On Sunday, November 3, 2019 the Pasadena Conservatory of Music presented a concert of piano music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Crumb. The occasion marked the observance Crumb’s 90th birthday on October 24. No fewer than three soloists were on hand in the Barrett Recital Hall to perform piano works by Crumb from the early 1970s and 1980. The concert was dedicated to the memory the composer’s daughter, actress and singer Ann Crumb, who had died just a few days before. A Little Suite for Christmas, A.D. 1979 opened the program, performed by Susan Svrček of the Conservatory faculty. This
Read moreOn Sunday night, October 20, 2019 Equal Sound presented a double album CD release concert featuring experimental performer/composer Sarah Belle Reid and Berlin-based thereminist extraordinary Carolina Eyck. The Civic Center Studios in downtown Los Angeles was the venue, and included a potent surround sound system, a balcony and ample room for the hundred or so new music concert goers in attendance. The first set of the evening was by Sarah Belle Reid. According to the program notes, she is a “Canadian performer-composer, specializing in trumpet and electronics, modular synthesis, and alternate forms of graphical notation for composition and improvisation.” Ms.
Read moreOn September 6, 2019 People Inside Electronics presented Aperplicity, a concert of performance art and music performed by two Los Angeles-based duos. Aperture Duo with Adrianne Pope, violin and Linnea Powell, viola, joined forces with Autoduplicity, Rachel Beetz, flute and Jennifer Bewerse, cello, to present five pieces, including a world premiere. The spacious Throop Unitarian Church Hall in Pasadena filled up with a fine new music audience on a warm Friday night. Time With People, Op. 1 (2013) by Tim Parkinson began the program with two performers sitting at a table holding a few snacks and cans of soda. This
Read moreOn Saturday, August 10, 2019 wasteLAnd presented its first Summer Academy for Composition Concert at Art Share in downtown Los Angeles. The work of eight emerging composers was performed at this event with each having participated in an intensive course of study in contemporary music during the previous week. Their pieces were work-shopped with the musicians of the wasteLAnd ensemble and reviewed by the Academy faculty of Michelle Lou, Michael Pisaro, and Brian Griffeath-Loeb. A fine crowd filled the Art Share performance hall on a warm Los Angeles summer evening in the lively downtown Los Angeles Arts District. The first
Read moreThe 15th annual Dog Star Orchestra series of concerts concluded with Civil Twilight, held at the CalArts Wild Beast and environs, presenting four pieces of experimental music. Three of the pieces were heard outdoors in the mild evening air, on this the second day of summer. Two of the pieces were keyed to local astronomical events – the setting of the sun and the positions of the stars occurring at exactly 8:00 PM on June 22, 2019. The entire concert was devoted to music that was both understated and sophisticated, inviting the audience to listen closely and carefully. The first
Read moreOn June 14, 2019 the Southland Ensemble presented Land Images, an evening of experimental music at Automata Arts in Chinatown. The concert was part of the 15th annual Dog Star Orchestra series, presenting a dozen different new music concerts at various locations around Los Angeles through June 22. A full house packed the cozy spaces of Automata anticipating works by Christian Wolff as well as pieces by three contemporary composers. The first piece on the program was Groundspace or Large Groundspace, by Christian Wolff and was performed outside Automata in Chung King Court. About a dozen performers carrying various instruments
Read moreThe 2019 Ojai Music Festival began on June 6 and packed in a wide variety of styles and vintages of new music over four days and three nights. Everything from Haydn and Stravinsky to Catherine Lamb was on the program, along with films, pre-concert talks, picnics and special events that filled up every day from dawn to midnight. Barbara Hannigan served as the 2019 Music Director and this festival marked the final year for long-time Artistic Director Thomas W. Morris. On Friday, June 7, the early morning concert featured the JACK Quartet performing pieces by Clara Iannottta and Tyshawn Sorey.
Read moreOn Saturday, June 1, 2019 the annual Noon to Midnight new music festival returned to Disney Hall, complete with non-stop concerts, food trucks and a beer garden. Some 28 concerts were scheduled over the twelve hour event, appearing on the main concert hall stage and several other smaller spaces throughout the venue. As John Adams wrote in the program introduction: “There’s hardly a single square foot that is not the site of some musical event, whether it be in the hallways, the anterooms, the rooftop garden or the main hall.” A large, casual crowd gathered in a congenial atmosphere that
Read moreOn May 14, 2019, Tuesdays @ Monk Space presented Incandescent Keyboards, Luminous Percussion, a concert of three important works from the Cold Blue Music record label. The Los Angeles premieres of Celesta by Michael Jon Fink, Four Thousand Holes by John Luther Adams and the world premiere of Pacific Coast Highway by Daniel Lentz were on the program. The cozy confines of Koreatown’s Monk Space filled with the agreeable sounds of music created by some of the best composers that the West Coast has yet produced. First up was Celesta (2018), by Michael Jon Fink. This was performed by the
Read moreThe latest installment of the Soundwaves Concert Series was heard in the Martin Luther King, Jr. auditorium at the main branch of the public library in Santa Monica on Wednesday, April 17, 2019. Flutist Nicole Mitchell, a regular winner of the Downbeat Critic’s Poll, and sound artist Alex Lough were on hand for an evening of improvisation featuring several flutes and an impressive array of electronic circuitry. Ms. Mitchell came equipped with two flutes, a piccolo and a microphone with some distortion and looping capabilities. Across the stage, Lough presided over two tables covered with circuit boards, control panels, patch
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