Gloria Cheng opened the Piano Spheres season last night at Zipper Hall. Much of the concert comprised selections from her recent recording, Piano Music of Salonen, Stucky and Lutoslawski, and if you don’t yet have this in your library, now is a good time to correct your omission. And here’s just one of its good reviews (just scroll down). Betty Freeman commissioned a new work from Gerald Barry for Cheng to perform, and this opened the second half of the program. Le Vieux Sourd [the old deaf one], Debussy’s nickname for Beethoven, starts with quiet fragments of classical themes, as
Read moreI heard the world premiere of Steven Stucky’s August 4, 1964 with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Chorus and soloists with Jaap van Zweden last night in Dallas. 1. Not since the golden age of Handel oratorios has something like August 4, 1964 been so touching and well crafted; from the amazing libretto by Gene Scheer to the vocal soloist’s costumes, the evening was thought provoking and emotional. Supertitles brought clarity to the work, but with the diction of the soloists, it wasn’t needed but certainly appreciated. Still, small details like the italics for the Stephen Spender poem used in the
Read moreTomorrow night is the world premiere of Steven Stucky’s August 4, 1964 with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Chorus and soloists. I spoke with Stucky last summer in Ithaca, NY about the work. Listen to the interview here. (about 4 minutes) I’ll have more coverage of the premiere tomorrow night and reactions on Friday. Read more (including the NY Times piece from Sunday and the program notes here.)
Read moreThis September marks the 50th anniversary of musical Minimalism, an artistic revolution which critic Kyle Gann has described as “the most important musico-historical event of my lifetime.” I’m delighted to announce that Sequenza21, in collaboration with the exciting new concert series Music On MacDougal, will be celebrating this important milestone with a concert of early Minimalist music. When: September 17th, 2008 at 8:00 PM Where: The Players Theatre, in Greenwich Village, Manhattan 115 MacDougal Street, New York, NY 10012 Tickets: By Phone: 212-352-3101 or Online. Program: Steve Reich — “Piano Phase” (1967) (Version for two Marimbas) Philip Glass — “Piece
Read moreSaturday afternoon, already. We’re half-way through this year’s Ojai Music Festival, and I need some time-shifter to slow things down. Today’s mid-day concert was superb. Dawn Upshaw, but that’s redundant. It was a lovely program. Each song, seemingly, gave her a different opportunity to tell a story. Anyone there could pick a different set of highlights. My own included a simple, beautiful song by Ruth Crawford Seeger of a lyric by Carl Sandburg, “White Moon”. But then an absolute highlight came with the last set: a French song by Kurt Weill and three cabaret songs by William Bolcom. For each
Read moreLast 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
Read moreThe 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
Read moreOver the past couple of years, ISSUE Project Room has become one of the hot spots for contemporary music in the city and earned a well-deserved reputation for presenting new and artistically challenging work. It has outgrown its funky silo on the Gowanus Canal and has just launched a $350,000 capital campaign with the goal of expanding its programs and moving to a larger, more centrally-located home. As often happens, though, a great opportunity has come along and the group needs to raise a bundle of cash by July 24 to take advantage of it. ISSUE is one of two finalists
Read moreThe Composers Concordance is having a concert tomorrow night at 8PM at the Greenwich House Music School Renee Weiler Concert Hall, 46 Barrow Street which will star our very own Jeff Harrington. Okay, there are some other composers on the program, too, but none as adventuresome or all-round lovable as our favorite geek-composer. Paul Hoffmann will perform the New York premiere of Jeff’s brilliant Big Easy mashup, Blue Strider. You’ll find the full schedule for the program here.
Read moreMarco Antonio Mazzini is a Peruvian clarinetist with an Italian name who lives in Belgium and plays with a Czech orchestra called the Ostravska Banda which–as fate would have it–is joining the Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble for a good-looking program (Brown, Wolpe, Stockhausen, Xenakis) of modern music at Zankel Hall Monday night. There will be a preview performance Sunday night at the Willow Place Auditorium in Brooklyn Heights. Marco would be up for organizing a Sequenza21 concert in Ghent sometime if we have some Euro-interest.
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