This Sunday, the Prism Quartet is celebrating 25 years of concertizing and the release of various CDs with a show at Le Poisson Rouge (details below). The show will feature music from their recording catalogue, focusing on their most recent projects. They’ve also shared a sneak peek at their set list, with audio clips below.
The quartet’s latest CD, Antiphony, is a collaboration with New Music from China. It includes works by Wang Guowei, Zhou Long, Lei Lang, Chen Yi, Tan Dun, Ming-Hsiu Yen.
Thus far I’m really enjoying the title work, by Zhou Long. In addition to the saxophones, it features Erhu, Daruan, and percussion in a piece that explores folk resonances and microtones in a finely sculpted modernist-tinged amalgam. Yen’s Chinatown lands on the other side of ‘town,’ stylistically speaking, but is equally fetching. Zesty minimal ostinati are juxtaposed against Sun Li’s vibrant pipa playing. It’s a postmodern audio travelogue that indeed captures its eponymous neighborhood’s energy and diversity. I’m still seeking out scores for the Tan Dun and Chen Yi works; more once I’ve had time to digest them.
25th Anniversary CD Release Concert
Le Poisson Rouge
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Doors open at 6:30 PM, show at 7:30 PM
158 Bleecker Street, New York City
Information and ticketing: 212.505.FISH (3474),
Audio clips previewing their set list for the LPR gig:
Steven Mackey: Jackass from Animal, Vegetable, Mineral Roshanne Etezady: Keen Jacob TV: Jesus is Coming William Albright: Pypes Jacob TV: Pitch Black Lei Liang: YUAN
I think composers should study Chopin’s Op. 59 Mazurkas carefully. There are places in which the harmony blows my mind every time.
What are some other works that you can return to over and over again and still find surprising? Other genres are open for discussion too – film, theatre, art…
Faculty Recital:Â 21st Century Music with Christian Carey
February 7, 2009 at 3 PM
Bristol Chapel,
Westminster Choir College of Rider University
101 Walnut Lane, Princeton NJ 08540
Free admission
Program Notes
The pieces on this program, with the exception of Odds and Ends by Robert Morris (1996), have all been composed in the past ten years. The Morris work has a Princeton connection; it was an eightieth birthday present for composer Milton Babbitt, a longtime professor at Princeton University who still lives a short distance from here.
Michael Fili’sSonnet is part of a group of Shakespeare settings. Originally written for baritone, Mike agreed to ‘tenor-ize’ this one for me to sing at his senior recital. Matthew Samson’sKiss Me is a thoughtful setting with somewhat unorthodox notation. It includes cummings-like performance directions throughout – a continuous dialogue between composer and performers.
Robert Thomas composed three couplets to celebrate two weddings and an anniversary. One of them was a wedding gift for Kay Mitchell and me. The piecesare, appropriately enough, Two-part Inventions.
Jody Redhage is one of a very small number of singing cellists and a fine composer. The group of songs she’s performing today is by a diverse selection of poets – Wyn Cooper, William Carlos Williams, and her sister Jill. Redhage has also commissioned a number of other composers to write for her, calling the results indie art songs. Both Daniel Felsenfeld and I have been fortunate towork with Jody; she’s a talented and dedicated advocate.
Three Settings of Jane Kenyondepicts different moods and themes prevalent in Kenyon’s poetry. Song is a paean to nature and simple pleasures – exuding joy at simply being alive and in love. Otherwise deals with the frailty of human life. Written while Kenyon was battling cancer (to which she ultimately succumbed), it is both beautiful and harrowing. Its logical answer is found in Let Evening Come, a poem embracing impermanence, confident that “God will not leave us comfortless†despite the lengthening shadows of impending night.
Joseph Arndt was a student in the first Musicianship course I taught at Westminster Choir College. After graduating, he commissioned Spiritual Variations for the recital series he runs at Grace Church in Newark, New Jersey. The piece is a short suite, utilizing three early American spirituals as source material: “Brethren, We Have Come to Worship,†“I Am a Poor Wayfarin’ Stranger,†and “What Wondrous Love is This.â€
All three of my Flourishes were written for flutist John McMurtery. Each however, has a different dedicatee. Silver Lion Flourish was written for Leo Feigen to celebrate the silver anniversary of his Leo Records. Butterfly Flourish was written for Pete Gershon on the birth of his daughter Lela. Locrian Flourish was commissioned by the Locrian Chamber Players and is dedicated to their director David MacDonald.
