Hi All. This fell off the blog for some reason. I am re-hosting it today. New York Philharmonic Premieres H.K. Gruber Photos: Chris Lee Avery Fisher Hall, New York January 7, 2017 By Christian Carey Five Things to Love About the NY Phil’s January 7th Concert Kurt Weill’s Kleine Dreigroschenmusik (Little Threepenny Music) for Wind Ensemble: A truly charming work that also demonstrates the composer’s affinity for early jazz orchestration, Little Threepenny Music showed off the wind section of the Philharmonic at their very best, and it was wonderful to hear banjo in the mix. Mack the Knife alone is
Read moreKronos Quartet Carnegie Hall – Zankel Hall Saturday, February 11, 2017 Christian Carey Six Things to Like About Kronos at Carnegie Hall Fifty for the Future Commissioning Project — Kronos used Saturday February 11th’s concert to showcase some of the early entries in their “Fifty for the Future” project. Not only is Kronos recording all of the pieces for young quartets to hear; their website also includes free to download PDFs of scores and parts. Thus, they are creating a new repertory for quartets eager to learn about contemporary music. Garth Knox — Some of the pieces, such as renowned
Read moreGidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica McCarter Theatre Center Friday, February 3, 2017 By Christian Carey PRINCETON – I’ve wanted to hear violinist Gidon Kremer perform Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s iconic work Fratres live since I was a teenager. Back then, Kremer’s rendition of the work on an ECM Records New Series CD was transfixing and game changing: it became an almost totemic art object for me as a composition student. On February 3rd, I got my wish at McCarter Theatre in Princeton. Unlike the recording, here Kremer pushed the proceedings forward, taking a quicker tempo and engaging in more
Read moreComposer Portrait – Beat Furrer Miller Theatre Thursday, February 2, 2017 Either/Or Ensemble; Richard Carrick, conductor By Christian Carey NEW YORK – Miller Theatre has long had plans for a Composer Portrait evening of Beat Furrer’s music. In 2001, the event was disrupted by 9/11, which made it impossible to bring in the musicians slated to perform. After a long hiatus, the American ensemble Either/Or, conducted by Richard Carrick, was invited to undertake the first Miller portrait event in 2017, finally featuring Furrer’s compositions. The concert was masterfully performed and artistically satisfying. Alas, this time out, it was Furrer
Read moreLast night I heard the latest incarnation of the Juilliard String Quartet in recital at Alice Tully Hall. The program included performances of Mendelssohn’s first String Quartet and the juggernaut that is Beethoven’s Op. 130 with the Grosse Fuge finale, both pieces performed with suavity rather than abundant risk-taking. The highlight was the quartet’s New York premiere of Mario Davidovsky’s Sixth String Quartet, “Fragments.” Davidovsky’s description of the quartet is accurate in that it includes fragments of motivic material that are juxtaposed in a variety of ways. However, it is anything but fragmentary in terms of the consistent feeling of a long line’s presence and persistent through
Read morePhoto: Steve Pyke Philip Glass turned eighty years old today. A celebration was held at Carnegie Hall tonight, a concert by the Bruckner Symphony Linz, led longtime Glass collaborator conductor Dennis Russell Davies in the premiere of the composer’s Eleventh Symphony and Three Yoruba Songs (with vocalist Angélique Kidjo). In Nashville tonight, I’m not hearing any live Glass alas, but I am enjoying a brand new recording by Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson. Philip Glass – Piano Works, his debut for Deutsche Grammophon, features interpretations of the Études and excerpts from Glassworks. The Siggi String Quartet joins the pianist on some
Read moreNew York Polyphony sings works by Ivan Moody and Giovanni Perluigi da Palestrina Miller Theatre’s Early Music series at Church of St. Mary the Virgin Saturday, January 21, 2017 Sequenza 21 by Christian Carey NEW YORK – As part of Miller Theatre’s Early Music series, the male vocal quartet New York Polyphony (Geoffrey Williams, countertenor; Steven Caldicott Wilson, tenor; Christopher Dylan Herbert, baritone; and Craig Phillips, bass-baritone) celebrated their ensemble’s tenth anniversary with a concert at Church of St. Mary the Virgin on Saturday, January 21st. Speaking from the stage, the group acknowledged their long relationship with both Miller Theatre
Read moreOn Sunday, January 22nd at 7pm at National Sawdust in Brooklyn (80 North 6th Street), composer and toy pianist David Smooke will celebrate the release of his New Focus CD Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. Joined by album personnel loadbang, Karl Larson and Michael Parker Harley, Smooke will also perform and improvise on the toy piano. I recently caught up with him and discussed the new recording, compositional approaches, and some future plans. What attracts you to composing for and performing on the toy piano? The sound of the toy piano evokes an idealized childhood, the sort that no one I know actually enjoyed and yet many of us
Read moreSteve Reich The ECM Recordings Steve Reich and Musicians ECM New Series 3xCD 2540-42 After some one-off studio LPs for a variety of imprints, composer Steve Reich found his first label “home” with ECM Recordings (his second, Nonesuch, came after this triptych of recordings). Initially known primarily as a jazz label, ECM had decided to diversify its offerings to include classical artists such as Reich and Meredith Monk. The first of Reich’s ECM recordings, Music for Eighteen Musicians, sold more than 100,000 copies, which certainly encouraged producer Manfred Eicher to continue to take on ambitious classical projects, ultimately starting the
Read moreMingus Mingus Mingus I Am Three Leo Records CD LR 752 The trio I Am Three, consisting of alto saxophonist Silke Eberhard, trumpeter Nikolaus Neuser, and drummer Christian Marien, interpret compositions by the late Charles Mingus on their debut release for Leo Records (Eberhard has previously recorded for the label with different configurations). Mingus is, of course, a totemic figure in jazz. But he was a musician whose work can be seen from many angles, ranging from the neo-traditional – blues and early jazz signatures abound in his work – to modern jazz and the “Third Stream” experiments of the
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