Concerts

Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Downtown

Young Yalies United Will Never Be Defeated

New Yawkers could do worse at 8 p.m. on March 1st, than drop by Roulette, plunk down a $10 and slurp-munch free refreshments, all while checking out this great little posse of 80’s-born composers’ music:

Timothy Andres will present two recent works: Play it By Ear (2007), for a mixed chamber group of nine players, and Strider (2006), “ambient music” for vibraphone and piano. Both pieces will feature the best young musicians from the Yale School of Music, with the composer on piano.

Lainie Fefferman has a new electric guitar quartet called Tounge of Thorns (2007), which she describes as a “7-minute giant pulsing sound inspired by the Velvet Underground’s ‘Venus In Furs’”. Tounge of Thorns will be played by Dither. Lainie and Alex will also perform a brand-new piece with Lainie singing and Alex playing melodica and piano.

Jennifer Stock will perform on laptop in her piece The High Line (2006), based on sounds recorded around the abandoned High Line railway structure in Manhattan. The piece also features soprano Ali Ewoldt, who recently made her Broadway debut in Les Misérables, and star cellist Ezra Seltzer. We’ll also see and hear Grainery (2006), a video project with processed piano soundscape.
 
Alex Temple will contribute The Last Resort Party Band (2006), “cabaret music from an alternate universe,” featuring composer Emilia Tamburri on alto saxophone and Yale musicians. Next comes a new piece for clarinet and electric guitar, Slightly Less Awkward People (2007), featuring James Moore (of Dither) and Sara Phillips Budde (of NOW Ensemble). Alex will also perform his David Lynch-inspired Inland (2007), for melodica and piano. (Why the preponderance of melodica? “Despite being a silly-looking instrument,” says Alex, “the melodica can be used to make serious music.” I hear you, Alex. I had one next to me all through my own college years…)

This is all a production from IGIGI (pronounced “ee-ghee-ghee”), a close-knit group of composers formed at Yale College. They work with the best New York and New Haven-area musicians to premiere new works, give repeat performances, and put on concerts featuring all genres of “cutting-edge” music. IGIGI produces the annual New Music Marathon, an all-night concert at Yale featuring student works, contemporary favorites, improvisation, and performance art. IGIGI’s history stretches back at least thirty years; its predecessor was called A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, which gave rise to the Bang on a Can All-Stars.

by Steve Layton
Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Orchestras

One Thing I don’t Miss about Seattle…

…The Seattle Times‘ forever-esconced-but-barely-there music crtic, Melinda Bargreen (reviewing Thursday’s Seattle Symphony concert):

When a conductor picks up a microphone to address the audience about the music they’re going to hear, the audience can be pretty sure of one thing: They aren’t expected to like the piece. By the time guest conductor Michael Stern had finished telling Thursday’s Seattle Symphony audience about Varèse’s “Intégrales,” it’s a wonder they weren’t fleeing the hall en masse. With Stern’s every phrase (“A certain weird clarity,” “An assault on the senses”), the impending work loomed more ominously. When the downbeat finally came, and the small wind ensemble plus a whole armory of percussion began to play Varèse’s chaotic motifs and random-sounding outbursts, no one could say we weren’t warned.

Come on now, a piece from freakin’ 1925 gets this kind of write-up in 2008?

Not that she’s the only thing wrong with this picture that is this story. I’ve got to fault Michael Stern for trying too hard to talk the piece up, in effect almost apologising to the audience beforehand. Intégrales, after more than 80 years now, is a piece that doesn’t need any such justification or apology; just shut up, Michael, and play the thing already!

And notice that Sunday afternoon’s “Musically Speaking” version of this concert — i.e., the concert for supposedly explicating and enlightening the classically curious — does away with the Varèse altogether, leaving everyone to safely ruminate (perhaps literally) over just the Victor Herbert and Rachmaninoff.

