New York

Concerts, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York, Orchestras

League of Composers at Miller Tonight

LoC Orchestra in 2010, conducted by Louis Karchin. Photo: Ron Gordon

League of Composers/ISCM has their season finale tonight at Miller Theatre. Louis Karchin conducts a program of five recently composed works.

True to form, the evening is chock-full of premieres, including the US debut of Elliott Carter’s Concertino for Bass Clarinet. How many concerts can boast a new orchestra piece written by a centenarian? The concertino features longtime Carter associate Virgil Blackwell as soloist.

David Rakowski is also represented by a new concerto. His Talking Points, written at the behest of the League of Composers, features the estimable soloist Fred Sherry as its protagonist.

Shulamit Ran’s Silent Voices, written for the Israel Contemporary Players, receives its US premiere. The work includes an optional part for reader, who declaims “Draft of a Reparation Agreement,” a poem by Holocaust survivor Dan Pagis.

New Yorker Missy Mazzoli contributes Violent Violent Sea, her first orchestra piece in five years. Connecticut’s Arthur Krieger rounds out the show with Sound Merger, a new piece for orchestra and electronic sound. Krieger, in my opinion, is one of the most persuasive exponents of melding live instruments and electronics. I’m intrigued to hear this new piece for a larger cohort than this medium is often afforded.

As usual, WNYC’s Jon Schaefer is kind enough to serve as master of ceremonies. Brief onstage interviews of the featured composers will accompany the musical proceedings.

Going to the show? Live tweet with the hashtag #fileunder?: we’ll run these microreviews next week on the File Under ? blog.

Tickets are $20/$10 for students (details here).

LoC Orchestra in 2010. Photo: Ron Gordon
by Christian Carey
CDs, Chamber Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York, Orchestras, Philadelphia, Recordings

Symphony Space Celebrates Andrew Rudin

Andrew Rudin is well known to the Philadelphia new music community, both as a composer and, for many years, as a professor at University of the Arts. One of his former students, Amanda Harberg, introduced me to Rudin some years back at a post-concert reception in New Jersey. I remember being struck by his piercing intellect and wide-ranging knowledge of music. I’ve greatly enjoyed interacting with him via Facebook in recent years. Although direct in his opinions, sometimes in irascible fashion, he’s a font of information about composers (particularly Ralph Shapey), opera, poets, and tasty baked goods.

On Tuesday, Rudin’s music is featured on a portrait concert at Symphony Space in New York (details below). The program features Celebrations, a recent piece for two pianos and percussion that’s also included on Rudin’s new CD on Centaur Records. Miranda Cuckson and Steve Beck play Rudin’s Violin Sonata, a lyrical and affecting work from 2004. Eugene Moye and Beth Levin tackle the composer’s new Sonata for Cello and Piano. For those closer to Philly, the program will be repeated on Thursday at Caplan Recital Hall (211 South Broad St.).

The aforementioned Centaur CD also features two concerti, a passionately expressive viola concerto for Brett Deubner and a rhythmically energetic and harmonically jagged piano concerto for Marcantonio Barone. Both soloists are accompanied by Orchestra 2001, conducted by James Freeman. This ensemble has long championed Rudin’s music. In fact, they also feature Rudin’s Canto di Ritorno on To the Point, their debut for the Innova imprint. At turns rhapsodic and fiercely passionate, it’s a score that’s likely to engage both traditional and contemporary audiences alike. Appearing with the fetching curtain-raising title work by Jennifer Higdon, as well The River Within, a fantastically vibrant piece by Jay Reise, Canto di Ritorno serves as the centerpiece for one of my favorite contemporary classical albums released this Spring.

Celebrations: Music of Andrew Rudin

Tuesday June 14, 2011 at 7:30 PM

Symphony Space,

96th and Broadway,

New York

Tickets: $25/$15 for students & seniors

by Christian Carey
Composers, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, New York

The toy that grew up

Many instruments have their 99-cent toy counterpart: tiny play trumpets, cheap plastic recorders, pint-sized accordions, even mini drum-kits with cymbals the size of espresso saucers. But it’s only the toy piano that has graduated to the big leagues, with an large and diverse repertoire and even a dedicated group of high-caliber performers to boost its status. I really think this all came about from two sources: John Cage‘s modest 1948 Suite for Toy Piano, and the instrument’s inclusion in George Crumb‘s highly influential Ancient Voices of Children (1970). Both of these works had (and still have) a certain vogue; pianos were obtained, kept around, and led to performers and composers thinking “now that I’ve got it, what else can I do with this thing”? Fast-forward a few decades and we now find a whole body of work from composers big and small, with piano solo, duo, trio and beyond, accompanied by everything from a few trinkets to elaborate interactive electronics. Entire concerts of toy piano music take place now, with a variety pieces and forces equal to any other chamber music concert.

