Calendar

Composer Haskell Small’s Scraps will be performed by the Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic, Ulysses S. James, Music Director and Conductor, on Sunday, February 12 – 3:00 PM at Church of the Epiphany, 1317 G Street, NW in Washington, DC and on Sunday, February 19 – 3:00 PM at Bishop Ireton High School, 201 Cambridge Road in Alexandria, Virginia.

Scraps is described by the composer as, “12 very little pieces of blues and jazz,” and is an orchestral transcription of a 2006 work originally for solo piano, written for Dutch pianist Marcel Worms for his multi-national “Blues Project.”

Other works on the February 12 and 19 concerts are Bob Mintzer’s Rhythm of the Americas (featuring the Washington Saxophone Quartet), Cesar Franck’s Symphony in D Minor and Jonathan Blumhofer’s Diversions.

Tickets for these performances are $20 general admission, and can be purchased at http://www.wmpamusic.org/html/performances/phil.html. For more information, call 703-799-8229 or visit http://www.wmpamusic.org/.

Haskell Small’s latest CD is his Lullaby of War and other compositions for the Naxos label – http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.559649. You can see his Lullaby of War and other videos on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/haskellsmall.

For more information about him, visit http://www.haskellsmall.com/,

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) trips the light fantastic at the season’s second “Baroque Conversations” concert, which explores the art of Baroque dance, its links to the court of Louis XIV and its intriguing social and political implications, on Thursday, February 16, 7 pm, at Zipper Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. LACO Principal Keyboard Patricia Mabee, who celebrates 35 years with LACO this season, hosts the evening, featuring renowned baroque guitar John Schneiderman and Baroque dancers/historians Linda Tomko and Jill Chardoff. Also featured are LACO principals Tereza Stanislav, assistant concertmaster; Sarah Thornblade, associate principal violin II; Roland Kato, principal viola; Victoria Miskolczy, associate principal viola; and Armen Ksajikian, associate principal cello. In signature LACO style, the artists share their insights into the music and dances from the stage and invite questions from the audience about the program, which includes Vivaldi’s Trio Sonata in D minor, RV 63, Op. 1, No. 12, “La folia” (“Madness”); Sanz’s Pavanas and Canarios from Instrucción de Musica Sobre la Guitarra Española; Ganspeck’s Overture in A major for Viola d’Amore and Violin; Soler’s Fandango in D minor, S. 146; and selections from Campra’s Les fêtes vénitiennes (“The Venetian Festivals”) and L’Europe galante (“Galant Europe”), as well as from Lully’s Atys and Rameau’s Dardanus. A pre-concert reception, beginning at 6 pm, is free to all ticket holders.

LACO’s “Baroque Conversations” series explores the genesis of orchestral repertoire from early Baroque schools through the pre-classical period.

Tickets ($50) are on sale now and may be purchased online at laco.org, by calling LACO at 213 622 7001, or at the venue box office on the night of the concert, if tickets remain. Student rush tickets ($10), based on availability, may be purchased at the box office the day of the concert.

The regional Premiere of Judith Lang Zaimont’s “Solar Traveller” Concerto for Piano and Wind Orchestra will be presented by the University of Minnesota Wind Ensemble, under the baton of Craig Kirchhoff, on Thursday, February 9 at 7:30 pm at Ted Mann Concert Hall, 2128 4th Street South in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The pianist will be Timothy Lovelace, associate professor of collaborative piano at the University.

Also on the program is composer Gregory Mertl’s “Afterglow of a Kiss” for flute and large chamber ensemble, featuring flutist Immanuel Davis.

This event is a part of Zaimont’s residence at the U of M School of Music, from February 3 through 9, which includes Masterclasses and many other activities.

