The Prom concert on August 20, by The Philharmonia Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen, began with The Foundry (1927) by Alexander Mosolov. This is a four minute bit of Russian avant-garde constructivism, portraying in the most realistic way possible with an orchestra…well, a foundry. It was first performed in Lenningrad in 1927 at a concert celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Revolution. The Foundry was originally intended to be the first of four movements or music for a ballet, which was never produced, to be called Steel. The other movements, which have been lost, were called ‘In Prison,’ ‘At the Ball,’
Read moreAmong the events being commemorated in this year’s Proms season, is the 75th birthday of Arvo Pärt. This celebration kicked off on August 17 with a concert by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Edward Gardner, which began with Pärt’s Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten, and which followed Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes. The intention was that the Britten would follow without a break; the program actually said that. But as it turned out, the body language of both the conductor and the orchestra told the audience at the end of the Pärt that something had stopped, and
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Awards, Bang on a Can, CDs, Chamber Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, File Under?, Minimalism, New York, Video
Steve Reich’s latest Nonesuch CD recently arrived, sans artwork in a little cardboard case. The disc features Double Sextet and 2×5, his collaborations with Eighth Blackbird and Bang on a Can. The former piece won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in Music. The latter is his most explicit use of rock instrumentation to date. According to the Nonesuch site, it’s still in the “pre-order” phase of activities, so we’ll be good and hold off on a proper review ’til it’s closer to the actual release date (9/14). Suffice it to say, if you’re a regular visitor to Sequenza 21, you’re likely
Read moreThis Thursday evening, the Locrian Chamber Players are presenting a concert at Riverside Church in New York City. The program features music by Harrison Birtwistle, Judith Shatin, John Luther Adams, and Frank J. Oteri. Frank is a fixture on the NY scene. He’s the composer advocate for the American Music Center and is Founding Editor of their web magazine New Music Box. Frank is indeed a persuasive advocate on behalf of other composers, but he’s not asked about his own music nearly often enough. In the interview that follows, we focus primarily on Brinson’s Race, the piece that appears on Thursday’s concert. But along the way, we are
Read moreOn Thursday night The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Martyn Brabbins, performed La navette by James Dillon, giving the work its first UK performance. Born in 1950, Dillon could be described as a ‘New Complexity” composer, along with Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Finnissy, Richard Barrett, among others. He has written lots of music, a lot of which has been played on the Proms concerts and other places, and he is celebrated in the UK, where is definitely considered to be an important composer. Although his music is not so well known in the US, he has done a fair amount
Read moreIt’s hard to believe that it has been five years since Hurricane Katrina. The CD release of Ted Hearne’s Katrina Ballads on New Amsterdam Records is a grim reminder that New Orleans still remains a devastated city, one that has yet to recover from the storm, doubtless at least in part due to all manner of official incompetence and governmental neglect. Source recordings that chronicle the previous administration’s bungled handling of the disaster serve as a jumping off point for Hearne’s scathingly satirical, yet often affecting, song cycle. The record’s out on 8/31, but there’s a release party at Le
Read moreThe slice of the Proms which I’m getting this summer seems less of full of twentieth and twenty-first century music than usual. Works of Gunther Schuller, Simon Holt, Harrison Birtwistle, Stockhausen, Colin Matthews, Luke Bedford, Brett Dean, Oliver Knussen, (late) Stravinsky, George Benjamin, Stephen Montague, Takamitsu, and Julian Anderson were done before I got here and music by Judith Weir, Bayan Northcott, Brian Ferneyhough, Jonathan Harvey, James MacMillan, Tansy Davies, and Jonathan Dove will be on after I leave. But there’s still plenty happening while I’m around. On Friday night, August 13, the BBC Philharmonic and Gianandrea Noseda, on a
Read moreFanfare, please. From the creators of Sequenza21 comes a new web community–Chamber Musician Today. Something like that anyway. Go over and register and you’ll find there are lots of neat things you can do there. You can blog directly on the site whenever you feel like it, you can post concerts and announcements to the Calendar page, you can review a CD, comment, add a profile, even add your existing blog feed to the Autopost and the software will automatically pull in your last 10 posts and all new ones. The ones that are on target (i.e., have something to
Read moreThree Concerts in One Day! Twelve pieces, including two one-act operas: 6 1/2 hours of music. Here’s what we heard: 10 AM Fantasia for String Trio …Irving Fine Ten Miniatures for Solo Piano … Helen Grime Circles … Luciano Berio Piece pour piano et quatuor de cordes … Oliver Messiaen Since Brass, nor Stone … Alexander Goehr Design School … Michael Gandolfi _____________________________________ 2:30 PM (BSO in the Shed) An American in Paris … George Gershwin Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee … Gunther Schuller Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs … Leonard Bernstein Piano Concerto in F … George Gershwin
Read moreKnussen conducts Maderna. Photo credit: Hilary Scott The 2010 Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood has moved away from its recent model of having a solo curator conceive the festival. Instead, the curatorial duties are shared by three of its longtime faculty members: Gunther Schuller, Oliver Knussen, and John Harbison. The focus this year is on Tanglewood’s past and present faculty composers. Far from feeling like ‘old home week,’ the programming has demonstrated a wide range of stylistic diversity among those who’ve taught at Tanglewood. In addition, one can observe how each successive generation of Tanglewood students has benefited from their instruction here and,
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