Composer Ricky Ian Gordon and librettist Mark Campbell have teamed up with director Kevin Newbury and conductor Rob Fisher to create a unique musical view into the people who were affected by the Civil War. Co-commissioned as a commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War by the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond, Texas Performing Arts at the University of Texas at Austin, Virginia Arts Festival and Virginia Opera, “Rappahannock County” [will receive its Richmond*] premiere Tuesday, Sept. 13 at the Modlin Center of the Arts at 7:30 and run for

One might assume that any work receiving its premiere this weekend – especially this Sunday – would have to be somehow related to the 9/11 memorials taking place around the country. One work, however, is being premiered on Sunday simply due to the natural schedule of the festival during which it is to be performed, and has no connection to the memorial whatsoever. The work in question is David Del Tredici’s String Quartet No. 2, set to be given its premiere performance by the Orion String Quartet at 3pm this Sunday at the South Mountain Concert Series in Pittsfield, MA.

Tonight will feature the two winners of the first annual Call-for-Scores that the Nief-Norf Project put together this year as part of the first 10-day Nief-Norf Summer Festival going on down at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. The brainchild of percussionist and Artistic Director Andrew Bliss, the festival presents five concerts that focus on new music for percussion, including works by Cage, Reich, Applebaum, Bresnick, Zorn, and this year’s composer-in-residence, Christopher Adler. In addition to works for percussion by Mario Davidovsky, Stuart Sanders Smith and Alexander Lunsqui, Caroline Mallonee’s North South East West and Steven Snowden’s A Man with

[Apologies for the delay on this posting – laptop illness kept me from completing it till today.] During my week stay in Illinois, I was lucky enough to catch several concerts that proved how strong the new music scene is in Chicago. On Saturday May 28, Ensemble Dal Niente presented a rich and varied concert at the Music Institute of Chicago that featured several new and established works and a wide array of talented performers. Ensemble Dal Niente has been steadily gaining ground as one of several new music ensembles (including ICE and Alarm Will Sound) that has taken the

Not even two years old by students and alumni of Peabody Conservatory, the Figaro Project is one of several new opera companies that have sprouted up around the country, and it presented itself last night not only as an impressive collective of talented performers, but as a strong advocate for newly-written opera. Brought to life in the University of Baltimore’s Performing Arts Theatre (and for the low-low price of “free”!), thirteen singers and a small pit of 1-3 players provided the spark for three one-act operas by local composers Paul Matthews, Douglas Buchanan, and Joshua Bornfield. Each work stood apart

Lee Hoiby, one of the preeminent composers of song and opera in the 20th Century, passed away today at the age of 85. I was lucky enough to host Lee for a two-day residency here at SUNY Fredonia last September, which culminated in a concert of his works by students and faculty with Lee playing piano for every work…including a sing-a-long with the entire audience at the end. To see 20-year-old voice majors lining up after the concert to get his autograph was pretty special, and indicative of how much he meant to so many music lovers around the world.