Sheesh.

by Steve Layton
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Music Events, New York

ICO (formerly VIM:TRIBECA) Concert Series Disaster

Last year, many of us saw a posting regarding the VIM:Tribeca concert series. The organizers, Judd Greenstein and Kimball Gallagher, wanted to put on concert series of mostly new works; the composers were responsible for providing performers. The concerts were to be put on in the Gallerie Icosahedron (I’m deliberately not linking to them, for reasons that will be apparent soon!). The first indication of trouble to us should have been the delays, imposed by the gallery, regarding scheduling and, we found out later, the renting of a piano. The first public sign of trouble was the sudden announcement that the concert series was now to be called the ICO series.

When it was announced that my work had been accepted, I was thrilled. I was to be featured alongside Pamela Stein; I contacted Kathy Supové, who was going to play my new pieces for interactive piano. And, Pam was going to sing the premiere of a piece by Lukas Ligeti. This had all the makings of an exciting event.

On Thursday, we received the following note:

1) CONCERT FEE: all concerts will be subject to a $300 minimum, payable to the gallery in half a week before the concert, with the remainder due at the show. For double-bills, each artist will be responsible for half this figure. In addition to this de facto rental fee, all money over $600 in receipts from the door will continue to be split 50/50. The fee is a guarantee against low turnout – a deposit, essentially. These checks must arrive 1 week before each concert, beginning with the February 14th show, and all checks should be mailed to Gallerie Icosahedron, 27 N Moore St., New York, NY 10013, and made out to Gallerie Icosahedron.

2) TICKET PRICE: the ticket price will now be raised to $20, with no student discounts.

3) REHEARSAL FEE: all artists will have access to the gallery from 5-6:30 on the day of the show. Any other rehearsal times need to be scheduled in advance and will be available at a $40/hr rate.

4) INTERMISSION: there will be NO intermissions of any kind. For double-bills, there will be a brief set change, but even this will be less than a standard intermission.

5) COMPS: there will be no comps, except for press.

6) PIANO: the piano needs to be kept at the back of the gallery, and cannot be moved forward.

And, furthermore, Judd and Kimball were to be removed from the organization of the concerts themselves. Actually, we’d have to individually negotiate elements of the shows, if we wished to continue.

At this point, the series is in disarray. I haven’t kept track, but most of the participants have jumped ship. I’m not sure if I would have done this had these policies been in place beforehand. But, to impose these changes mid-season – mind you, the ICO had a full slate of concerts in the Fall of 2007 – is just infuriating. And, looking at their demands, the one that irks me the most is the policy against comps or student discounts. $20 is a steep fee, particularly when you’re just going to a gallery with folding chairs. $20 would get me into a lot of concert halls in many places (okay, nosebleed seats in some places), and with more comfortable chairs.

I’m aware that costs have risen tremendously in the past few months. But, assuming their gallery would have been open those nights anyway, would the ICO series really have been displacing $300 worth of business? $900, if you count the door costs.

What’s truly disturbing is the Kremlin-style overthrow of the originators of the series. Here you have two people who have done all the work, put a huge amount of time, energy, and, I assume, their own money into this project. It seems to me that the ICO people just want the series to go away, which it seem like it will.

First of all, here is my advice. If anyone is still planning on putting on one of the ICO concerts, please go support them. Go to the gallery, and have a good time. Don’t buy any refreshments if the gallery sells them.  As a matter of fact, avoid direct eye contact with any gallery employee.  However,  if you see any art there you like, write down the name of the artist, and contact them directly when you go home. If you like, wait until their show at the ICO is done. Buy something else from them, but make sure no money goes to the Gallerie Icosahedron.

At one point, I have been told, they complained about the nature of the music being presented. It wasn’t ‘classical’ or ‘conservative’ enough. I didn’t realize that we were under the scrutiny of the new music police, telling us how to write as well as demanding that we pay – oh, and that piano is just there for decoration.  I’m sure that their list of demands would eventually include no parallel 5ths or un-resolved dissonances – and, I’m sure, no Max patches.
This is truly a horrible situation for all of us. I understand that concerts do need to be canceled sometimes. Performers get sick or injured, the composer isn’t finished with the piece, sometimes even accidents occur in the performance venue. Yet, this is truly, truly appalling: a concert canceled because of greed and almost maniacal control exerted by the proprietors of the concert space. I am disgusted by their actions.

