Calendar

Brazilian Composer, Performer, Writer & Educator Pedro de Alcantara

presents

“Songs & Soundscapes: A Musical Exploration”
(voice, cello, piano, improvisations & compositions)

at

Tenri Cultural Institute of New York
Friday, September 23, 2011 at 7pm

Brazilian native and Parisian resident renaissance man Pedro de Alcantara visits New York this fall to present “Songs & Soundscapes: A Musical Exploration” at Tenri Cultural Institute of New York on Friday, September 23, 2011 at 7pm. This program of original compositions and improvisations explores the frontier between the ordinary and the sacred in music, a place where nothing is as you expect it to be. The voice becomes a trumpet and beacon, the cello becomes a harp and a lute, and the piano becomes a resonating chapel of vibrations and oscillations.

Immediately following the concert, Pedro will be hosting a reception for his latest book, Integrated Practice: Coordination, Rhythm & Sound, published by the Oxford University Press in June, 2011.

Location: Tenri Cultural Institute, 43A West 13th Street between 5th & 6th Avenues in New York

Tickets: $20 available at the door and via Brown Paper Tickets.

Directions to Tenri:
• F, V & L trains to 14th Street & 6th Avenue
• 1, 2, & 3 trains to 14th Street & 7th Avenue
• N, Q, R, W, 4, 5 & 6 trains to 14th Street-Union Square

About Pedro de Alcantara

Pedro de Alcantara has redefined the role of the creative artist for the 21st century, showing that music, literature, teaching, and healing all flow from a single source.

After growing up in São Paulo, Brazil, Pedro studied at the State University of New York’s Purchase College (BFA in Music, 1981) and the Yale School of Music (MM in Music Performance, 1983). In 1986, while living in London, Pedro became a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, a problem-solving method based on the idea that good health is a creative act. In 1990 he moved to Paris, where he still lives.

Pedro’s first book, Indirect Procedures: A Musician’s Guide to the Alexander Technique, with a foreword by Sir Colin Davis, was published by the Oxford University Press (OUP) in 1997. Its French version came out in 2000, followed by a German translation in 2002 and a Japanese version in 2009. Also in 1997, the French publisher Editions Dangles published his second book, La Technique Alexander: Principes et Pratique, which he wrote in French (his third language, Portuguese being his mother tongue). Afterwards he rewrote the book in English. Titled The Alexander Technique: A Skill for Life, it was published by the Crowood Press in England in 1999. A translation of A Skill for Life was published in Japan in 2011.

In 2008, Pedro was named the editor of a new book series at the OUP. Titled THE INTEGRATED MUSICIAN, the series highlights the musical philosophy he has developed over the past twenty-five years and will include volumes for string players, singers, pianists, and other musicians. In the fall of 2008, AlumniVentures, a new initiative at the Yale School of Music, awarded Pedro a grant to support the series’ dedicated website. Pedro’s first volume for the series, Integrated Practice: Coordination, Rhythm & Sound was published in the summer of 2011 to wide acclaim.

In the process of preparing Indirect Procedures, Pedro discovered a passion for writing itself. From this passion poured a number of works including poems, short stories, and novels for young readers. Befiddled, his first novel, was published in 2005 by Delacorte Press – an imprint of Random House. It tells the story of 13-year-old violinist Becky Cohen and her struggles against a mean teacher, an overburdened mother, and really bad hair. Delacorte Press published Pedro’s second novel in 2009. Backtracked is a time-travel epic of New York City, in which the vessel of time travel is the city’s subway system. Currently, Pedro is working on The Divine Computer, a new novel for young readers, as well as a manual for writers titled Rhythm & Flow in a Writer’s Career.

Pedro has given seminars and presentations throughout Europe and the US, as well as Australia and New Zealand. His forthcoming visit to Japan will include a class at Nihon University, the country’s largest and most prestigious university. Pedro’s music students include the members of first-rate orchestras like the Orchestre National de Lille, the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and many others. His teaching practice is broad-based and includes writers, artists, dancers, actors, and creative individuals in all fields.

Pedro’s compositions and improvisations highlight the vibrational and metaphysical aspects of music. He is currently preparing a CD of his works, scheduled for release in November, 2011.  More details at:  www.pedrodealcantara.com.

