Calendar

The Chelsea Symphony announces the finale of the orchestra’s seventh season with a performance on Saturday, June 1 at 7 p.m. at Peter Norton Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, New York, NY 10025. The “Americana” themed program will feature works and a performance by acclaimed violinist and composer Mark O’Connor.

The concert will showcase the New York City premiere of O’Connor’s The Improvised Violin Concerto (2010), with the composer as the soloist. The piece, which draws on a wide range of classical, jazz, and folk traditions, is the first concerto to feature an entirely improvised solo part over a through-composed orchestral score. The program will also include O’Connor’s Americana Symphony (Variations on Appalachia Waltz) and Leonard Bernstein’s Three Dance Episodes from On the Town. The concert will be conducted by The Chelsea Symphony’s Artistic Directors, Matthew Aubin and Mark Seto, and the orchestra’s co-founder, Yaniv Segal.

Grammy Award-winning violinist and composer Mark O’Connor has been described by the Los Angeles Times as “one of the most talented and imaginative artists working in music—any music—today.” O’Connor’s vision for a new American classical music takes inspiration from the multitude of musical styles he has studied, from folk fiddling and jazz to the classical tradition. He is the author of the O’Connor Violin Method, a groundbreaking teaching system based entirely on American music.

The Chelsea Symphony, hailed as “a daring orchestral experiment” by Chelsea Now, continues to defy categorization. The young orchestra has recently expanded its reach in NYC with performances at Bargemusic, Fashion Week and Lincoln Center. Founded in November of 2005, it is a vibrant 50-piece orchestra whose members rotate as featured artists: conductors, composers or soloists. The organization aims to be a cultural focus for Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood and to present vibrant concerts of inspiring symphonic music both old and new.

Tickets are available from the Symphony Space box office ($45/$35/$25, with discounts for seniors, students and Symphony Space members).

http://www.symphonyspace.org/event/7876-the-chelsea-symphony-featuring-mark-oconnor

VENUE: Peter Norton Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th Street
Subway: 1, 2, 3 to 96th St. and Broadway; B, C to 96th St. and Central Park West

Judith Shatin’s Doxa, Penelope’s Song (in its viola version) and L’etude du Coeur  will be performed by violist Blake Allen, with pianist Christopher Koelzer on Sunday, May 5 – 9:00 PM at New York University’s Black Box Theatre, 82 Washington Square East in New York, NY. This will be part of Allen’s Modern Feminism recital.

Ms. Shatin writes about the three works, “Doxa (was) commissioned by the late violist and my dear friend Rosemary Glyde. Blake is also performing Penelope’s Song, in the New York premiere of the original version, for amplified viola and electronics made from weaving sounds. I was lucky to be able to record local weaver Jan Russell, and to use digital magic to transform those recordings. Blake will also play L’etude du Coeur, another of Rosemary’s commissions. The latter was inspired by a painting by Degas, called L’etude des Main at the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris many years ago.”

Mr. Allen (http://www.blakeallenmusic.net/) will also be performing music by Ruth Schonthal. For more about the performance, visit http://events.nyu.edu/calendar/.

Shatin’s Woodchuck for SSA chorus and piano, from her Tongue Twisters, will be performed by the Women’s Voices Chorus, Dr. Allan Friedman, Director, on May 5 at 3:00 PM at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church Worship Center, 227 East Rosemary Street in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Read the composer’s notes about the piece, and all three of the Tongue Twisters, at http://judithshatin.com/tongue-twisters/. This Foibles of Fauna concert will feature music about animals from Africa, Argentina, Japan, and Mexico, along with favorites from the European and American traditions, including songs by Allan Friedman. More about the Women’s Voices Chorus at http://womensvoiceschorus.org/.

Tickets are $15 for adults and $5 for students and children. For more information, call 919-923-3869 or visit http://womensvoiceschorus.org/store/.

Ravello Records has reissued Judith Shatin’s acclaimed CD Piping the Earth – http://www.classicsonline.com/catalogue/product.aspx?pid=1434848.  She is currently William R. Kenan Jr. Professor at the University of Virginia, where she founded the Virginia Center for Computer Music. Visit her online at http://www.judithshatin.com.

Composers Concordance Records

presents the CD Release Concert for

‘Samplestra’

the Electro – Acoustic music of Gene Pritsker

Thursday, May 23d, 9:30pm 2012

DROM NYC
85 Avenue A  New York, NY 10009
(212) 777-1157
Tickets: $10 adv and $15 at door - Ticket Purchase Includes the new cd

Composers Concordance Records celebrates its May 2013 release of Gene Pritsker’s new album: ‘Samplestra’, an album of the Electro – Acoustic music .

