Composers

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
Chamber Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, Experimental Music, Improv, Music Events, San Francisco

Outsound New Music Summit kicks off on Sunday

San Francisco’s Mission District, home of so much that is cool, is a natural neighborhood for the arts.  The San Francisco Community Music Center located at 544 Capp Street is the the Bay Area’s oldest community arts organization and San Francisco’s largest provider of low-cost, high quality music education.  In 2008, 2,300 students of all ages, ethnicities and income levels enrolled in Music Center programs and over 16,000 people enjoyed musical performances at no or low cost.

Starting this Sunday, the SFCMC will host the eighth annual Outsound New Music Summit, a festival which for all its success and longevity has somehow stayed the Bay Area’s best-kept secret.  Sunday night’s “Touch the Gear” expo is free and open to the public, featuring 20 individual artists and ensembles and their homemade, customized, and startling instruments and electronic rigs.  All of them will be set up and ready to show you, the audient, how to make music and noise like they do.

Four concert nights follow on the subsequent Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. Artist Q & A sessions at 7:15 p.m. each evening set you up for performances starting at 8:00 p.m., starring:

  • Alicia Mangan & Spirit,  ROVA Saxophone Quartet, and Vinny Golia (solo and with locals in a mixed ensemble) in “Free Improvision/Free Composition”
  • Forms of Things Unknown, Peter Kolovos, Conure, Hans Fjellestad, and Thomas Dimuzio in “Industrial Soundscapes”
  • Jess Rowland & The Dreamland Puppet Theater, Kathleen Quillian & Gilbert Guererro, and Bonfire Madigan in “InterMedia”
  • Natto, Ghost In the House featuring Waterphone inventor Richard Waters, and Left Coast Improv Group in “Deep Listening and Introspection”

Full scheduling details and performer bios can be found in the online schedule. Tickets are available in advance from Brown Paper Tickets, or for $10.00 at the door.

by Polly Moller
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals

Get your Stockhausen on!

And you thought the master was gone?… Nooo no no, not that easy… His foundation and famous summer courses in Kürten continue — even stronger, if that’s possible. Starting today, July 10th, and continuing every day through July 26th, at 8pm there’s a concert featuring Stockhausen’s work (interspersed with course participants, which spiritually is very much the same thing). It’s a crazy insane compendium of S.’s music, spanning decades; there’s just too much to put on the main page, so I’ll list it all after the jump (and why the hell isn’t German Radio or the BBC camped out for this one?? This isn’t a ‘course’; this is more of a WoodStockhausen!). But before that I’ll quote the official press release:

Karlheinz Stockhausen is alive! His after-life is never ending and more comprehensive than ever: The Kürten Stockhausen Courses and Concerts were Stockhausen’s favourite project and have gained even larger dimensions after his death. The stream of students who want to interpret Stockhausen’s inheritance in a new way, and who for that reason pilgrim from all over the world to Stockhausen’s hometown in the “Bergische Land” every summer, is not ebbing – on the contrary. The same applies to listeners and music lovers. Many of them stay with host families in Kürten. The duration of the concert series has been extended from nine to 17 days. The programme includes electronic sounds, as well as piano, singing, violin, viola, piccolo, basset horn, English horn, tam-tam or percussion. The new version of PROZESSION for computers is brand new. The concerts presented are the highest level and are astoundingly full. And, they are augmented by special lectures: Renowned musicologists speak on Stockhausen’s life and work. (more…)

by Steve Layton
Composers, Contemporary Classical, Hilary Hahn, Interviews, New Amsterdam, Violin

Hilary Hahn’s enquiring mind wants to know

Hilary Hahn doesn’t need much introduction; as one of the leading violinists today, many of you have any number of her recordings or have been lucky enough to catch her in concert.

Usually we put our stars up on some pedestal, always with that remove of the stage between us. But Hilary herself has a different idea of what a star should be up to in between wowing folks at those concerts. She happens to love to talk to people, especially other musicians, and is genuinely interested in what makes them tick. And she loves to share what she hears with us, often using her own trusty laptop to record her interviews. As she says: “Through interviewing, I find out things about people which would never come up in casual conversation: how they work, what their creative processes are, how they view their artistic output, what they value in their professions, and so on. To me, those topics are fascinating.”

Hilary was especially interested in doing a whole series of interviews with contemporary composers; since that’s what s21’s all about we thought “why not hook up?” So here’s the deal: each month Hilary will be visiting with a different composer, posting the interview to her YouTube channel.  We’ll let you know as soon as each goes up, give you the first part here and guide you to the place to view the rest. We’re really happy to work with Hilary, and to bring a bit of “real people” to the sometimes too-serious perception of our “art”.

