On January 29, 2021 the wasteLAnd ensemble streamed the premiere of Voice Fragments, by Davíð Brynjar Franzson, featuring soprano Stephanie Aston. WasteLAnd is one of the anchors of new music here in Los Angeles and it is encouraging that they are finding ways to stay active during the pandemic. Voice Fragments was commissioned and developed for streaming and represents an adoption of the technology into the art rather than just an online presentation of a typical musical concert. The streamed premiere was of high quality in both sound and video, with Ms. Aston capably carrying the production with her visual
Read moreThe search for ways to deliver new music to audiences during the pandemic continues, and on December 15, 2020, Music For Your Inbox inaugurated a promising subscription system for distributing video links via email. For Percussion Perhaps, Or… (night) (1971), by James Tenney was their initial offering and viewers were invited to subscribe or purchase tickets by December 10th, and receive the video link on the 15th. The performance by Stephanie Cheng Smith and Liam Mooney was previously recorded, available for viewing later at multiple times. In addition, subscribers were appropriately sent an original print postcard by dance pioneer Simone
Read moreWith most live performance venues dark during the pandemic, musicians and producers have sought to find effective ways to reach their audiences electronically. On November 14, 2020, REDCAT offered Daniel Corral’s Concerto for Having Fun With Elvis Onstage and Count In! on a pay-per-view streaming basis. Using the superior technical resources of the REDCAT, the virtuosity of the Now Hear Ensemble and the acting talents of Alexander Gedeon, the music of Daniel Corral was vividly delivered despite the current COVID surge. The two Corral compositions performed for this event were vastly different in character. Count In! is an electronic/video piece
Read moreFew composers have embraced the Webernian aesthetic of brevity more closely than the Hungarian György Kurtág (b.1926). Starting with his earliest canonical work, the Op. 1 String Quartet (1959), he steadily built an international career entirely from bagatelles, usually written for small ensembles and gathered into collections linked by instrumentation and concept, and always unsurpassed in concentrated intensity. Kurtág’s commitment to epigrammatic potency reached an apogee with Kafka Fragments (1985–87), 40 brief German texts from the novelist’s diaries and posthumous writings adapted into an hour of music of such resolute focus that the composer limited its instrumentation to one soprano
Read moreOn Tuesday, February 18, 2020, Brightwork newmusic presented the Los Angeles premiere of Separation Songs, by Matt Sargent. A 70-minute work for two string quartets, Separation Songs comprised the entire program. The Eclipse Quartet was joined by the Aperture Duo, Grace Oh and Julie Jung to complete the eight-piece ensemble. Seating in the Monk Space venue was reconfigured to accommodate the larger musical forces and to take full advantage of the close acoustics. Everyone in the audience was within twenty feet of the players, allowing the listeners to be immersed in the warm sonority of the strings. Separation Songs is
Read moreOn Wednesday, December 11, 2019 REDCAT, in downtown Los Angeles, hosted the Isaura String Quartet in a concert of new music titled hum. Five works were presented by contemporary composers including two world premiers and a West Coast premiere. A fine mid-week crowd filled the REDCAT venue, braving the fierce holiday traffic. Darkness is Not Well Lit (2016), by Nicole Lizée, opened the concert and for this piece the quartet was seated on low risers with an floor fan stationed in front of each player. The concert notes explained that this work is “…a sonic imaging of a film noir
Read moreVienna Boys Choir Carnegie Hall December 8, 2019 By Christian Carey NEW YORK – On Sunday, the Vienna Boys Choir performed a Christmas program at Carnegie Hall. It included much standard Christmas fare, both carols and pops selections. However, there were also a number of more substantial pieces, both Renaissance polyphony and 20/21st century music. The superlative musicianship of both the choir and its director/pianist Manuel Huber were impressive throughout, and the flexibility in navigating the various styles of the programmed music seamlessly was noteworthy. Although the membership rotates through some hundred members at a given time, with various touring
Read moreOn Sunday, November 3, 2019 the Pasadena Conservatory of Music presented a concert of piano music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Crumb. The occasion marked the observance Crumb’s 90th birthday on October 24. No fewer than three soloists were on hand in the Barrett Recital Hall to perform piano works by Crumb from the early 1970s and 1980. The concert was dedicated to the memory the composer’s daughter, actress and singer Ann Crumb, who had died just a few days before. A Little Suite for Christmas, A.D. 1979 opened the program, performed by Susan Svrček of the Conservatory faculty. This
Read moreOn Sunday night, October 20, 2019 Equal Sound presented a double album CD release concert featuring experimental performer/composer Sarah Belle Reid and Berlin-based thereminist extraordinary Carolina Eyck. The Civic Center Studios in downtown Los Angeles was the venue, and included a potent surround sound system, a balcony and ample room for the hundred or so new music concert goers in attendance. The first set of the evening was by Sarah Belle Reid. According to the program notes, she is a “Canadian performer-composer, specializing in trumpet and electronics, modular synthesis, and alternate forms of graphical notation for composition and improvisation.” Ms.
Read moreOn September 6, 2019 People Inside Electronics presented Aperplicity, a concert of performance art and music performed by two Los Angeles-based duos. Aperture Duo with Adrianne Pope, violin and Linnea Powell, viola, joined forces with Autoduplicity, Rachel Beetz, flute and Jennifer Bewerse, cello, to present five pieces, including a world premiere. The spacious Throop Unitarian Church Hall in Pasadena filled up with a fine new music audience on a warm Friday night. Time With People, Op. 1 (2013) by Tim Parkinson began the program with two performers sitting at a table holding a few snacks and cans of soda. This
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