For more information, contact:

Composers Concordance Records

646 522 9442

composersconcordancerecords@gmail.com

EVENT SITE

DROM: http://www.dromnyc.com/events/2481/gene-pritskers-electro-acoustic-samplestra-release-concert#.UYGLXisjrvE

Tickets: http://www.ticketfly.com/event/268985

FB: https://www.facebook.com/events/198525773604688

http://composersconcordancerecords.com/

http://www.genepritsker.com/

“Samplestra is the name I give to any prerecorded elements in my music. I see it as an orchestra of samples, since I use little fragments of pre existing music or sounds and manipulate them to my own composition. I treat these samples as found objects to write new music with. This CD represents 14 compositions that use Samplestra in combination with solos or small chamber ensembles .”

The concert will feature performances by: Edmundo Ramirez – Viola D’amour, Franz Hackl – trumpet, Michiyo Suzuki – clarinet, Margaret Lancaster – flute,

Cesare Papetti  – percussion, Borislav Strulev – cello, Greg Baker – guitar, Lynn Bechtold – violin, John Clark – horn

You can sample music  from the album and learn more about it here: http://noizepunk.wix.com/samplestra

video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ_X01aOmu4

About Gene Pritsker:

Composer. Gene Pritsker has written over four hundred fifty compositions, including chamber operas, orchestral and chamber works, electro-acoustic music and songs for hip-hop and rock ensembles. All of his compositions employ an eclectic spectrum of styles and are influenced by his studies of various musical cultures.

He is the founder and leader of Sound Liberation; an eclectic hip hop-chamber-jazz-rock-etc. ensemble who have released cd’s on Col-legno, Composers Concordance and  Innova Records. Gene’s music has been performed all over the world at various festivals and by many ensembles and performers, including the Adelaide Symphony, MDR Symphony, The Athens Camarata, Brooklyn and Berlin Philharmonic. He has worked closely with Joe Zawinul and has orchestrated major Hollywood movies.

The New York Times described him as “…audacious…multitalented.” Joseph Pehrson, writing in The Music Connoisseur, described Pritsker as “dissolving the artificial boundaries between high brow, low brow, classical, popular musics and elevates the idea that if it’s done well it is great music, regardless of the style or genre”. Raul d’Gama Rose writes in All About Jazz: “Barring the obvious exceptions, much of 21st century composition appears to be thinning in significance, but this might be about to change. Gene Pritsker is one of a very spare handful of composers effecting this change.”   Evan Burke writes in ICareIf YouListen: “Pritsker seems to look at all music as one genre, in which all other possible styles, sounds and traditions are meant to be used as building blocks and palette colors, combined in various configurations to create a boundless whole. This result is almost always more interesting, and representative of how most new music will be born in the 21st century, as genres and barriers begin to vanish, and as styles begin cross-fertilizing in previously unimagined ways.”

Organizations he is associated with include: Composers’ Concordance,  Composers’ Concordance Records, Absolute Ensemble, The International Street Cannibals and the Austrian Outreach Festival. Gene Pritsker’s music is published by: Falls House Press, Gold Branch Music, Periferia Sheet Music & Calabrese Brothers music  recorded on: Col Legno, Enja, Eutrepe, Wergo, Innova , Composers’ Concordance Records, and Capstone record labels.

2012-2013 highlights:

- Release of the chamber opera ‘William James’s Varieties of Religious Experiences’ on Composers Concordance Records.

- ‘Cloud Atlas Symphony’ premiered and recorded by Kristjan Jarvi and the Leipzig MDR Symphony in Nov. 2012 at the Impuls Festival in Halle. It will be released on Sony Records.

- Producing The Composers Concordance Festival. Five concerts in one week. Gene has a composition on each. Including the inaugural performance of

the Composers Concordance Orchestra (CCO). Premiere of a new violin concerto for Lara St. John and the CCCO with Tom Bo Conducting.

- Release of the the piano concerto ‘Reinventions’  on Sony Records with Simone Dinnerstein and the Absolute Ensemble, K. Jarvi, conductor

- Orchestrated and have original music in the movie ‘Cloud Atlas’ directed by Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski, released world wide on Oct. 26 2012.

- Sound Liberation releases its 4th album ‘Days’ – focusing on r&b and hip-hop.

- Releasing the album ‘Samplestra’ on  Composers Concordance Records, focusing on electro – acoustic compositions

- Premiere of a new violin concerto ‘Incantation’ at the Saint Denis Festival in Paris with Miltos Papastamou and The Absolute Ensemble

- Absolute Ensemble in Bremen, Germany at the BremenMusk Fest 2012. Premiere of the chamber orchestra piece ’40 Changing Orbits’ and a

performance of ‘Incantation’ for violin and chamber orchestra and of ‘Reinventions’ for piano and chamber orchestra as well as performances of various

arrangements of Zappa, Zawinul etc.

