The beginning of June has taken on a certain meaning to the San Francisco Bay Area new music community, and every single one of us would erase that meaning if we could. It’s once again time for the Matthew Sperry Memorial Festival, held every year around this time in memory of one of our own, lost to us in a tragic accident on June 5, 2003. The eighth annual festival happens this week, and the theme is “Homegrown”, since organizers are taking a break from the out-of-town headliners who’ve graced the event each year up till now. First up, on
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Choral Music, Commissions, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, Grammy, San Francisco, Women composers
A year ago at this time, Susan McMane, Artistic Director of the San Francisco Girls Chorus, had no idea what a hot-button issue immigration would be in June 2010. For her, the works of immigrant composers formed a compelling programmatic mix for her five-time Grammy-winning ensemble’s concert series, which she’d entitled A New Land, A New Song. Now, in the midst of nonstop political debate and a deployment of additional National Guard troops to the border, SFGC will celebrate the contributions of immigrant composers to the choral music oeuvre. Composers come literally from all over the map, from Russia with
Read moreBrooklynite singer/songwriter Elizabeth Ziman is probably best known for her work with the indie pop band Elizabeth and the Catapult. But Ziman, a trained pianist who studied film scoring, was recently involved in composing music for a crossover “art song” project. The commission was premiered last Thursday at New Sounds Live, a concert hosted by John Schaefer at Merkin Hall in New York City. Elizabeth and the Catapult, Gabriel Kahane, and Ed Pastorini all appeared, performing new works that demonstrated their own particular takes on the ‘art song’ concept. After the gig, Elizabeth was kind enough to share some thoughts
Read moreFor our friends in Southern California… Soprano Susan Narucki (Professor of Music at UC San Diego) and her new ensemble, Kallisti, will debut this week with the West Coast premiere of Pascal Dusapin’s chamber opera To Be Sung (text by Gertrude Stein). Check out To Be Sung on May 26, 27 and 28 at 7 p.m. in the Black Box Theater at the Conrad Prebys Music Center on the UC San Diego campus. General tickets are $25, but get this: $1 student rush tickets available one hour before the concert. Did you see that? $1 student rush tickets!
Read more[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4SW9Zvtd9E[/youtube]
Read moreWhile a fair amount of attention has been given to the American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Readings (namely here, here, here, here annnnd…here) which took place this past Saturday, Miller Theatre wasn’t the only place where new orchestral works were getting read & performed. Saturday was also the culmination of both the Albany Symphony‘s first annual Composer to Center Stage Festival Reading Session and their American Music Festival at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. As the spring semester at SUNY Fredonia was so kind to have come to an end, I decided
Read moreThe National Symphony Orchestra has been hosting composer John Adams over the past two weeks in presentations of his own works as well as works of the 20th century American, Russian and English repertoires. Last week he presented works by Copland, Barber, and Elgar as well as his own The Wound Dresser. This week, Adams and the NSO were joined by violinist Leila Josefowicz for a performance that included Adams’ electric violin “concerto,” The Dharma at Big Sur, and the Washington premiere of the Dr. Atomic Symphony. The program began with Benjamin Britten’s “Four Sea Interludes” from his
Read moreCongratulations to Joseph Rosenzweig, the first correct answerer to yesterday’s Ligeti question. Yes, Ligeti’s Poeme Symphonique is for 100 metronomes, and with that Mr. Rosenzweig & friend will be attending The New York Philharmonic’s May 27th production of Le Grand Macabre. But there is still one more pair of tickets to give away, and one more question for some speedy answerer to, well, answer: In 1986 Ligeti was an early winner of the prestigious Grawemeyer Award. For what work was it given? Answers to: sequenza21@gmail.com Will you be the first person e-mailing us the correct response? Will you be the lucky
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