Photo: Kauppo Kikkas
Today is not a day in which one considers celebrations, but we are pleased to send Arvo Pärt greetings and congratulations on his ninetieth birthday.
Photo: Kauppo Kikkas
Photo: Kauppo Kikkas
Chamber Music, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Percussion, Women composers
2025 Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood – July 24 – July 28, 2025
Every summer since 1964, the Tanglewood Music Center presents its Festival of Contemporary Music. According to Tanglewood’s materials:
The Festival of Contemporary Music (FCM) is one of the world’s premier showcases for works from the current musical landscape and landmark pieces from the new music vanguard of the 20th century. FCM affords Tanglewood Music Center Fellows the opportunity to explore unfamiliar repertoire and experience the value of direct collaboration with living composers.
Over the four FCM concerts (of the total of six) I heard carefully honed performances by the Tanglewood Fellows, Fromme players and the Mexican percussion quartet Tambuco.
Gabriela Ortiz is the director of FCM this year, the latest in the many high notes that the Mexican composer is enjoying. In the past season, she was composer in residence at Carnegie Hall, Curtis Institute, and Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León; her commissioned works were premiered at New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, and she won three Grammy awards.
Ortiz’s FCM programming traced the lineage of Mexican composers from Chavez to Lavista to Ortiz herself and to her student Diana Syrse, showed off the versatile talents of the Mexico-based percussion ensemble Tambuco and the incredible capacity of the Tanglewood Fellows to learn and perfect carefully honed performances of a mountain of new music.
Two beefs: Each program ran at least 25% longer than its stated duration. Each was densely programmed, and the ultralong set changes between each piece (often involving dozens of percussion instruments) were not accounted for in the production schedule. Nor were the often-lengthy introductions by Ortiz.
And, rather than presenting a spectrum of works by a range of composers, Ortiz programmed a great deal of her own music with a smattering of other works to provide context. This was in contrast to previous years in which a broader survey of music was presented.
Ortiz’s music is high-quality and thoughtful, employing interesting sounds and techniques, rhythms and sonorities, often telling a story in vivid colors and gestures. But pretty much every piece wore out its welcome, going on long after I felt it should have ended, without bringing in new ideas or furthering the experience of the piece.
Which brought to mind a question that nags me from time to time – why don’t composers have editors? Authors of books have them. Journalists have them. But no one seems to be telling a composer, “Draw a double bar already, would ya?” Come to think of it, it may be the test of time that serves this purpose. There’s a lot of music written over the past 500 years that is justly neglected. Conversely, there’s good reason that many war horses in the canon have endured. It’s collective taste making, standing the test of time.
The program on July 25, “Mexico, Cuba, the U.S., and One Hundred Years of Percussion” featured, predictably, a barrage of percussion, and in every piece at least one unusual instrument was on stage. In Ortiz’s Rio de las Mariposas for two harps and steel drum, the disparate instruments blended surprisingly well. The glass harmonica gave Mario Lavista’s Musicas de Cristal a soundscape all its own. The soft slow music was enhanced by the ambient rustle of trees outside Ozawa Hall. Amadeo Roldán’s Rítmica V and Rítmica VI included a cascade of diverse instruments, the most unusual of which was a marimbula, a cross between a giant mbira (African thumb piano) and a cajón (a wooden box which the percussionist slaps with their hand). Hearing the mechanical sirens in Edgard Varese’s landmark Ionisation, was the peak of a memorable performance of that iconic 20th century work.
On July 26, the program “Music of Migration and Exile” included music by Ortiz and the Mexican-American composer Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon. This program, as all the others that I heard at the FCM, were marked by truly spectacular performances by the fellows. All around they play like much more seasoned pros, and with an enthusiasm and bravado that more experienced hands sometimes lack.
Zohn-Muldoon’s Suite from Comala is an extract of a larger work based on Pedro Páramo, a classic Mexican novella by Juan Rulfo. Zohn-Muldoon added guitar to this score for Pierrot ensemble plus percussion and guitar. The combination worked especially well in this alluring work, as the guitar sometimes aligned with the strings, and at other times with the percussion.
In addition to the programs I detailed above, the festival highlighted the talents of the American composers Ellen Reid and Gabriela Smith. It was great to hear some concert music from Mexico that doesn’t often get to U.S. stages. And there’s nothing like getting to revel in the sounds of contemporary concert music for four days, especially in the picturesque environs of the Tanglewood Music Center.
