Composers

Composers, Electro-Acoustic, Experimental Music, Festivals, Interviews, Performers, San Francisco

Let’s ask Donald Swearingen

SFEMF

The San Francisco Electronic Music Festival (SFEMF) kicks off next week, and several of its original founders will be performing in celebration of the festival’s tenth anniversary.  One of them, Donald Swearingen, will take the stage on Thursday, September 17th along with Maria Chavez, Mark Trayle, and Mason Bates.  The show starts at 8 pm in the Brava Theater, 2781 24th Street, San Francisco. Tickets are available online or at the door.

It’s hard to coax Donald Swearingen away from his many projects, but I did manage to get him to share some background and a few hard-to-find details about his upcoming SFEMF performance.

S21: How has the SFEMF evolved since you helped found it in 1999?

Now in its 10th year, the child has definitely come of age. It’s grown into larger (and progressively more comfortable) venues, and from embracing primarily Bay Area artists, to an impressive roster of local, national, and international talents, both obscure and well-known. All this is a result of the dedication and ongoing efforts of the steering and curatorial committees, whose vision and energy have been the essential ingredients in the success of the festival. I should mention that I personally have not been directly involved in these activities in recent years, serving only to offer a comment here or there. But I’m amazed at the amount of effort (and it indeed takes lots of effort) that goes into the planning and execution from year to year. (more…)

by Polly Moller
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, Film Music, Opera, Premieres, San Francisco

Let’s ask Jack Curtis Dubowsky

Jack Curtis Dubowsky EnsembleSan Francisco-based composer, conductor, writer, educator, and filmmaker Jack Curtis Dubowsky is a very busy man.  This Wednesday night, September 9th at 7:30 p.m., he’ll take the stage along with the Jack Curtis Dubowsky Ensemble in San Francisco’s Meridian Gallery, located at 535 Powell Street, convenient to Powell Street BART.  Next month, he has a new opera premiering. But fortunately, he wasn’t too busy to talk to me.

S21: How does it feel to be leading off the Meridian Gallery’s 11th season of Composers in Performance?

JCD:  It’s an honor to be selected to be a part of the Meridian Gallery’s prestigious Composers in Performance series. Anne Brodzky, the gallery director, is wonderful.  Tom Bickley is a brilliant series curator; the composer/performers he’s invited have been consistently cutting-edge, engaging, and talented.  I also owe thanks to Adria Otte at Meridian who has been very helpful.

Innova, the label of the American Composers Forum, has released Earth Music, a compilation CD of music selected from the first ten years of the series.  This CD has amazing solo performances on it.  It shows the high level of quality and wide variety of music at the series as well as Meridian’s commitment to new music. (more…)

by Polly Moller
Classical Music, Click Picks, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Events, Radio

Radio Radio: all new, all the time

Well, that is if the time happens to be this Tuesday September 08 from 7:00pm EDT, ’till 7:00pm EDT Wednesday September 09, and you pin your ear to Princeton’s WPRB (103.3FM). I’m just reminding you of what Elodie Lauten has already so nicely plugged a little while back on her own blog: that it’s once again time for radio host Marvin Rosen to serve up his annual Classical Discoveries Marathon.

And by “all new”, I don’t mean just the stock & standard 20th-century stuff; this year’s adventure is titled “Viva 21st Century – American Edition” — music by almost 100 composers alive and working in the here and now! It’s safe to say that there’s just about nothing else on the airwaves that can match that achievement, so you’ve got every reason to be there and not be square.

If that’s not enough, on Wednesday September 16th Marvin is hosting an 80th birthday celebration of George Crumb. From 11:00am till 3:00pm Crumb himself will join Marvin, along with Orchestra 2001 conductor James Freeman. And just prior, from 8:30 am until 11am, Marvin’s guest will be composer Derek Bermel.