This morning, someone suggested that we try to find another location. I’m all for that, although I have my doubts that we’d be able to find a decent concert site that would have availability for all the events (which were scheduled on Thursdays). If that can be done, I’d be thrilled. I’d be happy to wait until the Fall. I’d be happy to pay or raise funds for a performance at a good venue. And, I’ll be happy to avoid walking down the street anywhere near the Gallerie Icosahedron.

by Anthony Cornicello
Chamber Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music

Happy Almost-Birthday, Chapel!

Steve PetersSteve Peters quietly came to Seattle in 2004, after running the non-profit performance organization Nonsequitur out of Albuquerque for 15 years. After a stint at Jackstraw he was finally ready to get back to what he does best (besides making his own wonderful music/sound-art): creating an inviting and flexible space and then filling it up with vital performances. Very soon after its inaugaration this year, the Chapel became probably the premiere initmate space in Seattle for catching new music.

An actual chapel in the beautiful, old Good Shepherd Center (a former home for young girls), tucked into a great park in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood, the Chapel accomodates performances from across the musical spectrum, with nary a miss among the bunch. A glance back at an amazing first year:

The ChapelAnimist Orchestra  // Jessica Catron, cello & Johnny Chang, violin: The Microscores Project // Visual/Sound/Digital Poetry (Subtext Reading Series) // Death Posture butoh // Colin Andrew Sheffield & James Eck Rippie, Phil Hendricks, and Rebreather, electronics // Vanessa Skantze, spoken word/theater performance // Tom Baker Quartet + Sunship // Paul Hoskin, contrabass clarinet // Seattle Composers Salon // Eric Barber, sax & Tom Varner, horn // Duo Juum // Dean Moore, gongs & Bill Horist, guitar // DX ARTS group show // Doug Haire, field recordings // However, poetry + music // Byron Au Yong, voice, piano, percussion & Christopher Blaisdel, shakuhachi // Jeffrey Allport, guitar & Tim Olive, percussion + Cristin Miller, voice & Jason Anderson, electronics // Milind Raikar, Indian violin & tabla + Hell’s Bellows, accordion quartet // Dennis Rea & Stuart Dempster // Lisa Moore, piano // Francisco Lopez & Matt Shoemaker // Piano Christening: Gust Burns, Dawn Clement, Duo Juum, Wayne Horvitz, Julie Ives, Johanna Kunin, Victor Noriega, Amy Rubin, Cristina Valdes // Marathon: 40 artists in 10 hours (Nonsequitur, Jack Straw, Clear Cut Press, Subtext, Phonographers Union, DoubleSharp, WA Composers Forum, Seattle Composers Salon) // Chris Chandler, Paul Benoit, Ela Lamblin, Vishal & Ushwal Nagar // Gust Burns + Julie Ives, piano // Moraine + Snapbite // Gretta Harley, choral/spoken word performance // Duran/Schloss/Mitri Trio + Paul Rucker Quinte // Jim Haynes, sound art + Eric Lanzillotta, analog synth // Gregory Reynolds, sax & Gust Burns, piano // No West Festival of Improvised Music & Dance // Matthew Postle & Derek Terran + Michael Owcharuk Trio // Bling! + Figeater // Yann Novak & Son of Rose // Reptet + Ziggurat Ensemble // Dean Moore & Sha’ari Garfinkel, gongs // Satoko Fujii, piano & Natsuki Tamura, trumpet // Gamelan Pacifica // Diego Piñon butoh // Seattle Latin American Music Festival // Flute Force, flute quartet // Greg Sinibaldi // EQlateral Ensemble // Keith Rowe & friends, improvised guitar etc. // Andrea Parkins, accordion & electronics + Lesli Dalaba, trumpet & Rob Angus, electronics // Gino Robair, improv opera // Trevor Watts & Jamie Harris & Reuben Radding & Jane Rigler // Wally Shoup Quartet & Gust Burns Trio (Earshot) // Tom Baker Quartet // Metal Men, electronics, noise // Malcolm Goldstein, violin // Alexei Pliousnine, guitar // Iva Bittova, violin & voice // October Trio // Margaret Brink, piano + Tom Baker Quartet // Seattle Harmonic Voices // Tiffany Lin & Motoko Honda, piano // Tim Root // Philip Arnautoff, harmonic canon + Christopher Roberts, guqin // Shulamit Kleinerman & friends, medieval violins // Alison Knowles // John Butcher, sax, Torsten Mueller, bass, Dylan van der Schyff, drums // Katsura Yamauchi, sax and Arrington DeDionyso, bass clarinet // Impressions of Romania, chamber music // Paul Rucker Quintet // Sean Osborn, clarinet & Greg Sinibaldi, sax & electronics // Sunship // Wally Shoup Trio // Jhababa & Eric Lanzillotta

