Harry Partch, 1942 is a combination CD and printed hardcover book from MicroFest Records that documents the events leading up to Partch’s pivotal recital in Kilbourn Hall at the Eastman School of Music on November 3, 1942. This proved to be the turning point in Partch’s career, after many years of frustration and hardship pursuing his innovative tuning theory. The CD contains the original recording of the recital and lecture at Kilbourn Hall and includes The Lord is My Shepherd, selections from Seventeen Lyrics by Li Po and the iconic Barstow. The book brings together notes, letters, newspaper accounts and
Read moreWolfgang Rihm Jagden und Formen Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Franck Ollu, conductor BR-Klassik CD Wolfgang Rihm’s hour long orchestra work Jagden und Formen (2008) has its roots in an earlier work, some fifteen minutes long, from 1996, dedicated to Helmut Lachenmann on his sixtieth birthday. The piece ultimately morphed and expanded into the version recorded here. There is precedence for this in postwar Europe, particularly in several of the works of Pierre Boulez, which remained in progress and perpetually expanding throughout his lifetime. In his program note, Rihm says that the piece will henceforth likely remain in its current form.
Read moreInterialcell Aleksandra Gryka Florian Müller, harpsichord; Klangforum Wien, Joseph Kalitzke, conductor Kairos CD Klangforum Wien is undertaking a series of portrait recordings on Kairos of Polish composers. The first solo CD of music by Aleksandra Gyrka (b. 1977), Interialcell, is an impressive introduction to this composer. Consisting of ensemble pieces written from 2003 to 2015, Interialcell provides a sense of the maturation of an already talented composer in her late twenties to work that takes on successively more intricate materials and formal designs in her thirties. Regarding the impetus for her music, Gryka is fairly secretive. The hard
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Bang on a Can, Brooklyn, Chamber Music, Choral Music, Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Festivals, jazz, Music Events, Performers, Premieres
Two years ago, I was editing a 2020 interview with the composer David Lang about the new multi-day festival that Bang on a Can planned for that spring, Long Play, when I realized the significance of the festival title. The year 2020 would be Bang on a Can’s 33rd anniversary. Long Play = LP = 33 rpm. Very clever! Although the festival was delayed for two years, it retains its name. The inaugural Long Play festival takes place on April 29, April 30 and May 1, 2022 at a half-dozen venues in Brooklyn, including BAM, Roulette, Littlefield, the Center for Fiction, Mark Morris
Read moreLiving Earth Show and Danny Clay Music for Hard Times Self-released CD It is fair to say that recent times have been hard on nearly everyone. Living Earth Show decided to create an interdisciplinary project, “Music for Hard Times,” to provide a source of musical comfort. They collaborated on the project with composer and music educator Danny Clay, who created a series of open instrumentation scores to be interpreted by the group and made available for others to play. Music for Hard Times, the CD, provides one possible, and compelling, interpretation of Clay’s work. Bell sonorities, pitched percussion,
Read moreThe Noon to Midnight event at Disney Hall allows you to choose from twenty different performances at various places throughout the venue. It is impossible to see everything over the twelve hours, but here is more about of what I heard. Jacaranda Music took the main concert stage at 2:00 PM to perform The Illusion of Permanence, by Rajna Swaminathan, a world premiere and LA Phil commission. The ensemble arrived, consisting of double bass, cello, viola and violin along with a flute, oboe, trumpet, marimba and piano. The composer played the tabla and provided vocals. All were led by conductor
Read moreJ.S. Bach: St. Matthäus-Passion Pygmalion, Raphaël Pichon Harmonia Mundi 2xCD J.S. Bach: St. John Passion English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir, John Eliot Gardiner, conductor Deutsche Grammophon 2XCD The Bach Passions are a staple of the choral repertoire for Holy Week, and there are a number of fine recordings of them. There’s room for more; two additions to this corpus from 2022 are extraordinary: a St. Matthew Passion recorded by Pygmalion, directed by Raphaël Pichon for HM, and a St. John Passion by one of the great Bach conductors, John Eliot Gardiner, with his house bands the English Baroque
Read moreOn Saturday, April 9, after a pandemic-enforced hiatus of two years, the Noon to Midnight: A Day of New Music event returned to the Disney Concert Hall sponsored by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. This popular open house features local new music groups and performances throughout the Disney Hall venue. It is informal, low cost, and a chance to catch up with musical friends and listen to a variety of new sounds. The LA Phil commissioned a number of pieces and their New Music Group also performed. The many offerings overlap so you can’t hear all of it, but with 12
Read moreOn April 2, 2022 in Salmon Hall at Chapman University, Grammy Award-winning pianist Nadia Shpachenko was the guest artist for a recital of piano music that featured two world premieres. Recent pieces by contemporary composers Ian Dicke, Dana Kaufman, David Sanford, Adam Schoenberg, and Pamela Z were included, centering on a theme inspired by the game of soccer. The final work of the evening was Invasion, by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Lewis Spratlan, performed by an instrumental ensemble and composed in response to the horrific events unfolding in Ukraine, Ms. Shpachenko’s home country. The first piece on the program was Telstar
Read moreHans Abrahamsen Schnee Lapland Chamber Orchestra, John Storgårds, conductor DaCapo This is the second recording of Hans Abrahamsen’s Schnee (‘Snow,’ 2008), an hourlong imaginative ensemble work populated by idiosyncratic canons interspersed with intermezzos. The first, by Ensemble Recherche in 2015, was an excellent document of the piece. That said, this second interpretation is welcome, as it brings out different aspects of Schnee. Recherche’s recording is atmospheric and colorful, while Lapland Chamber Orchestra provides a rhythmically charged and dramatically intense rendition, in vivid sound with a wide dynamic range, and incisive delineation of canonic voices. One needn’t adopt a
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