Orchestra Moderne, a new ensemble founded by conductor Amy Andersson in March, will debut at Carnegie Hall on Saturday, October 7, 2017 at 8pm with a program celebrating the legacy of immigration to America titled The Journey to America: From Repression to Freedom (Part 1). The inaugural program features Peter Boyer’s Grammy-nominated work Ellis Island: The Dream of America, a haunting tribute to historic American immigration features seven actors reading stories chosen from the Ellis Island Oral History Project, accompanied by an emotional orchestral score and projected photos from the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. Also on the program is Overture to
Read moreTuesday, September 19, 2017 saw the first concert of the season at Monk Space, and for this occasion Luciano Berio’s challenging Sequenza series of virtuoso pieces were performed by the top musicians in Los Angeles. The event was also a fund-raiser to support new music at Monk Space with the musicians generously donating their time and talents for this extraordinary concert. A full crowd wedged itself into the cozy spaces of the Koreatown venue to hear, as the poet Edoardo Sanguineti wrote “…the sequence of sequences, which is the music of musics according to Luciano.” Each Sequenza is written for
Read moreBruce Brubaker Le Poisson Rouge September 17, 2017 Sequenza 21 By Christian Carey NEW YORK – Pianist Bruce Brubaker has long been known as one of the best interpreters of Downtown contemporary music around. His is a versatile catalogue of recordings, including excellent CDs of works by John Adams, John Cage, Alvin Curran, William Duckworth, and Meredith Monk. However, despite an increasingly crowded field of pianists exploring the works around the composer’s eightieth birthday, Brubaker’s renditions of Philip Glass have few parallels; the 2015 InFiné recording Glass Piano is required listening. Brubaker’s latest project, a recording titled Codex,
Read moreOn Thursday, September 7, 2017 the Soundwave Concert Series in Santa Monica presented music from Trajectories, the new CD from Michael Vincent Waller released this month on the Recital label. Pianist R. Andrew Lee, in town from Denver, and cellist Seth Parker Woods from Chicago were on hand to perform, having recorded the album in Kansas City last year. A good-sized crowd assembled in the Martin Luther King Auditorium to hear this latest release from the New York-based Waller. by itself (2016), for solo piano, was first up on the program and the album notes by “Blue” Gene Tyranny state
Read moreThere are certain concerts where there is a new piece which is clearly not the main item on the program. Sometimes a visiting orchestra will include a work by a composer from its country; sometimes it seems to be more or less an afterthought; sometimes a more integral part of the program, but still not the most important or central part. The earlier Prom on August 30, presented by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sakari Oramo, began with the first UK performance of Liguria by Andrea Tarrodi, which clearly fell into the first category. Liguria commemorates a visit
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