Festivals

Awards, Click Picks, Competitions, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Festivals

Dang, Beat Me to It.

He’s been on my list for a while now, to make famous (ha ha) as an S21 “click pick”. But before I get the chance to feature him, Huck Hodge goes and wins this year’s Gaudeamus Prize:

At the final concert of the International Gaudeamus Music Week 2008, which took place in Amsterdam from 1 to 7 September, the Gaudeamus Prize was awarded to the American composer Huck Hodge (1977).

The Gaudeamus Prize, an award of 4,550 Euros, is intended as a commission for a new work to be performed at the next edition of the International Gaudeamus Music Week. Hodge received the prize for Parallaxes, a composition for ensemble, performed on September 3 at the “Muziekgebouw aan ’t Y” by the Asko|Schönberg Ensemble conducted by Bas Wiegers.

His site will fill you in on his work, with plenty of good listening. From his C.V. it looks like he’s taking a post up in my old hometown of Seattle, teaching composition at the University of Washington. Bully for them, and bravo to Huck.

by Steve Layton
Click Picks, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Online

An Other Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Other MindsLazy, hazy summer days… Not much really happening, unless you hoof it to some festival or other… Or, for the price of simply wearing out your finger clicking, you could spend the better part of the next couple weeks feasting on the treasure trove that is the Other Minds website.

Founded in 1993 by Jim Newman and Charles Amirkhanian, the Other Minds Festival has become a San Francisco Bay-area institution, supporting the exposure for and exchange between a vast array of new-music and musicians important these last twenty-plus years, on or off the beaten path. The festival doesn’t simply rely on the concert-hall, but spreads to initmate, open places where the audience and artists can truly feel free to interact. 

More significant for us, early on Other Minds realized the value of the web for not just presenting but also archiving and sharing the music and ideas that flowed from the festival. They began to offer snippets, then entire concerts, from all of the festivals; added special articles and tributes to important musicians; and now even sell their own CDs, videos and books. I should also mention sometime-S21-visitor Richard Friedman’s related “Music from Other Minds” bay-area radio program, which also streams each broadcast and is linked at the OM site. There’s lots of news on their homepage, too, making well worth becoming one of your regular bookmarks.

It’s futile for me to even attempt to list all of the wonderful musicians documented at the site; so just go, see, hear, listen and learn. What else were you doing with your summer anyway? Maybe it’ll even get you thinking about how you can make it to next year’s festival…

by Steve Layton
Broadcast, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals

More from the Proms–first performances of Berkeley, MacRae, and Hillborg

The Prom Concert on August 10, given by the BBC Symphony, conducted by Edward Gardner, included two first performances, both of them commissioned by the BBC for this season of the Proms.  These were among the 13 first performances and 7 UK first performances on the Proms this season.

Michael BerkeleyMichael Berkeley’s Slow Dawn is a revision and reorchestration of a work written three years ago for wind band, which had been commissioned by the British conductor and horn player Tim Reynish as a memorial piece for his son William.   Berkeley intended it as a depiction of dawn in Wales where he lives, and follows the deliberate and inexorable tread of the sun from the first hints of light through its early appearance with to its full presence with stabbing rays of daylight.   This sunrise is a long way from Daphnis and Chloe (or, for that matter, from Sibelius’s Night Ride and Sunrise, which preceded this piece on this program).  Here the focus is on the tread of ‘the kind old sun’ (as Berkeley says, quoting Wilfred Owen) in its endless recurrence and its complete disregard for more transient human concerns. Starting with deliberate slow dirge rhythm in the percussion, which recurs periodically over the its course, the tonalish work builds, via lines which are increasingly quicker and more agitated, over a dense, very closely spaced harmonic texture to a violently rhythmic climax; it leaves a dramatic and satisfying impression.

Stuart MacRaeGaudete by Scottish composer Stuart MacRae is an almost half hour long piece for soprano and large orchestra, setting poems from the book of the same name by Ted Hughes.   The piece begins with very arresting ferociously clattering music for the full orchestra which gradually clears to reveal the soprano singing stratospherically high without words.   All of this is very effective and it all lands with something of a thud as soon as attention is turned to words, when the voice part, along with everything else, becomes labored and constricted, in terms of both rhythm and tempo.

This actually seemed to me to set the pattern for the piece, with instrumental music in what might be described as a high modernist style, managed in a very dramatically effective and masterly way, is cut short and undercut by vocal writing which is much less skillful, much less effective, and as a result, tends to come off much more as merely dealing in cliches of that same high modernist style, with endless jagged lines covering enormous registral stretches in jerky rhythms.  At one point, when the text says “He never stops trying to dance, trying to sing,” when the singer launches into long melissmas of a sort of new music yodelling, one could imagine that the idea was to depict the failed effort described by the words, but the music is so much like all the rest of the voice part that it’s not possible to be completely sure whether that might be the composer’s intentions.   It wasn’t clear to me exactly what the subject matter of the Hughes, as represented by the texts used or as discussed at some length in MacRae’s program notes, might be (and further rereading after the fact didn’t make things any clearer).

