I recently gave an interview about our activities at Sequenza 21 to the blog A Closer Listen. I also curated a mix for them, consisting of selections by composers who participated in our 2011 concert.
You can read the article and hear the mix here.
I prefer to say that I consider myself a writer of music more than a composer. I just try to tell stories through the music narrative. I do this in the simplest, almost naive way possible. However, if there is something that leads me when I start writing a piece, it is to avoid communicating something tiring and boring. I want people to find my music sentimental and moving and also, as far as possible, to fancy listening to it again. I am talking about being accessible to the listener and the performers. In other words, I do not write for composers. – Jorge Grundman (1961- )
Maybe it’s because I am hopelessly retro or maybe it’s where I am in my life right now but I was blown away by a new CD that drifted in the other day called God’s Sketches by the Brodsky Quartet featuring the work of the Spanish “music writer” Jorge Grundman. Putting aside the possibility that denying you’re a composer when you write music is probably more pretentious than admitting that you are, what do we think of this guy? Is he for real or have I fallen victim to to a New Age claptrap guilty pleasure?
New music pianist Jenny Q. Chai is making a special appearance at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall on April 19th at 7:30 PM playing some great pieces by
Ligeti, Marco Stroppa, György Kurtág, Messiaen, and even Schumann (guess they’re trying to make him sound young again) as well as two world-premiere pieces by composers Ashley Fu-Tsun Wang and Inhyun Kim.
She had some time to talk with me about that upcoming show and her musical path. (more…)
It’s one of those evenings when you wish you could be at two New York concert venues at once!
Mohammed Fairouz’s opera, Sumeida’s Song, will be performed at Zankel Hall on 4/2 at 7:30. The work is based on playwright Tawfiq El Hakim’s Song of Death. Presented by the Mimesis Ensemble (conducted by Scott Dunn), the cast features soprano Jo Ellen Miller, mezzo Rachel Calloway, tenor Robert Mack, and baritone Mischa Bouvier. (Ticket info here).
Also on Monday at 7:30 PM, Cutting Edge Concerts Festival kicks off its fifteenth season at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater at Symphony Space. Monday nights in April will feature concerts and composers in conversation with the festival’s curator, composer and conductor Victoria Bond (ticket info here).
Jazz pianist Jim McNeely joins the Danjam Orchestra perform two works inspired by Paul Klee paintings. They will also perform the world premiere of a new work by saxophonist Daniel Jamieson. The program also features the premiere of N. Lincoln Hanks’ Monstre Sacre, assayed by pianist Paul Barnes. Finally, tenor Rufus Muller and pianist Jenny Lin perform a work by Bond, based on a portion of James Joyce’s Ulysses, entitled Leopold Bloom’s Homecoming.
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The Cutting Edge Concert on Monday April 9th includes works by Roberto Sierra, Judith Shatin, and Tania Leon. And Sequenza 21 readers should be sure to mark their calendars for the Cutting Edge show on April 16. Washington DC’s Great Noise Ensemble, led by S21’s own Armando Bayolo, visits the Big Apple to present a program that includes violinist and composer Cornelius Dufallo in a new piece for amplified violin and ensemble.
Playing music takes a toll on the body. How does a musician, working grueling schedules over a long career, avoid injury?
You are invited to attend CMA’s next First Tuesdays seminar, led by cellist Janet Horvath, author of Playing (Less) Hurt—An Injury Prevention Guide for Musicians.
In addition to discussing susceptibility, danger signals and risky postures, Horvath will present specific injury-prevention strategies, ergonomic solutions, instrument modifications, orthotics, chairs, and other resources for all musicians –string, wind, and brass players, pianists and percussionists. She will also delve into rehabilitation strategies for those already hurting.
Associate principal cello of the Minnesota Orchestra, Janet Horvath is also a soloist and chamber musician. A trailblazer in speaking and writing about the physical stresses experienced by musicians, she has advocated for improvements in working conditions for musicians of all genres. Her book Playing (Less) Hurt—An Injury Prevention Guide for Musicians received the 2009 Independent Publishers gold medal in the health category.
Event Details
Date: Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Time: 3:00-5:00 p.m.
Location: Saint Peter’s Church
619 Lexington Avenue at 54th Street
New York, NY
Cost: Free admission, R.S.V.P. required
Register: Click here to RSVP
If you have further questions, please contact Susan Dadian, program director, CMA Classical/Contemporary (212) 242-2022, ext. 13 or sdadian@chamber-music.org
How awful is the dystopia in The Hunger Games? Well, if you listen to one cue in the movie, you might be led to believe that only pitch-drifting analog synthesizers are available, and multitrack recordings are made with the greatest of difficulties.
At least that’s what one might believe encountering Laurie Spiegel’s 1972 composition, Sediment, during the cornucopia scene in the Hollywood blockbuster. (Steve Reich’s music also makes an appearance!)
Geeta Dayal has the full story, along with an interview of Laurie Spiegel, here.
