On November 1, 2025, the Ventura College Symphony Orchestra presented “Celebration!”, a concert of contemporary music marking the Centennial of the founding of the school. Yunker Auditorium filled with a capacity crowd and the College Symphony – some 70 players strong – sprawled across every inch of the concert stage. Over two hours of music was programmed, featuring four world premiers and including compositions by past and present music faculty. Highlight of the concert was the premiere of Encantos, a piece by New Zealand composer Mark Menzies commissioned by Conductor Ashley Walters. Appropriately, the concert concluded with George Gershwin’s popular
Read morePeter Thoegersen has posted a digital realization of his Symphony IV: melodiae perpetuae on Bandcamp. This is an ambitious piece for full orchestra with a running time of just over 52 minutes. Symphony IV is a work in progress; it is intended to be poly microtonal and poly tempic in its ultimate form. The recording posted at this writing is realized in 12TET tuning with various sections of the orchestra heard in different tempi simultaneously. Thoegersen writes: “Each choir of the orchestra is moving separately in Fuxian contrapuntal motions, such as contrary, parallel, similar, and oblique, with respect to tempi
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Canada, Cello, Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Composers Now, Concert review, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, New York, Orchestral, Premieres, viola, Violin, Women composers
On Thursday evening in New York, Momenta Quartet’s October festival – now nine years running – closed with an assorted program, enthusiastically curated by violist/composer Stephanie Griffin. Griffin is the last founding member still actively performing with the group. Noting that this festival has ever featured the opportunity for each member to have curatorial carte blanche on one night only, Griffin nodded to the overall 2024 theme – Charles Ives at 150 – while admitting that “this is not a thematic program, but rather a joyous collection of pieces that I saw fit to celebrate the genius of Charles Ives
Read moreEllen Taaffe Zwilich: Symphony No. 5 Sarah Brady, flute; Gabriela Diaz, violin Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose, Music Director BMOP/Sound 1098 Composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich turned eighty-five in April, and one of the many celebrations of her life and work is a recording by Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Directed by Gil Rose and featuring flutist Sarah Brady and violinist Gabriela Diaz as concerto soloists, it is a generous program of her music. The centerpiece is Zwilich’s Symphony No. 5 (2008), a powerful four-movement work that combines traditional formal structure with a musical language of a more recent vintage.
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Classical Music, Commissions, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Events, Lincoln Center, Music Events, New York, Orchestral, Women composers
A few months ago, I wrote an article that distilled the New York Philharmonic Fall 2023 season into enticing programs for contemporary music lovers. “When you see New York Philharmonic’s glossy brochures and online ads, you might be hard pressed to spot the new music offerings that are in nearly every program. For instance, “Trifonov Plays Schumann” hides the fact that there is a work for strings by the Lithuanian composer Raminta Šerkšnytė, a composition which Gidon Kremer referred to as ‘the calling card of Baltic music.’” Here is my annotation of Philharmonic concerts in Spring 2024 for the tiny
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Classical Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Lincoln Center, Music Events, New York, Orchestral
When you see New York Philharmonic’s glossy brochures and online ads, you might be hard pressed to spot the new music offerings that are in nearly every program. For instance, “Trifonov Plays Schumann” hides the fact that there is a work for strings by the Lithuanian composer Raminta Šerkšnytė, a composition which Gidon Kremer referred to as “the calling card of Baltic music.” I mentioned this in passing to a staffer at the Philharmonic, and referred to it as a slam on marketing. I immediately regretted uttering that phrase, because it’s not really about that. Marketing managers do what they
Read moreThe world premiere of Oratorio for the Earth by Pamela Madsen was heard in the Meng Concert Hall at Cal State University, Fullerton on May 14, 2022. If you couldn’t make it to the performance, a video of a quite satisfactory quality is now available online. This seven-movement oratorio is scored for a full orchestra, a large chorus and six vocal soloists who are the Hex Ensemble. The work offers a dramatic commentary on the uncertain state of nature and the earth in a time of portentous climate change. While the scope and scale of Oratorio for the Earth is
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Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, New York, Orchestral, Review, Twentieth Century Composer
April the First proved a propitious date for the New York Classical Players’ much anticipated program featuring a new collaboration – and premiere – with the Parker Quartet. In the mere twelve years since their inception, NYCP has consistently brought spirit and devotion to so much of what they do, and this early Spring concert at W83 Auditorium was no exception. In many respects, the highlight of the evening was Jeremy Gill’s joyous new work, “Motherwhere,” a concerto grosso for the Parker Quartet and NYCP. But well-worn, oft’-loved music by Tchaikovsky was also on offer, delivered with great heart. And
Read moreWolfgang Rihm Jagden und Formen Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Franck Ollu, conductor BR-Klassik CD Wolfgang Rihm’s hour long orchestra work Jagden und Formen (2008) has its roots in an earlier work, some fifteen minutes long, from 1996, dedicated to Helmut Lachenmann on his sixtieth birthday. The piece ultimately morphed and expanded into the version recorded here. There is precedence for this in postwar Europe, particularly in several of the works of Pierre Boulez, which remained in progress and perpetually expanding throughout his lifetime. In his program note, Rihm says that the piece will henceforth likely remain in its current form.
Read moreI was gratified to discover that Lash’s 45-minute work manages to avoid the clichés and sentimentality to which much of the harp repertory is prone.
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