The Los Angeles Percussion Quartet presents an evening concert featuring four award-winning new works by LA-based composers: Jeffrey Holmes, Joseph Pereira, Eric Guinivan, and Sean Heim. Featured among the composition, Heim’s Rupa-Khandha, awarded a 2009 FROMM Music Foundation commission. More information at www.lapercussionquartet.com. 8pm, September 10, Zipper Hall (200 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, 90012). $15 general admission, $10 student

Co-Directors David Claman and Matthew Malsky present The Extensible Toy Piano Festival, an avant-garde haven for connoisseurs and newcomers to this highly theatrical electroacoustic event. The festival features performances and works by Phyllis Chen (of ICE), John McDonald, and Konrad Kaczmarek; compositions by Karlheinz Essl, Atsushi Yoshinaka, Claman, and Malsky; and guest performers Nancy Newman and mezzo-soprano Jessica Bowers. Inspired by a toy piano composition contest at Clark University, Claman and Malsky are taking their treasured playthings (including computers) on the road to create bona fide musical instruments. This is a concert of serious fun: intriguing and irresistible.

The Extensible Toy Piano Festival
Sunday, June 12, 2011 3pm
Bargemusic
Fulton Ferry Landing near the Brooklyn Bridge
Tickets: $25 ($20 Seniors; $15 Students)
Suggested Ages: 3 and up; kids are free!
Please make your reservations by emailing: reserve@bargemusic.org. You will receive an email confirmation.
Cash/Credit Cards accepted at the door.

About the Program

Phyllis Chen
Carousels, for toy piano and music box
Colura, Double Helix and Hallucinate, for toy piano and bowls
Taroko Hypnos, for toy piano and music box
Munin Raven, for music box and electronics

Phyllis Chen

Karlheinz Essl
Whatever Shall Be, toy piano and gadgets

Karlheinz Essl

Konrad Kaczmarek
32 Grains-Toy Piano, toy piano and electronics

Konrad Kaczmarek

David Claman
Piece of Work, laptop

David Claman

John McDonald
Two Formican Lullabies, toy piano, grand piano, and mezzo-soprano
Four Stand-ins, toy piano

John McDonald

Matthew Malsky
heterogeneous, toy piano and electronics

Matthew Malsky

Atsushi Yoshinaka
Bokura no Ayumi, toy piano, Japanese speaker and English speaker

Atsushi Yoshinaka

Jessica Bowers

Nancy Newman

MAY 28, 8 PM
Tenri Cultural Institute
NYC

On Saturday, May 28th at 8PM, TRANSIT presents the latest installment of the DoubleBill Series. This innovative project presents new music from around the world alongside the work of young composers from NYC, giving listeners a wide-raging experience that would otherwise incur jetlag. The program on May 28 focuses on emerging composers from London and New York City.

(London)
Line Telling ***
by Christopher Mayo

Machana ***
by Charlie Piper

fractus duo
by Mark Bowden

(NYC)
Pixelated
by Daniel Wohl

Three Quintets
by Jason Cady

Headless Monkey Attack ***
by Ryan Carter

*** designates a WORLD PREMIERE

TRANSIT DoubleBill: London / NYC
Tenri Cultural Institute
34A W. 13th St NYC
(near 6th Ave)

Tickets available at the door:
$15, 12 for students, seniors

About TRANSIT:

TRANSIT is the fresh face of new music. For too long, musicians have been isolated from each other into narrow categories that have diminishing relevance to a digital society in a quickly globalizing world. Taking their cues from the slapdash diversity of the city around them, the artists of TRANSIT seek to create bridges between and among the various schools and styles of music being written and performed today, while embracing innovative projects that are relevant to contemporary culture. Their goal is not to achieve an international style or to promote a particular “sound.” Rather, they champion experimental music from a wide range of influences with the conviction that the music of today is inherently meaningful to audiences and vital to social progress. Paired with superior artistry, shrewd programming, and radically open ears, this determination keeps TRANSIT firmly rooted at the cutting edge of new music.

TRANSIT was founded by an idealistic bunch of like-minded musicians at the Bang on a Can Summer Institute. Since 2007, the TRANSIT collective has commissioned composers from around the world, and premiered new works in affordable concerts in New York City. In addition to the DoubleBill Series, TRANSIT pursues other projects focusing on new and experimental music, most recently including a three-part event at Galapagos Art Space featuring So Percussion and Tristan Perich, a large-scale multimedia project with Daniel Wohl, and a sound installation residency at Diapason Gallery. TRANSIT has performed in established new music series and venues (MATA Interval Series, Darmstadt at Issue Project Room, Detour at Le Poisson Rouge, CUNY Grad Center residency) as well as in events that bring new music to diverse audiences (March is Music at Pregones Theater in the Bronx, Astoria Music Society Series, ImagineScience Film Festival). Its individual members have performed in the US and abroad with preeminent groups including the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the NOW Ensemble, newspeak (the Harry Partch Ensemble), Orchestra of St. Luke’s, American Composers Orchestra, Anti-Social Music, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, NJ Percussion Ensemble, and Sequitur, among others.<

Flutist Immanuel Davis presents New Classics for the Flute, a diverse, provocative program of new and rarely performed pieces for flute on Monday, April 11, 2011 at 7:30pm at Merkin Concert Hall. New Classics for the Flute features works by Kenji Bunch, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Erwin Schulhoff, Carl Vine and the New York premiere of a piece written especially for Davis and pianist Stephen Gosling by Russian composer Nikolai Kapustin. Cellist Käthe Jarka, bassist Kurt Muroki and violist Daniel Panner complete the evening’s line-up of exceptional musicians.

