Vienna Boys Choir Carnegie Hall December 8, 2019 By Christian Carey NEW YORK – On Sunday, the Vienna Boys Choir performed a Christmas program at Carnegie Hall. It included much standard Christmas fare, both carols and pops selections. However, there were also a number of more substantial pieces, both Renaissance polyphony and 20/21st century music. The superlative musicianship of both the choir and its director/pianist Manuel Huber were impressive throughout, and the flexibility in navigating the various styles of the programmed music seamlessly was noteworthy. Although the membership rotates through some hundred members at a given time, with various touring
Read moreNow in their forty-sixth year of singing, the Tallis Scholars, directed by Peter Phillips, have long made an annual December concert at Church of St. Mary the Virgin in midtown Manhattan a stop on their winter tour. Part of Miller Theatre’s Early Music Series, these concerts have focused on Renaissance polyphony, but there have also been some noteworthy new works on the programs. They frequently program the music of Arvo Pärt. Last year’s concert featured the premiere of a piece for the Tallis Scholars written by Nico Muhly. However, this year an imaginative program, titled “Reflections” is on offer that
Read moreGeorge Perle Serenades Boston Modern Orchestra Project Gil Rose, conductor BMOP Sound Composer George Perle passed away a decade ago, but his music has remained part of the repertory. This is noteworthy in that, upon their deaths, many composers are eclipsed for a time. An excellent example of the resilience of Perle’s work is a new recording on BMOP Sound. The Boston Modern Orchestra Project, conducted by Gil Rose, presents a disc of Perle’s Serenades: one featuring viola soloist Wenting Kang, another featuring piano soloist Donald Berman, and another for a chamber orchestra of eleven players. Serenade No. 1, which
Read moreBecome Desert John Luther Adams Seattle Symphony, Seattle Symphony Chorale, Ludovic Morlot, conductor Cantaloupe Music “Become Desert is both a celebration of the deserts we are given, and a lamentation of the deserts we create.” – John Luther Adams Born in Mississippi, John Luther Adams first came to the attention of listeners as a composer and author based in Alaska, where he lived and worked for some forty years. Pieces such as Inuksuit, The Place Where You Go to Listen, and Dream in White on White are eloquent expressions of Adams’ time there and how it impacted him both as
Read moreDominique Schafer Vers une présence réelle Ensemble Proton Bern, Matthias Kuhn, conducter Kairos CD 0015036KAI Born in 1967, Swiss composer Dominique Schafer spent time in Paris and Boston before taking up his present academic position at Chapman University in California. This is his first monograph CD. Ensemble Proto Bern supplies the recording’s eloquent performances, illuminating intricate timbres and revelling in the rhythmic intricacies of Schafer’s music. While musical style and geography of scenes aren’t always complimentary, Schafer’s time in Paris is a clear point of departure for post-spectralist works Cendre, for bass flute and 8-channel electronics, and Ringwood, for clarinet
Read moreErika Fox Paths Goldsfield Ensemble, Richard Baker, conductor NMC Recordings Once one hears Paths, the octogenarian Erika Fox’s first CD, their first reaction may mirror mine: one of incredulity. How is it possible that a composer this talented with such a distinctive and assured musical voice had to wait so long for a monograph recording? To their credit, NMC has been a strong advocate of female composers for a number of years; I’ve recently been enjoying their recordings of Elizabeth Lutyens’s music. Thank goodness they have partnered with the Goldfield Ensemble to present Fox’s work while she is still alive to
Read moreSpeak, Be Silent Riot Ensemble, Aaron Holloway-Nahum, conductor Works by Chaya Czernowin, Anna Thorvaldsdóttor, Mirela Ivičević, Liza Lim, and Rebecca Saunders Huddersfield Contemporary Records HCR20CD 2019 Riot Ensemble’s latest CD features five works by female composers who hail from a diverse group of countries: Israel, Iceland, Croatia, Australia, and the UK. Speak, Be Silentcomes at a time when, coinciding with overdue shifts in the broader culture, raising awareness of the abundant diversity of contemporary composers making vital music has taken on especial urgency. All of the pieces on Speak, Be Silent are recent; the earliest is from 2008. Thus, the CD also serves
Read moreOn Saturday June 1st at Miller Theatre at 7:30 PM, Louis Karchin and David Fulmer will lead the Orchestra of the League of Composers in a program of contemporary works, including two premieres. Karchin’s premiered work is Four Songs on Poems by Seamus Heaney, performed by soprano Heather Buck. Since I heard her in the title role of Charles Wuorinen’s opera Haroun and the Sea of Stories, I have been a great admirer of Buck’s singing . Heaney’s poetry is another touchstone, making this work one I am particularly keen to hear. Friedrich Heinrich Kern will perform his commissioned piece for glass harmonica and orchestra with the ensemble.
Read moreBlue Heron Sings Ockeghem’s Missa Prolationum First Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts By Christian Carey Sequenza21.com March 9, 2019 CAMBRIDGE – Blue Heron’s Ockeghem@600 project has steadily worked its way through much of the composer’s repertoire. On March 9th at First Church, one of the most special evenings of this series was performed: Johannes Ockeghem’s Missa Prolationum. The mass is constructed almost entirely out of a set of double canons, presenting imitative counterpoint throughout and at every scalar interval (a feat only matched by Bach’s Goldberg Variations, but Bach’s include single, not double, canons). The jaw-dropping intricacies of this work’s construction,
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Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Music Events, New York, Twentieth Century Composer
On Wednesday May 8th, Urban Playground Chamber Orchestra presents the New York premiere of Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2, music by Harry T. Burleigh, and a rarely heard oratorio, And They Lynched Him on a Tree, by William Grant Still. The program, titled From Song Came Symphony. fits the ensemble’s mandate to prioritize the performance of composers who are women and people of color. It focuses on the legacy of Burleigh. I recently caught up with UPCO’s conductor Thomas Cunningham, who told me more about the concert. Cunningham says, ”I found programmatic inspiration in Jay-Z lyrics: Rosa Parks
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