March 4. Knitting Factory: Brooklyn, NY. Michael Daves album release concert. Michael Daves was certainly apt in titling his debut solo album Orchids and Violence. The album presents twenty-four tracks: twelves songs realized with both a bluegrass band and an electric band. Mirroring the album, the album release concert featured both groups, both fronted by Daves. There is something so compelling about seeing six musicians huddled around a single microphone, weaving in and out of each other as they take turns playing solos. In the bluegrass set, Daves was supported by five amazingly talented musicians. Noam Pikelny (banjo), Brittany Haas
Read moreIn honor of International Women’s Day, violinist Ariana Kim has released a video of her performance of Augusta Read Thomas’s Incantation for solo violin (1995). I’ve long loved Incantation – it is one of Thomas’s most beautiful works: poignant, supple, and exquisitely well-paced. Kim’s current project is Routes of Evanescence, a recording of works by women composers.
Read moreOn Saturday, February 27, 2016 Boston Court in Pasadena hosted the Los Angeles-based composer collective Synchromy and The Argus Quartet who performed no fewer than 9 works of new music including three world premieres. A nice crowd filled the Marjorie Branson space to hear a concert titled walkabout that featured narration, video projections and music from seven different composers inspired by place and surroundings. The first piece on the program was Sabina, by Andrew Norman from A Companion Guide to Rome, a collection of nine musical portraits based on churches in Rome. As Norman writes in the program notes: “The music is,
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American Music Center, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Music Events, New York, Piano, Recitals, Twentieth Century Composer
(This is an expansion of an earlier post for a concert ultimately postponed due to snowstorm Jonas in January) Augustus Arnone performs a double bill of Milton Babbitt’s solo piano works including the complete Time Series, at Spectrum, Sunday March 6, at 12-5 pm (12 and 3:30) This year marks the centenary of the legendary composer Milton Babbitt (1916-2011). To my ears, his extensive body of piano works especially channels his singular charm as a raconteur. Over the decades a number of pianists have championed some of his major piano works, for instance Robert Helps and Robert Miller performing and recording his Partitions
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Commissions, Composers, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles, Mexico, Minimalism, Premieres
On February 16, 2016, Tuesdays@Monk Space hosted a concert of Cold Blue Music artists in the lively Koreatown district of Los Angeles. A good crowd came out to hear music by Michael Jon Fink, Jim Fox, Michael Byron and Peter Garland. Three premieres were heard including the world premiere performance of In the Village of Hope by Michael Byron. The first piece, Vocalise (1979), by Michael Jon Fink, was for piano and performed by the composer. This opened with series of quietly beautiful notes, like the melody from a simple hymn and unfolded with the spare elegance that is the
Read moreThis week in New York, Austrian Cultural Forum celebrates the music of Georg Friedrich Haas. Haas, currently MacDowell Professor of Music at Columbia, is a thoughtful and innovative composer. The two programs curated by ACFNY, both free (with reservations), are excellent opportunities to hear two different facets of his creativity. On Wednesday February 24th at 7:30 PM at the ACF, JACK Quartet performs String Quartet No. 3 In iij. Noct., a piece that occurs in total darkness. On February 26 at 8 PM at Bohemian National Hall (321 East 73rd Street), the Talea Ensemble presents the following program of large ensemble and
Read moreElliott Sharp may sometimes be characterized as a cellular composer, but he is by no means a cellular thinker. Rather, he seems to conceive of things in large swaths of creation, only then removing skins and reconnecting veins until each organism revives by means of unexpected blood flow. The Boreal collects four somewhat recent examples, of which the 2008 title composition, performed here by the JACK Quartet, employs awesome extended techniques, including bows strung with springs and ball-bearing chains, in addition to standard hair. But through this recording it’s not so much the craft as the art that shines. Like
Read moreHelmut Lachemann, 80, this November, is one of the most important, original and influential living composers. To hundreds of younger composers whose ambition is to push the boundaries of music and sound beyond its presumed limits, he is a God-like figure, the reigning king of musical post-modernism. Think Stockhausen or Cage, tripled down. Extreme, thrilling, unexpected, visionary, painful, edgy. If he were a Zen master, his mantra would be “Who knows the sound of a beetle lying on its back?” For listeners who prefer their “classical” music with a touch of consonance, he is one of those composers whose work
Read moreEminent composer, college professor, and Lutoslawski scholar Steven Stucky has died, aged 66. The cause was brain cancer. Below, listen to one of his beguiling works, the Notturno movement from Serenade for Wind Quintet.
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Composers, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, Experimental Music, Los Angeles
On Friday night, February 5, 2016 a good crowd braved the dreaded 101 freeway closure to travel downtown to Art Share LA . The occasion was …until… the first concert of 2016 for wasteLAnd music, marking the third year they have offered programs of new and experimental music in Los Angeles. Four pieces were performed – including a premiere – each incorporating traditional acoustic instruments accompanied by electronics. Scott Worthington was the double bass soloist on …until… #10, by Santa Barbara-based composer Clarence Barlow. This was the premiere performance and the inspiration for the concert title. …until… #10 begins with
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