Miller Theatre at Columbia University continues its Composer Portraits series with a 90th birthday celebration for composer Leon Kirchner. The concert will include performances of a recent piece for flutist Paula Robison, the Claremont Trio playing Kirchner’s Trio No. 1, and the 1960 Double Concerto for violin, cello, winds, and percussion. The show starts at 8; there’s a talk onstage with the composer; tickets range from $7-$25.
Read moreI heard the world premiere of Absolute Ocean by Augusta Read Thomas in Houston Thursday night at Jones Hall. 1. Thomas spoke before the concert about her compositional process and specifically about Absolute Ocean. Her talk was engaging, direct and charming; Thomas included showing the audience some of the manuscript score, and explained how 15 seconds of music might take five hours to score by hand! 2. Absolute Ocean is a work for Soprano, Harp and Orchestra in three movements from poetry by ee cummings commissioned by the Houston Symphony. The soloists, soprano Twyla Robinson and harpist Paula Page, performed
Read moreMaybe it’s all that cold, dark and ice; stuck inside with nothing else to do for a lot of days must be conducive to composition. At least it feels that way with regard to Canada, since this huge but relatively sparsely-populated space has what seems a disproportionate number of composers that I just love. And now the Canadian Music Centre has made it awfully easy for YOU to love them as well; at their site you’ll now find a service called CentreStreams, which offers streaming access to the Ann Southam Audio Archive. This comprises a huge number of concert and radio recordings made by
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Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, Electro-Acoustic, Experimental Music, Music Events, New York, Opera
Interpretations continues its twentieth season of provocative programming in New York City. Founded and curated by baritone Thomas Buckner in 1989, Interpretations focuses on the relationship between contemporary composers from both jazz and classical backgrounds and their interpreters, whether the composers themselves or performers who specialize in new music. To celebrate, Jerry Bowles has invited the artists involved in this season’s concerts to blog about their Interpretations experiences. Produced in tandem with La Mama ETC and Performing Artservices, the centerpiece of the series this year is a two-week, three opera, 10 performance, mini-retrospective of the recent works of Robert Ashley:
Read moreA little palette-cleanser to shift our focus away from stimulating discussions of academe – after all, school is only out for a short while – what ‘holiday’ music do you admire? This week, I’ve been listening to Anonymous 4’s Wolcum Yule around the house, enjoying both the Renaissance pieces and Maxwell Davies’ “A Calendar of Kings.” A ‘guilty pleasure’ is Vaughan Williams’ Hodie.
Read moreThe King’s Singers are celebrating 40 years of performances and alot of new music for voices! They’ll perform holiday music this Friday and Saturday with the NY Pops and are nominated for a Grammy Award for their Simple Gifts album. Coming up is a new release of Valentines including composers like Libby Larsen. I spoke with two members about their outreach in schools as well as premering new works by Larsen, Eric Whitacre and Paul Patterson. Interview with David Hurley Interview with Paul Phoenix
Read moreYep, Elliott Carter has gotten (and is getting) his proper due, so time to jump ahead and perpare for some 2009 action… Though it’s a little sparse for 100th-year blockbusters, there’s always Elie Siegmeister, Grazyna Bacewicz, Harald Genzmer, Rodolfo Cornejo, Robin Orr, John Raynor, Thorleif Aamodt, Paul Constantinescu, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Georgi Aleksandrovich Mushel, Sergius Kagen, Arwel Hughes, Ādolfs Skulte, Henk Bijvanck, and Vagn Holmboe. And the one I want to give a little shout out for, Jean Berger. One eventful (and as nearly long) life, that touched a lot of places and people. I’m pretty sure almost every kid in
Read moreThis week the Next Wave Festival 2008 is raging at BAM, and there are several chances next week to hear Lightning at our feet, the latest from Ridge Theater and Michael Gordon at the Harvey Theater. (Dec 9, 11-13) Gordon and I spoke on the phone about the new work that premiered in Houston. Listen to our conversation here – Lightning Interview with Gordon and Clare. Here’s an added bonus, Gordon has a new EP coming out Tuesday, a fascinating “Purgatorio: Popera” on Canteloupe. We talked about it, as well as being married to a composer (Julia Wolfe) and everyone’s
Read moreThe Manhattan edition of the Sequenza21/Lost Dog Ensemble concert–as seen in the New York Times–is happening tonight at 8 pm at the Good Shepherd Church, 152 West 66tth Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam). Admission is free, as in you don’t have to pay to get in. This is your last chance to see a Sequenza21 concert until we save up enough money to have another one so don’t miss it. Our friends at Other Minds in San Francisco invented the New Music Séance in 2005, and after two sold-out editions, they’re back with a third. The event will feature three
Read moreGoogle‘s latest coup is the digitization and online offering of essentially the entire photo archive of Life magazine. They’re currently up to around 20% of the entire ten-million picture archive, so there’s lots more to keep looking for in the future. Of course you can search to your heart’s content for just about any subject matter; but a quick search for “composer” returns some really truly spiffy photos of various and sundry greats (and a few “who dat?”‘s), many I’ve never seen before and all wonderful images… Like this one, from 1955, of Alan Hovhaness buried in his work. The images on
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