Thursday evening was a good night for new music, as a new chamber ensemble formed by Baltimore-based composer David Smooke gave its maiden voyage performance at Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pennsylvania to an enthusiastic and supportive audience. Sporting the memorable moniker of the League of the Unsound Sound (LotUS), the first performance was a hybrid of members of the core ensemble with guest performers, as pianist and Mercyhurst faculty Shirley Yoo, percussionist Tim Feeney and Smooke on toy piano were joined by percussionist David Schotzko and pianist Stephen Buck. Upon entering the recital hall, one was immediately drawn to the
Read moreWhen I was a kid, my family did a lot of hiking and camping, and on those trips at mealtime or for a cup of tea during a rest my dad would do the cooking. He would break out a little camp stove, fill a pot with water, and turn on the gas, igniting it with a match. The gas would ignite with a whoosh, and then the sound would settle into a steady white-noise hiss. The noise was loud enough to drown out little sounds like trees shifting in the breeze and the buzz of a nearby fly, but
Read more[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N36TWwH98gE[/youtube] This Friday and Saturday October 22 and 23, Andrea Liberovici’s multimedia work Mephisto’s Songs premieres a part of the Apollo Theater’s Salon Series. I’m not familiar with Liberovici, but I am familiar with Mephisto’s featured performer singer Helga Davis. In addition to Ms. Davis’ amazing vocals, the piece includes recorded narration by Robert Wilson and cello improvisations by The Kronos Quartet’s awesome Jeffrey Zeigler. Live musicians for this performance include Clarice Jenson (cello), Fred Cash Jr. (bass), and Abe Fogle (drums). Some of you may be familiar with Helga Davis as a host of WQXR’s Overnight Music. She works
Read moreOrpheus Chamber Orchestra announced the winners of the Project 440 competition tonight. The four winners will create new works for Orpheus to be premiered in 2012. They are (clockwise from top left) Alex Mincek, Clint Needham, Andrew Norman, and Cynthia Wong: It was quite a rigorous vetting process with some very talented competition. Congratulations to all!
Read moreThe first University of Michigan Composers’ Forum concert of the 2010-2011 season took place in the evening on Monday, October 11. Earmarked by the department as a preview for the upcoming Midwest Composers Symposium in Cincinnati, I had been looking forward to this event for over a month as my first opportunity to experience the creativity of my colleagues here in Michigan. Like most music schools, our Composers’ Forum is organized and performed by students and viewed as an arena in which the composers studying here may test concepts and solidify their ideas before moving on to a more professional
Read moreToday is the 20th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s death. He would be 92 if he were still alive. His son, Alexander, has written a nice tribute published at dot429 this morning: It seems impossible that twenty years have passed since my father (Leonard Bernstein) died. Or perhaps, I should write, I haven’t seen my father for twenty years! Sometimes I feel as though he is on tour again and will be back at any time now… My father traveled a great deal. When he was home, though, he was really home. As a composer, he didn’t have an office to
Read moreThe music season has definitely kicked into gear all across the country. Sure, I will always love and find inspiration via New York City; I just received a great CD from a new friend in Brooklyn and the other night skyped for the first time with another NYC friend and collaborator who helped lead Burnt Sugar in a recent musical tribute to James Brown at the Apollo Theater (Salon Series at the Apollo is looking really, really cool. Miller Theatre, you have been warned…). But I’m excited by the music new I’m reading from all the coasts (and Midwest). Here’s
Read moreRemixers start your … laptops. Some hot-off-the-presses news about a contest beginning at noon TODAY! Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Steve Reich, Nonesuch Records, and Indaba Music have launched a search for collaborators to remix the third movement from Reich’s 2×5. Paired with his Pulitzer prizewinning Double Sextet, the work appears on Reich’s new Nonesuch CD. For four weeks beginning October 12, 2010 at noon, remixers can visit Indaba’s website to create their own version of the movement. From November 9 to 23, fans and a panel of judges including Reich will review the submissions. Winners will be announced on December
Read moreWhen Christopher James Lees (pictured to the right), conductor of the University of Michigan Contemporary Directions Ensemble (CDE), challenged the literal meaning of “contemporary” before the group’s concert last Wednesday, he imbued the performance with special significance. The concert, dubbed “homage to the masters”, aimed to explore certain works’ and composers’ relevance, chronology notwithstanding, and featured Morton Feldman’s Madame Press Died Last Week at 90 (1970), Toru Takemitsu’s Air (1995), George Perle’s Six Celebratory Inventions (1995), Benjamin Lees’s Piano Trio no. 2 (1998) and Gyorgy Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto (1970) (additionally, Elliott Carter’s Gra (1975) was supposed to be played but
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Composers, Concert review, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, File Under?, New York, Orchestras
My tweet right after the concert on Thursday: “Magnus Lindberg’s Kraft: some very beautiful passages + intriguing spatial effects amidst a joyously chaotic maelstrom of sound.” It’s a fascinating piece and a gutsy one for the New York Philharmonic to present. I do question the wisdom of programming it alongside Joshua Bell playing the Sibelius Violin Concerto. It threw some of the more conservative ticket-holders a curveball, as they had no idea (unless they’re checked out the promo videos on YouTube) what the Lindberg had in store for them. There were far more than the “handful” of walkouts Anthony Tommasini
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