As the piece progressed I began to wish that MacRae had simply written a completely instrumental piece, somewhat shorter, that evoked whatever it was we were supposed to get out of the texts, and left the words out altogether.   Had he done that, and had that meant leaving out the soprano (as opposed to having a wordless voice part, which could have been very effective), on the other hand, it would have been a loss, since it would have meant not having heard the really wonderful singing of Susanne Andersson, who always sang beautifully, and managed to make practically all the words comprehensible, despite all the obstacles MacRae had put in her path. (more…)

by Rodney Lister
Electro-Acoustic, Experimental Music, Festivals

Just Because It’s June in Buffalo

For the past couple of hundred years, David Felder has been running June in Buffalo, the venerable annual music festival that traces its history back to Morton Feldman. Having recently suffered through ‘Savages,’ a small but brutally great film about old people with Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman set in Buffalo, I have to think that the festival is only justifiable reason to ever set foot there.

This year’s festival is set for June 2-7 and this is one of those year’s when the festival departs from its usual format and explores an overarching theme. This is “Music and Computers” year, drawing in some of the world’s most illustrious and innovative composers, researchers, and teachers of algorithmic, interactive, multimedia, acousmatic, and electroacoustic computer music. Headlining the conference are senior faculty Charles Dodge, Cort Lippe, Roberto Morales, Miller Puckette, Morton Subotnick, Ben Thigpen, and Hans Tutschku, a diverse and international group of composers and pedagogues.

David Felder, currently Birge-Cary Professor of Composition at University of Buffalo, and Director of the Center for 21st Century Music, as well as Founder and Artistic Director of the Slee Sinfonietta, has actually presided as artistic director of June in Buffalo since 1985 (you didn’t really think it was a couple of hundred years, did you), when he resurrected the festival after a five-year hiatus. He has since reshaped the festival, emphasizing the importance of meaningful interaction between the senior composers and students.

This summer’s resident ensembles and soloists include some of the world’s leading performers of contemporary and computer music: the Ensemble for Intuitive Music, a German ensemble founded in 1980 in what was then East Germany for the performance of music considered taboo by the Communist government; members of Germany’s acclaimed experimental chamber music group Ensemble SurPlus; members of the widely-renowned New York New Music Ensemble; and UB’s own professional chamber orchestra-in-residence, the Slee Sinfonietta. Other distinguished performers will include bass-baritone Nicholas Isherwood, the Paris-based early music and new music specialist, and the Swedish classical guitarist and new music pioneer Magnus Andersson.

Joining the faculty and performers will be composition students from around the world, who must first pass through JiB’s fiercely competitive application process (last year there were 100 applicants for 20 spots.) June in Buffalo offers these students the rare opportunity to work and mix with top musicians and world-class faculty in an intimate and casual environment. Under the direction of Felder, more emphasis is now placed on providing opportunities for these emerging composers. For example, each gets to rehearse one of his or her pieces with world-class musicians in a professional setting, resulting in a public performance.

The round-the-clock festival schedule consists of daily seminars, lectures, master classes, panel discussions, and open rehearsals-capped by first-rate afternoon and evening concerts that are open to the public. Every seminar and concert since the Feldman days of ’75 has been recorded, and remains in the UB library’s extensive archives.

If you’re in the neighborhood, pounce. Send me a postcard if you go.

by Jerry Bowles
Contemporary Classical, Festivals

Secret Ingredient Suggestions

Iron Composer OmahaThis year’s Iron Composer Omaha competition is open nationally to people between the ages of 18-26. First prize is $500 and loads of bragging rights.

Because we were focusing ARTSaha! 2007 on Futurism, we settled on the main motif of The Jetsons theme song as the secret ingredient. The five finalists had five hours to write a piece for woodwind quintet based on that four-note cell.

The secret ingredient could be anything from a narrative outline, to a poem, a chord sequence, or even a found object.

Our chairman last year was Hal France, longtime conductor of Opera Omaha. If you were the chairman of this year’s competition, what secret ingredient would you choose?

by Jodru
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Music Events, New York

ICO (formerly VIM:TRIBECA) Concert Series Disaster

Last year, many of us saw a posting regarding the VIM:Tribeca concert series. The organizers, Judd Greenstein and Kimball Gallagher, wanted to put on concert series of mostly new works; the composers were responsible for providing performers. The concerts were to be put on in the Gallerie Icosahedron (I’m deliberately not linking to them, for reasons that will be apparent soon!). The first indication of trouble to us should have been the delays, imposed by the gallery, regarding scheduling and, we found out later, the renting of a piano. The first public sign of trouble was the sudden announcement that the concert series was now to be called the ICO series.

