the premiere of the light hearted solo work Snap! Crackle! Pop!

Biondi will present a haunting work for solo cello, Adrift.  Then Fouse and Hultgren are joined by Soprano Kristine Hurst-Wajszczuk and percussionist Gene Fambrough for the premiere of Biondi’s improvisatory Two Psalms.

So between all of the great, intimate  background information, brand-spanking new works and a concert itself brought close no matter where you may live, here’s beautiful example of what a concert in this century can be. I know I’ll be in the ‘audience’, even here in Houston!

by Steve Layton
Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, New York

Monday Night with Dr. Phil

No, not that one… This one, with trusty bass in hand… Phil Fried is a composer long known to me as a regular,  astute — and often very funny — participant in musical discussions on the NewMusicBox forums and ‘chatter’ commentary. Phil comes from a musical family; His father, Louis Fried, was an original cast member in several Broadway shows including Brigadoon and Carousel. His cousin was the noted composer Isadore Freed. Second only to music is Phil’s passionate interest in literature. He has written several texts and librettos, including that for his operatic adaptation of Hemingway’s short story, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”. Most recently Phil became the composer in residence and core member for Opera Bob, a new-music collaborative in Minnesota.

This Monday evening at the Cornelia Street Cafe (29 Cornelia Street, NYC / 212-989-9319 / March 22, 8:30 PM / cover $10)  NewMusicBox‘s own Frank J. Oteri will doing the introduction honors as Phil comes to town to present a concert of his new music for bass, voice and piano (joined by soprano Anna Brandsoy and pianist Jill Dawe). As Phil himself tells it:

“After working 10 years on my opera The Snows of Kilimanjaro I was in the mood for funny. I found my voice as a solo instrumentalist performing on an upright electric bass. The sound is amplified/unamplified, processed/unprocessed, and mixed via touch and foot pedals in real time. The “soundscapes” I create explore many angles of experimental music. My approach is non tonal, as in my composed music, but its effect is more intimate and personal. It was critical for me that my first explorations into non-extended tonal materials were with jazz music. I’ve come full circle, and have returned to improvisation after the careful study of composed music and classical string bass technique.”

Be there or be… well, if you go you’ll probably still be square. But you’ll be a very hip square!

by Steve Layton
Competitions, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Houston, Opera

Opera Vista: let the battle begin

Spring has definitely sprung down here in Houston; everything that looked dead just a few weeks ago is sprouting all kinds of new growth. And that goes for opera as well, seeing that this year’s iteration of  Opera Vista begins this Saturday, March 20th, and runs through March 27th.

Opera Vista focuses on bringing contemporary opera to Houston and the Vista Competition is an international search for ground-breaking new works by modern composers.

“The Vista Competition is unique in that it gives composers the opportunity to have their works performed by professional singers and instrumentalists,” says Viswa Subbaraman, OV‘s Artistic Director. “They have a wonderful opportunity to interact with many well-known people from the world of opera and classical music, but I think more importantly, they get an insight into how their work is perceived by the audience.”

In October, six semi-finalists (Lembit Beecher, Katarzyna Brochocka, Alberto García Demestres, Joseph Eidson, Jonathan N. Kupper, Catherine Reid) from three countries were selected, ranging from adaptations of a Japanese folk tale to a horror opera.  Excerpts from each work will be performed on March 24th & 26th at the Czech Center Museum Houston (4920 San Jacinto, at Wichita), each night beginning at 7:30pm.  A panel of judges, including world-renowned composer Daron Hagen (There will be an evening of chamber music composed by Hagen at 7:30pm on March 25th at the Czech Center) and Leslie Dunner of the Joffrey Ballet, will critique each excerpt, and the audience will vote to select which operas will advance. In the final round the winning excerpts will be performed again with a longer critique from the judges, but then the audience will get to directly question the composers. The audience then votes to determine the winner of the competition, which will be announced March 27th at the festival’s closing performance. The winner receives $1,500 and a full production of their opera at the next festival.

