Last weekend, mezzo-soprano Megan Ihnen and violinist Joseph Kneer premiered a new version of “He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven” (2011) on the Federal Hill Parlor Series. They are going to perform the piece again on Saturday in York, Pennsylvania.

Catherine Manoukian with Staatskapelle Weimar, July 2011

Visit Catherine Manoukian’s blog to read about her recent recording session with the Staatskapelle Weimar for her next album, which will feature several pieces by Edward Elgar. See below for an excerpt…

“Stefan [Solyom] and I just completed recording our first CD together and are very pleased with how it went. We did Elgar’s “Salut d’Amour” and “Offertoire” (with Stefan on piano) in studio a couple of weeks ago. Then, a few days ago, we recorded his violin concerto live, in concert, with the Staatskapelle Weimar.

Why did we decide to record in this way? Well, the Elgar concerto is often accused of being “too long” (over 50 minutes) and, consequently, of losing energy and integrity as it goes on. Our view was that the apparent loss of energy stems not from its length (which, when you consider the piano literature, is considerable, but not unheard of), but, rather, from its inherent need for a continual push for momentum. Studio recordings, however, are notoriously problematic in this exact way: the luxury of retakes, overediting, and the absence of an audience’s attention all have a tendency to halt the kind of momentum that’s a given in concert. What we wanted most was to preserve this aspect, so making the recording out of a concert seemed like the most natural solution.”

Read the rest here:  http://www.catherinemanoukian.com/violin/2011/07/05/elgar-recording/

University Symphony Orchestra presents “The Decade of The Great Patriotic War,” in partnership with the Soviet Arts Experience, co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture.

The evening’s program includes Myaskowsky’s Symphony No. 22 in B minor and Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1, featuring acclaimed violinist Elena Urioste.

Mandel Hall – 1131 E. 57th St. Chicago, IL 60637
Donations: $10/$5 Students
Reception to follow

For more information call: 773-702-8069 or go online at: music.uchicago.edu

Season Concert

Presented by the Boston University College of Fine Arts

School of Music Department of Composition and Theory

Saturday, November 20th 2010 at 4:00 p.m.

***NOTE AFTERNOON TIME

Boston University
Concert Hall
855 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215
Suggested donation is $15, $10 for students and seniors, and the event is free to Boston University faculty, staff, and students.

Arnold Schoenberg, Arr. Anton Webern • Kammersymphonie No. 1, Op. 9
Daniel Felsenfeld • Insomnia Redux; 4am (Boston premiere)
Geoffrey Gordon • Flamingo (world premiere)
Shulamit Ran • Inscriptions, for solo violin
George Rochberg • Duo Concertante, for violin and cello

Xanthos Ensemble Performers

Zachary Jay, flute
Alexis Lanz, clarinet
Brenda van der Merwe, violin
Katherine Kayaian, cello
Eunyoung Kim, piano
Jeffrey Means, conductor

In 2008, the Xanthos Ensemble joined in a collaboration at Boston University, presented by the Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Music Department of Composition and Theory. Their concert on November 20th, 2010 will feature the dramatic Kammersymphonie of Arnold Schoenberg, originally written in 1906, but arranged by Webern for piano quintet in 1923. The Xanthos Ensemble’s new composer in residence Geoffrey Gordon’s new work Flamingo will have its world premiere, and Daniel Felsenfeld’s Insomnia Redux; 4am (originally scored for piano solo, now reorchestrated for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano), will receive its Boston premiere, after having received wondrous praise from the New York Times after a recent performance by the Da Capo Chamber Players. Rounding off the program, the performers will present Shulamit Ran’s dynamic solo violin work Inscriptions, and the vivacious Duo Concertante for violin and cello.

Steve Smith of the New York Times has raved about the “virtuoso players” of the Xanthos Ensemble as “copiously skilled and confident” in the face of “undeniably challenging music.” Bruce Hodges of musicweb-international.com recounted their recent New York City performance of Charles Wuorinen’s New York Notes, noting “the ease with which these musicians played this blockbuster was instructive” and “Xanthos seemed to only gain in momentum as the evening progressed.”

Through a combination of internationally recognized repertoire and world premieres of works dedicated to the ensemble, the major focus of the ensemble’s mission is to bring new music to life, written for the ensemble in collaboration with living composers, and to that aim they have premiered dozens of works and have had several newly composed works dedicated to them since the group’s inception in 2005. From 2006 to 2008, they served as Ensemble in Residence at Boston Conservatory.

The Xanthos Ensemble is a non-profit tax exempt 501(c)(3) organization, and all contributions to the organization are fully deductible to the extent allowed by law.

Monday, October 25, 2010 at 8 p.m.

Frederick Loewe Theatre
35 West Fourth Street
New York, NY

This concert is presented by New York University as part of its Distinguished Faculty series.  It is open to the public and admission is free.

