Should you find yourself in the vicinity of Potsdam, NY on Tuesday night of this week, I highly recommend to you a concert of four recent works by Crane composer David Heinick, which will be performed by members of the Crane School of Music faculty, beginning at 7:30 p.m. in the Sara M. Snell Music Theater on the SUNY Potsdam campus. Alas, I don’t know Professor Heinick or his music (although I’d like to) but I do know the librettist of one of the three world premieres on the program. “Chiaroscuro,” a setting of four poems from il Dilemma of Orfeo,
Read moreYoung composer Mohammed Fairouz is not fooling around. Recently hailed by BBC World News as “one of the most talented composers of his generation,” his music melds Middle-Eastern modes and Western structures. A concert on Thursday evening will center around Fairouz’s compositional output. It is being presented by the Issue Project Room at Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral and will feature pianists Kathleen Supové, Blair McMillen, and Taka Kigawa, mezzo-soprano Blythe Gaissert, soprano Elizabeth Farnum, the Cygnus Ensemble, and the Borromeo String Quartet in their only New York appearance this season. This concert will include the New York premiere of Fairouz’s The Named Angels, a new 28-minute work in four movements. The Borromeo String
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 moreLong a fixture here at S21 until just a few years ago, composer David Salvage has been busy teaching at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. Back in 2010 he conceived the idea of keeping his compositional chops up by starting an open-ended series of piano pieces, called Albumleaves. At the same time David started a blog as an integral part to showcase them, in which each new piece features not only the score but a recorded performance as well. The series is now pushing 90 pieces (!), and some of them have just come out on a recording on the Navona label. It’s
Read moreThis season (12-13) has many firsts for Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. For their opening concert, Orpheus performs Beethoven’s iconic Fifth Symphony for the first time and, in addition to expanding their traditional repertoire, Orpheus has commissioned a staggering four world premieres this season! (Gabriel Kahane is their composer in residence.) The season begins with the world premiere of Augusta Read Thomas‘s Earth Echoes, a piece commissioned by Orpheus and written to commemorate the death of Gustav Mahler. John Clare spoke to Augusta about the new work. The two discuss Mahler, orchestration and the magic of Carnegie Hall. Listen to their conversation on
Read moreTomorrow, October 5, the highly acclaimed Fifth House Ensemble will be in Detroit, MI performing at the Max M. Fisher Music Center as part of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s ‘Mix @ the Max’ concert series. The event is not a traditional concert. It begins at 6 PM with a cocktail and hors d’oevres hour, which sets the mood for a more informal presentation of the evening’s program and creates an opportunity for concertgoers and the performers to mingle before and after the performance. I got in touch with Fifth House’s flutist, Melissa Snoza, and asked her about the groups experience
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