This year’s festival will also include the world premiere of the winning opera from the 2009 Opera Vista Festival, Anorexia Sacra by Line Tjørnhøj. Line couples the plight of a young woman suffering from anorexia with the writings of the 13th century nun Claire of Assisi. Anorexia Sacra will be performed at 7:30pm on March 20th and 27th at the Live Oak Friends Meetinghouse (1318 West 26th Street).

There’s also a bit of meet-and-greet with all the composers on March 23rd, 6-8pm, at Momentum Audi (2315 Richmond Avenue).

Whew! Tickets and more information can be found at the OV website, which also contains sketches of each of the composers, operas and judges.

by Steve Layton
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, New York

Take this detour

I’ve written before about the one and only Alex Temple, late Yalie and NYC denizen, studious University of Michigan grad student, now currently working his thing in Chicago.

Well, Alex is back in New York for a moment, joined by fellow composers Brian Mark, Seth Bedford, Angélica Négron, and Jeremy Howard Beck. DETOUR presents works by all these up-and-comers, made to accompany archival films found in the Prelinger Archives, this Saturday, March 20th, at 9pm, at the Gershwin Hotel (7 East 27th Street, 9pm / Cover $10)

The videos range from airline ads to political propaganda. Some have been edited and others left intact. The music that’s been added to them covers a wide variety of styles and languages, from electronic soundscapes to live chamber music. Alex’s own offering is called A Presentation to the Board, and uses electronic music and a live speaker to turn a 1950’s public service announcement about life in the suburbs into a pitch by a representative of an evil conspiratorial corporation to a despotic government.

Alex has also been muy busy with other projects that involve both voice and smart deconstructions/meldings of pop and high culture. A recent favorite is Imogene, which lucky yous can hear in two different versions at Alex’s works page. Go ahead, try it, you’ll like it!

by Steve Layton
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, New York

Annual Ensemble Pi concert for peace and civil rights, Cooper Union

Ensemble Pi is an unusual new-music collective, in that all its concerts have a socially-conscious bent and feature composers whose work seeks to open a dialogue between ideas and music on some of the world’s current and critical issues. The ensemble’s Dancer on a Tightrope will take place at The Cooper Union’s Great Hall on Saturday, March 13 at 8 p.m.  Cooper Union is located at 7 East 7th Street at Third Avenue, NYC. Tickets are $15 ($10 for students and seniors).  For more information, call (212) 362-4745 or visit their website. We asked for a little background on the concert, and recevied some words from the ensemble’s founder and two of the evening’s composers:

Idith MeshulamIdith Meshulam (pianist and founder of Ensemble Pi):

Composer John Harbison expressed Ensemble Pi’s mission for the Peace Project best when he wrote that performing these pieces “is not a protest or a moral lesson. These would require little bravery. Instead it seeks music in a moment when words can fail.” Ensemble Pi offers music in conjunction with other arts and ideas as an alternative to the constant clash of angry and frustrated voices that need to be heard.

For the sixth installment of our Peace Project, we wanted to address the courage and compassion necessary to fight for one’s belief with works celebrating life as risk and art as flight into another existence. As a commemoration for the invasion to Iraq, we open with a short video of the historical society of Iraq, showing the irreversible damage to the historical buildings in Baghdad. The concert will then begin with two works commissioned by Ensemble Pi: Karim Al-Zand’s  Swimmy, the famous children story by Leo Lionni with projection of Dave Channon; and Kristin Norderval’s A Remarkable Failure – a setting of prominent Israeli journalist and author Amira Hass’s acceptance speech for the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Women’s Media Foundation. The evening also features the New York premiere of Frederic Rzewski’s Whangdoodles (1990) as well as Sofia Gubaidulina’s Dancer on a Tightrope (1993), and Behzad Ranjbaran’s Shiraz (2006).