In December 2010, as I was still adjusting to the climate change between Houston, Texas and Ann Arbor, Michigan, I heard a piece that has stuck with me ever since. I wrote about it here, along with two others, and called this particular work, which was performed with video and dance, “the most well executed student production of ANY KIND I have seen.” This piece is Music in Pluralism by William Zuckerman, a former University of Michigan composition student who is currently freelancing in New York.
On April 11th at 8 PM, in the Kaufman Center’s Merkin Hall, Music and Pluralism comes to life as part of the opening performance of the 2012 Tribeca New Music Festival. The event is also functioning as a CD release party for a recording of Music Pluralism William has worked on for over two years. Moreover, the April 11th concert is the debut of Mr. Zuckerman’s hand-picked ensemble, “Symphony Z”. I caught up with William and asked him a few questions about Music and Pluralism, Symphony Z and his life as a freelance composer; but, before I get to his eloquent responses, I want to set the stage for what Music in Pluralism has to offer its audience.
In the piece, William handles immense proportions with the deftness far beyond his years, and ties together a diverse cadre of musical influences – everything from Pop Rock to Bach’s Passacaglia in C Minor! – with the compelling and cogent force of his artistic vision. David Bloom, the charismatic busybody behind the group Contemporaneous (who share the stage with Symphony Z on April 11), conducts Symphony Z, and is similarly impressed with Music in Pluralism’s scope, eclecticism and coherence. He told me in an e-mail, “[i]t’s [Music in Pluralism’s] coexistence of unity and variety that makes the piece so compelling.”
When I got the CD of Music in Pluralism in the mail, I must admit I was a little apprehensive. Part of what moved me so much about its December 2010 performance was how beautifully William and his collaborators mixed the media of dance, music and video of the course of the work’s 45-minute duration. Obviously, the audio version lacks these non-musical elements, and I was concerned their profundity may have skewed my initial feelings about William’s music. As I will espouse more verbosely in an upcoming review of the Music in Pluralism CD: I am happy to report the piece stands – more effusively, triumphs – on its own.
By now, the members of the San Francisco Symphony, their director Michael Tilson Thomas, and the rest of the musicians responsible for the orchestra’s magnificent “American Mavericks” Festival have left Ann Arbor for New York and the next stop on their tour: Carnegie Hall. In immediate relection, I’m confident the concerts lived up to the title bestowed upon it by Alex Ross: “the major musical event of the winter/spring season” – though, in Ann Arbor, I argue the “Mavericks” share that spotlight with January’s presentation of Einstein On The Beach.
Immeasurable credit is due the Symphony and MTT for the sheer audacity of their programming and the high level of their performances. The music they shared with us energized Ann Arbor’s concertgoers to a level I’d never before witnessed, and I believe all those who attended feel indebted to the University Musical Society for bringing this once-in-a-generation event to our Midwestern haven.
In the mold of the 17 American composers featured on the tour, the Symphony’s four concerts were blisteringly unapologetic and daring – almost to a fault, in fact. Personally, the composers who shined the most in my ears were (in alphabetical order) Mason Bates, Henry Cowell, Lukas Foss, Meredith Monk and Carl Ruggles, but there was lots of music to go around for every concertgoer’s taste. I was heretofore uninitiated to the work of these last three composers, and, thanks to their pieces Echoi, Realm Variations and Sun-Treader (respectively), I am determined to listen to Mr. Foss, Ms. Monk and Mr. Ruggles’ music more regularly.
Before last week I was also rather unfamiliar with Mason Bates’ work, but my encounter with him, and his new choir/organ/electronics piece Mass Transmission, could not have been more impressive. Mr. Bates is, obviously, one of the most successful living composers in America, but this fact only makes his unfailingly down-to-earth character more endearing. He was very candid when he presented to us students, opening his chat by declaring his near indifference for being dubbed a “Maverick”, and later revealing his desire to achieve more lyricism in his music – something he excels at in Mass Transmission.
The Festival also gave me an opportunity to meet another top-flight American musician: renowned pianist Jeremy Denk. Charming, witty and articulate, Mr. Denk is as gifted a performer as he is a wordsmith, crafting two spectacular performances, and one stellar presentation to the UM Composition Department, while he was in Ann Arbor. Last Thursday night, Mr. Denk brought Henry Cowell’s Piano Concerto to life, and, yesterday afternoon, took part in performing Lukas Foss’ raucous and virtuosic Echoi – a work he sarcastically described in his master class as, “the hardest piece ever written”.
Help me out here. A couple of my acquaintance are celebrating their 40th anniversary in New Orleans in a couple of weeks and asked me where they should go for a “special” night of music. I haven’t been there in years and don’t have a clue but I said I would ask around. I’m asking around. Bear in mind that these are folks who think that Al Hirt and Pete Fountain are probably the greatest jazz players who ever lived. And, I’m guessing that too loud or too grungy would not be good. Who has some recommendations?
As long as we’re talking Nawlins, there are three–count ’em–big Dr. John shows at BAM coming up in April. And anybody know a piano player/singer from New Orleans (now living in New York) named Brian Mitchell? Saw him gigging with Levon Helm a few months ago and really liked his stuff. If you see him, please tell him I’m looking for him.