Thomas Adès is a phenominal musician. The depth of his musical intelligence and power of his insight are impossible to miss. They knocks you down, jumps up and down on your chest, and spit in your eye, and it’s enthralling. The performances of the Beethoven Eighth Symphony and the Prokofiev Classical Symphony which began and ended, respectively, the Prom concert on August 15, on which he conducted the Britten Sinfonia, were both dazzling and incredible satisfying as musical experiences. Given all of that, I would very much like to like his music, and I’ve tried, but, to use a phrase
Read moreOn August 21, 2016 the Ruth B. Shannon Center for the Performing Arts at Whittier College was the venue for a much-anticipated appearance by the distinguished composer Harold Budd. A fine Sunday crowd filled the auditorium, with many coming from a considerable distance to be part of this rare event. Mr. Budd was joined by Bradford Ellis and Veda Hille and the concert consisted of a single piece, Aurora Teardrops, that extended for 75 minutes. Prior to the beginning of the concert, a video of some California desert scenes by Jane Maru was projected on a large screen above the
Read moreThe Locrian Players present music from the past decade. The repertoire that their curators find is always a fascinating listen and often includes several premieres. Check them out (for free) on Friday. Friday, August 26 at 8PM Derek Bermel A Short History of the Universe Martin Suckling Visiones after Goya** Elliott Carter Figment IV Royden Tze Starscape*** Jonathan Dawe Silent like the Snow Julian Grant Know Thy Kings and Queens Louis Conti Ohne Heimath * World Premiere ** U.S. Premiere *** New York Premiere 10th Floor Performance Space, Riverside Church Free Event Save
Read moreTo celebrate this year’s fiftieth anniversary season, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart charged International Contemporary Ensemble with performing fifty new pieces over the course of the festival. Numbers 45-49 were presented at Merkin Hall on Tuesday, August 23rd. The fiftieth, music by Tyshawn Sorey celebrating Joséphine Baker, was slated for the 24th. Tuesday’s program consisted entirely of concertos. In some cases, the composers used the term rather loosely, creating amorphously constructed entities rather than the formally distinct works one might expect in the genre. Nearly all were longer than their advertised times: starting at 7:30 PM, the first half alone
Read moreThe Last Dance series of events at the wulf continued on Wednesday, August 17, 2016 with experimental music offerings by Carmina Escobar, Casey Anderson and Scott Cazan. The wulf will be moving to new quarters in the fall, closing out a successful eight-year run at the Santa Fe Avenue address in downtown Los Angeles. A good-sized crowd of enthusiasts gathered for an evening of friendly chatter and three pieces of new music. Carmina Escobar opened, equipped with a microphone, colored lamps and a camera connected to a computer. According to her website: “Her work focuses primarily on sound, the voice,
Read moreEvery year the BBC in conjunction with the Proms holds a competition for composers aged 12 through 18 as part of their larger music education program Inspire. Each concert performance of the winning pieces has always had a slightly different format, but has tended over the years towards less talk and more music. It has gradually come to include only the winning works and not those which were “highly commended.” The concerts in many past years have been at the Royal College of Music, but the 2016 concert, on August 15, was in the theater at Broadcasting House. Since it
Read moreThe Sunday concert at Tanglewood’s Festival of Contemporary Music is always something of a marathon. It starts at 10 AM and is chock full of offerings that usually challenge the ear as much as tantalize it. The Sunday concert has traditionally also been the one that tests the capacities of the TMC Fellows most thoroughly. This year was no exception, although it was a horse race between Sunday’s chamber music concert and Monday’s presentation of Messiaen’s formidable Turungalila-Symphonie, a work that vibrated and thundered with intensity, shaped with eminently detailed care by conductor Stefan Asbury. Ander’s Hillborg’s Brass Quintet
Read moreSaturday afternoon, July 23, 2016 and a fine weekend crowd braved the heat and smoke of downtown Los Angeles to gather at Art Share LA for a generous helping of piano music presented by Sound and Fury Concerts. Grammy-nominated Nadia Shpachenko was the featured performer, with Christine Lee and Christian Dubeau also on hand to perform original works. Spanning some two hours, the concert included solo piano pieces as well as works incorporating various forms of electronic accompaniment and images projected overhead. Crystal Glass (2015) for piano and electronics, by Christine Lee opened the program, performed by the composer. This
Read moreThe Pierrot Ensemble, named after Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and consisting of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, has, since its inception, been a signature assembly for contemporary music. The preferred version of the ensemble also includes a percussionist: the “Pierrot plus Percussion” grouping is the default core membership for many new music groups. Even after dozens, if not hundreds, of pieces have been written for “P+p” ensembles, there is still plenty of vitality left in the genre. This was abundantly in evidence on the Saturday afternoon concert on July 23 at Tanglewood’s Festival of Contemporary Music, where several of the
Read moreFriday, July 8, 2016 at Boston Court in Pasadena found Vicki Ray featured in a concert presented by Piano Spheres, the long time champion of new music in Los Angeles.. Fifty Shades of Pianissimo was the fitting title for the concert which consisted of a single piano work, For Bunita Marcus (1984), by Morton Feldman. A sizable audience gathered to hear this extraordinary piece, filling the larger Main Stage performance space at Boston Court. A video by Clay Chaplin accompanied the 75 minute work that was played continuously, without intermission. As Ms. Ray took her seat at the piano the
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