When we started planning the concert, we naively thought we would be out of Iraq by March 2010. We still felt we needed to commemorate the destruction and pain inflicted upon the Iraqi people, so we kept the commemoration of in March we Remember, and expanded it into a human rights concert.  Our disappointment and frustration on the current situation is best expressed in A Remarkable Failure — Kristin Norderval’s homage to Amira Hass, who is one of my heroes.  The piece addresses “the frustrations of not getting the real stories behind the stories” in the press. The second commission is the setting of a children masterpiece, that we hope will inspire and charm people of all ages.

The performers for this concert will include Kristin Norderval, voice; Airi Yoshioka, violin; Idith Meshulam, piano; Monique Buzzarté, trombone; Florent Renard-Payen, cello; Carol McGonnell, clarinet; and Nathan Davis, hammered dulcimer.

Composer Karim Al-Zand:

Karim Al-ZandSwimmy is scored for narrator and ensemble (a quartet of piano, clarinet, violin and cello) and is based on the picture book of the same name by Leo Lionni. As a child I knew Lionni’s book and its poignant story, and now my own children have come to know it as well. It’s the story of a little fish who discovers the beauty of the ocean around him and manages to confront his adversaries through ingenuity and resourcefulness. Like many of Lionni’s books for children, Swimmy can be appreciated on several levels, something which has made it interesting to return to as an adult. My setting tries to complement Lionni’s elegant and colorful artwork with music which supports but doesn’t overwhelm the story’s simple narrative. The clarinet is the most prominent of the instruments and its quick-moving lines represent, in a way, the main character, Swimmy. Lionni’s story is a parable really, a tale which illustrates the power of cooperation and of collective effort.

Composer/performer Kristin Norderval:

Kristin Norderval“A remarkable failure” is the phrase that the Israeli journalist Amira Hass used to describe her work when accepting the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Women’s Media Foundation for her reports from Gaza.  Why?  Because she felt she had failed to get the media and the public to use “correct terms and words which reflect reality”.  Her words could not compete with language adopted by the mass media which she felt was used to “disportray” reality.  Listening to Hass’s speech I was struck by the parallels with Harold Pinter’s Nobel Lecture in 2005 – “Art, Truth and Politics” – another dissection of the Orwellian speech used by politicians and the mass media to cover up illegal actions and unpleasant truths.  A Remarkable Failure for voice, trombone and laptop uses excerpts from the awards speeches of both Hass and Pinter, and explores the way corrupted and euphemistic language has been embedded in the mass media and seduced us into accepting torture, murder and war crimes as inconvenient necessities that need not be investigated nor prosecuted.

by Steve Layton
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Interviews, Music Events, Other Minds, Premieres, San Francisco

Let’s Ask Gyan Riley

Gyan RileyThe 15th Other Minds Festival kicks off this evening, offering San Francisco a three-day immersion in contemporary music from around the world.  One of the locals headlining this year is Gyan Riley, who’ll premiere his new quartet work commissioned by Other Minds, entitled When Heron Sings Blue.

Equally well known as a classical guitar virtuoso and as a composer, Gyan will take on his own guitar part in the quartet on the third festival night, joined by his Gyan Riley Trio bandmates Timb Harris (violin & viola) and Scott Amendola (percussion).   Electric bassist Michael Manring will complete the quartet.

Concert Three of the Other Minds Festival begins at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 6 at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. Full details and tickets are available here.

Gyan naturally had a lot going on this week but I was still able to get a few questions in front of him for the readers of Sequenza21.

S21:  How did the quartet instrumentation of When Heron Sings Blue come about? What was it about the piece that wanted an electric bass underpinning, and specifically Michael Manring?

GR:  As a guitarist, my early works consisted of primarily solo guitar writing.  In the last several years, however, my compositional output has shifted in the direction of ensemble writing.  One medium that is particularly enticing to me is that of violin, guitar, and percussion, and I assembled my trio as an ongoing project to satisfy this interest.

