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
Read moreFor 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]
Read moreFirst Jeff Harrington, then David Salvage, and now our very own Lawrence Dillon is feeling some end-of-the-season love on the concert circuit. This very evening (Thursday), at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, violinist Piotr Szewczyk will perform Lawrence’s Mister Blister and a movement from Fifteen Minutes as part of his Music in Time – Violin Futura program. Szewczyk will also perform works by Mason Bates, Moritz Eggert, Daniel Kellogg, Jennifer Wang, and others as part of this program of new, short, innovative solo violin pieces. And, on June 15 at the International Double Reed Society Conference in Ithaca, New York, bassoonist Jeffrey Keesecker will
Read moreNo? Well you should, and can, this Friday night, May 4, 8PM at the Robert Miller Gallery, 524 W. 26th Street, New York, NY on the second night of a three-day music/art festival called Look&Listen. Finally had a chance to meet up with Brian Sacawa after all these years for lunch at Ralph’s, a New York institution since 1952. Got to regale him with tales of having seen Dexter and Stan and Jimmy and Zoot and Gerry doing that thing they did so well while they were still doing it. I’ve reached the age where “I was there” has become a conversation capper–one of the few
Read moreFor the full story on the new aleatoric work seen being performed above on a Bösendorfer at the Two Moors Festival in the UK, take An Overgrown Path. Image credit BBC News
Read moreContrary to speculation that the mystery man in Friday’s photo is a Guantanamo detainee or a middle school crossing guard, the fashion-forward gentleman in question is, in fact, the Dutch composer Jacob ter Veldhuis, aka JacobTV, whose work (it says here in the press release) “…has had a huge impact on the European music scene in the past decade, but he is far less known in the U.S.” It could happen. The Whitney Museum of American Art, that well-known new music venue, is concluding its Spring 2007 Whitney Live series with Grab It!, a three-day festival dedicated to JacobTV, Wednesday to Friday,
Read moreBeth Anderson is hosting Women’s Work 2007, a series of three Wednesday concerts in March at Greenwich House Arts. The dates are March 14, 21 and 28 and the venue is the Renee Weiler Concert Hall at Greenwich House Music School, 46 Barrow Street, New York City (between Seventh Avenue South and Bedford St.). Beth has pulled together a terrific package of recent chamber instrumental and vocal music by prominent contemporary women composers from Asia, the U.S. and Europe, and how their work has been influenced by folk music, poetry and even new technology. To do our part, the crack Sequenza21 team
Read moreIt’s a monster week for our gaucho amigo Lawrence Dillon whose music will be showcased at the Music Now Fest 2007, February 21, 22 and 23 at Eastern Michigan University. This is EMU’s 15th biennial new music festival and it gets underway on Wednesday at 8 pm with a concert of pieces by EMU composers Whitney Prince and Anthony Iannaccone as well as works by Steve Reich, Alberto Ginastera and others. Faculty artists include David Pierce, Willard Zirk, Garik Pedersen, John Dorsey, Kimberly Cole-Luevano, Kristy Meretta, Julie Stone, Kathryn Goodson and guest Cary Kocher. On Thursday, there will a composer convocation
Read moreThe opening concert for the Keys to the Future featured organizer Joseph Rubenstein, BOAC regular keyboardist Lisa Moore and Blair McMillen in a program practically devoid of common modernist influence. 8 short works (1980s) Howard Skempton (b. 1947) Howard Skempton, a miniaturist of some reknown in Europe, but little recognized here, was featured in 8 short works selected and arranged by Rubenstein. While evoking a mastery of emotional poignancy, each of the pieces demonstrated a poverty of texture that was vaguely puritanical. The performance by Rubenstein was masterful. Notable among the eight pieces was The Keel Row, which began the
Read moreSeason two of Keys to the Future, a festival of contemporary music for solo piano, takes place next week, November 7-9 (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday) at Greenwich House’s Renee Weiler Concert Hall. The six participating pianists are Lisa Moore, Blair McMillen, Tatjana Rankovich, Lora Tchekoratova, Polly Ferman, and myself. On the first night (Tuesday, 11/7), the brilliant pianist Blair McMillen will perform Fred Hersch’s gigantic piece called 24 Variations on a Bach Chorale. Here are some notes by the composer: The original chorale melody is by Hans Leo Hassler (1562-1612), but was borrowed several times by J.S. Bach, mostly famously as “O
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