On Sunday, February 18, 2018, the Pasadena Conservatory of Music hosted a faculty recital featuring the Panic Duo of Nick Gerpe and Pasha Tseitlin. A full concert program of contemporary music was performed, including a world premiere by Gilda Lyons, a Los Angeles premiere from Laura Kramer and music by Anne LeBaron, Jennifer Higdon, Juhi Bansal and Reena Esmail. Barrett Hall was completely filled for the occasion, and an extra row of chairs crowded the stage to accommodate the overflow crowd. Fissure, for violin, piano and electronics (2016), by Anne LeBaron opened the concert. This piece was premiered by the
Read moreThe Music of Sheila Silver: A Celebration Merkin Concert Hall February 8, 2018 By Christian Carey Published on Sequenza 21 NEW YORK – Composer Sheila Silver has taught at Stony Brook University since 1979. On February 8th at Merkin Concert Hall, an all-Silver program celebrated her tenure at the university. In addition to colleagues and students past and present, the hall was filled with area musicians – including multiple generations of composers – who were most enthusiastic in their reception of Silver and the estimable renditions of her work. Even when composing instrumental music, Silver often bases
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Bang on a Can, Composers, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Orchestral, Orchestras, Review, Seattle
David Lang’s symphony without a hero received its premiere on February 8/10 by its commissioner, Seattle Symphony and Music Director Ludovic Morlot. As usual, Lang spells his title in all lowercase letters, a gesture of acquiescence that particularly befits the resigned tone of this work’s namesake, Poem Without a Hero by the Soviet writer Anna Akhmatova. Lang, who is quite the Russophile, took his inspiration from Akhmatova’s wartime lament for her hometown Leningrad (St. Petersburg), besieged and abused at the hands of both Nazis and Stalinists. Lang’s reflections present as a single-movement essay that, regardless of one’s feelings toward postminimalism
Read moreAs part of their continuing new music series, the Boston Court Performing Arts Center in Pasadena presented Descent Into Madness, A Concert of Cautionary Music on February 9, 2018. The centerpiece of the evening was a performance of Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot by Peter Maxwell Davies, featuring Canadian soprano Stacey Fraser and Brightwork newmusic. Anthony Parnther, conductor, Jack Van Zandt, who studied with Peter Maxwell Davies, and Terry Smith, stage director for this production, were also on hand for a pre-concert discussion of this spellbinding work of mid-20th century British experimental opera. The first half of the concert was given over
Read moreOn Saturday, December 16, 2017 People Inside Electronics presented Electric Eclipse, a concert featuring the Eclipse Quartet and a world premiere by Zeena Parkins. Also presented was music by Mari Kimura, Tom Flaherty, Ian Dicke and Missy Mazzoli. There was a special appearance by shakuhachi player Kojiro Umezaki, who presented an original work with the Eclipse Quartet. Every seat was filled in the Throop Church Hall, complete with speakers and what seemed to be several miles of cables. The program opened with Spirit Away the Flesh (2017), by Zeena Parkins and this was the world premiere. The program notes describe
Read moreBill Frisell and Thomas Morgan The Jazz Standard December 10, 2017 Sequenza 21 By Christian Carey NEW YORK – Like the dearly departed duo of Jim Hall and Charlie Haden, guitarist Bill Frisell and bassist Thomas Morgan make a sound much greater than the sum of their parts. This is not an issue of amplitude – their set on Sunday December tenth at the Jazz Standard was perfectly scaled for this intimate space. However, in terms of richness of rapport, musical detail, and imaginative improvisation, they can stand toe-to-toe with many larger groups. In part, they seem like a bigger
Read moreOn Saturday, November 18, 2017, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles was given over to Noon to Midnight, an entire day of performances by local new music groups. A line of taco trucks extended along Grand Avenue and a pleasantly festive atmosphere prevailed as large crowds surged in and around the facility. The centerpiece event was War of the Worlds, a new experimental opera by Annie Gosfield, conducted by Christopher Rountree and directed by Yuval Sharon. In addition, some 20 different pop-up concerts were scheduled, regrettably timed so that it was impossible to hear everything. Here are
Read moreSearching for Serotonin, the west coast tour by cellist David Mason and sound projectionist Daniel McNamara, landed at the Ventura College Performing Arts Center on Wednesday, November 15, 2017. Four works of experimental new music were presented including pieces by Kaija Saariaho and György Ligeti. A midweek crowd of the knowledgeable and the curious gathered to hear a combination of acoustic cello and electronics as presented by Mason and McNamara. The concert began with Sonata for Solo Cello, by György Ligeti. This was written between 1948 and 1953 at the height of Stalin’s power in Soviet Russia, and consists of
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Composers, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Just Intonation, Los Angeles, Premieres
On November 11, 2017, the Society for the Activation of Social Space Through Art and Sound (SASSAS) formally presented the world premiere of Changes: Sixty-Four Studies for Six Harps, by James Tenney. Over 150 people filled every available chair in The Box art gallery and demand for tickets was so great that a second, preview performance had to be added. Anticipation ran high in the downtown arts district as the crowd waited to hear this extraordinary work, composed in 1985 but only fully realized this year from materials in the late James Tenney’s archives. Michael Winter, composer and one of
Read moreNEW YORK – On October 6 & 7, 2017, Park Avenue Armory presented Ensemble Intercontemporain, conducted by Matthias Pintscher, in Répons, a major work by the recently deceased French composer Pierre Boulez. It was the first time that the composition has been heard in New York since one of its early incarnations in the 1980s (the Times was hard on him then). Boulez was an inveterate reviser, and the electroacoustic component of this piece continued to evolve with successive technological innovations. It is also the first large-scale work to be mounted
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