James Romig has written a number of works for McMurtery and pianist Ashlee Mack. Back when they were graduate students at Rutgers, John commissioned Romig to compose Sonnet 2, paying for the commission with, “lunch at Taco Bell, a fresh can of tennis balls, and a 7-11 Slurpee.†McMurtery has performed the piece over 40 times since and provided an analysis of it in his Juilliard DMA dissertation. Thread Sketches was commissioned for the 2001 Pittsburg State University (Kansas) Festival of New Music. The title is borrowed from a fabric artwork by Juliarose Loffredo.Double 4 was written for McMurtery and Mack in 2004. Over the course of the composition the two instrumental lines begin similarly, diverge, and then gradually reunite for a unison coda.
MyBagatelles were written for the Society of Chromatic Art and are dedicated to John McMurtery and Ashlee Mack. There’s one each for solo piano, alto flute, and alto flute/piano duo. They’ve also been performed by the Italian ensemble Dal Suono Sommerso in Rome, Italy and in Sardinia.
Domino is slated to release These New Puritans’ sophomore release, Hidden, on March 2nd.
The band is sharing a teaser MP3, “Orion,” here. The song clearly takes arranging cues from the burgeoning indie classical movement, featuring the New London Children’s Choir, Japanese Taiko drums, chains, roto-toms, etc.
While it is nice to see so many bands incorporating contemporary classical signatures into pop music, one likes it even more when the results as as fetching as those on “Orion.”
For those of you who didn’t see it, Michael Gordon published a must-read article in the NY Times yesterday. Titled “The Accidental Music Lesson,” it chronicles Gordon’s recent visit to Miami Beach for a performance by the New World Symphony of his Gotham Symphony. While there, he visits his high school to give a talk about being a composer, meeting a former instructor and musing on the gifts and lessons he was given by other teachers. Gordon is a class act here, thanking those who provided him formative experiences, even ‘accidental ones,’ with graceful prose and colorful anecdotes.
Laura Burhenn of Georgie James has a new project called the Mynabirds. They’re set to release a debut LP, What we Lose in the Fire we Gain in the Flood, on Saddle Creek on April 27. You can check out a teaser MP3, the sixties inflected pop/soul concoction “Numbers Don’t Lie,” below.
For a while around the turn of the millennium, avant-jazz pianist Matthew Shipp threatened to stop recording. One could understand why: he’s prolific beyond belief, and one could understand that an artist in the ‘out jazz’ realm might be fearful that an overly compendious catalog might be harmful to sales and recouping recording costs. Happily for those of us who wanted MORE from Matthew, he decided not to stay away from the studio, and has continued to record prolifically.
Shipp has also served as the curator of Thirsty Ear’s Blue Series, an imprint that has served to blur the boundaries of free and neo-trad jazz, and of jazz with other stylistic categories: electronica, hip hop, and even contemporary concert music. On his latest release, 4D, he’s continued in this vein. A solo outing, it presents both Shipp originals and standards. He even tackles venerable chestnuts such as “Prelude to a Kiss” and “Autumn Leaves,” as well as the gospel hymn “What a Friend we have in Jesus.”
We don’t have audio from the album that’s cleared for posting yet, but here’s a recent video of Shipp performing solo to whet your appetite for 4D.
I met with composer Lou Karchin today to discuss his opera Romulus. A CD recording of this comic one act work is forthcoming on the Naxos imprint. I’ll be writing up the interview for the liner notes.
Composed in 1990, Romulus is a charming work. But like most contemporary operas, it took a while to find a company willing to produce it. In fact, Karchin waited seventeen years for a complete staging at the Guggenheim as part of its Works and Process series.
When I expressed surprise to Karchin at the length of time between composition and premiere, he replied,”Actually, a number of composers have had to wait seventeen years – or more- to see an opera to the stage.”
Opera composers have to be multi-talented, understanding both music and drama, and willing to multitask. But today, Lou reminded me of something else: they have to be patient too!
from Animal, Vegetable, Mineral
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