The composer has written about the Concerto, “Inspired by the vastness, wonder, and beauty of sky and space, the “Solar Traveller” concerto is in three movements: Outward Bound, Nocturne (Lunar), and Ad astra per aspera. We encounter music as desolate and unfamiliar as a lunar landscape—largely expansive, as if in ‘stopped’ time. The name of the third movement, Latin for “To the stars through difficulties,” is reflected in cross-rhythms, chromatic clashes, and a prominent role for the percussion section. Across the three movements  both soloist and the ensemble experience the long-term compressive forces of space flight in  musical terms: The kernel of each movement is a progressively smaller musical interval, closing by movement from a third, to a second, down to pounding unisons in the final movement.”

The Ensemble commissioned the work along with faculty members at The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University, Eastman School of Music, Indiana State University, Louisiana State University, Shepherd University, Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern Mississippi.

The February 9 concert is free and open to the public. For more information, visit https://events.umn.edu/U-of-M-Wind-Ensemble-Performs-Regional-Premiere-of-Judith-Lang-Zaimonts-Sol.htm.

More information about Ms. Zaimont, including sound clips of many of her compositions, is available at http://www.jzaimont.com/.

On the eve of its departure for a 6-day tour of Ireland, Argento will perform a rich program of leading modern composers: France’s Philippe Hurel, Germany’s Enno Poppe, Switzerland’s Heinz Holliger, as well as a world premiere by composer David Fulmer.  Hurel’s reckless ensemble work Figures libres and Poppe’s mini-clarinet concerto Holz share a sense of rhythmic violence, instrumental virtuosity, and spectral harmonies. The works of Holliger, Poppe, and Fulmer are all focused on singular voices, performed respectively by violist Stephanie Griffin, clarinetist Carol McGonnell, and saxophonist Elliot Gattegno. As a compliment to this focus on a singular voice, Argento will also perform Schoenberg’s arrangement of Mahler’s “Songs of a Wayfarer,” sung by New York City Opera’s acclaimed soprano Tharanga Goonetilleke.

For more information, please visit Argento’s website: argentomusic.org.

PROGRAM

Philippe Hurel, Figures libres

Gustav Mahler, arranged by Arnold Schoenberg, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
Featuring Tharanga Goonetilleke, soprano

Enno Poppe, Holz
Featuring Carol McGonnell, clarinet

David Fulmer, Verlöschend, 2011 (world premiere)
Featuring Eliot Gattegno, solo saxophone

Heinz Holliger, Trema
Featuring Stephanie Griffin, viola

ABOUT ARGENTO

Argento is New York’s virtuoso ensemble dedicated to innovative musical performance and discovery of daring artistic paths. Championing cutting-edge contemporary composers, as well as framing classical repertoire in new contexts, Argento inspires the public’s musical inquiry through education, mentorship, technology, and dialogue. The group’s international reputation is the result of its strong history as a chamber ensemble, the technically demanding work it performs across the world, and its commitment to intellectually rigorous interpretation. Argento is the founding curator and principal ensemble at the annual Moving Sounds Festival and Concert Series. Argento has long-term artistic relationships with leading composers including Pierre Boulez, Beat Furrer, Georg Friedrich Haas, Bernhard Lang, and Fabien Lévy, and has recorded music of Tristan Murail, Georg Friedrich Haas, Philippe Hurel, Fred Lerdahl, Katerina Rosenberg, and Alexandre Lunsqui.  For more information about Argento, visit www.argentomusic.org

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

David Fulmer, Verlöschend

Verlöschend is the third part of Fulmer’s On Night cycle for soprano saxophone and ensemble,and is the only movement that is unaccompanied. Lasting only a few minutes, this intimate and quiet movement includes a wide variety of extended techniques for the instrument. Verlöschend was composed for saxophonist Eliot Gattegno.

Heinz Holliger, Trema

In Holliger’s words, this work is“a slowly moving progressive harmony is covered over by a series of constantly trembling tone lattices that are moving irregularly in all directions. These lattices are produced by means of an exactly specified arpeggio and tremolo technique of the bow. The music that penetrates the lattices is very fast moving and many-layered, quasi running simultaneously in various time levels.”

Philippe Hurel, Figures libres (for 8 instruments)

“What I wanted to show in the title,” Hurel writes, “is that certain emblematic figures escape the constraints given at the start: the idea that it is possible for an artist or athlete… to find within the formalized discourse of a network of constraints his own space of freedom.” Hurel’s idiom here is jazzy and rhythmic, yet also intensely spectral.