CD Review, Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Recording review, Recordings, Twentieth Century Composer
Tobias Picker
NOVA
Various Artists
Bright Shiny Things
Composer Tobias Picker won a Grammy for his 2020 operatic version of The Fantastic Mister Fox, and many pianists have first encountered him through the diatonic piece The Old and Lost Rivers. Picker has another side to his musical persona that is in no small measure reflective of his time as a student of Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, and Charles Wuorinen. The Bright Shiny Things recording NOVA includes chamber music that celebrates these high modernist roots, as well as forays into postmodernism.
The title work is the latter, a riff on both the appropriate accompaniment, at least in Manhattan, for a bagel and cream cheese, as well as a send-up of one of Franz Schubert’s most enduring chamber pieces, the Trout Quintet. The result is lively, with tongue in cheek humor giving way to expert writing for the instruments, the composer distinguishing himself as a performer, undertaking the piano part.
The recording sessions for NOVA were completed at various times, and some of the performers are no longer living. The late Lynne Harrell’s performance in Suite for Cello and Piano is memorable. He plays with yearning legato in“Serenade,” its first movement, and puckish pizzicato in “Daylight,” its second. Ann-Marie McDermott, who is still with us, also distinguishes herself, with expressive and assured playing throughout. The third movement, “Lament,” is more dramatic than doleful, and Harrell performs with incendiary phrasing. The suite’s final movement, titled “Alone,” is still a duo, but it is lonesome and solitary in its demeanor. Another departed musician, Peter Serkin, plays Three Pieces for Piano with sensitivity and virtuosity in equal measure, elucidating the complex phrasing of “Svelto,” its first movement, emphasising the dynamic and rhythmic nuances in the second, “Liberamente,” and, performing the assertive gestures of the “Feroce” third movement con brio.
Happily most of the performers are still around to enjoy the fruits of their labors. Pianist Ursula Oppens makes multiple appearances, with Charles Neidich in “Nocturne,” a brief, gentle duet, and solo in the more extensive “Pianorama.” Violinist Young Uck Kim and Emmanuel Ax collaborate well on Invisible Lilacs, a three movement piece with an opener marked “Fast,” which it certainly is here, a pensive “Elegy,”, and a concluding “Moto Perpetuo” movement that is impressively played.
The disc’s final piece, Blue Hula. features Speculum Musicae, a chamber ensemble that boasted some of the best performers of modern classical music. It is a formidable piece that suits them well, with a finely etched gestural profile of corruscating lines. As the piece progresses, its rhythmic drive increases, culminating in the breakneck pace of the third movement, marked “very fast.”
NOVA presents another side of Picker’s music, one that embraces complexity but sacrifices none of the directness of expression that characterizes his more recent music.
-Christian Carey
Unseen World is a new release by composer Mara Gibson on the Mark Masters record label. The album consists of five works composed between 2020 and 2024 that are inspired by vivid visual art that is both expressive and complex. Various instrumental ensembles are employed including a piano and cello duet, a brass quintet, trumpet duet, woodwind duet and a large chamber orchestra. The meticulous writing present in the scores, the outstanding technique of the musicians and remarkable efforts by the soloists make Unseen World an impressive realization of contemporary musical expression.
The first piece on the album is Swansongs (2022). This is a three movement work that features Albina Khaliapova at the piano and Eduard Teregulov on cello. The piece is inspired by Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (1862-1944), and was commissioned by the performers.
“Hilma’s Symmetry (and Chaos)”, the first movement, opens with a deliberate series of strong and dissonant piano chords that rise successively in pitch. This soon changes to a rapid, running line in the piano accompanied by long sustained tones in the cello underneath. A sense of anxiety builds as the lines weave in and around each other. The cello adds to the tension with sharp pizzicato phrases and bright arco passages. About two thirds through, there is a sudden slowdown, with a mournful cello solo accompanied by single notes from deep in the piano. The movement ends with a solitary low note in the lowest piano register. The piece is just three and a half minutes long and the liner notes suggest that this movement is reminiscent of the “…expressionistic paintings of the beginning of the 20th century.” A very apt description.
“Hildegard”, the second movement, opens with a low growl in the cello followed by a quickly running stream of piano notes in the upper registers. Right from the beginning there is a sense of heightened tension. The cello soon joins in with faster gestures and the lines again weave in and around each other, alternating between conflict and cohesion. The low tones from the cello contrast nicely with the higher moving notes in the piano. About midway, the piano and cello are heard in the same middle/low register and this replaces the tension with a feeling of chaos and confusion. The tempo slows from its frenetic pace, and quietly subdued notes are heard from the piano at the finish. The fast tempo, changing dynamics and complex texture of this movement highlight the seasoned technique that the two musicians have brought to this piece.
