I 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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Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concert review, Concerts, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, Seattle
Seattle Symphony’s [untitled] series was inaugurated in 2012 by its then-new Music Director, Ludovic Morlot. Three Fridays a year, small groupings of Symphony and visiting musicians set up in the Grand Lobby outside the orchestra’s main Benaroya Hall venue for a late night of contemporary music. This year’s series has been devoted to the European avant-garde, starting with Hans Abrahamsen’s Schnee in October and continuing this past March 22 with two landmarks of Darmstadt serialism: Berio’s Circles and Boulez’s sur Incises. The latter performance, which featured Morlot conducting the work’s regional premiere, offered an opportunity to contemplate the legacies of
Read moreDestruction and reclamation, gimmick and avant-garde One of the odder fads bequeathed to us by the 1960s is the ritual destruction of musical instruments. It’s a custom most famously associated with the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townshend. But what bursts out in popular culture often has precedents in the avant-garde, and the origins of this particular brand of onstage iconoclasm can be traced to the Fluxus movement, specifically its founder George Maciunas. In a nod to classical tradition Maciunas chose the piano, rather than the upstart electric guitar, as the foil for his aggression, directing performers of his
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Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Seattle
[untitled] is the moniker given by Seattle Symphony to its thrice-annual Friday night new music events. Staged in the lobby of Benaroya Hall, it’s a semi-formal atmosphere in which the Symphony can deploy its musicians in smaller groupings better suited to the exigencies of postmodern music. The first [untitled] concert of the new season took place on October 12, and featured the regional premiere of Hans Abrahamsen’s Schnee, offering listeners in the Pacific Northwest an opportunity to judge how well this work has earned the considerable attention it has received in its brief ten-year lifetime. Scored for two piano quartets (one conventional,
Read moreOne year ago the Pacific Northwest’s new music community was stunned by the suicide of Matt Shoemaker: painter and musician, enthusiastic traveler, frequent performer with Gamelan Pacifica, and accomplished creator in the genre of dark ambient. Shoemaker’s “electroacoustic soundscapes” have been released in a variety of formats by Elevator Bath, Helen Scarsdale Agency and other labels, and I offer an overview of this work in the Second Inversion article Mutable Depths: Remembering Matt Shoemaker. Shoemaker was a veteran of Seattle’s formidable electronic music scene, and he often performed his music at the Chapel Performance Space, the workhorse venue for experimental music
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Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Just Intonation, Microtonalism, Music Instruments, Seattle, viola
This year’s Harry Partch Festival has kicked off at the University of Washington, where the original Partch instruments have been housed since 2014 under the capable direction of Charles Corey. On hand for the first evening concert on May 12, 2018 was composer-violist and Arditti Quartet alum Garth Knox who premiered his Crystal Paths, a concertino for viola d’amore and six Partch instruments. The work is basically a series of duets between Knox and, in succession, Partch’s Crychord, Bass Marimba, Surrogate Kithara, Chromelodeon and Harmonic Canon. An interesting twist is that once each duet has been underway for a minute or so, the
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Bang on a Can, Composers, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Orchestral, Orchestras, Review, Seattle
David Lang’s symphony without a hero received its premiere on February 8/10 by its commissioner, Seattle Symphony and Music Director Ludovic Morlot. As usual, Lang spells his title in all lowercase letters, a gesture of acquiescence that particularly befits the resigned tone of this work’s namesake, Poem Without a Hero by the Soviet writer Anna Akhmatova. Lang, who is quite the Russophile, took his inspiration from Akhmatova’s wartime lament for her hometown Leningrad (St. Petersburg), besieged and abused at the hands of both Nazis and Stalinists. Lang’s reflections present as a single-movement essay that, regardless of one’s feelings toward postminimalism
Read moreOn May 15th, pianist Shai Wosner will be performing a brand new Piano Concerto by Michael Hersch. Titled along the ravines, the piece will be making its first ever concert appearance with the Seattle Symphony at Benaroya Hall, Tuesday May 15th at 7:30 PM. Shai explains how he came upon his interest for the new work. “When I was looking to commission a new work, thanks to the Borletti-Buitoni Trust of London, I was listening to all kinds of music from composers from different generations and I came across a couple of CDs with piano and chamber works by Michael
Read moreThe 2011 Celebrate Asia competition from the Seattle Symphony is now open! Seattle Symphony’s Celebrate Asia announces the second Seattle Symphony Celebrate Asia Composition Competition. The Competition seeks to promote and recognize young composers who are interested in Asian culture, music and traditions. The concept originated in 2008, when local Asian leaders wanted to find a way to strengthen bonds with the broader community through a cultural celebration. Celebrate Asia is part of the Seattle Symphony’s Around the World series. The Seattle Symphony, presenting its 109th season in 2011–2012, will come under the artistic leadership of Music Director Designate Ludovic
Read moreThere is another fantastic all-day new music marathon happening and tomorrow it’s Seattle’s turn for the good-times. Sunday, May 1st, from noon-10pm is the Second Annual May Day! May Day! marathon at Town Hall in Seattle. This 10-hour performer- and composer-driven celebration of contemporary music is produced by artistic director Paul Taub (of Seattle Chamber Players fame) and is curated by eclectic composer and pianist Wayne Horvitz, pianist Cristina Valdes, and Jarrad Powell (composer and artistic director of Gamelan Pacifica). This years marathon features 25 sets by local ensembles and soloists, including: Seattle Modern Orchestra, Michael Lim, Melia Watras, Christopher
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