Exploring the Metropolis, an organization that helps performing artists get workspace, administers a 3-month musicians’ residency for composers based in NYC. Composers who are selected receive three months of free workspace at a cultural or community facility and a $1,000 stipend. This year, the organization is expanding the program to 8 NYC-based composers and four facilities in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. Heading into its third year, the Con Edison Musicians’ Residency: Composition Program serves three constituencies: composers, who get consistent, long-term, private creative space; host cultural facilities, who fill underused space and also present the composer in a public program;
Read moreIt is a dangerous business to write new operas, but equally thrilling to produce them. Bernard Rands’s VINCENT, a work exploring the life and art of Vincent van Gogh, was premiered last Friday April 8 and 9 at the Musical Arts Center of Indiana University in Bloomington. Two other performances are scheduled for next April 15 and 16. The production was a major success for the university’s Jacobs School of Music, offering to the world something for which it is uniquely suited. A major center for musical performance and research, the Jacobs school has an unmatched capability for producing and
Read moreOpera Singer Misha Penton as Klytemnestra (photo by Kerry Beyer) (Houston, TX) Houston based opera singer Misha Penton opens her unique performance space Divergence Vocal Theater this Friday, April 15th. Located at Spring Street Studios, home to many of Houston’s finest visual and mixed media artists. Divergence Vocal Theater will bring together Ms. Penton’s team of singers, musicians, composers, dancers, and lighting and costume designers to present new chamber opera repertoire. Klytemnestra, a collaborative opera dance theater work featuring music by composer Dominick DiOrio, sung text by Misha Penton, spoken text by John Harvey, and choreography by Meg Brooker, is
Read moreI’m looking forward to hearing violinist Miranda Cuckson premiere a new chamber concerto by Jeffrey Mumford tonight at Symphony Space. Cuckson is a tremendous talent. Her recent CDs of music by Ralph Shapey, Donald Martino, and Michael Hersch are required listening for anyone interested in post-tonal chamber music. The concert also includes works by Harold Meltzer, Victoria Bond, and Brian Ferneyhough. Cuckson is joined by the Argento Ensemble; the Da Capo Chamber Players will also perform (details below). Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival Program Monday, April 11, 2011, 7:30 pm; $20/Seniors $15 Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater in Peter Norton
Read moreETHEL, acclaimed as America’s premier postclassical string quartet, will be giving a great show at Le Poisson Rouge tomorrow night. The concert is part of the Meet the Composer’s 3 CITY DASH FESTIVAL, and it features music from composers from San Francisco. Below is an email Q+A with Ralph Farris, ETHEL’s magnificent violist. S21 Q + A w/ ETHEL: ETHEL focuses on the repertoire of the the past four decades. While all of that music is classified as “contemporary,” it is extremely diverse compositionally. Is there any particularly style you prefer personally or as a group and enjoy working on? We
Read moreHello Jerry Bowles, Kyle Bartlett here, I am a composer and also the New Works Administrator for the Opera Company of Philadelphia. I am hoping you may post information about our Composer In Residence search (press release attached). In short form, the selected composer will be given free access to the resources of the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Gotham Chamber Opera, and Music-Theatre Group, for the purposes of learning and experimentation, as well as a salary of $60K per year plus benefits, for three years. For real. The deadline for entries is coming up very quickly: April 22, 5PM Eastern
Read moreTurkish pianist Seda Röder has been around these parts more than a few times; sometimes for her wonderful playing and sometimes for her wonderful podcasts. Now an Associate at Harvard, since coming over to the U.S. in 2007 (after graduating the Mozarteum in Salzburg) Seda has been a bit of a whirlwind when it comes to new music. Not content to take the standard performer’s trajectory, Seda gives almost equal measure to not onlyconcertizing, but also informing and promoting on behalf of the lesser-known — both newer and older — corners of modern classical music. Of course, in one of the corners most dear
Read moreThis past Friday and Saturday gave Ann Arbor new music seekers two compact and powerful concerts: the final concert of the year for the University of Michigan Contemporary Directions Ensemble (CDE) and a series of 8-minute operas created by graduate students in Music Composition and Creative Writing from the University of Michigan. The CDE concert – directed by charismatic conductor Christopher James Lees – was about an hour in length, and packed into that time four vibrant works from Pulitzer Prize winners Leslie Bassett, William Bolcom, Jennifer Higdon and Shulamit Ran. Similarly, it took an hour to see all the
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Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York, Strings, Twentieth Century Composer, Video
Steve Reich turns 75 this coming October, and the celebrations have already begun. Later this month is a concert at Carnegie Hall on April 30th. It features the Kronos Quartet in a new piece commemorating a more sombre anniversary: WTC 9/11. In the lead up to the Carnegie concert, there will likely be countless interviews, features, etc.; but this YouTube video is a terrific five-minute distillation of Reich’s interests, influences, and musical style. I love the segue early on from bebop ii-V-I changes to Steve Reich’s pulsating ostinati. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO_WVD6Dt6E[/youtube]
Read moreSunday was a big day for the brilliant young Slovakian contrabassist Roman Patkoló. First, he played two new works commissioned especially for him by the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation–Duo concertante for Violin and Contrabass by Krzysztof Penderecki and Dyade for violin and contrabass by Wolfgang Rihm–at Avery Fisher Hall with the dazzling Frau Mutter on violin. Then, after the concert, Mutter presented him with the first ever Aida Stucki Award, a new honor for gifted musicians named for her beloved childhood teacher. “Aida is 90 now and we wanted to do something to honor her while she is still around to enjoy it,” Mutter
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