There are several reasons why I chose the violin.  To begin with, it was my first instrument (I played violin for five years, beginning at age 6).  As an element in the ensemble, the two main assets of the violin are the potential to slide between the notes, and the ability to crescendo on a given note (things that the guitar cannot accomplish without electronics).  Composing for violin has allowed me to vicariously express these musical desires.  Additionally, I’ve learned that these two qualities are wonderfully complimentary to the guitar, creating a uniquely beautiful composite sound.

The other reason that the microtonal possibilities of the violin are important to me is their close association with Indian music, which has been in my ears literally since birth.  (As a vocalist, my father has studied North Indian raga for nearly 40 years.)   Timb Harris, the violinist in my trio, although classically trained, has long since been fascinated with the music of Eastern Europe, and has traveled extensively in Romania to pursue this interest.  One of the reasons I invited him to join this project was his understanding non-Western idiom, and there is an audible and historical connection between the sentiment of Indian music and that of Romania.

Although Scott Amendola’s main instrument is the drum set, using chopsticks, brushes, mallets, and even his hands, and supplementing that with a variety of hand percussion instruments, he creates a plethora of sound unlike that of any other drummer I’ve heard.  His breadth of experience and understanding of jazz, avant-garde, and experimental improvisatory idioms contributes a vast array of possibilities to this project.

I have worked with bass guitarist Michael Manring on and off for about two years.  He has a unique ability to seamlessly drift in and out of the foreground, occasionally drawing from his vast repertoire of extended techniques, yet always in service of the musical objective.  In working with this ensemble, I grew to greatly enjoy the broad timbral spectrum and solid rhythmic foundation that the bass guitar provided—qualities that I now know would be fruitful additions to the existing trio, greatly benefiting our overall sonority. (more…)

by Polly Moller
Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Interviews, Piano, Podcasts

Three West Coast Pianists

I recently spent some time with three amazing pianists who are all based on the West Coast:  Sarah Cahill, based in the San Francisco; Vicki Ray, based in Los Angeles; and Cristina Valdes, based in Seattle.  As usual, I asked each of them about their experiences working with composers, and you can listen to what they have to say here: Sarah, Vicki, Cristina.

It’s great to hear what these ladies have to say, but trust me, it’s even better to hear them perform live.  All three of them they will be performing (separately) across the country during March and April…

Go see Sarah Cahill:
1246478656_98_largeSaturday, March 27 at Miller Theatre, NYC – performing with trombonist Monique Buzzarte in Pauline Oliveros’ improvisational The Gender of Now.

Sunday, March 28 at Caramoor in Katonah, NY – performs the premiere of Annie Gosfield’s Five Characters Walk Into a Bar, along with Annea Lockwood’s Ear-Walking Woman and Ingram Marshall’s Authentic Presence.


Go see Vicki Ray:
Vicki_RayMonday, March 15 at The Wild Beast, CalArts – solo piano music of Chinary Ung

Thursday, March 25 at Roulette, NYC – encore performance, music of Chinary Ung

Sunday, April 11 at Walt Disney Concert Hall – new piece by Meredith Monk with the LA Master Chorale

Thursday, April 22 at University of San Diego’s Shiley Theatre – Sur Incises with Pierre Boulez

Tuesday, April 27 at Zipper Hall, LA – PianoSperes presents Olivier Messiaen‘s Harawi with soprano Elissa Johnston and video artist Lars Jan.

Go see Cristina Valdes:
valdesMarch 4th-6th at On the Boards, Seattle – performing with the Seattle Chamber players in Heiner Goebbel’s “Songs of War”

Saturday, April 10 at The Stone, NYC – performing a Wayne Horvitz premiere as well as music by John Luther Adams, Ives, Ziporyn, and Rzewski.

Friday, April 23 at The Chapel at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford (Seattle) – performing some Peter Garland “stuff”

by James Holt