Concerts

Chamber Music, Click Picks, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Steve’s click picks #38

Our regular listen to and look at living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, with so much good listening online:

sound. from SASSAS (Los Angeles)

Rüdiger CarlIn 1998, L.A. artist Cindy Bernard and friends started a series of concerts and installations that became the non-profit organisation SASSAS, the Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound. Their goal is “to serve as a catalyst for the creation, presentation, and recognition of experimental art and sound practices in the Greater Los Angeles area”.

Most of the concerts are held at the landmark Schindler House, a mid-century experimental home that has sliding walls opening the whole structure up to the back garden area. It provides an airy, casual and free-flowing space for both the artists and audience. Lately SASSAS has also been able to run a few concerts as well at both the Ford Ampitheater and REDCAT.

Mitchell/JarmanThe list of performers is long and varied, from Pauline Oliveros and James Tenney to Chas Smith and Rick Cox; Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman to Jessica Rylan and Tom Grimley; Harold Budd, Petra Haden, Tetuzi Akiyama, Phil Gelb, etc… even my much-admired internet buddies Johnny Chang and Jessica Catron. If you’ve been spending all your time sitting in the concert hall listening to Wuorinen, here’s you’re chance to loosen up — and catch up — on all kinds of other vital forms of new music in the here-and-now.

Because SASSAS hasn’t just been presenting these concerts; they’ve also been pretty diligent about documenting them with recordings, photos and even video! The link in the title of this post will take you to the sound. mainpage. There you’ll see links to streaming Quicktime archives of many of these concerts, plus scrapbooks of notes and photos from them as well. And over on YOUTUBE, you’ll find another whole archive of video, that’s just begun and is sure to grow.

by Steve Layton
Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Practice, Man. Practice.

AbelsColor_lowres.jpg“Music should either touch your soul or make you dance,” Michael Abels says, and though he admits there is a lot of music out there that doesn’t do either, those should be the goals.  “I always ask my students ‘what is the purpose of your music?’  You can’t create it unless you know what you want it to do.”

Abels, 45, is a Los Angeles-based composer and educator who heads the Music Program at the progressive New Roads School in Santa Monica, a private K-12  school that–upscale zip code, notwithstanding–has a very diverse student population, with nearly half of the students on scholarship.   For Abels, that’s one of the things that makes New Roads a special place.  

“Although blacks and Latinos make up 25 percent of the U.S. population, they comprise only about 4 percent of the country’s professional orchestra musicians,” he says.  “Part of this is economic; a professional music education costs a lot, but a lot of it is cultural.  Promising minority kids often don’t get the encouragement or mentoring they need to push them to next level.”

Abels, whose own background is as all-American as apple pie and ribs, has certainly done his part.  He spent the first of two Meet the Composer grants on a three-year New Residencies program at the Watts Tower Arts Center in South Central Los Angeles where, in addition to composing the music  for the community-oriented Cornerstone Theater, and a work for the USC Percussion Ensemble, he  began a mentoring program for disadvantaged youths in music technology and production techniques.

More recently, Abels has been partnering with the Sphinx Organization, a non-profit organization dedicated to building diversity in classical music, and with the Harlem Quartet,  an ensemble comprised of 1st place Laureates of the Sphinx Competition for young Black and Latino String Players.  The Quartet is a  group of young musicians who spend as much time bringing music into their communities as they do performing in concert halls.  All of which is  part of a nationwide movement to help increase the number of Blacks and Latinos in music schools, as professional musicians, and in classical music audiences. 

Abels’s piece Delights and Dances, (Think the love child of Stravinsky and Copland with a bit of Gershwin for garnish, one longtime S21 reader describes it)  written to celebrate the Sphinx Organization’s 10th anniversary, will be played by the Harlem Quartet at its annual Sphinx Laureates concert Tuesday evening, September 25, at 6:00 pm, on Carnegie Hall.   