The final movement, “Lock and Key”, begins in a completely different direction with soft piano notes. A mournful, sustained tone is heard high in the cello, bringing a painful feel to this. The cello continues in its slow, expressive line with the piano grimly accompanying underneath. The two performers of this piece write in the liner notes: “Hypnotizing harmonies of the movement force the listeners and performers to detach from the fast-paced reality and focus on their inner world.” “Lock and Key” is a satisfying contrast to the first two movements and provides a fittingly solemn ending to Swansongs.
Next is Fight|Flight, (2020), written in close collaboration with the Atlantic Brass Quintet, who premiered the piece in 2022. The piece was inspired by both the human responses to danger and the making of honey by bees. A strong buzzing sound is heard at the opening, produced by the brass players using only their mouthpieces. This establishes the unmistakable context of frenetic flight. Warm brassy tones are soon heard, as if we are in the presence of a large swarm of bees. A sharp and loud trumpet call enters, announcing the more militant ‘fight’ motif. Soon all the brass players are exchanging sharp phrases back and forth, as if sparring. The various horn lines soon dissemble into a general melee. The technique and dynamic interplay in this section is impressive and the result sounds like more than just five players. The congenial mouthpiece buzzing returns in the last minute of the piece, as it slowly fades to its finish. Flight Fight is an inventive combination of the diverse sounds that can be conjured from a single brass quintet.
Pranayama (2021), is a woodwind duet performed by Melody Wan, flute and Thomas Kim on clarinet. The inspiration for this piece comes from yoga breathing practice and the painting “Ringing Lung”, by Anne Austin Pearce. Low, slow clarinet tones open the piece suggesting intentional patterns of breathing. The flute joins in and the flowing tones weave their way through various registers and colors. There is a meditative feel to this with just the slightest tinge of sadness. A rapid trill in the flute, then followed by the clarinet, add some energy and optimism along with loud and quick runs up and down a series of scales. The dynamics rise and fall suggesting the movement of air in breathing. As the piece proceeds, the occasional dissonance and pitch bending add intensity to the textures, matching the fluidity of the visual art. The piece ends as quietly as it started. With its many moods and nuances, Pranayama rests squarely on the virtuosity of the performers, and they do not disappoint.
Snowball (2024), was inspired by a Susan B. Anthony quote: “The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to have the world. I am like a snowball – the further I am rolled, the more I gain.” This piece is for two trumpets, performed by Jena and Matthew Vangjel who recorded this piece just a week before the birth of their second child.
Snowball opens with a muted solo trumpet repeating a line of solid, declarative notes. The second trumpet enters, similarly muted and in the same register with a lovely harmonic interleaving of the two parts. The mute on one trumpet is then changed and this provides a striking contrast in timbre. As the piece proceeds, the mutes are alternately changed – or removed – producing an ever-changing series of surfaces and colors. The tempo and rhythms are steady and direct, but with a just enough complexity to engage the ear. Towards the finish, the dynamic levels increase, bringing out the familiar forward boldness inherent in two solo trumpets. Snowball artfully reveals many surprising sonic possibilities, all lurking in the conventional trumpet.
Escher Keys (2021) is the most ambitious work of the album, a full blown bassoon concerto in three movements with a duration of 26 minutes. The soloist is Darrel Hale and the 39 piece chamber orchestra is conducted by Scott Terrell. Lithographs and a woodcut by the artist MC Escher provided Gibson with the visual inspiration for this piece and the result is a rich mixture of intense abstraction and powerful expression. As the liner notes explain: “Each movement juxtaposes traditional and non-traditional instrumental relationships between Hale interjecting his statements and the orchestra responding with atmospheric tessellations…”
“Ascending and Descending”, the first movement, opens with solemn, sustained tones in the strings with a quiet drum beat underneath. The bassoon enters in the same fashion and immediately rises to the top of the texture. Woodwinds and the brass join in with bold notes of dissonance accompanied by tense rhythms in the strings and anxious tones from the bassoon. Rapid runs by the soloist and short repeating phrases in the orchestra add to the tension. About midway, the tempo slows and the sustained tones briefly return with the bassoon leading the way. An ascending run of pitches in the winds and brass add energy, followed by a lonely bassoon solo that brings an isolated and melancholy feel. The bassoon playing is very expressive here and the solo continues with slowly descending notes to quiet conclusion. A final deep tone is heard in the string bass at the finish.
