Anna Webber Clockwise Pi Recordings (2019) Saxophonist/flutist/composerAnna Webber, a thirty-five-year-old who has already won a Guggenheim Fellowship and numerous other plaudits, makes her Pi Recordings debut with Clockwise.Joined by an estimable group of avant-jazz musicians – pianist Matt Mitchell, Jeremy Viner playing tenor saxophone and clarinet, trombonist Jacob Garchik, cellist Christopher Hoffman, bassist Chris Tordini, and percussionist Ches Smith-Webber plays tenor saxophone and flute on the CD. Her compositions are mostly extrapolations of pieces for percussion by twentieth century classical composers Morton Feldman(King of Denmark), Iannis Xenakis(Persephassa), Edgard Varése(Ionisation), Karlheinz Stockhausen(Zyklus), Milton Babbitt(Homily), and John Cage (Third Construction). Employing percussion
Read moreBlue Heron: The Lost Music of Canterbury Music Before 1800 Corpus Christi Church February 10, 2019 Sequenza 21 By Christian Carey NEW YORK – On February 10th, the Boston-based early music ensemble Blue Heron made one of its regular appearances at the Music Before 1800 series at Corpus Christi Church in Morningside Heights. Directed by Scott Metcalfe, an ensemble of a dozen vocalists performed five selections, all votive antiphons, from the Peterhouse Partbooks. Copied by John Bull during the reign of Henry VIII, the partbooks now reside at Peterhouse College of Cambridge University. The tenor book is missing, as are
Read moreOn Saturday, February 9, 2019 the Southland Ensemble presented New Experimental Works at Automata in downtown Los Angeles. This concert was the result of Southland’s inaugural Call for Scores issued last year. With more than 200 responses, seven pieces utilizing graphic and text scores were ultimately chosen for this performance. Automata was completely filled while outside the Chinese New Year celebrations were in full swing with lanterns, firecrackers and enthusiastic crowds. The concert opened with all are above us (2017), by Nomi Epstein the noted Chicago-based composer and educator. The program notes state that “Her music centers around her interest
Read moreFred Hersch Trio Village Vanguard January 5, 2019 Sequenza 21 By Christian Carey NEW YORK – Beginning the new year with a six-night long residency at the Village Vanguard, pianist Fred Hersch had a lot to celebrate. His current trio, in which he is joined by bassist John Hebert and drummer Kevin McPherson, has been together for a decade. They have received a Grammy nomination for their 2018 Palmetto Records CD Live in Europe. In December, Palmetto released another recording of Hersch in a trio setting, this one from 1997 with bassist Drew Gress and drummer Tom Rainey. 97
Read moreUnlike those big-media favorites lists that appear in mid-December to grease the skids of the Great Shopping Season, my year-end reckonings dawdle until the last moment and don’t claim to define the best of anything. But with audio streaming, social media and other factors pushing the contemporary music landscape into an increasingly variegated but fragmented state, some measure of thoughtful inventorying seems both prudent and practical. In that spirit, here’s a biased and opinionated survey of albums and other media released in 2018 that made an impact on me. Stage to screen New music theater was a recurring theme during
Read moreBest of 2018: Instrumental and Recital CDs Best Recital Hanging Gardens Works by Claude Debussy, Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern Jacob Greenberg, piano with Tony Arnold, soprano Rather than the customary bifurcation, Impressionism and Expressionism are related to one another on Hanging Gardens, pianist Jacob Greenberg’s loving curated, beautifully performed double CD. He is joined by soprano Tony Arnold for Arnold Schoenberg’s song cycle The Book of the Hanging Gardens, a work that epitomizes the overlap that occurs between the aforementioned styles. Their performance rivals the other best one on record, by Jan DeGaetani and
Read moreBest of 2018 – Orchestral CDs In ictu oculi Kenneth Hesketh BBC Orchestra of Wales, conducted by Christoph Mathias Mueller Paladino Three large orchestra works by British composer Kenneth Hesketh are attractively scored in multifaceted, often muscular, fashion. Hesketh’s unabashed exploration of emotionality, imbued with strongly etched motives and intricate formal designs, provides a cathartic journey for listeners. Sur Incises Pierre Boulez The Boulez Ensemble, conducted by Daniel Barenboim Deutsche-Grammophon There is a previous, much vaunted, studio recording of Pierre Boulez’s composition Sur Incises (1998), one of the composer’s most highly regarded late works (in the
Read moreBest of 2018: Holiday CD, Opera Recording Best Holiday CD Nine Lessons and Carols: 100 Years King’s College Choir, Stephen Cleobury, Director Choir of King’s College label 2018 is the hundredth anniversary of Lessons and Carols at King’s College (and ninetieth year of radio broadcasts of the event). In order to celebrate, the Choir of King’s College has released a two-CD set of some of their most famous offerings from broadcasts over the years, as well as new music commissioned for the occasion. The release also celebrates Director Stephen Cleobury, who will be stepping down after an illustrious tenure
Read moreThe latest wasteLAnd concert at Art Share in downtown Los Angeles was Friday, December 14, 2018 and drew a good sized crowd for five works featuring percussion and voice. Soprano Stephanie Aston and percussionists Dustin Donahue, Sean Dowgray and Ryan Nestor were on hand for a concert whose title, Capacity, was taken from the middle movement of a work by wasteLAnd featured composer Katherine Young. The first piece on the program was Difficulties Putting it Into Practice, by Simon Steen-Andersen. Ryan Nestor and Sean Dowgray arrived on the stage and seated themselves at a table containing a number of paper
Read moreBest of 2018: Composer Portrait CDs 2018 saw the release of a bevy of excellent recordings of music by contemporary composers. These were the portrait CDs that most frequently captivated my ear and captured my CD player. Ipsa Dixit Kate Soper Wet Ink Ensemble (Erin Lesser, flute; Ian Antonio, percussion; Josh Modney, violin) New World Records Composer and vocalist Kate Soper spent from 2010-’16 creating the multi-movement theatre piece Ipsa Dixit. Working in close collaboration with Wet Ink Ensemble, she has crafted a composition in which theatricality encompasses multiple texts – ranging from Aristotle to Lydia Davis –
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