Ken Ueno appeared with Joan Jeanrenaud at BAM last month. I missed the gig, but was excited to see the YouTube footage. When I met Ken, in the graduate program at Boston University, he hadn’t yet started to sing; he was primarily a guitarist. Although he’s written a wide range of compositions, including Shiroi Ishi, a beautiful choral piece for the Hilliard Ensemble, in recent years he has carved out a distinctive identity as a throat-singer. Combining techniques from multiple traditions as well as some effects and ideas of his own, Ueno is now slugging it out toe to toe
Read moreThe 52nd Annual Grammy Awards are on Sunday night, here’s the list of all the classical music-related categories and nominees, and here are the composition-related categories and nominees. Let’s give a shout-out to the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and to Derek Bermel for their nomination in the category of Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra. I was able to spend some time talking with BMOP Artistic Director Gil Rose (audio here), and BMOP violinist Gabriela Diaz (audio here) about their experiences working with composers and about what music they are excited about… or at least were excited about back in
Read moreAmanda Palmer (photo by Martin Foster) Amanda Palmer is a bona fide rock star. She first made her name as half of The Dresden Dolls, and has since struck out on her own with a solo album called “Who Killed Amanda Palmer.” In June of 2008 she teamed up with the Boston Pops for two nights, and this December they’re doing it again for a New Year’s Eve concert. Amanda has also been pioneering new models of how the rock music industry can work (staying in nearly constant contact with her fans via Twitter plays a key role), and I
Read moreSeda Röder is a Turkish pianist who currently teaches in Boston. Those of you who are interested in electroacoustic music may remember her performance back in April during the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival at the CUNY Graduate Center. If you live near Boston, take a look at her website: she will be playing four concerts in the area between September and the end of the year. Seda has been very active recently, performing and recording works by young Turkish composers including Tolga Yayalar and Hans Tutschku. She believes that most Americans don’t know much about young Turkish composers — I believe
Read moreFirst, a quick introduction and thank you are in order. My name is James Holt and I am a composer living in New York. I started a podcast where I interview musicians specializing in performing contemporary music, and I ask them about their experiences with composers. Simple. I want to thank Sequenza21 for inviting me to come on the site every couple weeks as a recurring feature to tell you about the new episodes. This week is my interview with Evan Ziporyn…I’m sure that he’s someone who needs no introduction to most of the s21 audience, but just in case:
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Boston, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Orchestral, Orchestras, Photographs
Wendy plays Ken’s viola concerto with BMOP! Hear harmonies analyzed from Wendy’s ankle bone! Friday, November 14, 2008 / 8:00pm – 10:00pm Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory 290 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA The amazing violist Wendy Richman plays Ken Ueno’s concerto Talus, with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the incomparable Gil Rose. Here’s the program: Martin Boykan Concerto for Violin and Orchestra / Curtis Macomber, violin Robert Erickson Fantasy for cello and orchestra / Rafael Popper-Keizer, cello Arnold Schoenberg Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra / BMOP Principals Elliott Schwartz Chamber Concerto VI: Mr. Jefferson / Charles Dimmick,
Read moreIn 1973 my mother bought me my first toy piano at Harvey’s Department Store in Nashville. This is not quite the heartwarming tale of a little tyke that it might at first seem to be, since I was at the time a student at New England Conservatory, and she was getting it for me so I could play the Cage Suite for Toy Piano in a concert in Jordan Hall. It turned out that, completely inadvertently (only operating according to her generosity), she had got me the Steinway of toy pianos, a Schoenhut. I’ve continued to play the Cage over
Read moreAchtung! If you read something contrary here previously, consider this an update. The Lily Pad in Cambridge has been closed temporarily to obtain proper codes and licenses; they hope to re-open soon. Therefore, the Earle Brown FOLIO event scheduled for tomorrow night, Oct. 20, by the Callithumpian Consort will be rescheduled on a future date. * * * * * One conclusion that a body might draw from the Callithumpian Consort’s outing last week in Boston is that what some contemporary music needs — and richly deserves — is a near-empty concert hall. No, seriously. Would Earle Brown’s “Sign Sounds”
Read moreThe Callithumpian Consort is at work again at 8:30 pm tomorrow night at NEC’s Jordan Hall in a slightly premature celebration of the 80th anniversary of Earle Brown’s birth (it’s actually December 26). They’ll be playing Brown’s Sign Sounds, a rarely heard masterpiece of open form from that resides somewhere on the frontier between serialism and improvisation. They will perform the piece several times, and have assured us that no two performances will be alike. And they’ll also be continuing their exploration of Alvin Lucier with his Ever Present, for saxophone, flute, piano, and sine waves (which they describe it as “infinitely slow expansion of the music between your
Read moreFrom H.H. Stuckenschmidt, “Arnold Schoenberg: His Life, World and Work,” translated by Humphrey Searle (New York: Schirmer Books, 1977): ” … in 1934 [Schoenberg] answered a query from Dr. Walter E. Koons of the National Broadcasting Corporation [sic] in New York, who wanted a definition for a book which he was planning, of what music meant to Schoenberg. His reply was: ‘Music is a simultaneous and a successiveness of tones and tonal-combinations, which are so organized that its impression on the ear is agreeable, and that its impression on the intelligence is comprehensible, and that these impressions have the power
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