Following up on Alex Ross’ post about the New York Philharmonic’s 2011-’12 season, which mentioned the lack of representation of American composers on the Contact! series and women composers throughout the schedule, we asked Sequenza 21 readers to share their lists of American women composers that the Philharmonic should consider programming (more comments/lists welcome). Here’s my own take. I’ve compiled three chamber orchestra programs for the Contact! concerts and one for the regular subscription series: all consisting entirely of living women composers. One features American music and the other programs have a more diverse array of nationalities. I hasten to
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American Music Center, Composers, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Media, Orchestras, Women composers
Yesterday, Alex Ross wrote a short essay on The Rest is Noise about next season’s offerings at the New York Philharmonic. After discussing several highlights, including Stockhausen’s Gruppen at the Park Avenue Armory, the NYPO’s first presentation of a piece by Philip Glass (!), and a new work by John Corigliano, he pointed out some curious omissions. Ross wrote,”The Contact! series will elicit new works from Alexandre Lunsqui, Yann Robin, and Michael Jarrell. The series has no American music this year, nor is there any music by women in the entire season.” Like Ross, I’m very excited by some of
Read moreThe New York Philharmonic has made significant strides to renew its commitment to contemporary classical music this season. Curated by composer-in-residence Magnus Lindberg and conducted by music director Alan Gilbert, April16th’s Contact! series performance was a compelling program stirringly performed. Sean Shepherd‘s These Particular Circumstances proved a vibrant opener. A bassoonist as well as a composer, he’s a fine orchestrator. Its also clear that, while at Cornell for his DMA, he learned a lot about Lutoslawski from Steven Stucky, as his language incorporates insights from both composers. Shepherd’s music has a wonderful way of making the orchestra shimmer. He took advantage of
Read moreIf you’re on Twitter, you can follow the @NYPhil for live microblogging of today’s Contact! dress rehearsal.
Read moreThe New York Philharmonic presents its next set of performances in the Contact! series next Thursday and Friday (4/16 and 4/17). Here’s a flip-cam video of featured composer Matthias Pintscher discussing rehearsing for the show with baritone Thomas Hampson. Even if the texts are in Hebrew, it still takes chutzpah to instruct Mr. Hampson on nuances of diction!
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