Enno Poppe, Holz (for 8 instruments)

Holz was originally a solo clarinet piece, but it was then turned into a mini-clarinet concerto, The piano part is actually a keyboard part that has many, many microtones in it. The performance also incorporates tuned gongs.

ABOUT THE FEATURED ARTISTS

Composer David Fulmer is emerging as one of the most unique musicians of his generation. He is the winner of the 14th International Edvard Grieg Competition for Composers, the first American ever to receive this highly acclaimed award. He is also a winner of an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award, a BMI Composer Award, and the Charles Ives Award (Scholarship) from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Praised by The New York Times as a “keen, clear leader,” who has led “tour de force performances,” conductor Michel Galante founded the Argento Chamber Ensemble in 2000, and has since conducted in North America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, leading orchestras and ensembles including the Janáček Philharmonic, the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, the Collegium Musicum Choir and Orchestra, Ensemble Courage of Dresden, the Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, and TACTUS. He earned his DMA in composition from Columbia University in 2010, where he studied with Tristan Murail, and has recently completed commissions for the Kate Weare Dance Company and violinist Viviane Hagner. He is also the orchestra director at the College of New Jersey.

Saxophonist Eliot Gattegno has been hailed by Fanfare Magazine as a “hugely sensitive musician” and by The Boston Globe as “having superior chops backed up by assured musicianship.” He has performed at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Japan’s Aichi Arts Center Concert Hall, and Los Angeles’s Zipper Concert Hall on the Monday Evening Concert Series. Gattegno holds a BM and MM from the New England Conservatory, a DMA from the University of California, San Diego, and was a postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University.

Soprano Tharanga Goonetilleke is a native of Sri Lanka. She graduated with her Artist Diploma for Opera Studies from the Juilliard Opera Center. She received a Master of Music in Voice and Opera from the Juilliard School. She is also an Associate of the Trinity College of Music, London, England. In addition to extensive operatic experience, she is also a performer of oratorio and of contemporary music. She has sung the soprano solo for “The War Requiem,” by Solbong Kim, at the Seoul Arts Center in 2007, as well as “A Garden by the Sea” by the same composer in 2008 in New York. She also performed “In Sweet Music,” by William Schumann, with members of the New Jersey Symphony 2009 and the New York FOCUS! 2010. In the US, she has been judged a winner in both the New York and South Carolina districts at the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions. She is also a winner of the the Palmetto Opera competition in Columbia, SC. At Juilliard, she was awarded the Makiko Narumi Memorial prize.

Canadian violist Stephanie Griffin has performed internationally as a soloist and chamber musician, and as a champion of Indonesian composer Tony Prabowo. Reflecting her wide-ranging musical interests, performances have led her across the globe to Indonesia, Belgium, Estonia, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, and Turkey. Ms. Griffin has recorded for Siam Records, Aeon, Koch International, Arte Nova, Harmolodic, Firehouse 12, and Centaur.

Recently hailed by The Los Angeles Times as “elastic, exacting, stupendous,” clarinetist Carol McGonnell has performed in the inaugural concert of Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall and appeared with Midori in Lincoln Center’s Great Performers Series. She has performed as soloist with the Ulster Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, RTE Concert Orchestra, and Ensemble Modern, Camerata Pacifica, the Zankel Band and the Metropolitan Museum Artists in Concert. She has been broadcast on RTE, Lyric FM, BBC, WQXR and NPR. She has been a participant at the Marlboro Music Festival. She is a founding member of the Argento Chamber Ensemble and is artistic director of Music for Museums, in association with the National Gallery of Ireland and including museums such as the Metropolitan, the Isabella Stewart Gardner and the J.P. Getty.

The Wabass Workshop features four days of intensive bass instruction, led by founder Ranaan Meyer and Assistant Principal Bass of the Philadelphia Orchestra Joseph Conyers. The Wabass Workshop offers a rare, affordable opportunity for bass players to receive personalized, hands-on instruction from some of the best double-bassists in the country.

