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
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
Read moreThe 2012 Fast Forward Austin contemporary music festival begins its 8-hour marathon of performances this afternoon at Austin, Texas’ versatile ND-501 studios. This year’s event, the second installment of the Fast Forward Austin (FFA) idea, features performances by local and nationally-acclaimed performers including renowned pianist Vicky Chow and Graham Reynolds, considered, “Austin’s own new music wizard”. Today’s musical menu features established names from the last few decades of new music – David Lang, Louis Andriessen and Iannis Xenakis – alongside brand new works by up-and-coming composers – Shawn Allison, David Biedenbender and Christopher Cerrone – culled from the festival’s 2011-12
Read moreIttai Shapira is best known as an internationally acclaimed soloist with an impressive list of collaborators that includes some of the world’s finest conductors and orchestras. He is a champion of contemporary music, having premiered concertos by many of todays most renowned composers, including Kenji Bunch, Shulamit Ran, Theodore Wiprud, Avner Dorman, and Dave Heath. While still a violin student years ago, Shapira studied analysis and composition with Mark Kopytman. He loved composing, but his performance career soon grew too busy to allow for any other callings, so he kept his creative spark alive by writing his own cadenzas
Read moreI recently gave an interview about our activities at Sequenza 21 to the blog A Closer Listen. I also curated a mix for them, consisting of selections by composers who participated in our 2011 concert. You can read the article and hear the mix here.
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