There are many compositions dealing with the horrors of World War II. Some of them, like Penderecki’s Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, have little to do with the war–Penderecki changed the original title of the work from 8:37 after hearing its first performance. Others, like Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, achieved notoriety during the war, but their status in the repertory is still debated. (I can’t stand the Seventh, but find his Eighth Symphony one of the most moving works to arise from the war). Then there is that genre unto itself, the Holocaust piece. An Israeli colleague of mine once
Read moreUniversity of Washington Professor Huck Hodge and University of Missouri at Kansas City Professor Paul Rudy have been awarded the 2010 Rome Prize in Music. Hodge, a graduate of Columbia University, was awarded the Luciano Berio Rome Prize to compose two works: Augurios for ensemble and Scenes from Faust for symphonic wind ensemble. Rudy, a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Colorado at Boulder, was awarded the Elliott Carter Rome Prize for his 2012 Stories Nos. 5-7 and a Saxophone Concerto for the jazz saxophonist Bobby Watson. Hot off the wires: The American Academy
Read moreJennifer Higdon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Violin Concerto, written especially for her former student Hilary Hahn, was co-commissioned in 2009 by the Indianapolis, Toronto, and Baltimore symphony orchestras, as well as by the Curtis Institute of Music, where both Hahn and Higdon studied, and where Higdon has been a faculty member since 1994. They first met at Curtis where Higdon was Hahn’s professor of 20th-century music history. “I was overjoyed by this news,” Hilary said. “It was both artistically and intellectually rewarding to collaborate with Jennifer on this concerto, and she put so much energy into the work. She has been a wonderful
Read moreFrom the Pulitzer site: For distinguished musical composition by an American that has had its first performance or recording in the United States during the year, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000). Awarded to “Violin Concerto” by Jennifer Higdon (Lawdon Press), premiered on February 6, 2009, in Indianapolis, IN, a deeply engaging piece that combines flowing lyricism with dazzling virtuosity . Finalists Also nominated as finalists in this category were: “String Quartet No. 3,” by Fred Lerdahl, premiered on December 8, 2009, in Cleveland, Ohio, a remarkable work that displays impeccable technical facility and palpable emotion; and “Steel Hammer,” by Julia Wolfe (G. Schirmer, Inc.),
Read moreThe New York Philharmonic presents its next set of performances in the Contact! series next Thursday and Friday (4/16 and 4/17). Here’s a flip-cam video of featured composer Matthias Pintscher discussing rehearsing for the show with baritone Thomas Hampson. Even if the texts are in Hebrew, it still takes chutzpah to instruct Mr. Hampson on nuances of diction!
Read moreFresh off its German premiere, composer and S21 blogger Lawrence Dillon‘s newest string quartet begins making its rounds of the U.S. this week, under the completely able fingers and bows of the Emerson String Quartet. From the Invisible Cities String Quartet Cycle, String Quartet No. 5 combines elements of chaconne, passacaglia and theme-and-variations. The piece takes the Welsh tune “All Through the Night” through, as the Lawrence writes, “a dizzying and dazzling journey from twilight to twilight.” The movements are Twilight – Variations; Dream – Chaconne; Dream – Passacaglia, and Variations – Twilight. The piece was commissioned by the Emerson
Read moreReaders who are reasonably close to Hattiesburg, Mississippi may enjoy two outstanding performances (including a world premiere) happening this week, involving the music of Edwin Penhorwood (Thursday, April 8 at 7:30 at Main Street Baptist Church). Penhorwood is on the faculty of Indiana University, and is most known for his contributions to American art song and the comic opera Too Many Sopranos. The University of Southern Mississippi Choral and Orchestral Departments joined forces to commission a new work from Penhorwood, An American Requiem. Rather than commemorating a specific event, An American Requiem memorializes several (such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina),
Read moreThis is a post for sound freaks. Some you may know David Chesky as an “orchestra urban composer” whose Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2007 or perhaps as the composer of the operatic satire The Pig, the Farmer and the Artist which was voted one of the Best New American Theater Works of 2009. Some of you may be planning to attend the premiere of his Street Beats percussion concerto tonight at Alice Tully Hall. What you may not know is that Chesky has a day job as a record mogul and operates
Read moreHelmut Lachenmann, 75 years old this year. How does the news strike us? If a composer in Europe, a better than 60%-70% chance that this is an important milestone. If a composer in America, less than 40%-30% chance of the same reaction. As a mainstream American classical concert-goer, the number is probably closer to 10% or less. In the last couple decades, the influence of Lachenmann upon all kinds of composers has been immense, as have been the names of Franco Donatoni, Brian Ferneyhough, Beat Furrer, Gerard Grisey,Tristan Murail, Wolfgang Rihm, Kaija Saariaho… Yet the other thing they all share
Read moreSaturday, March 27th at 7:30pm CDT, anyone in driving range of Birmingham, Alabama should be paying UAB’s Hulsey Recital Hall (950 13th Street South) a visit. Back last year, Meet the Composer’s Met Life Creative Connections Program gave some funding for a program of new compositions by three composers (Connecticut-based Alphonse Izzo, Aleksander Sternfeld-Dunn from Washington State, and Alabama resident Craig Biondi), all written for the fantastically able chops of cellist Craig Hultgren. What’s that, you say you’re not going to be anywhere near Birmingham just then? Why son, you’re as close as that little screen in front of your
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