Last Tuesday, April 16, I trekked to Snyder Hall on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI to see a performance by the Musique 21 ensemble, an immersive ‘Theatre of Music’ Production entitled Drunken Moon. The piece was conceived and created by conductor Kevin Noe and composer Kieren MacMillan, and features the merger of MacMillan’s eponymous monodrama for two voices with an English version of Arnold Schoenberg’s legendary Pierrot Lunaire. Drunken Moon is more than a concert performance, it is a theatrical unfolding where the music and storyline are deeply intertwined and overlap on many occasions. I
Read moreLast Friday, I attended a performance by the Chicago-Based Fifth House Ensemble in Detroit, MI. As I melodramatically declared in my announcement for the concert, this was not a traditional performance, at least for me. The audience sat at cocktail tables, not an auditorium’s seats, there were drinks and snacks, the lights were dimmed, not darkened and anyone could get up at anytime to walk around the space or get a refill on their glass of wine. Culpability for the evening’s laid back and unusual character lay both with Fifth House and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, who brought the
Read moreEarly this week I posted my report on the 2011 Midwest Composers Symposium, wherein I mentioned the fact I had heard a lot of students’ music in a short amount of time. Well, the 30+ works I wrote about Thursday were just the beginning of my new music marathon because Midwest was immediately followed by last Monday’s student composers’ concert at the University of Michigan. That composers’ forum, the year’s second, was refreshingly brief in contrast to the preceding weekend’s protracted program, yet it contained delicious variety and a few personal debuts by composers I was not familiar with. Monday’s
Read moreFor those of you in the area, the highly-lauded chamber ensemble Brave New Works is returning to their old stomping grounds in Ann Arbor for two performances this weekend. The first is at Ann Arbor’s beloved Kerrytown Concert House on Friday November 18, at 8 PM. The program will feature works by Joseph Schwantner, Chen Yi and UM’s own Evan Chambers and Bright Sheng. Tickets are $5 for students, $10-25 general admission The second concert is the following evening (Nov. 19) at 8 PM in the McIntosh theater at the UM School of Music, and features an all-Michigan program of
Read moreAs those of you who regularly read my reports from Ann Arbor know, most of the new music I cover is related to the University of Michigan, usually in the form of a student composer concert, a performance by the resident Contemporary Directions Ensemble or the appearance of a contemporary work or two on a Symphony Band concert. Beyond these highly active groups at the Michigan School of Music, our town is gifted with two wonderful concert presenting organizations who regularly feature contemporary music on their programs: the University Musical Society and the Kerrytown Concert House. Last year I attended
Read moreUp until this last weekend, the true new music season was yet to begin at the University of Michigan. True, fabulous the Symphony Band and members of the performance faculty have already made fabulous presentations of contemporary music (as I’ve written about), but the two groups most dedicated to the work of living composers – the students of the Composition Department and the Contemporary Directions Ensemble – did not start their engines before last Saturday. Although it is gaining momentum at the University of Michigan, the Contemporary Direction Ensemble is one of Ann Arbor’s best kept secrets, thanks in large
Read moreLast Saturday night I saw a concert that paired, more closely than any before, technology with the living composer. The debut performances of the MiND (Music in Neural Dimensions) Ensemble at the University of Michigan this weekend left its audience in awe as the performers used “advanced neurofeedback technology” in conjunction with live electronics to produce an evening of music controlled – literally – by their brain activity. Propelled by its uncharted level of novelty, the concert was a dramatic exploration of music’s relationship with our mind and spirit unified but a spirit of interactivity that extended beyond the neurofeedback
Read moreDespite driving snow and slippery roads, an eager crowd gathered Sunday evening to hear Michigan’s University Philharmonia Orchestra deliver eight world premiere performances of works by student composers. The concert is one of the most highly anticipated of the year and is a culmination not only for the student composers involved but also for the student conductors responsible for bringing their pieces to life. This year was even more special than most because all the pieces on the programs were Masters Degree theses from the 2011 class. This fact made the evening more of a watershed event than usual as
Read moreMonday night, the galleries of the Univeristy of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) were filled with the music of Stephen Harkte, John Harbison and Julia Wolfe thanks to the University of Michigan’s Contemporary Directions Ensemble (CDE) under the direction of its energetic and accomplished conductor Christopher James Lees. UMMA opened its doors to CDE in a collaborative exhibition of the evening’s music and a piece by Swiss artist Mai-Thu Pirret currently on display at the museum. The connection drawn between Mr. Hartke, Mr. Harbison, Ms. Wolfe and Ms. Perret’s output comes from the creators’ influences: extra-musical inspirations for the composers
Read moreOne of the great perks of living in Ann Arbor, Michigan is the University Musical Society (UMS), a community group that, for 132 years, has brought diverse programs of dance, music and theater to this Midwestern cultural center. This year’s schedule has allowed me many new experiences as an audience member – most notably my first dance concerts with the Paul Taylor Dance Company and Sankai Juku – and has given all of us in the area access to many of the world’s most praised musicians, such as Renee Fleming and Wynton Marsalis. This last Saturday saw the most recent
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