Music Events

Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Festivals, Music Events, New York

Resonant Bodies Festival – Sept. 5-7

Thursday night kicked off the Resonant Bodies Festival, a new 3-day parade of contemporary vocal music at ShapeShifter Lab in Brooklyn. Each night features three young singers performing programs of their favorite music. This curatorial freedom gave last night’s show a happy zealousness, where the singers’ enthusiasm for their repertoire was contagious. Festival curator Lucy Dhegrae marked out a broad territory in her set. Beginning with Jason Eckardt’s mantic Dithyramb, she swiftly established her virtuosity in an elastic, preverbal but hyper-articulate world. In Old Virginny, by Shawn Jaeger, juxtaposed a forthright Appalachian lament with a snarling, snaky bassline, played athletically

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by Elliot Cole
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, Music Events, New York, Performers, Premieres

Le Train Bleu in Concert on February 6 at DROM in New York City – World Premiere of Seven Stories by Lawrence Dillon and Works by Thomas Ades, Matt Marks and Eric Nathan Also Presented

Le Train Bleu, conducted by Ransom Wilson, will present Toy Stories, a concert on Wednesday, February 6 – 7:00 PM at DROM, 85 Avenue A (between 5th and 6th) in New York, N.Y. The evening will feature the World Premiere of Lawrence Dillon’s Seven Stories for soprano and eight instruments. The piece was composed to an original text. The composer writes, “A stuffed animal falls from an apartment window. As it falls, it peers into each passing window, trying to create stories from what it sees.” Read his recent blog post about it at https://www.sequenza21.com/dillon/?p=1962. The new work will be

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by Jeffrey James
Classical Music, Concerts, Music Events, Orchestral, Orchestras, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Orchestra

The Philadelphia Orchestra: 2.0

Last Thursday evening, just before the lights dimmed at the Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall, the audience purred in anticipation of the evening’s forthcoming concert. Tonight was to be a momentous occasion – the official inaugural concert with Yannick Nézet-Séguin being installed as Music Director. I expected a concert full of classical music royalty highlighting the event as one of the most important in the Philadelphia Orchestra’s history. What was delivered was an all-around humble performance delivered by, as Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia introduced them, the “greatest orchestra in the world” – the Philadelphia Orchestra.

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by Jonathan Lakeland
Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Music Events, New York

Violinist Sarah Plum at The Firehouse Space

Acclaimed and award-winning ‘new music specialist’ Sarah Plum (right) is giving a recital of new works for violin this Friday (Sept. 28th) at 8 PM at the Firehouse Space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Sarah has dedicated her career to performing the works of living composers and establishing meaningful, collaborative relationships with them – a fact highlighted by her recital’s program which includes pieces by Christopher Adler, Christopher Burns, Matthew Burtner, Laurie Schwartz, Mari Takano and Sarah’s longtime collaborator, Sydney Corbett. I talked to Sarah about Friday’s concert, her career, working in Europe and other topics related to contemporary music on my

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by Garrett Schumann
Chamber Music, Music Events, New York

Talkin’ about ‘Nonextraneous Sounds’ with cellist Mariel Roberts

Cellist Mariel Roberts is a rising star in the NYC new music scene. Tomorrow, Sept. 25th, her debut solo album, Nonextraneous Sounds, will be released on the Innova label. The disc features works by five young, super-talented composers, (in program order): Andy Akiho, Sean Friar, Daniel Wohl, Alex Mincek and Tristan Perich. Each of their pieces are very distinct and show off both the cello’s versatility and Mariel’s virtuosity. I talked to Mariel a couple weeks ago and have just published our conversation as the latest episode of my audio web-series/podcast, “We Are Not Beethoven” on Washington Public Radio. As

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by Garrett Schumann
Classical Music, Composers Now, Contemporary Classical, Contests, Media, Music Events, New York, Online, Opportunities, Radio, Resources, The Business, Twentieth Century Composer, Websites, Women composers

Lend Your Voice to Q2 Music

Sometimes, classical music gets a bad rap. To be perfectly honest, there is a chunk of the population that finds it to be synonymous with any number of derogatory terms: boring, annoying, or pompous.  Some classical music lovers and advocates will counter this popular belief with arguments that only go to further the opinion of the other side: “Some people want to listen to mindless music”, “Some people simply don’t have patience”, etc. These ridiculous arguments only go to further the stereotype that classical music lovers are all pompous windbags who believe themselves to be uniquely educated and informed. How,

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by Jonathan Lakeland
Chamber Music, Composers, Concerts, Conferences, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Music Events, News

MCTS 2012 Post-Conference Report

Report by Tyran Grillo (between sound and space) Photos by Evan Cortens Music: Cognition, Technology, Society set a formidable intellectual task before participants of the selfsame conference at semester’s end on the quieting campus of Cornell University. Under the attentive care of organizers Caroline Waight, Evan Cortens, Taylan Cihan, and Eric Nathan, what might have been an overwhelming conceptual storm proved smooth sailing through a series of back-to-back panels. The lack of overlap meant that everyone in attendance could take in the full thematic breadth and draw connections that might otherwise have been missed in the three-ring circus of a

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by Tyran Grillo
Chamber Music, Composers, Concerts, Conferences, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Music Events, News

Music: Cognition, Technology, Society

“How can music ‘speak’ and how do we have knowledge of it? What is its potential to express, represent, and communicate? How has changing expertise concerning sonic and musical knowledge shaped these questions across time and space?” These are the questions that inspired the interdisciplinary conference entitled “Music: Cognition, Technology, Society” that will take place at Cornell University this weekend, May 11 – 13. The conference will spotlight Tod Machover (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in a dual-role as guest composer and keynote speaker. Other keynote speakers include Eric Clarke (University of Oxford), Ichiro Fujinaga (McGill University) and Robert Gjerdingen (Northwestern

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by Eric Nathan
Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, Events, Music Events

Music of China at Alice Tully Hall–Chinese Hua Xia Chamber Ensemble (A Preview)

Pictured: Chai Shuai Performing a program entitled Dialogue between the Traditional and the Modern, including folk and Chinese Opera works as well as contemporary works by both Chinese and Western composers such as Xie Wenhui and Victoria Bond, the Chinese Hua Xia Chamber Ensemble (pronounced HWA SHA) makes their Lincoln Center debut at Alice Tully Hall on Monday, May 7 at 7:30pm. Founded in 1995, and currently touring the United States with performances in New York and Boston, the Chinese Hua Xia Chamber Ensemble of the China Conservatory has become one of the most dynamic and technically impressive chamber ensembles

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by Chris McGovern
Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, Events, Interviews, Music Events

Cellophilia: W4’s All-Cello Event (A Preview)

New York-based new music collective West 4th (aka W4) are garnering a wonderful reputation in being very active and decisively creative in concepts for their concert series. This coming June 8th, they will put on an all-cello program titled “Cellophilia” where they will feature music not just for solo cello, but for multiple cellos of 2-8 at a time. There are eight cellists scheduled to appear, among them are Mariel Roberts, who is also a co-producer of the concert, and Bang On a Can All-Stars’ Ashley Bathgate. The concert is being funded via Kickstarter. Please click here or on the

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by Chris McGovern