Composers Now

Canada, Cello, Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Composers Now, Concert review, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, New York, Orchestral, Premieres, viola, Violin, Women composers

Momenta Festival IX: Ives at 150 and a Quartet at 20

On Thursday evening in New York, Momenta Quartet’s October festival – now nine years running – closed with an assorted program, enthusiastically curated by violist/composer Stephanie Griffin. Griffin is the last founding member still actively performing with the group. Noting that this festival has ever featured the opportunity for each member to have curatorial carte blanche on one night only, Griffin nodded to the overall 2024 theme – Charles Ives at 150 – while admitting that “this is not a thematic program, but rather a joyous collection of pieces that I saw fit to celebrate the genius of Charles Ives

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by Adam Sherkin
Composers Now, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles, Minimalism

An Evening With Philip Glass

A rare Southern California appearance by Philip Glass, one of the founding fathers of minimalism, took place on October 26, 2017 at the Ruth B. Shannon Center for the Performing Arts in Whittier. A sell-out crowd filled the theater for this long-anticipated event. The program opened with a solo piano performance of Mad Rush, an early piece that was originally written for pipe organ. Something of a Glass standard, Mad Rush began with a moderate but even tempo, good phrasing and was played entirely from memory. In the middle of a West Coast tour with the Kronos Quartet – and

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by Paul Muller
Composers, Composers Now, Contemporary Classical, Opinion

Does Size Really Matter?

While I was in Ireland a week ago, I had the honor of speaking to composition students at the Dublin Institute of Technology Conservatory of Music & Theatre. It was a great chance to spend two hours talking about myself… “It’s kind of odd making a powerpoint presentation about yourself,” I opened to absolutely no laughs or even smiles. I guess starting off with a joke didn’t work afterall. It really was an honor though. It was fun to tell my story and how I approach composing. I’m always interested in how others work and (perhaps selfishly) I enjoyed discussing

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by Tim Corpus
Composers Now, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, Interviews, Review

Nick Brooke: Border Towns

Nick Brooke: Border Towns To experience Border Towns is to undo the idea of both. The border is metaphorically ubiquitous—as powerful as it is arbitrary. Towns are more immediate—tactile and moving to the pulse of indeterminate social interaction. Together the words form not an oxymoron but a median. Such is the spirit that moves composer Nick Brooke in this quasi-opera of Americana and stardust. The music’s formula is diaristic, appropriating snippets from songbooks familiar and not so familiar, gunpowder from the popular canon loaded into a rather different cannon and shot across the past century until fleetingly recognizable. Brooke’s intertextual

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by Tyran Grillo
Composers, Composers Now, Contemporary Classical, Interviews, Review

Dobrinka Tabakova: An Architect of Time

When art promises to be revelatory, it may become something to fear. Such is the case of String Paths, the first conspectus of music by Dobrinka Tabakova. Fear, in this sense, is close to awe, for before hearing a single note one knows its details will seep into places to which few others have traveled. Fear, because the trust and intimacy required of such an act is what the composer’s life is all about: she fills staves with glyphs so that anyone with an open heart might encounter their fleeting interpretations and become part of their accretion. Indeed, many factors

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by Tyran Grillo
Brooklyn, Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers Now, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Fairouz, Borromeo, and More

Young composer Mohammed Fairouz is not fooling around. Recently hailed by BBC World News as “one of the most talented composers of his generation,” his music melds Middle-Eastern modes and Western structures. A concert on Thursday evening will center around Fairouz’s compositional output. It is being presented by the Issue Project Room at Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral and will feature pianists Kathleen Supové, Blair McMillen, and Taka Kigawa, mezzo-soprano Blythe Gaissert, soprano Elizabeth Farnum, the Cygnus Ensemble, and the Borromeo String Quartet in their only New York appearance this season. This concert will include the New York premiere of Fairouz’s The Named Angels, a new 28-minute work in four movements. The Borromeo String

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by Jonathan Lakeland
American Music Center, Classical Music, Composers, Composers Now, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Interviews, New York, News, The Business, Twentieth Century Composer

Kaminsky Comments

Updated : 9/6/12 with added thoughts from Laura Kaminsky. Every so often we have a conversation that changes us for the better. Sometimes, we have this type of conversation with our mothers, our fathers, our close friends and allies, our colleagues, or with an artist. Last weekend I had a profound conversation with the latter, an artist named Laura Kaminsky. Laura Kaminsky, composer, is also the artistic director of Symphony Space, the renowned performance venue in New York City. She has received commissions, fellowships, and awards as both a composer and presenter from over twenty organizations including the Koussevitzky Music Foundation

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by Jonathan Lakeland
Classical Music, Composers Now, Contemporary Classical, Contests, Media, Music Events, New York, Online, Opportunities, Radio, Resources, The Business, Twentieth Century Composer, Websites, Women composers

Lend Your Voice to Q2 Music

Sometimes, classical music gets a bad rap. To be perfectly honest, there is a chunk of the population that finds it to be synonymous with any number of derogatory terms: boring, annoying, or pompous.  Some classical music lovers and advocates will counter this popular belief with arguments that only go to further the opinion of the other side: “Some people want to listen to mindless music”, “Some people simply don’t have patience”, etc. These ridiculous arguments only go to further the stereotype that classical music lovers are all pompous windbags who believe themselves to be uniquely educated and informed. How,

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by Jonathan Lakeland
Classical Music, Commissions, Composers, Composers Now, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, New York

“Spring for Music” at Carnegie Hall – The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra

  On Tuesday evening in New York City, Edmonton is taking Carnegie Hall by storm. The “Spring for Music” series, a yearly Carnegie event, is an opportunity for symphony orchestras around North America to come and present their work in New York City- an opportunity that would not necessarily be possible for some of these orchestras if “Spring for Music” did not exist. This Tuesday will see the Carnegie debut of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, an up-and-coming star in the symphonic world. The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra is celebrating its 60-year anniversary this year. An integral and beloved part of the

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by Jonathan Lakeland