Whew! The Seattle scene has always been more-or-less alive-and-well, through places like the plucky Gallery 1412, but the Chapel provides a much-needed venue for new and experimental music that takes it out of the back alley and gives it a place where people can respect the space as much as they already do the music and artists. Even if you’re not a Seattlite, keep an eye on their blog for even more wonders this year (or sign up for the mailing list). Major Kudos to Steve P., and wishes for a wonderfully full year to come.

by Steve Layton
Chamber Music, Click Picks, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Steve’s click picks #38

Our 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:

sound. from SASSAS (Los Angeles)

Rüdiger CarlIn 1998, L.A. artist Cindy Bernard and friends started a series of concerts and installations that became the non-profit organisation SASSAS, the Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound. Their goal is “to serve as a catalyst for the creation, presentation, and recognition of experimental art and sound practices in the Greater Los Angeles area”.

Most of the concerts are held at the landmark Schindler House, a mid-century experimental home that has sliding walls opening the whole structure up to the back garden area. It provides an airy, casual and free-flowing space for both the artists and audience. Lately SASSAS has also been able to run a few concerts as well at both the Ford Ampitheater and REDCAT.

Mitchell/JarmanThe list of performers is long and varied, from Pauline Oliveros and James Tenney to Chas Smith and Rick Cox; Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman to Jessica Rylan and Tom Grimley; Harold Budd, Petra Haden, Tetuzi Akiyama, Phil Gelb, etc… even my much-admired internet buddies Johnny Chang and Jessica Catron. If you’ve been spending all your time sitting in the concert hall listening to Wuorinen, here’s you’re chance to loosen up — and catch up — on all kinds of other vital forms of new music in the here-and-now.

Because SASSAS hasn’t just been presenting these concerts; they’ve also been pretty diligent about documenting them with recordings, photos and even video! The link in the title of this post will take you to the sound. mainpage. There you’ll see links to streaming Quicktime archives of many of these concerts, plus scrapbooks of notes and photos from them as well. And over on YOUTUBE, you’ll find another whole archive of video, that’s just begun and is sure to grow.

by Steve Layton
Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Practice, Man. Practice.

AbelsColor_lowres.jpg“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 things that makes New Roads a special place.  

“Although blacks and Latinos make up 25 percent of the U.S. population, they comprise only about 4 percent of the country’s professional orchestra musicians,” he says.  “Part of this is economic; a professional music education costs a lot, but a lot of it is cultural.  Promising minority kids often don’t get the encouragement or mentoring they need to push them to next level.”

Abels, whose own background is as all-American as apple pie and ribs, has certainly done his part.  He spent the first of two Meet the Composer grants on a three-year New Residencies program at the Watts Tower Arts Center in South Central Los Angeles where, in addition to composing the music  for the community-oriented Cornerstone Theater, and a work for the USC Percussion Ensemble, he  began a mentoring program for disadvantaged youths in music technology and production techniques.

More recently, Abels has been partnering with the Sphinx Organization, a non-profit organization dedicated to building diversity in classical music, and with the Harlem Quartet,  an ensemble comprised of 1st place Laureates of the Sphinx Competition for young Black and Latino String Players.  The Quartet is a  group of young musicians who spend as much time bringing music into their communities as they do performing in concert halls.  All of which is  part of a nationwide movement to help increase the number of Blacks and Latinos in music schools, as professional musicians, and in classical music audiences. 