Like this one… Co-Directors and composers David Claman and Matt Malsky are presenting The Extensible Toy Piano Festival at Bargemusic, with another of those said dedicated toy-piano performer/composers, Phyllis Chen— this Sunday, June 12, at 3pm (Fulton Ferry Landing near the Brooklyn Bridge / Tickets: $25 ($20 Seniors; $15 Students). Claman and Malsky started The Extensible Toy Piano Project a number of years ago, sponsoring concerts, commissions, contests and even symposia (I told you this little instrument done all growed up!). This iteration will also feature guest performers Nancy Newman and mezzo-soprano Jessica Bowers, and works by Chen, Claman, Malsky, Karlheinz Essl, Konrad Kaczmarek, John McDonald, and Atsushi Yoshinaka.  Here’s Chen performing one of her works that will be on the concert, Double Helix:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfZ_djY9_f8[/youtube]

by Steve Layton
ACO, Competitions, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York, Orchestras

20th Anniversary of ACO Readings

George Manahan

The American Composers Orchestra has been holding annual reading sessions for twenty years now: quite a milestone!

This weekend will see composers of concert music hearing their works read by the ACO, conducted by George Manahan, with one of the composers being awarded a $15,000 commission.

For the first time, there will also be sessions devoted to jazz composers.

The New Music Readings’ (June 3 & 4) participating composers are Janet Jieru Chen, Mukai Kôhei, Michael Djupstrom, Narong Prangcharoen, Jordan Kuspa, and Kate Soper.

The Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute Readings’ (June 5 & 6) participating composers are Harris Eisenstadt, Mark Helias, Adam Jenkins, Erica Lindsay, Nicole Margaret Mitchell, Rufus Reid, Jacob Sacks, and Marianne Trudel.

Rufus Reid

20th Annual Underwood New Music Readings

Friday, June 3 at 10am (working rehearsal) & Saturday, June 4 at 7:30pm (run-through)
One Composer to Win $15,000 Commission, Another to Win Audience Choice Award

Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute Readings
Sunday, June 5 at 2pm (working rehearsal) & Monday, June 6 at 7:30pm (run-through)
Presented with The Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University
Featuring Eight Jazz Composers Selected from the 2010 JCOI Intensive

Conducted by ACO Music Director George Manahan

All events free & open to the public, reservations: www.americancomposers.org
Miller Theatre | Columbia University | Broadway at 116th, NYC
More information: 212.977.8495 or www.americancomposers.org

Listen to audio samples from Underwood New Music Readings participants here.

Listen to audio samples from the JCOI Readings participants here.

by Christian Carey
Brooklyn, Chamber Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, File Under?, New York

Thursday’s LLList: Locrian, Loadbang, and Lucier

Locrian Chamber Players

As we gallop towards the end of the concert season proper (and towards the bevy of summer music festivals), it’s shaping up to be a busy time here in New York. Case in point, in the evening on Thursday June 2nd, there are two events that would suit many a new music aficionado’s fancy.

Locrian Chamber Players are performing at Riverside Church at 8 PM. The program includes John Adams’ String Quartet (a work that also appears, with different performers, on the new Adams Nonesuch disc), a piece by Manhattan School of Music faculty member Reiko Füting and world premieres by Raul Quines and Robert Cohen. Can’t beat the price: it’s free.

loadbang in rehearsal

Also at 8 PM, at Brooklyn’s Issue Project Room (for a cool $10), loadbang and duo Pygmy Jerboa perform Alvin Lucier’s Queen of the South. Andy Kozar of loadbang says that listeners can expect the following:

“lattices, networks, labyrinths, flows, currents, rotations, bridges, streams, beams, heaps, eddies, dunes, honeycombs, imbrications, cells, textures, turbulences, vortices, layers, figure-eights, lemniscates, spirals, rings, rivulets, trees…”

All that for a sawbuck?

by Christian Carey
Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, File Under?, New York

Hiphopera? MATA Festival Closer Tonight at LPR

The MATA Festival’s final performance is 7:30 PM tonight (5/12) at Le Poisson Rouge.

It features the Metropolis Ensemble, premiering several new works commissioned by MATA, including Ryan Carter’s Skeumorphic Tendencies and The Rake, a hip-hoperatic retelling of Stravinky’s Rake’s Progress by Brad Balliett and Sequenza 21’s own Elliot Cole. Ticket information can be found on LPR’s site or via Metropolis here.

