Pianist Sarah Cahill appears at LPR on April 6th at 7 PM as part of her tour celebrating the music and birth centenary of composer Lou Harrison. She and I touched base earlier this week as she was preparing for her trip to the Northeast. Hi Sarah. Thanks for taking time to talk with Sequenza 21. Which was the first Lou Harrison piece you played? When were you first aware of his music? I don’t remember the first piece I played, but I became interested in him because of my fascination with Henry Cowell and Ruth Crawford and
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Brooklyn, Composers, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Interviews, Microtonalism, New York, Opera
At National Sawdust on Friday April 7th at 7 PM, Opera Cabal presents the premiere of Ken Ueno’s new opera Aeolus. Joined by vocalist Majel Connery and Flux Quartet, Ueno performs throughout the opera. His fascinating blend of vocal techniques includes microtonal inflections, megaphone-amplified directives, and throat-singing. Electronics, video projections, and an architecturally conceived set design converge to make Aeolus a potent multimedia concoction. I recently caught up with Ken as he was in the thick of preparations for the opera. Hi Ken. Thanks for taking the time to talk with Sequenza 21. Why are you calling this an opera instead of some other genre? As you well know, multimedia theater pieces
Read moreMarch 26, 2017 brought the opportunity to hear experimental music performed by John Eagle and Emily Call at the wulf @ Coaxial Arts. Since the sale of the former wulf building on Sante Fe Avenue last fall, various venues around town have been used for performances and the latest of these is Coaxial Arts on South Main Street. The space is smallish, but with the brick walls and overhead track lighting, Coaxial feels like a cross between Automata and Monk Space. Almost every chair was occupied as a knowledgeable crowd filed in on a quiet Sunday evening in downtown Los
Read moreVirgil Thomson – Gertrude Stein Four Saints in Three Acts; Capital Capitals Charles Blandy, tenor; Simon Dyer, bass; Aaron Engebreth, baritone; Andrew Garland, baritone; Tom McNichols, bass; Gigi Mitchell-Velasco, mezzo-soprano; Sarah Pelletier, soprano; Deborah Selig, soprano; Sumner Thompson, baritone; Lynn Torgove, mezzo-soprano; Stanley Wilson, tenor; Boston Modern Orchestra, Gil Rose, conductor BMOP/Sound 1049 2xCD Virgil Thomson’s 1934 collaboration with the eminent author Gertrude Stein resulted in their first of two operas, Four Saints in Three Acts. Boston Modern Orchestra Project, conducted by Gil Rose, has made successful forays into recorded opera before, bringing scores such as Lukas
Read moreHard to believe that the venerable Bang on a Can Marathon began as a one day concert on Mother’s Day 1987 in a SoHo art gallery. That’s 30 years ago for those of you keeping score at home. Since then it has grown into a multi-faceted performing arts organization with a broad range of year-round international activities that have had a profound influence on New Music around the world. As the NYTimes puts it: “The current universe of do-it-yourself concert series, genre-flouting festivals, composer-owned record labels and amplified, electric-guitar-driven compositional idioms would probably not exist without their pioneering example. The Bang on
Read moreMiranda Cuckson – Pop Up Concert at Miller Theatre March 7, 2017 Published in Sequenza 21 By Christian Carey NEW YORK – Violinist Miranda Cuckson is one of the stars of new music in New York: a fearless, visionary, and tremendously talented artist. On March 7th, she presented a solo program of 20th and 21st century works in a “Pop Up Concert” at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre. In her introduction to the event, Miller Theatre’s Executive Director Melissa Smey pointed out that their “Pop Up Series” has hosted dozens of world and New York premieres. Cuckson’s program was no
Read moreMisato Mochizuki Composer Portrait Thursday March 2, 2017 Miller Theatre By Christian Carey NEW YORK – On Thursday, March 2nd, Japanese composer Misato Mochizuki was featured on Miller Theatre’s Composer Portraits series. In a concert featuring four U.S. premieres and concluding with a work commissioned and premiered at the 2015 Lincoln Center Festival, the audience was introduced to a range of her work. Throughout, Mochizuki demonstrated a clear aesthetic embodied by an interest in exploring a panorama of instrumental timbres and effects and a flair for dramatic, often quasi-ceremonial, designs. The earliest work on the program, Au Bleu
Read moreHere’ a cheerful Monday treat, ECS Publishing has made available for the 150th year of Frank Lloyd Wright a four-minute introduction to Daron Hagen and Paul Muldoon’s Frank Lloyd Wright opera Shining Brow. The opera concerns events that occured between 1903 and 1914 during the great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s life. Wright’s determination to leave his wife and children, his relationship with Mamah Cheney, and the subsequent murders and conflagration at Taliesin, are all part of the historical record. The opera takes Wright to the point at which he vows to rebuild Taliesin in Mamah’s memory. The opera
Read moreOn Friday, March 3, 2017 wasteLAnd presented the music of Klaus Lang at Art Share LA, in the heart of the arts district in downtown Los Angeles. The occasion was the US premiere of missa beati pauperes spiritu and Austrian composer Klaus Lang had planned to be in attendance, but with the recent immigration crackdown his visa was denied by the US. Inside the theater, clusters of players and singers were stationed around the performance space and the crowd arranged itself along the outside edges of the seating area for the best view. missa beati pauperes spiritu translates from the
Read moreSamuel Barber, one of America’s most celebrated composers, was born on this day (April 9) in 1910. The young filmmaker H. Paul Moon has made a full-length documentary about Barber that will be released later this month. “I went out on a limb with this project, self-distributing, keeping it independent, making sure I got things right without compromise,” Moon says. The 3-minute trailer below lines up some famous people with their insights on Barber, in this order: William Schuman, Thomas Hampson, biographer Barbara Heyman, Leonard Slatkin and Leonard Bernstein. OFFICIAL SITE: www.samuelbarberfilm.com FACEBOOK PAGE: www.facebook.com/samuelbarberfilm PAUL MOON ON TWITTER: @hpmoon
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