Žibuoklė Martinaitytė Aletheia – Choral Works Latvian Radio Choir, Sigvards Kļava, artistic director and conductor Ondine Žibuoklė Martinaitytė (b. 1973) divides her time between her home country, Lithuania, and the United States. Her works have earned her accolades and laurels such as the Guggenheim Fellowship and a residency and commission from Aaron Copland House. She is well known for exquisitely constructed and powerfully scored orchestral music. On Aletheia, a different side of Martinaitytė’s music is shown; her music for a cappella mixed chorus. None of the pieces programmed on the recording use conventional texts, instead exploring a number of
Read moreThe Sixteen, conducted by Harry Christophers The Deer’s Cry Miller Theatre Early Music Series at Church of St. Mary the Virgin Saturday, October 26, 2024 NEW YORK – This past Saturday, renowned British vocal ensemble The Sixteen, conducted by Harry Christophers, made their Miller Theatre Early Music Series debut. Presented at Church of St. Mary the Virgin in midtown, the group performed music from their latest recording on Coro, The Deer’s Cry. Consisting of works by English Renaissance composer William Byrd (1540-1623) and Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (1935-), this seemingly eclectic pairing worked well together. Christophers may often be
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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 moreYasmin Williams – Acadia (Nonesuch) Guitarist Yasmin Williams displayed a number of unconventional methods for playing acoustic guitar during her first two recorded outings, Unwind (2019) and Urban Driftwood (2022). These were no mere tricks of the trade, instead serving as organic components in her creation of supple folk instrumentals. Acadia is her first recording released on Nonesuch, and features a number of collaborators. In another first, Williams also writes lyrics for her music. Although it is her primary instrument, on Acadia Williams doesn’t confine herself to the acoustic guitar. She also plays tap shoes, harp guitar, banjo,
Read moreBlack American composers dominated the programming at two of New York City’s major institutions last week — a 180° turn from the typical fare of Dead White Men at most orchestral concerts. On Wednesday, October 16, Carnegie Hall presented Sphinx Virtuosi — the flagship ensemble of the Sphinx Organization, an organization whose mission it is to encourage careers of Black and Latino classical musicians and arts administrators. Thursday at Lincoln Center’s Geffen Hall was New York Philharmonic’s program “Exploring Afromodernism” — a program which was repeated on Friday. Both concerts featured outstanding and committed performances of mainly 21st century classical
Read moreSplinter Reeds – Dark Currents (Cantaloupe) Splinter Reeds, the West Coast’s first wind quintet, has distinguished themselves as advocates for living composers. Dark Currents, their latest recording for Cantaloupe, features two twenty-ish minute long pieces, Tall Grass (2022) by the totalist composer and Bang on a Can member Michael Gordon, and Antenna Studies (2018) by Paula Matthusen, a professor at Wesleyan who is one of the finest experimental electronic composers of her generation; both works were written for Splinter Reeds. Gordon has steadily developed an eclectic musical language that exhibits fluency and variety in large scale forms. The
Read moreTuesday, October 15th: Sacred and Profane, Sirota and Clement at Symphony Space Tomorrow, Robert Sirota and Sheree Clement, two New York based composers, combine forces to present Sacred and Profane, a shared portrait concert at Symphony Space (7:30 PM, tickets here). Sirota may be best known for his stints as President at Peabody and Manhattan School of Music, but he’s remained active as a composer all along. Clement has also been involved as an arts administrator, having served as President of League of Composers/ISCM, Executive Director for New York New Music Ensemble, and, currently, on the board of Association
Read moreMiles Okazaki – Miniature America (Cygnus Records) Miles Okazaki – guitar Jon Ibragon, sopranino saxophone, slide saxophone, voice Caroline Davis, alto saxophone; Anna Weber, flute, tenor saxophone Jacob Garchik, trombone, bass trombone Matt Mitchell, piano; Patricia Brennan, vibraphone Ganavya, Jen Shyu, Fay Victor, voices David Breskin, producer Miles Okazaki’s latest recording, Miniature America, is one in which his compositional process has changed. He spent time sketching elements of sculpturist Ken Price’s work and was also inspired by the intricate line drawings of Sol Lewitt. The pieces created as a result of this research were coined “Slabs” by Okazaki, process
Read moreLouis Karchin: A Retrospective Merkin Concert Hall September 22, 2024 NEW YORK – Composer Louis Karchin has been prolific, even during the pandemic years. In a program at Merkin Concert Hall of chamber works and songs composed between 2018 and 2024, he was abetted by some of New York’s go-to new music performers, who acquitted themselves admirably throughout. Stephen Drury is an abundantly talented pianist. But even with a repertoire list as lengthy and challenging as Drury’s, Sonata-Fantasia (2020, New York Premiere) is an imposing addition. The piece is in four large sections combined into a single movement, with elements
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With his new solo program, Etudes/Quietudes, Austrian guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel celebrates the acoustic guitar, the instrument he switched to at the age of 13. (He had been trained to play classical music on violin.) The core of this new recording is a collection of concert etudes composed by .Muthspiel. Each of these 11 etudes explores a different aspect of the music for guitar, ranging from reflective to animated. The etudes are linked by four other pieces, such as Muthspiel’s heartfelt homage to Bill Evans (“For Bill Evans”); a sarabande by Johann Sebastian Bach (on which he improvises with elements from
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