I can’t wait to see if it makes me cry or dance.

p.s. (There will also be music by some cats named J.S. Bach, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson,  Astor Piazzolla, joaquín Turina and Duke Ellington).

 

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by Jerry Bowles
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Music Events

What’s Happening This Season?

The season is underway in New York and, as usual, there are a number of promising looking performances coming up.  Here are a few things to look for:

Margaret Garner, Richard Danielpour’s operatic collaboration with Toni Morrison, is in mid-run at City Opera and, judging from the ads, there are plenty of seats to be had.  I can’t quite stir myself enough to drag up there and sit through an evening of misery about a runaway slave who murders her daughter rather than have her captured.  Doesn’t stop me from having an opinion, though.  Morrison is too sanctimonious and self-important by half and Danielpour should write an opera about Omar the Tentmaker.  Samuel Barber’s Vanessa opens on November 4.

Chance Encounter, On September 28, Lisa Bielawa, Susan Narucki and the new-music chamber group the Knights, will commandeer East Broadway near the Seward Park Library to perform a 4-hour work based on overheard conversation, collected over the last year and set to music.  Details at Lisa’s blog.

Kronos Quartet – The indefatigueable quartet is slated for BAM’s Next Wave festival with collaborations with two Finnish composer/musicians: Kimmo Pohjonen, an accordionist and singer, and Samuli Kosminen, an accordionist and manipulator of electronic sounds.  Oct. 3, 5-6.

Esa Pekka-Salonen – Another famous Finn is the subject of a Composer Portrait at Miller Theater on October 5.  Performers include Imani Winds, cellist Darrett Adkins, soprano Tony Arnold and pianist Blair McMillen.

Berlin in Lights –  Life is a carbaret, old chum, with a bunch of cultural events scattered around town between November 2 and 18.  The centerpiece is the Berlin Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall on November 13 and 14.  Simon and gang will be doing the U.S. premiere of Marcus Lindberg’s Seht die Sonne on the 13th and Thomas Adès’ Tevot on the 14th.  Adès, who Simon sez is also a spectacular pianist, is doing an entire recital that will include (without electronic or mechanical assistance) Conlon Nancarrow’s fiendish  Three Canons for Ursula.

That takes us up to mid-November.  We’ll pick up there over the weekend.  What’s hot in L.A., San Francisco, London, Grand Rapids?  Give us a report.

 

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Saturday Bidness

Fabulous review of Corey Dargel’s “darkly enchanting” theater piece about voluntary amputation, Removable Parts, in today’s New York Times.  A few years from now when Corey is permanently ensconsed in the old Bobby Short room at the Carlyle, we’ll all say we knew him when.

Matthew Cmeil has a new website.

Steve Layton has a hot new piece for your dining and dancing pleasure:

Spin It (2002; 2007 performance)    Alesis QSR & my FreeSound posse (sandyrb, oniwe)

Minimalist multi sax and keyboard barrage, to be played as loudly as you or your neighbors can stand… The technique is all Rzewski & Reich, but the feel is American Bandstand … “Dick, I’ll give it an 85 — it’s got a crazy beat and you can dance to it!” (& the kids are going wild…)

by Jerry Bowles
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Miller’s Crossing

My copy of the Miller Theater Fall and Spring schedule landed on the window sill via carrier pigeon yesterday. As always, Columbia University’s indispensible new music venue has some humdingers on tap.  The Composer Portrait series this season includes Esa-Pekka Salonen, Wolfgang Rihm, David Sanford, Gerald Barry (in the first large-scale New York exposure for the Irish composer), French spectralist Phillipe Hurel, George Crumb and Peter Lieberson.  Except for Salonen and Rihm, the composers are set for pre-concert discussions, live and in color, so to speak.  Also on the schedule for December 7, 8, 9 and 11 is the New York stage premiere of Elliott Carter’s only opera, What’s Next?

Anything exciting happening in your town this fall?  Give us a good reason to get out of bed tomorrow.