Music is a universal language, and the faculty at Wabass Workshop will guide you to tell its story in different ways. Gain insight into classical repertoire, jazz techniques, and general performance skills. In a concentrated environment, learn how to improve your personal practice and become your own teacher. Participate in group master classes where constructive critical feedback from everyone is welcome and encouraged.

Take your bass playing to the next level by being part of Wabass Workshop at Curtis this summer. Online registration is available here.

JUNE 18–21, 2012

Morning bass class with Wabass faculty
Lunch break together
Afternoon audited lessons and individual practice
Wabass master class with community participation
Evening concert and/or activities

For more details on the Wabass Workshop, contact wabass.camps@gmail.com.

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ACCOMMODATIONS AND AMENITIES

Experience state-of-the-art acoustics in the classrooms, studios, and practice rooms of newly opened Lenfest Hall. With bright, open community spaces and sound-insulated areas for music-making, Lenfest Hall provides an ideal setting for musicians to play and study.

Summer residents at Lenfest Hall will enjoy the benefits of modern, clean, air-conditioned spaces and meals cooked fresh daily in the new Dining Hall. Have a food allergy, sensitivity, or otherwise restricted diet? With advance notice, meals can be prepared to accommodate your needs.

Visit the Housing & Dining page for details.

FEES AND REGISTRATION

Application Fee: $50
Tuition: $800
Activity Fee: $100
Housing and Dining: $320 ($80/night)

TOTAL: $1,270 ($950 for nonresidential students)

Early registration is due Monday, April 2, 2012. Space permitting, registration will be accepted through Monday, June 4.

It will be anything but music as usual when the electrifying Brooklyn-based ensemble PROJECT Trio joins the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) and guest conductor Jacomo Bairos for the first of LACO’s 2012 Family Concerts series on Sunday, February 26, 2012, 2 pm, at the Alex Theatre in Glendale. PROJECT Trio, with its wildly eclectic mix of jazz, hip-hop and rock sounds and appearances on Nickelodeon and MTV, performs a high-octane twist on Copland’s Appalachian Spring and other original works in its debut as LACO’s Family Concerts artists-in-residence for the next three seasons. Bairos, who enjoys an international career as a conductor and educator, makes his LACO debut with this performance.

PROJECT Trio, with more than 66 million views and 75,000 subscribers on its YouTube channel, has been described as having “the fire and refinement of the finest classical chamber ensembles with the stage presence and energy of rock stars,” and was hailed by Downbeat Magazine as “packed with musicianship, joy and surprise!” Dedicated to engaging today’s younger audiences, PROJECT Trio is comprised of Greg Pattillo, flute, Eric Stephenson, cello, and Peter Seymour, bass, and performs to enthusiastic audiences of all ages in concert halls, among them Carnegie Hall, clubs and classrooms around the world.

LACO Family Concerts, recommended for ages 5 to 105, are designed for children with little or no previous musical experience and include a performance prefaced by creative activities to amuse, enrich and engage them including an “Instrument Petting Zoo,” where youngsters handle and play brass, woodwind and string instruments with the assistance of students from the Pasadena Conservatory of Music; crafts with Kidspace Children’s Museum; dance-circles with the YMCA Glendale; and “create your own box harp” with the Autry Museum of the American West. Two additional LACO Family Concerts this season take place on Sunday, April 1 (“Fool for Dance”) and Sunday, May 6 (“Mozart & Me”).

Subscriptions, including all three concerts, are available at $51 and $30. Tickets for individual concerts are priced at $12 and $20. Both may be purchased online at laco.org or by calling LACO at 213 622 7001. Tickets to individual concerts will also be available at the venue box office on the day of the concert, if tickets remain. Discounted tickets are available by phone for groups of 12 or more.