When it was announced that my work had been accepted, I was thrilled. I was to be featured alongside Pamela Stein; I contacted Kathy Supové, who was going to play my new pieces for interactive piano. And, Pam was going to sing the premiere of a piece by Lukas Ligeti. This had all the makings of an exciting event.

On Thursday, we received the following note:

1) CONCERT FEE: all concerts will be subject to a $300 minimum, payable to the gallery in half a week before the concert, with the remainder due at the show. For double-bills, each artist will be responsible for half this figure. In addition to this de facto rental fee, all money over $600 in receipts from the door will continue to be split 50/50. The fee is a guarantee against low turnout – a deposit, essentially. These checks must arrive 1 week before each concert, beginning with the February 14th show, and all checks should be mailed to Gallerie Icosahedron, 27 N Moore St., New York, NY 10013, and made out to Gallerie Icosahedron.

2) TICKET PRICE: the ticket price will now be raised to $20, with no student discounts.

3) REHEARSAL FEE: all artists will have access to the gallery from 5-6:30 on the day of the show. Any other rehearsal times need to be scheduled in advance and will be available at a $40/hr rate.

4) INTERMISSION: there will be NO intermissions of any kind. For double-bills, there will be a brief set change, but even this will be less than a standard intermission.

5) COMPS: there will be no comps, except for press.

6) PIANO: the piano needs to be kept at the back of the gallery, and cannot be moved forward.

And, furthermore, Judd and Kimball were to be removed from the organization of the concerts themselves. Actually, we’d have to individually negotiate elements of the shows, if we wished to continue.

At this point, the series is in disarray. I haven’t kept track, but most of the participants have jumped ship. I’m not sure if I would have done this had these policies been in place beforehand. But, to impose these changes mid-season – mind you, the ICO had a full slate of concerts in the Fall of 2007 – is just infuriating. And, looking at their demands, the one that irks me the most is the policy against comps or student discounts. $20 is a steep fee, particularly when you’re just going to a gallery with folding chairs. $20 would get me into a lot of concert halls in many places (okay, nosebleed seats in some places), and with more comfortable chairs.

I’m aware that costs have risen tremendously in the past few months. But, assuming their gallery would have been open those nights anyway, would the ICO series really have been displacing $300 worth of business? $900, if you count the door costs.

What’s truly disturbing is the Kremlin-style overthrow of the originators of the series. Here you have two people who have done all the work, put a huge amount of time, energy, and, I assume, their own money into this project. It seems to me that the ICO people just want the series to go away, which it seem like it will.

First of all, here is my advice. If anyone is still planning on putting on one of the ICO concerts, please go support them. Go to the gallery, and have a good time. Don’t buy any refreshments if the gallery sells them.  As a matter of fact, avoid direct eye contact with any gallery employee.  However,  if you see any art there you like, write down the name of the artist, and contact them directly when you go home. If you like, wait until their show at the ICO is done. Buy something else from them, but make sure no money goes to the Gallerie Icosahedron.

At one point, I have been told, they complained about the nature of the music being presented. It wasn’t ‘classical’ or ‘conservative’ enough. I didn’t realize that we were under the scrutiny of the new music police, telling us how to write as well as demanding that we pay – oh, and that piano is just there for decoration.  I’m sure that their list of demands would eventually include no parallel 5ths or un-resolved dissonances – and, I’m sure, no Max patches.
This is truly a horrible situation for all of us. I understand that concerts do need to be canceled sometimes. Performers get sick or injured, the composer isn’t finished with the piece, sometimes even accidents occur in the performance venue. Yet, this is truly, truly appalling: a concert canceled because of greed and almost maniacal control exerted by the proprietors of the concert space. I am disgusted by their actions.

This morning, someone suggested that we try to find another location. I’m all for that, although I have my doubts that we’d be able to find a decent concert site that would have availability for all the events (which were scheduled on Thursdays). If that can be done, I’d be thrilled. I’d be happy to wait until the Fall. I’d be happy to pay or raise funds for a performance at a good venue. And, I’ll be happy to avoid walking down the street anywhere near the Gallerie Icosahedron.

by Anthony Cornicello
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Music Events

What’s Happening This Season?

