Author: Steve Layton

CDs, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, Festivals, Lincoln Center, Music Events, New York, Performers

Hitting the Asphalt

In this space just a year ago we told you about Asphalt Orchestra‘s Lincoln Center Out of Doors hit-the-streets, in-you-face debut last summer. Well, what a year they’ve had! In August they performed during lunchtime at Philadelphiaʼs 30th Street Amtrak Station; it’s a testament to the band’s transcendence of genre that The Philadelphia Inquirer named that show one of the 10 Best Classical Performances of 2009, even though it took place in a train station and featured almost no classical music! In late 2009 the band was selected to play the official opening of Lincoln Centerʼs newest space, the David

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by Steve Layton
Bang on a Can, Concerts, Festivals

BOAC Marathon redux at MASS MoCA

North Adams MA’s summer claim to fame, the Bang on a Can summer music fest, has been going great guns the past week, and wraps up Saturday, July 31, with the rural version of BOAC’s Marathon concert spectacle. Kicking off at 4pm, it will include Steve Reich’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet, Arvo Part’s classic Fratres in a version for percussion and string orchestra; Julia Wolfe‘s blazing Fuel for string orchestra, with a film by legendary experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison (Decasia). Plus a new work by Swiss post-jazz master and ECM records mainstay Nik Baertsch, Evan Ziporyn dressing up Balinese music

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by Steve Layton
Band Music, CDs, Classical Music, Composers, Review, Twentieth Century Composer

Bands Apart

[Ed. note — Our long-time contributor Steve Hicken is usually to be found helping out in the CD review section of S21. But a recent shipment of a number of band music CDs prompted Steve to group them together as a larger essay, and we thought it should end up here on the main page.  Recordings discussed in this essay: BARNES: Symphonic Overture; Fantasy Variations on a Theme by Nicolo Paganini; GERSHWIN: Rhapsody in Blue (Hunsberger, arr.); Overture on Themes from Porgy and Bess (Barnes, arr.); REED: Ballade. Raimonds Petrauskis, p; Oskars Petrauskis, a sax; RIGA Professional Symphonic Band/Andris Poga. PPOR-CD002

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by Steve Layton
Broadcast, CDs, Cello, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Interviews, New York, Percussion, Premieres, Radio

Tune in Wednesday for Marvin, Morty and Maya

Heads-up, listeners! WPRB‘s Classical Discoveries host Marvin Rosen has a couple nice treats through the day this Wednesday: Wednesday, July 14, 2010 at 11:00am (EDT) Classical Discoveries Goes Avant-Garde will present the world premiere broadcast of Morton Feldman‘s 21-minute ‘lost work’ Dance Suite [For Merle Marsicano] (1963), recorded by Glenn Freeman, percussion and Debora Petrina, piano-celeste. This is ahead of its September limited-edition release on OgreOgress Records. Originally composed for the dancer and choreographer Merle Marsicano, it was the longest work Feldman had composed to date and provides insight into his upcoming 1964 solo percussion work The King of Denmark.

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by Steve Layton
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals

The Show-Me State puts on a show

Mention of our composer pal Jeremy Podgursky a couple days ago brought this late word (but better late than never, right?): Gary Kass wrote to tell us about the inaugural Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, which starts tomorrow (Monday), July 12th, at the University of Missouri and runs the whole darn week. Quite a lot happening: five big concerts and lots of open rehearsals;  two great guest composers (Martin Bresnick and Derek Bermel); eight resident composers getting world premieres (Francisco Cortés-Álvarez, Christopher Dietz, Paul Dooley, Moon Young Ha, Edie Hill, Amy Beth Kirsten, Jeremy Podgursky, Zhou Juan); stellar ensemble Alarm Will Sound, pianist Lisa

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by Steve Layton
Brooklyn, Chamber Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, New York

Nonsense or Sorcery?%#*!

Jeremy Podgursky — one of the composers we liked so much that he ended being selected for our last S21 concert presentation — is throwing a joint shindig with fellow composer Daniel Wohl, this Thursday July 8th, 7:00pm at the littlefield performance/art space (622 Degraw Street, between 3rd and 4th Avenue, Brooklyn), $8.00. Performers include Sara Budde, clarinet; Emily Popham Gillins, violin; John Popham, cello; Kevin Sims, percussion; Bethany Pietroniro and Timo Andres, piano; and more TBA. Podgursky and Wohl will be splitting the bill alternating their way through nine works in all,  featuring recent small ensemble, electronic/electro-acoustic and solo pieces. Two excellent composers,

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by Steve Layton
Concerts, Contemporary Classical, New York, Songs

After all, who invented fireworks anyway?

Staying in NYC this 4th of July holiday weekend? Then come partake of some musical fireworks and pan-patriotic pride as vocalist extraordinaire Phillip Cheah (his vocal range could well classify him as “soprano/baritone”) and pianist Trudy Chan serve up American Dim Sum – A celebration of the American song. The carts will be full of dishes of American fare: beloved songs by Ned Rorem, Samuel Barber, Dominick Argento, Aaron Copland, Amy Beach, and Jack Beeson, as well as exotic delicasies by John Cage (The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs), Henry Cowell (Three Anti-Modernist Songs, written during his incarceration at San

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by Steve Layton
Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, Improv, New York

Concoct Sonance

Amos Elkana was one of the composers I found/heard/met almost a decade ago on the original grand experiment in social music-sharing, MP3.com. With an obsidian-like hardness, sheen and edge, his compositions grabbed me then and continue to do so now. Born in the U.S. but raised in Israel, then off to Europe and back to the U.S. to study, Amos pulls together strands of all these places, looking for where the roots tangle and grow together. But the other “root” I didn’t know about then was that Amos’ musical interests had started with jazz and guitar. It was only after

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by Steve Layton
Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Ojai

Ojai-oh!

Kicking off in just a matter of hours, this year’s Ojai Music Festival has a schedule sure to make a number of East-Coasties feel they picked the wrong ocean to live by. This year features a multi-part symposium, starting at 3:30pm this (10 June) afternoon with “The 21st Century Musician“. Ara Guzelimian will lead a panel of diverse and creative musicians in exploring questions such as “Where is the music industry heading?” “What are the changing roles of musicians?” “What are the opportunities?” “What are the challenges?”… Panelists will include violinist and 2009 Ojai artist Carla Kihlstedt, LA Chamber Orchestra concertmistress

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by Steve Layton
Contemporary Classical, Mexico, Obits, Performers, Video, viola

Omar Hernández-Hidalgo, 1971-2010

There’s a lot of shock and sadness in the Mexican classical community just now: last week one of the finest violists in Mexico and the world, Omar Hernández-Hidalgo, was found dead in his hometown of Tijuana, four days after apparently being kidnapped. A principal violist by the age of 21, Grammy-nominated twice, the first violist in his country to recieve a PhD. (at Indiana University), praised by Pierre Boulez, Hernández-Hidalgo was a champion of contemporary music, especially the new and vital in his own country. While his technique was commanding and virtuosic, his own personality was warm, modest and endlessly generous. He was

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by Steve Layton