This season (12-13) has many firsts for Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. For their opening concert, Orpheus performs Beethoven’s iconic Fifth Symphony for the first time and, in addition to expanding their traditional repertoire, Orpheus has commissioned a staggering four world premieres this season! (Gabriel Kahane is their composer in residence.) The season begins with the world premiere of Augusta Read Thomas‘s Earth Echoes, a piece commissioned by Orpheus and written to commemorate the death of Gustav Mahler. John Clare spoke to Augusta about the new work. The two discuss Mahler, orchestration and the magic of Carnegie Hall. Listen to their conversation on
Read moreTomorrow, October 5, the highly acclaimed Fifth House Ensemble will be in Detroit, MI performing at the Max M. Fisher Music Center as part of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s ‘Mix @ the Max’ concert series. The event is not a traditional concert. It begins at 6 PM with a cocktail and hors d’oevres hour, which sets the mood for a more informal presentation of the evening’s program and creates an opportunity for concertgoers and the performers to mingle before and after the performance. I got in touch with Fifth House’s flutist, Melissa Snoza, and asked her about the groups experience
Read moreThe scuttlebutt around Columbia University’s new senior composer hire seems to be true. As Alex Ross reported on The Rest is Noise yesterday, Austrian composer Georg Friedrich Haas will be joining Columbia’s faculty sometime during the 2012-’13 academic year, replacing Tristan Murail, One revels in the possibilities, not only for graduate students in composition, but for the rest of us too; we’ll likely get to hear some terrific programs during his time stateside! Our friend Thomas Bjørnseth has some terrific musical selections by Haas on his Atonality.Net website, and The Wellesz Theatre is streaming Haas’s 2011 opera Bluthaus in its entirety via YouTube (embed below). .
Read moreAcclaimed and award-winning ‘new music specialist’ Sarah Plum (right) is giving a recital of new works for violin this Friday (Sept. 28th) at 8 PM at the Firehouse Space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Sarah has dedicated her career to performing the works of living composers and establishing meaningful, collaborative relationships with them – a fact highlighted by her recital’s program which includes pieces by Christopher Adler, Christopher Burns, Matthew Burtner, Laurie Schwartz, Mari Takano and Sarah’s longtime collaborator, Sydney Corbett. I talked to Sarah about Friday’s concert, her career, working in Europe and other topics related to contemporary music on my
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Commissions, Competitions, Composers, Composers Now, Contemporary Classical, Online, Opportunities, Premieres, Resources, San Francisco, Support, The Business
Composers under 30, listen up – the world famous Kronos Quartet wants you.
Read moreThe most recent collaboration of composer/pianist Vijay Iyer and poet Mike Ladd, entitled Holding It Down: The Veterans’ Dreams Project, received its world premiere last week (September 19-22) at The Harlem Stage Gatehouse. This multimedia work, epic in scope, yet poignant in its emotional nuance, is the result of three years of interviewing and collaborating with veterans of color from the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Holding It Down also marks the culmination of a trilogy of multimedia works by Iyer and Ladd, the others being Still Life with Commentator (2006) and In What Language (2003). Each of the three works examines a different aspect of
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Chamber Music, Choral Music, Classical Music, Composers, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, Criticism, Orchestral, Orchestras, Percussion, Performers, Recordings, Review
If you were having a conversation with fellow music lovers about the great American composers, Carl Ruggles would not be the first person to come to mind. The “Great American Composer” honor is most often bestowed upon Copland, Ives, or even depending on the company you are with, Bernstein. This is not to say, however, that a popularity contest equates to greatness. An equally adept and creative composer, Carl Ruggles produced a small yet intriguing output of pieces for a variety of ensemble types. It is only fair, then, that when recording the complete works of a lesser known composer
Read more(A few introductory words: I teach theory and composition at The University of Minnesota, Morris. I’m originally from Pinhook, IN – pop. 19 – and hold degrees from Morehead [KY] State University and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. I blog on matters musical, political and random at Walk In Brain. I’ve been composing for nearly three decades, and occasionally some of it gets heard. I want to thank Steve for giving me the space. There’s some good stuff happening out here in the hinterlands, and if you’re doing something interesting within, oh, 3 – 6 hours of Morris,
Read moreMy advice to any aspiring string quartet player, or chamber musician is to strive to be the strongest instrumentalist you can be. You should be able to play concerti, sonatas, solo Bach….you name it. If you have those skills at your fingertips, as it were, you can offer that back to your ensemble, which only strengthens the whole. An ensemble is only as strong as its weakest link. After 34 years with the same group, I do believe that I have a pretty good insight into what it takes to make a marriage, friendship, business or partnership work. In
Read moreFor the past seven years, Baltimore and Peabody-Institute-based composer (and friend of S21) Judah Adashi has been enlightening Mobtown’s ears by running the Evolution Contemporary Music Series. Praised by Tim Smith of the Baltimore Sun for having “elevated and enriched Baltimore’s new music scene enormously,” and by the Baltimore City Paper as “superb…not the same-old, same-old,” the series has presented or premiered works by over 75 living composers, performed by acclaimed musicians from Baltimore and beyond. Events regularly include pre-concert conversations with performers, composers, critics and scholars; featured guests have included Marin Alsop (music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra); composers Kevin Puts and Christopher
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