Merkin Concert Hall is located at 129 West 67th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenues. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased here: www.kaufman-center.org/merkin-concert-hall. Senior tickets are $15 and Student tickets are $10; both are available for purchase at the Box Office or by calling 212-501-3330.

Sunday, April 10th @ 7pm

REDCAT, the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater, Los Angeles, CA

The EAR Unit, Los Angeles’ fearless new music ensemble, performs David Dvorin‘s “As Alice” with live electro-acoustic manipulations of tea cups, saucers, playing cards, clocks, doors, cats, dogs, baby sneezes and children’s voices along with interactive video. In special coordination with REDCAT, the Los Angeles premiere will feature an immersive performance of the twenty-five minute new work by the trio (violin, piano, electronic percussion), which includes specially mixed surround sound, and visuals projected onto 8 foot suspended spheres.

“As Alice” uses Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to reflect upon a series of childhood situations or acts of imaginative play with both aural and visual references. The electro-acoustic score was created solely from recorded sounds chosen because of their association with the Alice story, and include recorded conversations with Dvorin’s six year-old daughter. All of the collected sounds (including voice) were manipulated, processed, and ultimately used as fodder for invented (or imagined) instruments that are performed live by the percussionist in conjunction with the violin and piano.

Dvorin collaborated with Switzerland-based visual designer Ted Davis on the creation of interactive visual elements that are projection mapped onto large spherical objects situated around the performers. The raw visual material consists of both Cecil Hepworth’s age-deteriorated 1903 film of Alice in Wonderland, as well as whimsical illustrations drawn by Dvorin’s young daughter. Similar to the music, these images are also processed, triggered, and controlled by the musicians interactively, and react to their performance.

From the composer:

“I strongly feel that imaginative play is the source of all creativity in our lives. As children we relish the pleasures of pretending to be something we’re not, visiting a fabricated universe, constructing ‘rules’ and situations with which to interact, and ultimately transcending oneself, if just for a moment, in play. I recognize these same thrills when composing music: pretending, fabricating, constructing and hopefully transcending. Perhaps that is why I am still in love with children’s literature, whimsy, and nonsense. We are “as Alice”, exploring the fantastical without asking “why”; in imagination, dreaming and waking have no delineation.”

APRIL 1: Performances by LUKE DUBOIS (Premiere), LUKAS LIGETI (Premiere), STEFANO BASSANESE (U.S. Premiere), NICOLAS COLLINS, MIYA MASAOKA, ELLIOTT SHARP, and PAMELA Z

APRIL 2: STEVE HOROWITZ’s Release Party For Stations of the Breath

APRIL 2 & 3: Installations Of Works by Dan Becker, Anthony Coleman, Fred Frith, Annie Gosfield, Seth Horvitz, Dafna Natalli, Veniero Rizzardi, Frank Rothkamm, Carl Stone, Hans Tammen, and more.

WHITE BOX, 329 Broome St., New York City

Presented by Electronic Music Foundation, The Extended Piano Festival presents a series of concerts and installations highlighting the unique and rarely composed-for Disklavier. A robotic, MIDI controlled, grand piano, the Disklavier allows composers to create works with techniques and dynamics beyond human capabilities and to be presented without a performer. These characteristics make it an instrument challenging for composers and particularly qualified for installed works.

On Friday, April 1 at 8 p.m., Elliott Sharp will curate an evening of old and new works for the Disklavier, displaying the instrument’s wide range of possibilities. The evening will feature:
* Luke DuBois: Equilibrium (Premiere).
* Lukas Ligeti: Premiere
* Stefano Bassanese: Arbelos (U.S. Premiere), performed by Jenny Lin on piano, assisted by Veniero Rizzardi.
* Nicolas Collins: The Talking Cure, for recitation, electronics and Disklavier.
* Miya Masaoka: Balls, an arrangement for Laser Koto, Disklavier and extra large Ping Pong balls.
* Elliott Sharp: Nolnoc for bass clarinet, Disklavier, and electronics.
* Pamela Z’s pf, a structured improvisational work for voice, electronics, disklavier, and ultrasound controller. Pamela Z will also perform a version of Unknown Person (from Baggage Allowance) with an added diskavier interlude.