- Ensemble KONTRASTE performs movements form the piano concerto  ‘Reinventions’ in Tafelhalle, Nuremberg on New Years Day

- Writing music for the film, ‘Gas’ directed by Baff Akoto starring Nana Mensah

- Producing many concerts with Composers Concordance, Including Concerts at William Paterson University, American Museum of Natural History, the 3rd annual Generations compositions competition  as well as other productions. Gene has a composition on each event.

Saturday June 15, 2013
2:00 – 3:00pm

Exploring the Metropolis presents Con Edison Composer-in-Residence Molly Herron in “Creativity and Play,” a program exploring the relationship between imagination in childhood games and artistic exploration. This kid friendly program at Brooklyn Youth Chorus Academy includes a performance of Herron’s percussion trio, Hardware, which uses instruments found in a hardware store.

Admission is free.

Brooklyn Youth Chorus Academy
179 Pacific Street (Btwn. Court & Clinton)
Brooklyn, NY 11201
(718) 243-9447

To sample some of Herron’s music click here.

BMOP in Concert: Gen OrcXstrated

When: Friday, May 17th @ 8:00pm (free pre-concert talk @ 7:00pm)

Where: Jordan Hall (30 Gainsborough Street), Boston, T: Symphony

Tickets: General $20 – $50/Students $10. To purchase tickets, please call 617.585.1260 or visit http://www.BMOP.org.

The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), the nation’s premier orchestra dedicated exclusively to commissioning, performing, and recording new orchestral music, celebrates Generation X by featuring works by young and emerging composers including: the world premiere of Play (2013) commissioned by BMOP and written by 33-year-old Andrew Norman; the New England premiere of Sea-Blue Circuitry (2011) by 35-year-old Mason Bates; and the New England premiere of Path of Echoes: Symphony No. 1 (2006) by 36-year-old Huang Ruo.        

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s 44th season concludes with a flourish as Alisa Weilerstein, lauded by The New York Times as a “brilliant young American cellist,” performs Shostakovich’s thrilling Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 107, originally composed for legendary cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, on Saturday, May 18, 2013, 8 pm, at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, and Sunday, May 19, 2013, 7 pm, at Royce Hall, UCLA. Music Director Jeffrey Kahane, who conducts the program and has long been committed to championing artists early in their careers, also presents the US premiere of up-and-coming French composer Hugo Gonzalez-Pioli’s The Love of Zero, an intriguing bassoon concerto, featuring LACO Principal Bassoon Kenneth Munday and played with Robert Florey’s avant-garde 1927 short silent film of the same title. Gonzalez-Pioli, whose work adds a touch of Hollywood to the program, is a 2012 graduate of USC’s prestigious Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television program. The program opens with Beethoven’s dramatic Coriolan Overture, Op. 62, and also includes Within Her Arms, “a fragile elegy for fifteen strings” (The New York Times) by Anna Clyne, described as “dazzlingly inventive” (Time Out New York).

Weilerstein, who has attracted attention worldwide for playing that combines a natural virtuosic command and technical precision with impassioned musicianship, was named a MacArthur “Genius” Grant recipient in 2011. The Los Angeles Times praised her “rich lyrical tone,” and the Washington Post applauded a previous performance of the Shostakovich concerto as “magisterial.”

Concert Preludes, pre-concert talks held one hour before curtain and free for ticket holders, provide insights into the music and artists. Composer Hugo Gonzalez-Pioli joins Jeffrey Kahane to discuss The Love of Zero.

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra is considered one of the world’s premier chamber orchestras as well as a leader in presenting wide-ranging repertoire and adventurous commissions. Its 2012-13 season, the Orchestra’s 44th, features a compelling mix of beloved masterpieces and genre-defying premieres from firmly established and notable up-and-coming composers programmed by Jeffrey Kahane, one of the world’s foremost conductors and pianists, who marks his 16th season as LACO’s music director.

Tickets ($25 – $110) 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. Discounted tickets are also available by phone for seniors 65 years of age and older and groups of 12 or more. College students may purchase student rush tickets ($10), based on availability, at the box office the day of the concert.

Pianist/composer Haskell Small will be in concert on Friday, May 4 – 8:00 PM at Westmoreland Congregational Church, 1 Westmoreland Circle in Bethesda , Maryland. This concert is presented by Washington Conservatory of Music as part of their 2012-2013 Piano Plus! series.

Small will perform Mozart’s Sonata in B-flat Major, K333; Gustav Holst’s Toccata; works by Alan Hovhaness – Prospect Hill Sonata, Op. 346, Blue Job Mountain Sonata, Op. 340, Hymn to Mount Chocorua from Mount Chocorua Sonata, Op. 335, Pastoral No. 1; and will premiere his own composition, A Glimpse of Silence.