First up, Hilary paid a visit to Judd Greenstein, a composer who’s not only been getting a lot of acclaim for his music, but is also one of the founding forces behind the exciting, young and extremely buzz-worthy New Amsterdam recording label. Hilary and Judd discuss self-presenting, artist-driven labels and the indie classical scene:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm42bhkvTEc[/youtube]

For the rest just head on over to Hilary’s YouTube channel.

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

I’m in a band…

Continuing a theme: earlier this week I mentioned a gig by composer Matt McBane’s “not-quite-neo-alt-rock-chamber-folk-etc” ensemble Build. The pattern continues this Sunday at The Stone in NYC (corner of 2nd street and Ave. C, $10), when two more “NQNARCFE” groups show us what they’ve got (is this the true wave of classical music’s future? — composers and performers each with their own group playing clubs? To try both sides of the pie, since our own side’s filling is getting decidedly skimpy?).

At 10pm Victoire takes the stage: “Brooklyn-based band founded by composer Missy Mazzoli (keyboards and compositions, with Olivia De Prato and Andie Springer, violins, Eileen Mack, clarinet, Lorna Krier, keyboards and Eleonore Oppenheim, double bass) has been dubbed an ‘all-star, all-female quintet’ by Time Out New York. This quirky ensemble combines strings, clarinets, keyboards and lo-fi electronics (including samples of sewing machines and answering machine tapes) to create their ‘minimalist, post-rock bliss’.”  Their EP has been getting a great reception, and chances are good that you’re going to hear about them far into the future.

Opening the night at 8pm, Odeya Nini stamps her own group with a rather different vibe. As Odeya tells me herself, “...my current work is a bit different – I guess its just a piling up of more experiences, mind tumbles and turns. My music could be categorized as indie chamber / electronic / folk — or simple music for folks to focus and indulge in what they might perceive as cohesive or opaque.”

Odeya “received her BFA in vocal performance from the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music where she studied voice with Theo Bleckmann and composition with Kirk Nurock and Gerry Hemingway. Today her work is characterized by skillful experimentation, integrating improvisation, acoustic composition and electro-acoustic sounds to create thought provoking works of art.”

She’ll be working with her own group of sidekicks : Alex Hills (piano), James Ilgenfritz (bass), Jake Wise (clarinet), Katie Young (bassoon), Elena Moon Park (violin) and Curtis Stewart (violin). This is one of Odeya’s last gigs in NYC before she relocates out West for grad school composition study.

by Steve Layton
Composers, Contemporary Classical, Publications, Scores

Carterhead Heaven

S21 friend Peter Mueller passed along the good news that:

The Library of Congress has completed digitization of another batch of the compositional sketches of Elliott Carter.  These are now available on our web site.  This current release consists of the following material:

Pocahontas (18*)
Symphony No.1 (224)
Piano Sonata (20*)
Minotaur (108)
Emblems (192)
Woodwind Quintet (141)
Eight Etudes and a Fantasy (140)
Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello & Harpsichord (51)
Variations for Orchestra (771)
Double Concerto (161*)

For technical reasons, these are not all complete yet.  Numbers in parens indicate page (image) counts; an asterisk indicates digitization is incomplete (more to come in future releases).

There will be either one or two more releases in the near future to complete this project. Comments are welcome.  Please email these directly to me at

ssod@loc.gov

Stephen Soderberg
Senior Specialist for Contemporary Music
Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

by Steve Layton
Competitions, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Opera

Is that a vocal score in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

The 2009 Opera Vista Festival and competition just finished up down here in Houston. Line Tørnhøj of Aarhus, Denmark was voted by the audience as the winner with her opera Anorexia Sacra. Second place went to Camilo Santostefano of Buenos Aries, Argentina, and his opera El Fin de Narciso. Tørnhøj received a check for $1,500 and will have her opera fully staged at the 2010 Opera Vista Festival, while Santostefano received $1,000.

The festival also also featured performances of the two winning operas from the 2007 Vista Competition: Edalat Square by R. Timothy Brady and Soldier Songs by David T. Little.

And before you can even catch your breath, here comes the deadline for submitting that score you’ve been slaving away on night and day: July 5th is the date you need it in for next year’s fest. Obviously the cash prize is not going to let you retire to the Riviera; but it’s a chance for a real staging & performance with excellent musicians, with a good and enthusiastic crowd, and recognition for your next step down that road. Viswa Subbaraman and crew really work their butts off to put this on; kudos for providing so much encouragement to the new, amid all the grand fossilization paraded everywhere else. All the info on the who, what, where and why can be found at Opera Vista’s website. Get cracking! (you, that is, not the voice…)

by Steve Layton