The Takacs Quartet gave the U.K. premiere of Daniel Kellogg’s Soft Sleep Shall Contain You, a hauntingly beautiful, touching “Meditation on Schubert’s Death and the Maiden.” The BBC has made the performance available online here. Kellogg’s quartet is a simply beautiful, evocative work that comments–at times gently, at others savagely, ultimately transcendently–on the refrain of Schubert’s famous song, “Death and the Maiden” (and, by extension–and design–the string quartet which bears its name thanks to the variation movement based on this same music). It is a little gem, its biggest–and only–flaw, perhaps, that it feels slight for a piece that is
Read moreWho says Barber cornered the market on Adagios?
Read moreThe University of Michigan School of Music, Theater and Dance’s second Student Composers’ concert of the year took place this last Monday, November 15. A hefty buffet of close to two hours of music, I found the evening passed by quickly and satisfactorily because each work was strikingly self-confident and virtually every moment of music was significant such that it never seemed like the pieces were treading water. Beyond this, the concert was particularly remarkable because of the prevalent display of composition students’ performing abilities. Only three of the night’s eight pieces lacked a composer-performer, and two among the other
Read moreThe New York Philharmonic kicks off its second season of the new music series CONTACT! this Friday and Saturday at Symphony Space and the Met Museum (tickets/details here). The theme of the concert is spectralism. The program pairs Souvenir, a new work written in memory of Gérard Grisey by NYPO composer-in-residence Magnus Lindberg, with Grisey’s own Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil. Lindberg studied with Grisey, and he talks about the connections between them in the video interview below. And more about his new piece: And there are lots more video goodies and links over at the NY Phil’s Tumblr
Read moreStrata – a trio consisting of pianist Audrey Andrist, clarinetist Nathan Williams, and violinist/violist James Stern – has just started a new commissioning project. Abetted by a grant from the Rauch Foundation, their Metaclassical Music Project seeks to bridge the gap between new music and the non-specialist audience through educational outreach and the commissioning of new works that seek to communicate with a range of listeners. Phase one of Strata’s “demystification” of contemporary fare involves presenting a new piece by Stephen Paulus on a concert this weekend at Merkin Hall (details below). Paulus is certainly a composer who fits their mission statement: an artist
Read moreIf contemporary classical music had “supergroups”, the 8-year-old ensemble Ne(x)tworks would definitely be one of them. With the likes of Joan La Barbara (voice), Kenji Bunch (viola), Shelley Burgon (harp & electronics), Yves Dharamraj (cello), Cornelius Dufallo (violin, Director), Miguel Frasconi (glass instruments & electronics), Stephen Gosling (piano), Ariana Kim (violin), and Christopher McIntyre (trombone), their roster is led by major movers long on the NYC new-music scene. Working with both classical and improvisational roots, their repertoire encompasses the open scores of the New York School composers of the ’50s, the experiments of the AACM, and the SoHo scene and
Read moreOur friend Marvin Rosen will be hosting the Brooklyn-based trio Janus on his “Classical Discoveries” radio program tomorrow (Wednesday) morning from 9:30 to 11:00 AM. If you don’t live near Princeton, NJ, or if you’re like me and you only consume actual radio waves when you’re in the car, you should be able to catch the show streaming live at the WPRB website. Janus was formed by flutist Amanda Baker, violist Beth Meyers, and harpist Nuiko Wadden in 2002, and since then they have been rapidly expanding the flute/viola/harp trio repertoire. Their debut album i am not drops today, and
Read moreMeet the Composer’s latest venture, MTC Studio, will be unveiled on Monday at an event at the 92nd Street Y (Tribeca). It features members of the International Contemporary Ensemble and the first class of MTC Studio composers – Kati Agócs, Marcos Balter, Yu-Hui Chang, Glenn Kotche (of the band Wilco), Dohee Lee and Ken Ueno – in an evening of conversations and music making. Yesterday, I caught up with Ken Ueno (University of California-Berkeley) and asked him about MTC Studio and some of his other recent exploits. In addition to his activities with Meet the Composer, Ueno is getting a portrait concert
Read moreThe Paul Dresher Ensemble’s Electro-Acoustic Band will be performing this coming Friday and Saturday (Nov. 12-13) at the ODC Theater in San Francisco. More information and tickets can be found here. The full program is below and features two world premieres, one of which is by Ryan Brown. I was able to talk with Ryan and Paul separately on the phone about this new piece. You can listen to a recording of their phone calls spliced together here. Gangbusters – Ryan Brown (world premiere) For Joe Z – Bruce Pennycook (world premiere) Chromatic Quadrachord – Paul Dresher (concert music premiere)
Read moreAlthough Ann Arbor’s ONCE. MORE. festival, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the ONCE Group composers, does not end until tonight, the events with the surviving founders of the groundbreaking concert series – Roger Reynolds, Robert Ashley, Gordon Mumma and Donald Scavarda – concluded Thursday evening. That night’s ONCE. NOW. concert featured more recent works by these four composers. Robert Ashley’s Van Cao’s Meditation (1991), for piano, opened the evening. The piece was resonant, repetitive, and reminded me of Satie’s Ogives in spirit. Essentially, Van Cao’s Meditation milled about one confined group of a few notes which covered all registers of
Read more