A Burst of Blinding Clarity from Metropolis Ensemble on Vimeo.

by Christian Carey
Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, File Under?, New York

Spring for Music spotlights Albany tonight!


Sequenza 21 readers will doubtless already know that the Albany Symphony is, in orchestral terms, the “mouse that roared.” They’ve long had an extraordinary commitment to contemporary music and their standard of playing is the envy of many regional orchestras. And on the right night and with the right repertoire, they’re in the same “weight class” as some of the top big-budget orchestras.

Tonight, Albany SO gets a chance to show their mettle on one of the most prestigious stages on earth. They make their Carnegie Hall debut as part of the Spring for Music festival. The first half of the program is a set of contemporary pieces based on spirituals, by a wide-ranging list of composers, including George Tsontakis, John Harbison, and Bun-Ching Lam. The second half of the program is sure to be a crowd-pleaser: Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring.





There’s going to be a strong Albany contingent on hand to cheer on their local band, but native New Yorkers are more than welcome too. With ticket prices reduced to $25 in honor of Spring for Music, it’s an excellent opportunity to hear a compelling program of American music played by an under-heralded ensemble.

by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical, Festivals, New York

MATA Festival starts Tonight!

The 2011 incarnation of the MATA Festival starts tonight with a salon at Tyler Rollins Fine Art in Chelsea (details here). Free to festival pass holders – and $50 for single tickets (aren’t you glad you signed up for the festival pass?) – the evening will include discussions with composer Aaron Jay Kernis, Brooklyn Philharmonic director Alan Pierson and three of the festival’s commissioned composers. Metropolis Ensemble will be on hand to provide musical excerpts and there’s a wine and cheese reception.

Salons are fun and all, but the meat and potatoes music-making of MATA begins in earnest tomorrow night at LPR (details here), with a concert titled “Multinational Conglomerate: New Music from Around the World.” ACME, L’Arsenale, Hu Jianbing and Bao Jian perform pieces by Christopher Adler (from the exotic environs of San Diego), Alex Freeman (Minnesota?), Gudmundur Gunnarsson, Mauricio Pauly, and others. In case you’re as confused about the geographic profile of this event as I was, the works by Americans are inspired by music from elsewhere. Chris’ piece uses Chinese mouth organ, Alex’s explores his abiding interest in Finnish music, etc.

MATA continues through 5/12, and we’ll have more coverage here. Outside NYC? Don’t feel left out. Q2 is broadcasting the 5/11 concert live (including a real-time webchat) and recording the shows on 5/10 and 5/12 for future presentations.

by Christian Carey
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, File Under?, New Amsterdam, New York

Synthetist Summit at LPR tonight

There’s going to be an album release party tonight at Le Poisson Rouge. Two groups on the New Amsterdam Records roster, NOW Ensemble and the Chiara String Quartet, are celebrating their respective releases.

—–

Chiara are presenting string quartets by Jefferson Friedman, along with remixes thereof by special guest electronica artists Matmos. Meanwhile, NOW Ensemble presents a mixed program of new synthetists pieces by the likes of Judd Greenstein, Sean Friar, and Missy Mazzoli.

Check out Joshua Frankel’s new video Plan of the City below; it will accompany the performance of Greenstein’s Change at the gig.

 

PLAN OF THE CITY from Joshua Frankel on Vimeo.

Event Details
Chiara String Quartet/NOW Ensemble/Matmos
Le Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10012
Phone: (212) 505-FISH (3474)

Doors open: 6:30
Show starts: 7:30

Tickets: $18

by Christian Carey
Composers, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, New York

Spring4Brandenburgs

Composer Paul Moravec
Composer Paul Moravec
No doubt if you have participated or read any of the chats below for Spring For Music concerts, you are pretty excited. If you haven’t heard about Spring for Music, it starts tomorrow night with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall!
Orpheus has a wonderful resource about their New Brandenburgs project, but I was curious to talk with Paul Moravec about the idea of hearing his Brandenburg Gate with the other commissions. Here is our chat from Sunday night at his apartment: mp3 file
Concerts continue through May 14th at Carnegie including the Dallas Symphony in Steven Stucky’s August 4th, 1964; the Albany Symphony in a Spirituals Re-Imagined project; and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in Maria Schneider’s Carlos Drummond de Andrade Stories with Dawn Upshaw. Ticket prices are reduced, and I love the idea there will be hometown sections for the visiting orchestra fans!

by John Clare