The season is underway in New York and, as usual, there are a number of promising looking performances coming up.  Here are a few things to look for:

Margaret Garner, Richard Danielpour’s operatic collaboration with Toni Morrison, is in mid-run at City Opera and, judging from the ads, there are plenty of seats to be had.  I can’t quite stir myself enough to drag up there and sit through an evening of misery about a runaway slave who murders her daughter rather than have her captured.  Doesn’t stop me from having an opinion, though.  Morrison is too sanctimonious and self-important by half and Danielpour should write an opera about Omar the Tentmaker.  Samuel Barber’s Vanessa opens on November 4.

Chance Encounter, On September 28, Lisa Bielawa, Susan Narucki and the new-music chamber group the Knights, will commandeer East Broadway near the Seward Park Library to perform a 4-hour work based on overheard conversation, collected over the last year and set to music.  Details at Lisa’s blog.

Kronos Quartet – The indefatigueable quartet is slated for BAM’s Next Wave festival with collaborations with two Finnish composer/musicians: Kimmo Pohjonen, an accordionist and singer, and Samuli Kosminen, an accordionist and manipulator of electronic sounds.  Oct. 3, 5-6.

Esa Pekka-Salonen – Another famous Finn is the subject of a Composer Portrait at Miller Theater on October 5.  Performers include Imani Winds, cellist Darrett Adkins, soprano Tony Arnold and pianist Blair McMillen.

Berlin in Lights –  Life is a carbaret, old chum, with a bunch of cultural events scattered around town between November 2 and 18.  The centerpiece is the Berlin Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall on November 13 and 14.  Simon and gang will be doing the U.S. premiere of Marcus Lindberg’s Seht die Sonne on the 13th and Thomas Adès’ Tevot on the 14th.  Adès, who Simon sez is also a spectacular pianist, is doing an entire recital that will include (without electronic or mechanical assistance) Conlon Nancarrow’s fiendish  Three Canons for Ursula.

That takes us up to mid-November.  We’ll pick up there over the weekend.  What’s hot in L.A., San Francisco, London, Grand Rapids?  Give us a report.

 

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Festivals

August in New York

Verbier3.jpg                                I don’t ski.  Asthma.  And fear.  Mostly fear.

I used to party a bit though and because many of my companions were ski buffs, I have socialized, but not skied, at some of the best places in the world.  I have not skied Kitsbuehl and Chamonix and Lillehammer, for example.  I have not skied Aspen and Telluride and Jackson Hole.   Especially, I have not skied Verbier, the favorite hangout of some rowdy Norwegians of my acquaintance.  We have been thrown out of the Feed Club, Verbier’s most lively nightspot, not once, but twice over the years, not a record I’m sure but respectable for middle-aged businessmen.

Alas, I have never attended the Verbier Festival, which has become one of the best music festivals in Europe in recent years.  Fortuntately for all of us, they have a terrific web site when you can view all of the performances, including the August 1 premiere of our familiar Avner Dorman’s Spices, Perfumes and Toxins, under the direction of Zubin Mehta.  For more Dorman, check out the Metropolis Ensemble’s performance last May of his Mandolin Concerto.

And, welcome back to the S21 blogging fold Judith Lang Zaimont.

by Jerry Bowles
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Festivals

Hello, Nonino

Seems like only yesterday we reported that Matthew Cmiel, one of our favorite boy wonders, had put together a new band called Formerly Known as Classical.  (Actually, it March 15, 2006, but let’s not quibble.) Looks like the group has done okay since last we checked in; on Sunday, August 5, they’re appearing in a concert at the Cabrillo Music Festival with Marin Alsop, the conductor and music director of the Baltimore Symphony and recent MacArthur Prize winner. 

Matthew–now a sobering 18-years-old–will conduct the group in Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round, an exciting piece of music which gets its title from a story about boxing by Julio Cortazar and is an homage to Astor Piazzolla the late master of neuvo tango.  

Then, recent Juilliard graduate, cellist Drew Ford and San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra pianist Preben Antonsen will play Matthew’s piece Macho, Cool and Dangerous, which was inspired by the music of Golijov and Piazzolla.

The concert is Sunday, August 5 at 8:00 PM in the Sant Cruz Civic Auditorium, 307 Church Street, Santa Cruz.  If you’re in the neighborhood, write us a review.

Hey, the Steve Layton Songbook is coming along nicely.  Check out Prufrock (T.S. Eliot) 2007.

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Violin

Social Media and the Contemporary Composer

For your dining and dancing pleasure–through the miracle of YouTube–Club Sequenza21 is delighted to present the talented violinist/composer Piotr Szewczyk performing short solo violin pieces by regulars Lawrence Dillon and Jeff Harrington, live and in color, as part of his Violin Futura program at Spoleto.  Roll ’em, Pete.

[youtube]xJGdeOUNokM [/youtube]

[youtube]z5yBrIFZIcs [/youtube] 

by Jerry Bowles