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

The Times They Are a Changin’

Okay, so nobody wants to discuss A3.  How about C4, the terrific choral collective championed by S21 regular Ian Moss?  The talented boys and girls are doing a concert about the always-popular subject of love tonight at 8 pm at the Norwegian Seamen’s Church, 317 East 52nd Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues).  On the bill are new works by C4 members Jonathan David, David Rentz, Moss, Malina Rauschenfels and Karen Siegel, plus stuff by a bunch of other people.  Lykke til! 

Further evidence of the deaggregation of classical music distribution; our friends at Naxos have launched an online boutique called NaxosDirect.

Best film score ever.  Discuss.

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Don’t Stop Believin’

It’s Daniel Gilliam’s turn to be S21er in the spotlight this weekend.  If you happen to be near Louisville, Kentucky at 4 pm this Sunday, drop by Central Presbyterian Church for the world premiere of Daniel’s Song of the Universal, a cantata for soprano solo, choir and piano, based on the text by Walt Whitman.  Lacey Hunter Gilliam, Daniel’s wife, will be the soloist. 

Also on the program will be the premiere of O for Such a Dream for choir, soloist and piano, by Daron Aric Hagen, as well as new music by Louisville composer Fred Speck, and anthems by John Leavitt and Paul Halley.  The church is located at 318 West Kentucky Street (corner of Fourth and Kentucky), in Louisville. No admission, but there might be a donation plate.

Daniel has a terrific radio program of contemporary classical music called Brave New World on WUOL in Louisville.  Which provides an obvious segueway to David Toub whose  intentionally left blank will be programmed on Richard Friedman’s Music from Other Minds on KALW-FM, 91.7 in San Francisco. tomorrow evening, and again on Monday.  This is a recording of a  live performance of the piece, as arranged by Paul Bailey and performed on 5/9/07 by the Diverse Instrument Ensemble conducted by Lloyd Rogers.  Catch it either tomorrow (Friday, June 15th) at 11 PM PST and again on Monday at 11 PM PST on KALW-FM or, more sensibly for most of us,  you can also listen to it for one week after the Friday broadcast on the MFOM website.
Today’s topic:  Diegetic versus non-diegetic music in the Sopranos.  Discuss.
by Jerry Bowles
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, New York

Even the Orchestra Was Beautiful…

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The Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas concert at Rose Hall last night was one of those rare “what’s not to love” events that only occasionally grace New York stages.  Take a program of thinking man’s bon bons (Gershwin’s Cuban Overture, Silvestre Revueltas’ Sensemayá, Ginastera’s barnburning Estancia), add a star turn by Latin music legend Paquito D’Rivera, and throw in an energetic and talented young orchestra led by a drop dead gorgeous conductor and you have a surefire receipe for fun.  Many of the audience members came dressed for a post-concert gala which gave the evening a particularly elegant flair and provided a refreshing contrast to the usual New York concert-going experience where you can’t tell if your neighbor is a homeless person from Port Authority or the CEO of Ogilvy.  Of course, I dress that way myself so I can hardly complain.

Alondra de la Parra, a 26-year-old Mexican conductor and pianist started The Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas (POA) in 2004 to increase public awareness of Latin American symphonic music.  The list of blue chip sponsors on the program and the monied audience suggest that her organizational and marketing skills are at least as formidable as her music talents.  (Did I mention that she is drop dead gorgeous?)

But, I digress.  The highlight of the evening was an appearance by the Cuban-born saxophonist, clarinetist, band leader and composer Paquito D’ Rivera who, I was a little surprised to learn, writes “serious” music that sounds quite at home on a concert program.  Fantasia Mesianicas (Blues for Akoka) is a set of variations for clarinet, jazz trio, and symphony with a clarinet part inspired by Henri Akoka, a man with a great sense of humor who was the clarinetist in the premiere of Oliver Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, not exactly a humorous piece.  Memories (Danzón), based on the national dance of Cuba, is a romantic vision of moonlit nights filled with dangerous rhythms and elegant cornet lines, channeling the great orchestras that played the grand hotels that once graced the Havana shoreline.  D’Rivera performed a couple of encores, including a show-stopping clarinet/piano duo.  (Terrific pianist, by the way, although I couldn’t find his name in the program. Anybody know?)

