At 7 PM on Monday, December 7, the Armory will debut a newly commissioned performance series that combines the talents of pianist Igor Levit and artist Marina Abramović. In Goldberg, which runs from December 7-19, Levit and Abramović collaborate to transform J.S. Bach’s legendary Goldberg Variations in a presentation that challenges traditional notions of audience engagement, intimacy, and transcendence. As the Armory’s publicist describes, “Igor Levit will perform all 30 of the variations on a platform as it slowly moves into the center of the audience and rotates throughout the piece’s progression. Employing elements of the Abramović Method, the work
Read moreIt’s that time of the year again, my composer friends! …When Marvin Rosen, WPRB’s champion of contemporary composers (far and wide, high and low, in or out, he likes you all!) is preparing his yearly “VIVA 21st CENTURY” 25-hour radio marathon, playing works from — well, you! Send along you recording by the December 5th deadline and you too can be a part of the big show. Full details below: CALL FOR NEW MUSIC RECORDINGS To be presented during the 11th Live Marathon (10th devoted to 21st century music) curated and hosted by Marvin Rosen, host of the award-winning program,
Read moreLast month, I heard the second installment of Anthony De Mare’s Liasons: Re-Imagining Sondheim from the Piano project at Sheen Center. De Mare has commissioned dozens of composers to fashion arrangements of Sondheim songs. The results are as fascinating as they are eclectic. On Thursday at Symphony Space, De Mare completes his live presentations of the commissions with a third concert. Among the featured composers are Steve Reich, David Rakowski, Paul Moravec, and Duncan Sheik. The concluding arrangement is by De Mare himself: “Sunday in the Park – Passages.” Sondheim will be on hand and the ECM recording, a 3-CD
Read moreOn October 30, 2015 WasteLAnd presented Study for Eurydice, a concert at Art Share LA in downtown Los Angeles. A nice Friday night crowd filled the restored industrial performance space for an evening of new music. The first piece, Relay/Replay by Yiheng Yvonne Wu, featured Rachel Beetz on flute. A computer played recorded flute sounds through speakers mounted above the performance area. Relay/Replay began with a brief high-pitched tone from one of the speakers, answered in kind by the flute. A short silence followed and the sequence repeated. A pattern of call and answer continued and the electronic part gradually
Read moreOn Thursday, October 22nd at the new downtown New York venue the Sheen Center, an acoustically generous and attractive performance space, we heard the second of three concerts presenting selections from Anthony de Mare’s ambitious commissioning project Liasons: Reimaginings of Sondheim from the Piano. De Mare has recorded the 36 commissioned pieces for ECM Records, which has released a generously annotated 3 CD set of them. De Mare is an ideal advocate for this music. His touch at the piano is at turns muscular, dexterous, and tender, well able to encompass the many demeanors the commissioned composers adopted
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