The Metropolis Ensemble is getting set to record the complete collection of chamber orchestra concerti of Avner Dorman with producer David Frost but you don’t have to wait to hear it; the best little orchestra in New York will be performing the same repertoire live and in color next Thursday night, October 11, at the Angel Orensanz Foundation Center for the Arts (172 Norfolk St, between Houston and Delancey), commencing at 8 pm. On tap are the American premieres of Dorman’s Concerto in A and Concerto Grosso, the New York premiere of Piccolo Concerto, and an encore performance of Mandolin Concerto. Soloists Mindy Kaufman of the New York
Read moreTurning 70 is a big deal for most people, and especially so for Philip Glass, whose birthday is being celebrated worldwide big time. He’s just been feted in New York by Music At The Anthology (MATA), and Groningen, Holland, is putting on a Glass Festival. The composer and The Philip Glass Ensemble performed his massive compendium of minimalist moves, Music in 12 Parts (1971-74), this summer in the Hague and the San Francisco Bay Area pays its homage with the world premiere of his SF Opera commission, Appomattox, this coming Friday, October 5. Glass is such a big name, and pervasive influence–I caught a chord progression in a dance
Read moreOur regular listen to and look at living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, with so much good listening online. Time to leave our standard classical composers and performers behind for a second, to hear what the writers can do: Liesl Ujvary – Ann Cotten – Hanno Millesi (Austria): “Ghostengine – Speech without Language” (2005) Liesl Ujvary (1939-, Pressburg/Slovakia) moved to Austria in 1945 and spent her childhood in Lower Austria and Tyrol. She studied Slavonic, old-Hebrew literature and art history in Vienna and Zurich.
Read more“Music should either touch your soul or make you dance,” Michael Abels says, and though he admits there is a lot of music out there that doesn’t do either, those should be the goals. “I always ask my students ‘what is the purpose of your music?’ You can’t create it unless you know what you want it to do.” Abels, 45, is a Los Angeles-based composer and educator who heads the Music Program at the progressive New Roads School in Santa Monica, a private K-12 school that–upscale zip code, notwithstanding–has a very diverse student population, with nearly half of the students on scholarship. For Abels, that’s one of the
Read moreThe season is underway in New York and, as usual, there are a number of promising looking performances coming up. Here are a few things to look for: Margaret Garner, Richard Danielpour’s operatic collaboration with Toni Morrison, is in mid-run at City Opera and, judging from the ads, there are plenty of seats to be had. I can’t quite stir myself enough to drag up there and sit through an evening of misery about a runaway slave who murders her daughter rather than have her captured. Doesn’t stop me from having an opinion, though. Morrison is too sanctimonious and self-important by half and
Read moreOur regular listen to and look at living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, with so much good listening online: Virgil Moorefield (b. 1956 — US) With not only an M.F.A. and Ph.D. in composition from Princeton, but a B.A. and an M.A. in Comparative Literature from Columbia (with a bit of Juilliard thrown in), you might expect some “high-concept” mixing with the music in Virgil Moorefield’s work, and so there is. But Virgil has a powerful weapon for keeping that ivory tower from becoming
Read moreFabulous review of Corey Dargel’s “darkly enchanting” theater piece about voluntary amputation, Removable Parts, in today’s New York Times. A few years from now when Corey is permanently ensconsed in the old Bobby Short room at the Carlyle, we’ll all say we knew him when. Matthew Cmeil has a new website. Steve Layton has a hot new piece for your dining and dancing pleasure: Spin It (2002; 2007 performance) Alesis QSR & my FreeSound posse (sandyrb, oniwe) Minimalist multi sax and keyboard barrage, to be played as loudly as you or your neighbors can stand… The technique is all Rzewski &
Read moreHad a great time this morning on Marvin Rosen’s Classical Discoveries radio show in Princeton and on the worldwide Internets. I didn’t get a chance to play as much of the Sequenza21 concert from last year as I would have liked because Frank (J. Oteri) and Marvin rudely insisted on talking and picking some stuff they wanted to play, too. I did manage to sneak in Mary Jane Leach’s haunting oboe piece and Jeff Harrington’s three preludes which had the joint jumping. And, of course, Frank’s very brief guitar piece with the unpronouceable Brazilian name which tied the whole thing together. I left
Read moreOur regular listen to and look at living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, with so much good listening online: Fuhong SHI (b. 1976 — China / Canada) Official blurb: “A native of Shenyang, Fuhong learned to play the piano at the age of eight, and began to study composition at fourteen. She graduated from the music school affiliated with the Shenyang Conservatory of Music in 1995, where she received the highest entrance exam score on the National Examinations for admission to the Central Conservatory
Read moreAs those of you who come round here regularly know, I’m not a composer or musician but I am an experienced listener with limited patience for things that take too long to get to the point. As a practical matter, that means that music I’ve never heard before has about 30 seconds to grab my attention. I’ll listen to the whole thing but if doesn’t have that “Holy shit” thing happening in the first few bars, chances are the earth is never going to move for me. Call it the Jerry Principle: musical masterpieces announce their masterpiece-ness in 16 bars or less. Go ahead, prove
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