The program features the Sonata No. 1 in G Major, Op. 78 by Johannes Brahms, the Sonata for Violin and Piano by Leos Janacek, Four Pieces for Violin and Piano, Op. 7 by Anton Webern and the Sonata No. 9 (“Kreutzer”), Op. 47 by Ludwig van Beethoven.

Stephanie Chase is “one of the violin greats of our era.” — Newhouse Newspapers

“Pianist William Wolfram combined elegance and clarity in his playing, with the virile, propulsive energy and mercurial shifts of mood needed to make this music come to life.” — Jules Langert, San Francisco Classical Voice

For more information about this event, call (212) 998-5424 or visit the NYU calendar at www.events.nyu.edu.  For more information about Stephanie Chase, please visit www.stephaniechase.com.

The program features two large-scale works by John Cage, which find radical new ways to enact musical time through innovative notation models. The first is Cage’s complete Etudes Australes Book I (1975), a work which translates spatial positioning into the approximation of musical time points. The second is the late violin and piano work Two6, (1992), in which the performers operate independantly of each other without a shared metric, striving to remain aperiodic and improvising durations spontaneously. Seemingly at the opposite end of the spectrum is Milton Babbitt’s cello and piano work, Dual (1980), extreme in it’s prescription of rhythmic and dynamic micro-detail, yet paradoxically resulting in an analogous simultaneity of contradictory layers and orientations. The theme of expanded notions of musical time and harmonic process is taken up with recent works by Collide-O-Scope Music co-directors Stephen Gorbos and Chrisopher Bailey, including Bailey’s Abstraction 2 for violin and piano, which explores spontaneous re-ordering of material as a performative device.

The performers on this concert (Nicholas DiEugenio, violin, Christopher Gross, cello, and Augustus Arnone, piano) are culled from New York City’s up-and-coming generation of virtuoso musicians: they’ve appeared in Carnegie’s Weill Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, at BargeMusic, and have performed with groups such as the iO Quartet, the Argento Chamber Ensemble, and the International Contemporary Ensemble.

Program to include:
John Cage: Etudes Australes (1974-75)
Cage: Two6, (1992)
Milton Babbitt: Dual (1980)
Christopher Bailey: Abstraction 2 (1995)
Bailey: Meditation 3 (2006)
Stephen Gorbos: Surely Some Revelation? (2004)

Christ & St. Stephen’s Church
120 West 69th Street (between Broadway and Columbus)
New York, NY 10023

Admission at door: $30, $15 senior/student, requested contribution. Cash or check only.

Krenek: Sonata No. 2 for violin solo (1948)
Kreisler: Caprice Viennois (1910)
Webern: Four Pieces for violin and piano (1910)
Brahms: Sonata for clarinet and piano, Op. 120 in F Minor(1894)
Schubert: Klavierstücke No. 1, D 946 (1828)
Mozart: Sonata in A Major for piano and violin, K305 (1778)

Stephanie Chase, violin
Jon Manasse, clarinet
William Wolfram, piano

Through much of its history, Vienna has served as a music capitol – the Vienna Boys’ Choir dates back to 1498! – and home to many of classical music’s most influential and innovative composers. This concert is a journey through the music of six composers with pivotal ties to this city, starting in the mid-20th century and ending in the 1770’s.

Our listening tour begins with the Sonata No. 2 for Violin Solo, Op. 115 by Ernst Krenek, which he composed shortly after moving to the United States. A student of Franz Shreker – first in Vienna and then in Berlin – Krenek was later influenced by the music of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg, and after about 1933 he composed principally in the 12-tone system.We then travel back a few decades to 1910, where we encounter both the Caprice Viennois by Fritz Kreisler and Four Pieces for violin and piano, Op. 7 by Anton Webern.  Composed a mere sixteen years earlier (1894), the majestic Clarinet Sonata in F Minor, Op. 120 by Johannes Brahms forms the heart of the concert, followed by the mercurial Klavierstücke No. 1 (D 946) by Franz Schubert, which dates from 1828. The journey then ends with the delightful Sonata in A Major, K. 305 for piano and violin, composed in 1778 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

STEPHANIE CHASE played with “elegance, dexterity, rhythmic vitality and great imagination” - Boston Globe

“And there was a heavenly moment when clarinetist JON MANASSE fluttered above the duet like a cherub tumbling in the clouds of a Mannerist painting.”, Milwaukee Journal

“Pianist WILLIAM WOLFRAM combined elegance and clarity in his playing, with the virile, propulsive energy and mercurial shifts of mood needed to make this music come to life.” - San Francisco Classical Voice

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Pre-concert talk at 7:30 p.m. by Styra Avins, included in admission:

“I drink my wine where Beethoven drank his!”: Johannes Brahms in Vienna

Styra Avins is a cellist, musicologist, and the author of Johannes Brahms: Life and Letters (Oxford University Press).

Now in our ninth year, the Music of the Spheres Society is “dedicated to exploring the links between music, philosophy and the sciences” (The New Yorker) through our innovative concerts and and pre-concert talks.

For more information, please visit www.musicofthespheres.org