Admission is pay-as-you-wish. For more information, call 301-320-2770 or visit http://www.washingtonconservatory.org. The Washington Conservatory is a nationally accredited community music school serving the greater Bethesda, MD and Washington, DC area since 1984.

In the next few years, Small will be furthering his fascination with music that is primarily quiet, spacious, and of a mystical nature with a series of concerts in a number of cities that will feature solo and chamber works by himself and other composers. Performances have already been set in Washington, New York, San Francisco, and at Houston’s Rothko Chapel. You can see his videos on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/haskellsmall.

For more information about Haskell Small, visit his website – http://www.haskellsmall.com/

Lower East Side Performing Arts, Inc. presents the music of composer/performer Elodie Lauten as part of the Ideas City Festival, “Essential Elements”, from May 1 to 4 throughout lower Manhattan. Her new Transformations, a work in progress inspired by a quest for sustainability through a balance between the natural elements of life, will be heard at the following multidisciplinary events:

May 1 at 6:00 PM – Opening reception at 154 Smart Clothes Gallery, 154 Stanton Street (near Clinton). Transformations for tape and live electric guitar will be performed by guitarist Jonathan Hirschman. Also, in the gallery, sculptures by Mario Bustamante and Jose Landoni, with a poetry reading by Jeffrey Cyphers Wright.

May 2, 3 and 4 – Excerpts of Transformations, choreographed and performed by the East Village Teen Dance Company will also be presented on May 2 at 6:30 PM at De Colores Garden, 311 East 8^th Street, with sculptures by Kathy Creutzburg, May 3 at 6:30 PM at 11 BC Garden, 626 East 11^th Street, with poetry by Jeffrey Cyphers Wright and May 4 at 3:30 PM at Campos Garden, 628 E. 12 Street, following a panel discussion on sustainability from 1 to3 PM.

Extensive Transformations visual scores and documentation are available from http://www.elodielauten.net. Elodie Lauten is an original post-minimalist who writes piano, electronic, chamber and orchestral music.

Ideas City is a four-day Festival of conferences and workshops, an innovative StreetFest around the Bowery, and more than one hundred independent projects and public events that are forums for exchanging ideas, proposing solutions, and accelerating creativity. This year’s theme is Untapped Capital, with participants focused on resources that are under-recognized or underutilized in our cities. All events are free and open to the public. For more information, visit http://www.ideas-city.org.

Festival sponsors include Art Loisaida Foundation, LESPA, Smart Clothes Gallery, Materials for the Arts, Circular Creation, Lungs, LESPI, the East Village Teen Dance Company, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the New York City Council (Rosie Mendez).

When: May 1 – 3, 8pm

What: New York premier of Ten Freedom Summers

Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR

Cost: $20 / 15

Info: www.roulette.org / 917.267.0368

Brooklyn, NY: Roulette presents the illustrious trumpeter-composer Wadada Leo Smith who will present a complete version of the 5-hour work that stunned the Jazz world last fall: The New York premiere of Ten Freedom Summers, a cycle of compositions about the American civil rights movement.

Ten Freedom Summers is the result of the research and reflection concerning the philosophical, social and political history of the United States of America. Ten Freedom Summers is programmed as three evenings of music, and is composed for Golden Quartet and the Pacifica Coral Reef Ensemble and will feature performances by Golden Quartet, Pacifica Red Coral and Video Artist Jesse Gilbert . On May 3rd, the Flux Quartet will premier The March on Washington D.C., August 28, 1963

Featuring:

Wadada Leo Smith’s Golden Quartet

Wadada Leo Smith, trumpet

Anthony Davis, piano

John Lindberg, bass

Pheeroan aKlaff, drums

Pacifica Red Coral

Mark Menzies, violin

Mona Tian, violin

Andrew Macintosh, viola

Ashley Walters, cello

Alison Bjorkedal, harp

Jesse Gilbert, video artist

Flux Quartet

Tom Chiu, violin

Conrad Harris, violin

Max Mendel, viola

Felix Fan, cello

Wadada Leo Smith

Wadada Leo Smith is a trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist, composer and improviser has been active in creative contemporary music for over forty years. His systemic music language Ankhrasmation is significant in his development as an artist and educator. Born in Leland, Mississippi, Smith’s early musical life began in the high school concert and marching bands. At the age of thirteen, he became involved with the Delta Blues and Improvisation music traditions. He received his formal musical education with his stepfather Alex Wallace, the U.S. Military band program (1963), Sherwood School of Music (1967-69), and Wesleyan University (1975-76).