First Jeff Harrington, then David Salvage, and now our very own Lawrence Dillon is feeling some end-of-the-season love on the concert circuit. This very evening (Thursday), at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, violinist Piotr Szewczyk will perform Lawrence’s Mister Blister and a movement from Fifteen Minutes as part of his Music in Time – Violin Futura program. Szewczyk will also perform works by Mason Bates, Moritz Eggert, Daniel Kellogg, Jennifer Wang, and others as part of this program of new, short, innovative solo violin pieces. And, on June 15 at the International Double Reed Society Conference in Ithaca, New York, bassoonist Jeffrey Keesecker will
Read moreA few picks ago I introduced you to my new Houston friend, pedal-steel guitarist Susan Alcorn. She’s off to Argentina just now, but before she left she sent me a YouTube link to her performing in her studio just a week or two ago: [youtube]4x5UEEbnVQU&NR[/youtube] Absolutely fascinating to see and hear.
Read moreThe Los Angeles Master Chorale gave the premiere of a new work by Eve Beglarian for full chorus and two Persian instruments. The work is “Sang”, Persian for “stone”, taken from a Persian parable that appealed to Beglarian; she added texts in Hebrew and Septuagint Greek from the Hebrew scriptures. Her program notes are here. An English translation of the texts was given in the program, but no attempt was made to provide surtitles; the thing to do was to relax and be absorbed into the sounds. The work was the first in a planned series of commissions for the
Read moreFor the past 27 years, the Mexican-born pianist and composer Max Lifchitz has been a tireless and resourceful promoter of new music (including his own) through live performances and recordings with the North/South Consonance Ensemble, the chamber group of the non-profit North/South Consonance organization. Many young composers, particularly those of the Neoclassic or New Romantic temperment (Larry Bell comes immediately to mind), have gotten a career boost from Lifchitz’s annual programs and recordings, which now number nearly 50. I mention all this because North/South Consonance’s final concert of the current season is coming up on Sunday afternoon June 17 at 3 PM and will
Read moreMusic by Nicolas Flagello National Radio Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine John McLaughlin Williams, conductor Elmar Oliviera, violin Susan Gonzalez, soprano Artek 0036-2 Nicolas Flagello (1928-1994) was born in New York City, earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music and, upon graduation, taught there until 1977. Flagello’s music is romantic and firmly built on 19th century models with lush orchestrations and long melodic phrases. The Symphonic Aria from 1951 is moving, but sometimes too rich. Mirra (1955) concludes with an exciting “Dance” that allows the orchestra to show a lot of meat. Many of the works
Read moreJohn Schneider and his group “Partch” gave their annual REDCAT concert of Partch’s music last night. The program included Partch’s film of U.S. Highball: A Musical Account of a Transcontinental Hobo Trip (1958, film completed in 1968). The program began with the eight hitchhiker inscriptions of Barstow (1941/1943/1968); this interesting site provide clips of different performances of the first inscription. The second half of the program included rousing performances of Ring Around the Moon (1950) and Castor & Pollux (1952), both involving the seven instrumentalists in the group. The audience jumped up and called their approval at the end. There were
Read moreOur regular (well, semi-regular, at least until our dust has settled in Houston) listen to and look at living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since they’re nice enough to offer so much good listening online: Amos Elkana (b. 1967 — US / Israel) Born in Boston and a product of Berklee, the New England Conservatory and Bard, Amos now makes his home in Tel Aviv. He was one of the brave few “serious” composers that took the online plunge early; I first bumped into
Read moreNot quite sure what to make of this, but the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London has bought Opus Arte, a leading for-profit maker and producer of performance DVDs. The economics of high music culture have changed and more and more music groups of all sizes are moving toward control of production and distribution of their artistic “products,” as traditional avenues like record labels go belly up. Where is our friend Pliable on this one? Here’s an update on David Salvage’s piece at the Harvard Club on June 11. Starting time is 7pm, not 7:30 as we reported here yesterday. The requirement to dress “spiffy”
Read moreAttention Boston (and NY) shoppers! The world-premiere run of David Salvage’s String Quartet No. 2 is at hand. The Arcturus Chamber Ensemble will do the honors, starting this Friday, June 1, at 8pm, at Adams House JCR, Harvard University. They’ll do it again on Saturday night at 7:30 at the First Religious Society, Carlisle and, just to be on the safe side, one more time on Monday, June 11 at 7:30pm, at the Harvard Club, here in the Center of the Universe. There will be other works on all the programs, probably by dead white guys. The concerts are free and open to the public although the Harvard Club
Read more“But he, Siddhartha, where did he belong? Whose life would he share? Whose language would he speak?” These words of Hermann Hesse depict Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) at a pivotal point in his quest to find purpose in the world. He will soon find it, seeing one where he once saw many, finding that the seemingly unrelated are related. Later in the same book, Siddhartha, is a chapter called “By the River,” which inspired the title of Indian-American composer Asha Srinivasan’s newest work, By the River of Savathi, that will be premiered on June 2nd and 3rd, in New York City,
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