Ambrose Akinmusire and Mary Halvorson – Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings (Nonesuch) Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings is the first recorded collaboration by the duo of trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire and guitarist Mary Halvorson. Spontaneity and through composed material are on display, with both playing roles in all of the pieces. “Prelude in the Ash” begins with a questing trumpet solo before the guitar joins with a sinuous arpeggiated chord pattern. “This Vivid” is more muscular, with solo material – a high trumpet note and single line guitar solos – repeated amid ebullient shouts. Calling a piece “Soundcheck” might suggest something off the
Read moreVoices of Ascension: Canticle of the Sun Voices of Ascension, Beth Willer, conductor Church of the Ascension May 21, 2026 Published in Sequenza 21 By Christian Carey NEW YORK – Beth Willer, Director of Choral Activities at Peabody Conservatory and Artistic Director of Lorelei Ensemble, served as guest conductor for Voices of Ascension’s recent Canticle of the Sun concert. To say the program was ambitious is to undersell the challenges posed by all of the pieces. Most choral ensembles, even professional ensembles, would consider any one of these works to be an inclusion sufficient to prove their capabilities
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Chamber Music, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York, Twentieth Century Composer
Decoda Celebrates “American Renaissance” Decoda Weill Recital Hall – Carnegie Hall May 12, 2026 By Christian Carey Published in Sequenza 21 NEW YORK – Founded in 2012, Decoda is an ensemble, composed of a wind quintet, string quartet, and piano, whose members had worked together in Ensemble Connect, a fellowship program at Carnegie Hall and the Juilliard School. This season the musicians continue that relationship with Carnegie Hall. Their concert last Tuesday at Weill Hall is part of the season’s 250th American anniversary celebrations. Titled “American Renaissance,” it featured composers who had relationships to the Harlem Renaissance, either
Read morePrinceton Symphony, Rossen Milanov, conductor Richardson Auditorium, Princeton University March 7, 2026 Published in Sequenza 21 By Christian Carey PRINCETON – Some regional professional orchestras play it safe, not straying far from Mozart and Beethoven and considering a Brahms symphony their most adventurous outing. Not so the Princeton Symphony. Last Saturday, they played two new works by Viet Cuong and Julian Grant, as well as the complete ballet version of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella. Each composer in their own way dealt with a mélange of styles and multiple reference points. In Extra(ordinarily Fancy, Viet Cuong uses the baroque concerto style as a
Read moreBlue Heron in New York In Praise of Laura Peperara – Music for the Concerto delle dame • Ferrara, 1580s St. Ignatius of Antioch Published in Sequenza 21 By Christian Carey February 25, 2026 NEW YORK – Blue Heron always presents thematic programs, and they excel at giving the audience a sense of the time and place in which the music they perform resides. This past week in their program at St. Ignatius of Antioch Church, they featured the music performed in the court of Ferrara in the 1580s, specifically by the Concerto delle dame. These were a trio
Read moreThe Marian Consort Miller Theatre Early Music Series Church of Saint Mary the Virgin February 13, 2026 By Christian Carey NEW YORK – The Marian Consort are a highly-regarded vocal ensemble, specializing both in early music and recent repertoire. The former was on offer in their performance last Thursday as part of Miller Theatre’s Early Music Series. The program was titled “City of Echoes – Rome in the Sixteenth Century,” and all of the music was performed in the city during this time period. While the program included works from three generations of composers – those relatively contemporaneous to
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Choral Music, Composers, Concert review, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York, Orchestras
Adés Conducts the New York Philharmonic David Geffen Hall January 24, 2026 Published in Sequenza 21 By Christian Carey NEW YORK – Thomas Adés is best known as a composer, but he is a talented conductor as well. Leading the New York Philharmonic in a program of recent works and a neglected early twentieth century piece, his approach was effusive and commanding, with a versatile and fluid gestural repertoire. The orchestra’s musicians always play at a high standard, but their performance on last Saturday’s concert was superlative, and given the challenges posed by the programmed pieces, all the more
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Choral Music, Composers, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, early music, File Under?, Miller Theater, New York
Mother and Child The Tallis Scholars, directed by Peter Phillips Miller Theater Early Music Series, Church of St. Mary the Virgin December 4, 2025 By Christian Carey NEW YORK – The choral ensemble The Tallis Scholars, directed by Peter Phillips, are regular visitors to Manhattan, and their December concerts at Church of St. Mary the Virgin have a devoted following (pardon the pun). Often they perform a Marian-themed program appropriate to the space, and their appearance this past Thursday was no exception. In addition to pieces principally drawn from the English Renaissance, a new Salve Regina setting by the
Read moreGérard Grisey – Vortex Temporum Ukho Ensemble Kyiv, Luigi Gaggero, conductor Self-released LP Composer Gérard Grisey (1946-1998) employed methods that often involved magnifying seemingly small details into overarching concepts. This is particularly true of spectrographic measurements taken of single pitches, such as the low E on a trombone, which revealed a series of overtones that he would use to craft harmonic systems for a number of pieces. This spectral approach, also employed by Tristan Murail, Hugues Dufourt, James Tenney, and others, was an important feature of French music, and later that in other countries, from the 1970s onward.
Read moreElliott Carter’s String Quartet No. 1, by Laura Emmery, Cambridge Elements, Music Since 1945, Cambridge University Press. Laura Emmery has done a great deal of analytical research on the music of Elliott Carter, and her book on his string quartets is a valuable resource for anyone interested in learning how he composes. Emmery’s latest publication is part of Cambridge University Press’s Elements series, one of several slender and specific books that each deal with a particular topic. Here, it is Elliott Carter’s String Quartet No. 1, which was composed in 1950-’51 and is widely regarded as a watershed work
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