Tune in and hang on; your crash-course in what’s been happening the last 8.5 years is about to begin! Infinite thanks to Marvin and his commitment to the cause of our new music.

by Steve Layton
Composers, Conferences, Contemporary Classical, Kansas City, Minimalism

Minimalism Conference, Day 4

Charlemagne Palestine at the ConsoleTonight’s performance by Charlemagne Palestine was, in short, one of the most extraordinary musical experiences of my life.  Palestine has developed a technique for playing the organ which involves the use of wooden shims to hold down keys so he can build up drones with many notes and still have his hands free to improvise melodies over top of it.  He starts with an open fifth and builds over the course of a couple hours to a dense roar that uses most of the available power of the instrument.  It was mesmerizing.  In truth, I wasn’t expecting to like it much — I expected it to be long and loud and somewhat interesting but ultimately boring.  I couldn’t have been more wrong, and I urge you that if you ever have an opportunity to hear Palestine play you not miss it for anything.

The rest of the day went well too, but I’m just too exhausted to talk about it at the moment, so I’ll save it for my wrap-up in a day or two.

by Galen H. Brown
Composers

Music for Large Animals (and Smaller People) by Judith Lang Zaimont

Judith Lang Zaimont’s new music/art video, Beasts is now up on YouTube but you can watch it right here by clicking the little pointer thing. The video features paintings and drawings by Gary Zaimont who, I believe, is Judith’s husband, from his Large Animal Series of 2007-08. The videography is by Michael Bregman.

The music is Growler, one movement from Judith’s Symphony for Wind Orchestra in Three Scenes in a performance is by the University of Minnesota Wind Ensemble, directed by Dr. Jerry Luckhardt, from the 2004 World Premiere. Enjoy.

See Judith’s discussion of the piece here. Her comments reflect, I think, some of the ambivalence that composers (and writers and all creative people) have toward the notion of “social media” and the rather casual “borrowing” that goes on on the web. On the one hand, it is copyright infringement and morally and legally wrong (if not very enforceable); on the other hand, it can bring you a new and enthusiastic audience. Somebody should start a discussion of this over on the Forum page which could really use a new topic.

by Jerry Bowles
Chamber Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals

Way up North

The Barracuda is swimming a little farther afield now, so I think it’s safe for all you liberal arty types to venture up… to Alaska!  It’s time once again for the minor miracle that is the CrossSound Festival (28 Aug – 6 Sep). Alaska native, Harvard grad and Asian zither performer extraordinaire Jocelyn Clark is the driving force behind this truly unique yearly series; concerts that not only bring living contemporary music into this far corner, but as well building bridges between Eastern, European and American musics and performers. This is the festival’s 10th year — no mean feat and worth big kudos to all involved.

The 2009 edition goes by the moniker “Refugium” (def: “a small, isolated area that has escaped the extreme changes undergone by the surrounding area“), and Jocelyn and crew have put together a really nice mix:

CrossSound’s 2009 project Refugium demarcates and prepares the ground on which two string ensembles historically separated by geography and culture meet. IIIZ+ (“three zee plus”), a plucked zither ensemble founded by Jocelyn Clark, and UnitedBerlin, a string quartet out of Germany, through interplay of the instruments and traditions of East and West, promise to grow new musical forms on Alaska’s isolated soil, where musicians from around the world are free to try new things. The project features two world premiers, in addition to reprising two earlier CrossSound and UnitedBerlin commissions for reconsideration by Alaskan audiences.

The world premieres are Hwang-Long Pan‘s (b.1945, Taiwan) East—West V for zheng and string quartet, and Stefan Hakenberg‘s (b. 1960, Germany) Moments in Human Life: Perching, Soaking for 2 violins, viola, cello, koto, kayagûm, percussion and zheng. This main concert also includes works by Yunkyung Lee (Korea), Il-Ryun Chung (Germany), Shiaw-Wen Chuang (Taiwan) and Matthew Burtner (Alaska), and will be given twice in Juneau (3 & 4 Sept.) and once in Sitka (5 Sept.)

