[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwZ9uPQw33E&feature=youtu.be[/youtube] Two American premieres of important new works by Louis Andriessen at the LA Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella concert tomorrow evening (Feb. 28), 8 pm. Get there at 7 pm for the preconcert talk with Andriessen and conductor Reinbert de Leeuw. Much more is revealed in my preview here.
Read moreMany of us love to see musical works created to accompany choreography performed with dancers involved. But this weekend finds musicians approaching these pieces from another vantage point. Ne(x)tworks, Greenwich Music House’s ensemble-in-residence, presents “Music Without Dance,” a festival of works originally written for dance that are abstracted from movement and performed as absolute music. What’s revealed about these pieces by listening to them while imagining (or even avoiding thinking about) the dances to which they were originally attached? Curation by subtraction: I like it! Ne(x)tworks Presents the “Music Without Dance” Festival Saturday, February 25th: 7:30PM concert Sunday, February 26th:
Read moreSo Percussion recently released remixes of tracks from Amid the Noise, their recording of music by Jason Treuting. You can grab it for free via their Bandcamp site (embed below). Treuting recently released sheet music for Amid the Noise, which can be purchased at Good Child Music. Amid the Noise Remixes by So Percussion This year, a great number of artists and ensembles are celebrating John Cage’s centenary – even Jessye Norman and Meredith Monk are getting in on the act as part of Michael Tilson Thomas’s revival of the American Mavericks series with the San Francisco Symphony. While it
Read moreSome of the arts organizations in New York are venerable establishments. Others may be relative newcomers, but take little time to install themselves as intrinsic parts of the music scene. It has only been here since the early aughts, but many of New York’s performers and concertgoers would have a hard time envisioning musical life here without the countless collaborations and imaginative programs brought to fruition at the modest-sized, yet mightily influential, Austrian Cultural Forum. ACF begins its tenth season with a celebration: a concert this Friday at Bohemian Hall: a more commodious space. At Bohemian Hall, they have an enlightened take on
Read moreThe Latin American Music Center at Indiana University is presenting American Cosmology, a program designed specially for the Composers Now festival that is involving many members of New York’s new music scene in February. Invited by Composers Now’s artistic director, composer Tania León, the program will be presented on February 4th a the Music Now Marathon in Symphony Space , and on February 6 at the Americas Society Concert Series. American Cosmology was designed by the LAMC’s director Carmen-Helena Téllez to showcase complementary meditations on the sky and the cosmos represented in David Dzubay’s Astral String Quartet and in
Read more2011 was an great year for freelance composer/cellist/conductor Peri Mauer. Premiere performances of her work this past year included her trio AFTERWORDS, for clarinet, cello, and piano; BLOGARHYTHM: Scenes 1 & 2 for 24-piece chamber ensemble (which she also conducted) RHAPSODANCE, for clarinet and piano; BLOGARHYTHM ON THE ROCKS, for chamber ensemble, as part of Make Music New York 2011 in Central Park in June; and MORNING IN A MINUTE, in the Vox Novus Concert Series at Jan Hus Church in October. In 2011 her music was heard on the radio for the first time as well. Just this past
Read moreWashington, D.C. readers may have noticed that the new music scene in the District has been exploding lately. This week brings another significant event when New York’s Cygnus Ensemble makes its Washington debut at the Library of Congress. The concert, part of a mini-residence by Cygnus at the Library, is presented as a tribute to legendary violinist and composer Fritz Kreisler. Rarely heard music by Kreisler from the Library’s Fritz Kreisler collection will be performed, featuring guest violinist Miranda Cuckson on Kreisler’s own Guarneri del Gesù violin. Most notably for new music fans, the concert features the world premiere of Harold Meltzer’s Kreisleriana,
Read moreThis weekend, Ann Arbor’s University Musical Society is putting on its most ambitious project since I’ve been in town: Philip Glass‘s legendary opera Einstein On The Beach. The production is directed by Robert Wilson with choreography by Lucinda Childs and includes a stunning cast hand-picked by Mrs. Wilson and Glass for the revival. Performances are this Friday (7 PM), Saturday (7 PM) and Sunday (2 PM) at the downtown Power Center performance space. Alas, the shows are sold out at this point, but if you are a diehard fan, or just an interested individual in the area, there is always
Read moreFor the LA Weekly, I compiled a list of what appear to be the best classical music events next year in Los Angeles. (Of course, the 2012-13 seasons haven’t been announced yet, so there will likely be events in the fall that I’ll be crazy about, and REDCAT had not published its Winter/Spring concert schedule by the time I turned my copy into my editors) Just about all my picks involve 20th/21st century music (there’s lots of pre-20th century music at Ojai, and although Mahler may not seem 20th-century to many classical music mavens, over half of his output was
Read moreMy article today in Musical America reviews the NY Philharmonic’s Contact! Concert on 12/16 at the Met Museum. While I enjoyed the music – hearing HK Gruber perform Frankenstein!! was a particular treat – I took issue with the announcement at the event of Alan Gilbert being awarded Columbia University’s Ditson Prize, which recognizes a conductor for his advocacy for American composers. This season, the Contact! series includes only one American: Elliott Carter. It’s a far cry from their inaugural season just two years ago, when they featured Sean Shepherd, Nico Muhly, Arlene Sierra, and others. Perhaps Maestro Gilbert will
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