The second half began with the world premiere of Ixbalanqué, a moody, often dark, tone poem drawn from Mayan legend, by the 26-year-old Mexican composer Martin Capella.  The piece was the first winner of the POA’s Young Composers Competition, which invited composers aged thirty-five and younger from the American continent to submit an 8-12 minute work for orchestra.  Robert Beaser, Paul Brantley, Mario Lavista, Tania León and Nils Vigeland were the judges.  Ixbalanqué is an accomplished work but it’s a little tough to precede (or follow) Sensemayá, an undisputed masterpiece of the short, Latin genre which is so obviously Ixbalanqué’s granddaddy.

To cap off a perfect evening, de la Parra whipped the orchestra through Ginestera’s exhuberant Estancia, bringing the audience to its collective feet with the wild and crazy Danza final – Malambo.

Beyond being a lot of fun, the concert was a useful reminder of how deeply and irreversibly the Latin musical language is ingrained into–and enriches–North American culture.  There is nothing foreign or alien or threatening about it; this is our music too.   A useful rejoiner to the growing wave of xenophobia that hovers over the land in these troubled times. 

by Jerry Bowles
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals

You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows

First Jeff Harrington, then David Salvage, and now our very own Lawrence Dillon is feeling some end-of-the-season love on the concert circuit.  This very evening (Thursday), at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina,  violinist Piotr Szewczyk will perform Lawrence’s Mister Blister and a movement from Fifteen Minutes as part of his Music in Time – Violin Futura program.  Szewczyk will also perform works by Mason Bates, Moritz Eggert, Daniel Kellogg, Jennifer Wang, and others as part of this program of new, short, innovative solo violin pieces.

And, on June 15 at the International Double Reed Society Conference in Ithaca, New York, bassoonist Jeffrey Keesecker will perform Dillon’s Furies and Muses, joined by violinist Susan Waterbury and Jennifer Reuning Meyers, violist Melissa Stucky and cellist Heidi Hoffman. This is part of a special series of bassoon performances featuring Contraband, Lorelei Dowling, Terry Ewell and Arlen Fast. The concert is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the IDRS or call (607) 274-3717.  

Anybody doing anything interesting this summer.  Festivals? 

Want to try your hand at being the front page blogger of S21 for a week? 

by Jerry Bowles
Click Picks, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Steve’s click picks #28

Jerry’s recent semi-dismissal of our good friend Accordion prompts me to share a couple things, less well known than the usual Pauline Oliveros / Guy Klucevsek suspects:

Stefan Hussong (b. 1962 — Germany)

Stefan is one of the top contemporary accordionists working today, playing everything from Bach to the more than 80 new works specifically dedicated to him. His website is here, but the link on his name above is where I want to send you. It’s a recording of a March 2004 Other Minds concert, where Hussong essays wonderful performances of works by Cage, Harada and Höelszky, as well as a little traditional Japanese gagaku.

Aitana Kasulin (Argentina)

I don’t know very much about Aitana, except that she teaches composition at the Catholic University in Buenos Aires, and did some study in Europe with Walter Zimmermann.

I do know that I’ve long enjoyed her piece for bandoneón (the serpentine, button cousin of our keyed accordion, and essential instrument of the Tango), Sobre los pies del azar II, the recording of which you’ll find at the bottom of the page linked above. Ana Belgorodsky puts in the fine (live) performance. Note that the MP3 is a zip file, so you have to unzip or unstuff it after downloading. And be patient; the server is not fast at all. As a bonus, you can visit Aitana’s publisher, Música Al Margen, and in their catalog find the score for this piece as a free download.

by Steve Layton