Prior to this main concert, each of the performer groups will have their own solo concert in Juneau, too: 28 Aug. the wonderful zheng player Lai Yi-Chieh will give a solo recital of both traditional and contemporary works; 29 Aug. the Quartet United Berlin puts on a show featuring music of Terry Riley (Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector), Astor Piazzolla, and George Crumb (Black Angels); 30 Aug. Ensemble IIIZ+ (Jocelyn Clark, kayagûm; Lai Yi-Chieh, zheng, Naoko Kikuchi, koto; Il-Ryun Chung, Korean percussion) essay a number of pieces written for them.

Last but not least, 6 Sept. has Anchorage playing host to “Rebound”, a concert of chamber music, sound, and video art with Jaunelle Celaire (soprano), Morris Palter (percussion), and Matthew Burtner (metasax), featuring all new music by Alaskan/Northwestern composers: Burtner (Anchorage), John Luther Adams (Fairbanks) and Owen Underhill (Vancouver, B.C.).

The website has tons of information on each of the pieces, composers and performers, so take some time to check it all out. And if you can’t be there this year, maybe start planning next year’s little Great North getaway.

by Steve Layton
Composers, Contemporary Classical, Hilary Hahn, Interviews

Hilary and Harold

The Hilary is Hahn, with her monthly installment of a video chat with a composer; the Harold is Meltzer, one of those composers with lots of great awards and commissions (finalist for the Pulitzer this year, no less), whose work always grabs my ear with interesting things unfolding, but whose recorded output is pitifully small! The awards and concerts are wonderful; but the few thousand who’ve had the chance to experience his inventive music could easily be multiplied by some factor of ten, with just a few more good recordings released. Here’s hoping… In the meantime, you can watch all four parts of Hilary’s interview, where Meltzer talks about his own creative process:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ohVzdXvPyQ[/youtube]

by Steve Layton
Chamber Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

A few for the week that will be

Some notable NY concerts worth taking up space for:

wedren & acme

Tuesday, Aug 4th, at Joe’s Pub ( 425 Lafayette Ave., NYC / Tickets: $15 at joespub.org or 212.967.7555) ACME (the American Contemporary Music Ensemble) is teaming up again with vocalist Craig Wedren, to present composer Jefferson Friedman’s genre-bending 3-song set titled On in Love, written for the ensemble and singer/songwriter Wedren (formerly of the band Shudder To Think). ACME and Wedren premiered On in Love in February at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, and you can see video of that performance at Friedman’s own website.  The concert at Joe’s Pub will also include John Cage’s String Quartet in Four Parts (performed by ACME) and his Aria (performed by Wedren). Wedren will also perform a set with his band and ACME strings.

And on Sunday afternoon, Aug 9th ACME‘s back in action at the Isamu Noguchi Museum (9-01 33rd Rd., L.I.C., NY / Info: www.noguchi.org or 718.204.7088 / FREE w/ $10 Museum admission), this time with the premiere of a new string quartet by ACME’s ace composer/violinist Caleb Burhans. You also get selections from J. S. Bach’s Art of the Fugue (arr. for string quartet), Jefferson Friedman’s String Quartet No. 3, and Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in F, Op. 80, so all-in-all a mighty nice deal.

Speaking of nice deals, nothing’s nicer than FREE! Which is just what it’ll cost you to experience the Asphalt Orchestra (Jessica Schmitz, piccolo; Alex Hamlin, Peter Hess and Ken Thomson, saxophones; Shane Endsley and Stephanie Richards, trumpets; Jen Baker and Alan Ferber, trombones; Ken Bentley, sousaphone; Sunny Jain, Nick Jenkins, and Yuri Yamashita, percussion) as they open Lincoln Center Out of Doors Wednesday, August 5. The band will perform the next four nights, Thursday-Sunday, August 6-9. Performances will take place nightly at 7:00 P.M. in different locations across the Lincoln Center campus.

