Contemporary Classical

Chamber Music, Composers, Concerts, Conferences, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Music Events, News

Music: Cognition, Technology, Society

“How can music ‘speak’ and how do we have knowledge of it? What is its potential to express, represent, and communicate? How has changing expertise concerning sonic and musical knowledge shaped these questions across time and space?” These are the questions that inspired the interdisciplinary conference entitled “Music: Cognition, Technology, Society” that will take place at Cornell University this weekend, May 11 – 13. The conference will spotlight Tod Machover (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in a dual-role as guest composer and keynote speaker. Other keynote speakers include Eric Clarke (University of Oxford), Ichiro Fujinaga (McGill University) and Robert Gjerdingen (Northwestern

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by Eric Nathan
Classical Music, Commissions, Composers, Composers Now, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, New York

“Spring for Music” at Carnegie Hall – The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra

  On Tuesday evening in New York City, Edmonton is taking Carnegie Hall by storm. The “Spring for Music” series, a yearly Carnegie event, is an opportunity for symphony orchestras around North America to come and present their work in New York City- an opportunity that would not necessarily be possible for some of these orchestras if “Spring for Music” did not exist. This Tuesday will see the Carnegie debut of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, an up-and-coming star in the symphonic world. The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra is celebrating its 60-year anniversary this year. An integral and beloved part of the

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by Jonathan Lakeland
Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, Events, Music Events

Music of China at Alice Tully Hall–Chinese Hua Xia Chamber Ensemble (A Preview)

Pictured: Chai Shuai Performing a program entitled Dialogue between the Traditional and the Modern, including folk and Chinese Opera works as well as contemporary works by both Chinese and Western composers such as Xie Wenhui and Victoria Bond, the Chinese Hua Xia Chamber Ensemble (pronounced HWA SHA) makes their Lincoln Center debut at Alice Tully Hall on Monday, May 7 at 7:30pm. Founded in 1995, and currently touring the United States with performances in New York and Boston, the Chinese Hua Xia Chamber Ensemble of the China Conservatory has become one of the most dynamic and technically impressive chamber ensembles

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by Chris McGovern
Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, Events, Interviews, Music Events

Cellophilia: W4’s All-Cello Event (A Preview)

New York-based new music collective West 4th (aka W4) are garnering a wonderful reputation in being very active and decisively creative in concepts for their concert series. This coming June 8th, they will put on an all-cello program titled “Cellophilia” where they will feature music not just for solo cello, but for multiple cellos of 2-8 at a time. There are eight cellists scheduled to appear, among them are Mariel Roberts, who is also a co-producer of the concert, and Bang On a Can All-Stars’ Ashley Bathgate. The concert is being funded via Kickstarter. Please click here or on the

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by Chris McGovern
Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, New York

Inna Faliks–A Night of Words and Music at Cornelia: A Review

Music/Words presents Inna Faliks (piano) Clarice Assad (piano and vocals) Samantha Malk (soprano) and Irina Mashinski (poet) Cornelia Street Cafe, NYC April 22nd, 2012 Written by Kyle Lynch Last Sunday evening, pianist Inna Faliks closed the fourth season of her Music/Words series at the West Village institution, Cornelia Street Café, in New York City. It was an intimate affair in the Café’s cozy basement theatre, and Inna was joined by soprano Samatha Malk, Brazilian pianist and singer Clarice Assad, and poet Irina Mashinski. The potpourri of solo piano, songs, and poetry readings hearkens back to old European salons of the

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by Chris McGovern
Chamber Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York

Concert Review: Shepherd Spotlight at Advent Lutheran

In the Kaleidoscope: the Music of Sean Shepherd April 23, 2012 Music Mondays at Advent Lutheran Church NEW YORK – Sean Shepherd’s music was featured in last week’s Music Monday concert at Advent Lutheran Church on New York’s Upper West Side. One of the fast rising stars of contemporary classical music’s thirty-something set, Shepherd has already been performed by the New York Philharmonic, on their Contact contemporary music series, and is currently in residence with both the orchestras Cleveland and Reno. Upcoming performances of his works are this summer at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music and in the Fall

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by Christian Carey
Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Music Events

Line Upon Line’s “Perspective: Xenakis”

This coming Friday, May 4, marks the beginning of Austin-based percussion trio Line Up Line’s Xenakis festival, dubbed “Perspective: Xenakis” (go here for ticketing information). While most fans of 20th/21st-century music have come to know Xenakis’ music as a staple of the percussion repertoire, the program for “Perspective: Xenakis” is surprisingly broad, featuring, among other chamber pieces, a complete performance of Xenakis’ string quartets by the renowned JACK Quartet. I caught up with Matt Teodori, one of Line Upon Line’s founding members, and dug a little deeper into how this festival came about. As he explained to me, the impetus

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by Garrett Schumann
Contemporary Classical

Update: Villiers Quartet International Competition

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V5jhpB5zzE[/youtube] Last July we posted on the British Villiers Quartet’s first international competition, the call for which Sequenza21 readers helped refine.  After an online voting process, three finalists (Canadian  Riho Maimets, American  Henry B. Stewart and British Chris Roe) have been selected and one will be crowned winner on Sunday during a special concert in London.  The concert, hosted by British conductor and violinist, Thomas Kemp,  will take place at 3:00 p.m., GMT, at St. Andrew’s Church in London and will be webcast at www.villiersquartet.com/2012competition, where viewers from around the world will be able to cast their votes in real time.  The Villiers

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by Armando Bayolo
Contemporary Classical

Know Your Concertos for Orchestra – Win Tickets to Neikrug Premiere

On Thursday evening, March 26, the New York Philharmonic will debut Marc Neikrug’s Concerto for Orchestra, which was commissioned for the NYPhil last year: When Alan Gilbert was at Vail with the Philharmonic a couple of summers ago, and Marc Neikrug was Composer in Residence at the Vail Music Festival, they began to discuss the possibility of a commission. The composer thought possibly a wind concerto, but Alan Gilbert said that’s not what he had in mind; he wanted something “with more flash”…something a little more “sparkly.” Neikrug suggested that a concerto for orchestra might fill the bill. Traditional concertos

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by Jerry Bowles
Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Events, Music Events, Piano

Inna Faliks: Interview/Preview of her Cornelia St. Cafe show

Music/Words, an interdisciplinary series founded and curated by NYC-based pianist Inna Faliks, continues its fourth season on Sunday, April 22, 2012, at 6 PM with a performance at New York’s Cornelia Street Cafe featuring Faliks and guest pianist Clarice Assad at the piano along with soprano Samantha Malk and poet Irina Mashinski. The program will explore the sensuousness of early Schoenberg (with the Stefan Georgy poetry used in the songs), along with the passion of Mashinski’s poetry and Assad’s Brazilian music. The program includes Schoenberg’s Drei Klavierstucke, opus 11, his songs from Book of Hanging Gardens, and various improvisations by

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by Chris McGovern