On Saturday, April 2nd at 8 p.m., Steve Horowitz will celebrate the release of Stations of the Breath: Music for Disklavier (2010) – a disc highlighting the composer’s activities on the Yamaha Disklavier, both in solo performance/composition and in duet settings. Live performers include Dave Eggar on cello, Elliott Sharp on guitar/bass clarinet, and  on percussion. “The moods are straightforward, the ideas are right on the surface, and the execution is well worth experiencing” (Sequenza21).

In addition to the two nights of performances, Sharp and Horowitz will curate a body of installed works for the Disklavier to be presented for audiences to visit at their leisure during daytime hours, on April 2 & 3. These will include pieces by composers Dan Becker, Anthony Coleman, Fred Frith, Annie Gosfield, Seth Horvitz, Dafna Natalli, Veniero Rizzardi, Frank Rothkamm, Carl Stone, Hans Tammen, and more.

WHEN:
April 1-3, 2011
Performances on April 1 and 2 are at 8 p.m.
Gallery hours: Saturday from 12-4 p.m.; Sunday from 12-6 p.m.

TICKETS:
$15/$10 for students/seniors and EMF members.
The installations are free of charge and open to the public.

INFO:

http://www.emfproductions.org/upcomingevents1011/extendedpiano.html

Yamaha Disklavier grand piano provided courtesy of Yamaha Corporation of America.

Mellissa Hughes and Lorna Krier

Brooklyn Heights-based Music at First Series announces its second concert of 2011, featuring sets from “dazzling diva” (Time Out New York) Mellissa Hughes and synthesizer player Lorna Krier.  Mellissa Hughes, accompanied by pianist Timo Andres, will perform works that explore topics such as death, sexuality, and Craigslist, by Jacob Cooper, Corey Dargel, Ted Hearne, Gabriel Kahane, Matt Marks, and Eric Shanfield. Lorna Krier continues to “break down the boundary between new classical and indie rock” (Lukas Ligeti) with Selected Saccharine Songs Without Words featuring special guests Dream Massage (Peter Pearson, Derek Muro, Stephen Griesgraber) and bassist Eleonore Oppenheim. Videographer Jon Williams complements the new wave-meets-minimalism songs with video projections processed in real time.

DETAILS:
WHAT: Must at First Series featuring Mellissa Hughes & Lorna Krier
WHEN: Friday, March 25, 2011, 7:30pm
WHERE: First Presbyterian Church (Brooklyn Heights)
124 Henry St, Brooklyn, NY
2/3 to Clark St.; A/C to High St.; R/4/5 to Borough Hall
ADMISSION: $10
INFO: www.musicatfirstsite.com

MUSIC AT FIRST is a monthly new music series at First Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn Heights. It features a diverse mix of some of New York City’s best new music ensembles, performers, and composers, accessible to a wide audience of both community members and seasoned new music listeners. All concerts begin at 7:30 with a $10 admission.

UPCOMING PERFORMANCES
APR 8 – Janus Trio & Mantra Percussion
MAY 20 – Margaret Lancaster & The Deprivation Choir

Chiara String Quartet by Liz Linder

Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 8pm
Galapagos Art Space
16 Main Street
Brooklyn, New York

The Chiara Quartet has been called “truly breathtaking” by The Washington Post. Their Creator/Curator series commissions composers to write new works as well as curate the concert program. This final installment features Daniel Ott, who has recently written scores for ballet choreographer Benjamin Millepied. Ott’s new string quartet includes Odes to two composers who lost children – Liszt and Mahler – and he’s chosen to pair it with Polish composer Lutoslawski’s aleatoric string quartet.

Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door. Call (718) 222-8500 or visit www.galapagosartspace.com.

Met Opera Musicians: Greg Zuber, Principal Percussion & Patricia Zuber, Flute

Wednesday, March 16, 6:00 p.m.
The Juilliard School, Morse Recital Hall
60 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023

FREE

Program

Greg Zuber, Marimba

Patrica Zuber, Flute* and Alto Flute**

*William Susman: Amores Montuños (2008) Commissioned by Greg Zuber

Charles Wourinen: Marimba Variations (2009) Part of a commissioning consortium

**Alejandro Viñao: Formas del Viento (2008) Written at the behest of a commissioning consortium headed by Greg Zuber

Hsueh-Yung Shen: A Well Grounded Fantasy (2007) WORLD PREMIERE Commissioned by Greg Zuber

Preview Susman: Amores Montuños on Youtube

Preview Viñao: Formes del Viento on Youtube

More information on Greg Zuber

More information on Patricia Zuber