The scrappy group’s debut program spans an amazing range of material, including new commissions by Tyondai Braxton of Battles, Stew and Heidi Rodewald of The Negro Problem and Passing Strange, and celebrated Balkan musician-composer Goran Bregovic, plus music by Björk, jazz legend Charles Mingus, Swedish metal pioneers Meshuggah, and those classic instigator/composers Conlon Nancarrow and Frank Zappa.

For those of you who’d love to slouch off to play at the Hamptons (though has it ever stopped raining enough to think about sea and sand?), yet want to stay moderately ‘culturefied’ while you’re at it, the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival is off and running. In addition to the warhorses, there are two actually quite wonderful contemporary concerts taking place:

Real Quiet will be heard on Aug 6th in a program featuring the US premiere of Pimpin’ by Jacob Ter Veldhuis as well as works by Evan Ziporyn, Chinary Ung and Brett Dean.

Then on Aug 11th , Brooklyn Rider performs “Crosstown” and “Plume” by composer Ljova (Lev Zhurbin) along with works by Philip Glass, Toiva Karki and Komitas Vardapet.

by Steve Layton
Composers, Contemporary Classical

Scelsi’s ghost

Over at La Folia (for all its simplicity still the most interesting online source for contemporary CD reviews), Grant Chu Covell gives an illustrated account of his visit to the great composer Giacinto Scelsi‘s (1905-1988) house in Rome — now the Fondazione Isabella Scelsi.  No, don’t expect to get any images of the famously photo-shy composer; but there are a number of other great pics and observations.

by Steve Layton
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music

SoCal meets SoCar meets Wandelweiser

This Monday night (July 27), 7PM the 701 Center for Contemporary Art in Columbia, South Carolina hosts a concert devoted to a potent movement active on the fringes of (or maybe quietly threading its way all through?) the current classical scene: the Wandelweiser Group.  Described as “the evaluation and integration of silence(s) rather than an ongoing carpet of never-ending sounds,” Wandelweiser was formed in 1992 by Dutch flautist Antoine Beuger and German violinist Burkhard Schlothauer. Their ranks have slowly grown over the years, and include Swiss clarinetist Jürg Frey and pianist Manfred Werder, American guitarist Michael Pisaro and trombonist Craig Shepard, Austrian trombonist Radu Malfatti, and many more. With such a stellar group, and aided by its own publishing operation (Edition Wandelweiser) and its own record label (Wandelweiser Records), quite a following has grown up worldwide.

But it’s rarely heard anywhere near the confines of the traditional concert hall; Wandelweiser music works with extremely delicate, sometimes obsessive, nearly conceptual sound — gestures and patterns seemingly unmoored in expanses of quiet intensity. Even when rigorously calculated, there’s a sense of improvisation; nowadays, since the movement has also attracted many players from the experimental/improv side of the serious music line, that sense is often a reality.

Wandelweiser ideas found their biggest foothold in the U.S. in Southern California, with CalArts as the focus. But now Columbia SC has folds experimental music and performance workshop: Jason Brogan director and guitar; Kieran Daly, performance; Michael Hanf, percussion; Richard Kamerman, electronics; Nathan Koci, horn/accordion; David Linaburg, guitar; Dave Ruder, clarinet; Sam Sfirri, piano; Ron Wiltrout, percussion.

Monday’s concert is titled “Several Silences”, and brings together pieces not only from the South Carolina contingent, but both Europe and Southern California as well: Antoine Beuger – cantor quartets; Jason Brogan – metronomic irregularity; Michael Pisaro – harmony series nos. 11a-d; Sam Sfirri – I gave thanks for evening that brings out the lights; Mark So – this singular tale of the past; Manfred Werder – 2008 (1).

If you’re in the area do try and make it; for $10 you’ll get a window into a whole new world.

by Steve Layton