Abels’s piece Delights and Dances, (Think the love child of Stravinsky and Copland with a bit of Gershwin for garnish, one longtime S21 reader describes it)  written to celebrate the Sphinx Organization’s 10th anniversary, will be played by the Harlem Quartet at its annual Sphinx Laureates concert Tuesday evening, September 25, at 6:00 pm, on Carnegie Hall.   

I can’t wait to see if it makes me cry or dance.

p.s. (There will also be music by some cats named J.S. Bach, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson,  Astor Piazzolla, joaquín Turina and Duke Ellington).

 

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by Jerry Bowles
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Music Events

What’s Happening This Season?

The 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 Danielpour should write an opera about Omar the Tentmaker.  Samuel Barber’s Vanessa opens on November 4.

Chance Encounter, On September 28, Lisa Bielawa, Susan Narucki and the new-music chamber group the Knights, will commandeer East Broadway near the Seward Park Library to perform a 4-hour work based on overheard conversation, collected over the last year and set to music.  Details at Lisa’s blog.

Kronos Quartet – The indefatigueable quartet is slated for BAM’s Next Wave festival with collaborations with two Finnish composer/musicians: Kimmo Pohjonen, an accordionist and singer, and Samuli Kosminen, an accordionist and manipulator of electronic sounds.  Oct. 3, 5-6.

Esa Pekka-Salonen – Another famous Finn is the subject of a Composer Portrait at Miller Theater on October 5.  Performers include Imani Winds, cellist Darrett Adkins, soprano Tony Arnold and pianist Blair McMillen.

Berlin in Lights –  Life is a carbaret, old chum, with a bunch of cultural events scattered around town between November 2 and 18.  The centerpiece is the Berlin Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall on November 13 and 14.  Simon and gang will be doing the U.S. premiere of Marcus Lindberg’s Seht die Sonne on the 13th and Thomas Adès’ Tevot on the 14th.  Adès, who Simon sez is also a spectacular pianist, is doing an entire recital that will include (without electronic or mechanical assistance) Conlon Nancarrow’s fiendish  Three Canons for Ursula.

That takes us up to mid-November.  We’ll pick up there over the weekend.  What’s hot in L.A., San Francisco, London, Grand Rapids?  Give us a report.

 

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Saturday Bidness

Fabulous 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 & Reich, but the feel is American Bandstand … “Dick, I’ll give it an 85 — it’s got a crazy beat and you can dance to it!” (& the kids are going wild…)

by Jerry Bowles
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Miller’s Crossing

My copy of the Miller Theater Fall and Spring schedule landed on the window sill via carrier pigeon yesterday. As always, Columbia University’s indispensible new music venue has some humdingers on tap.  The Composer Portrait series this season includes Esa-Pekka Salonen, Wolfgang Rihm, David Sanford, Gerald Barry (in the first large-scale New York exposure for the Irish composer), French spectralist Phillipe Hurel, George Crumb and Peter Lieberson.  Except for Salonen and Rihm, the composers are set for pre-concert discussions, live and in color, so to speak.  Also on the schedule for December 7, 8, 9 and 11 is the New York stage premiere of Elliott Carter’s only opera, What’s Next?

Anything exciting happening in your town this fall?  Give us a good reason to get out of bed tomorrow.

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

The Times They Are a Changin’

Okay, so nobody wants to discuss A3.  How about C4, the terrific choral collective championed by S21 regular Ian Moss?  The talented boys and girls are doing a concert about the always-popular subject of love tonight at 8 pm at the Norwegian Seamen’s Church, 317 East 52nd Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues).  On the bill are new works by C4 members Jonathan David, David Rentz, Moss, Malina Rauschenfels and Karen Siegel, plus stuff by a bunch of other people.  Lykke til! 

Further evidence of the deaggregation of classical music distribution; our friends at Naxos have launched an online boutique called NaxosDirect.

Best film score ever.  Discuss.

by Jerry Bowles