As part of Symphony Space’s Music of Now, on March 2 Cadillac Moon Ensemble presents an exciting evening of world premieres commissioned by the group. There will be new works by: Lukas Ligeti, Timothy Andres, Ruben Naeff, and Conrad Winslow, along with a CME classic by Shawn Allison recently recorded by the group for their new CD, which will be released later this year. The concert is Friday, March 2, 2012 at 7:30pm at Peter Norton Symphony Space (2537 Broadway at 95th Street, Manhattan). Tickets are: $25; Member $20; Student, Senior $15.

Cadillac Moon Ensemble commissions and premiers many works from talented emerging composers, including seventeen premieres this season. The group’s first full CD, recorded in September, will soon be released on the New Dynamic Records label. CME can also be heard on Innova Records with the music of Zack Browning. Other 2011-2012 season highlights include: a residency at Indiana University Southeast, collaborations with composer collectives Blind Ear Music and Random Access Music, and many new commissions.

Recent commissions include works by Angélica Negrón, David Claman, Amy Beth Kirsten, Zack Browning and Anna Mikhailova. CME has received funding from the American Composers Forum’s Encore Program to perform Shawn Allison’s composition, Towards the Flame. Cadillac Moon Ensemble has performed on Kathleen Supové’s Music With a View series, the Trinity Church Wall Street Concerts at One, the Vox Novus Composer’s Voice series, and at multiple clubs, museums, churches, and universities. The quartet has also collaborated with Ethos Percussion Group, TRANSIT, Sospiro Winds, and Iktus Percussion.

With its unique combination of flute, violin, cello, and percussion, Cadillac Moon Ensemble is dedicated to retaining the intimacy and artistry of traditional chamber music, while expanding its palette of sonic possibilities. The group was formed in 2007 and is focused on commissioning new works and developing integral relationships with emerging composers, inspiring and challenging them to write for this new combination. The group strives to strongly connect with audiences, and communicate new repertoire through varied, diverse programming.

For more information, please see www.cadillacmoonensemble.com.

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The World Premiere of Lawrence Dillon’s Multiplicity will be given by renowned violinist Danielle Belen and five of her students on Sunday, February 5 – 3:00 PM at Thayer Hall of The Colburn School, 200 South Grand Avenue in Los Angeles, California. This will be part of a benefit concert for Center Stage Strings.

The composer writes about the new piece, “Multiplicities abound in our daily lives, countless duplications, each of which we strive to personalize, to distinguish with our personal touch, our page, our device, our moment. The sheer number of individualities at times seems to swallow all distinctions into a burbling mass. But now and again a single voice emerges, is heard and can be celebrated. We are what each of us does; we are what all of us do.”

Others on the February 5 program include cellist Lynn Harrell and radio personality Alan Chapman, who will emcee.

All proceeds to benefit the Scholarship Fund of Center Stage Strings Summer Music Camp (http://www.centerstagestrings.com/). Tickets are $40 general admission and $50 V.I.P. admission, which includes a pre-event reception at 2 pm and V.I.P. seating at the concert. For more information, visit http://www.centerstagestrings.com/newsletters/newsletter_2012-01/newsletter_2012-01.htm.

Visit Lawrence Dillon at http://www.lawrencedillon.com/.

The February 26 Le Salon de Musiques’ program, in the Fifth Floor Banquet room at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, will feature Poulenc Flute Sonata With Piano and Arnold Bax Elegiac Trio for Flute, Harp And Viola and Faure Piano Quartet N.1 In C Minor Opus 15 with Steven Vanhauwaert on Piano, Marcia Dickstein on Harp, Pamela Vliek on Flute, Tereza Stanislav on Violin, Victoria Miskolczy on Viola and John Walz on Cello. The performance is accompanied by Champagne, food by Patina and informal conversation introduced by musicologist Julius Reder Carlson. Tickets are $65 and $45 for students (including concert and refreshments) and are available on line at www.LeSalondeMusiques.com or by calling (310) 498-0257.

By removing the stage, Le Salon de Musiques offers a more personal touch to listeners eager to familiarize themselves with Chamber Music. The goal is to bring together an audience of disparate backgrounds…music lovers who believe that this form of melodic artistry brings out the best in humanity.