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
Read moreNew 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
Read moreMusic/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
Read moreIn 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
Read moreThis 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
Read more[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
Read moreOn 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
Read moreMusic/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
Read moreThe great ones don’t look for music; music finds them. Ordinary people can learn to play and maybe even perform but the great ones are born with it. They live it…and perfect it. No matter the genre or style, no matter where they try to hide–even a dirt farm in Turkey Scratch, Arkansas–music finds the kids with the spark and, for better or sometimes worse, it consumes them. And it makes the world a better place for all of us.
Read moreCutting Edge Concerts presents Great Noise Ensemble Conducted by Armando Bayolo Guest soloist, Cornelius Dufallo Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space, NY April 16, 2012 DC’s Great Noise Ensemble made a vibrant and yet intimate New York debut at Symphony Space. The contemporary music ensemble, performing in the smaller room known as Leonard Nimoy Thalia, and the ensemble not having its full lineup on this occasion, presented a night of works for varied paired-down ensemble setups. Each of these selections was presented by composer Victoria Bond, who acted as emcee and conducted interviews with each composer of the program’s works
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