Movement two is “Three Worlds” and this begins with solitary and tentative growls from the bassoon, slow and sustained at first, but escalating into bouncy and rapid rhythms. Now the bassoon is heard in a higher register, accompanied by the strings and an oboe trading short, snappy phrases. More woodwinds join in and the various lines alternately separate, then join in tutti chords. There is a wonderful mix of cascading and descending pitches always on the move, playfully chasing and swirling around each other. Towards the finish, a solemn bassoon solo produces a more introspective feeling and the piece ends quietly on a low tone. “Three Worlds” exhibits excellent musicianship and coordination between the soloist, especially given the many complex responses summoned from the orchestra.
The concluding movement for Escher Keys is “Day and Night” and “Waterfall”. There is a subtle, rural feel to this, as the liner notes explain: “Beginning in the sky of the first image, the listener moves back and forth, side to side.” The movement opens with high, sustained flute tones that establish an air of mystery. The solo bassoon enters with a moving line – at first with a curious feel, then with bolder declamatory passages. The rapid notes could suggest the activity of birds in a field. Long, flowing orchestral passages are soon heard underneath, suggesting a pastoral river scene. This becomes progressively more complex as the various orchestral sections follow with independent lines that weave in and around the soloist.
After a brief silence there are low, growling tones by the solo bassoon that suggest a bit of sadness and frustration. Warm string tones enter as the bassoon and a solo violin exchange phrases, building tension. A breathy sound is heard from the bassoon, followed by a more conventional, solitary notes. Concerto for Orchestra springs to mind; “Day and Night” delivers a level of atmospheric mystery similar to the Bartok classic.
Strings enter with ascending figures comprised of blurred pitches. Loud percussion and the bassoon are heard in the foreground – more anxious now. The concerto concludes with a long sustained tone in the bassoon and a high, questioning violin note. Escher Keys is abstract music inspired by abstract art. The vivid expression heard in the ear matches the intensity of the optical experience of the eye. The fidelity of the music to the visual is result of Mara Gibson’s masterful score, the precise playing in the orchestra and the virtuosity of soloist Darrel Hale.
Unseen World is available as a digital download or physical CD from Mark Custom.
The Canadian pianist/composer Adam Sherkin shares music from his home country on an extensive program at Merkin Hall in New York on March 15, 2025. “Composers in Play XV” is presented by Piano Lunaire, an organization launched by Sherkin and his colleagues in 2018. On this occasion he joins forces with the American pianist Anthony de Mare.
Together the two perform music by (mostly) living Canadian composers for one and two pianos.
Each of the performers has connections with some of the creators. In Sherkin’s case it is himself as the composer of Ink from the Shield for two pianos, which has its world premiere performance this program. De Mare has a 30+ year friendship with Rodney Sharman, and was one of the people who encouraged the composer to write a series of “Opera Transcriptions,” three of which are on this program.
The composers represent a geographical cross section of Canada: Vivian Fung hails from Edmonton; Ann Southam (the sole non-living composer on this program) was from Winnipeg; Kelly Marie-Murphy from Calgary, and Linda Catlin Smith and Sherkin from Toronto.
PROTOTYPE – OPERA | THEATRE | NOW defines itself as a “festival of visionary opera-theatre and music-theatre works”. Its presentation of In a Grove (January 16 – 19, 2025) was as close as Prototype comes to conventional opera in the context of eschewing tradition. It was also one of the most compelling productions I’ve seen in a long time. The intimate setting at La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theater augmented the visceral impact.
The story unfolded in four sections, each expressing a different character’s point of view of a murder in the woods. If that description sounds like the Kurosawa film Rashomon, it’s because that film was based on the same book: In a Grove, a century-old short story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa.
The four singers: John Brancy, Chuanyuan Liu, Paul Appleby, and Mikaela Bennett, all excellent vocalists and actors, played multiple roles. Surtitles were projected above the stage, but for the most part they were not necessary to decipher Stephanie Fleishman’s effective libretto.
Christopher Cerrone’s melodic material was memorable without being trite. As I left the theatre after the performance, the haunting lament of the last scene continued to ring in my ears. Director Mary Birnbaum’s concept was exceptionally powerful in its simplicity, with no props and no set, save for a large pane of glass that glided in to bisect the stage at certain points. The glass panel also served as a mirror in some scenes.
Cerrone’s vocal score was accompanied by ten instrumentalists of the Metropolis Ensemble, led by Luke Poeppel (standing in for music director Raquel Acevedo Klein on the day I attended). The orchestration included some appropriately eerie effects, such as drawing a violin bow across the edge of a xylophone.
I was very much captivated by this powerful drama and its excellent performance.
The Pakistani-American singer and composer Arooj Aftab’s performance couldn’t be classified as an opera at all, though one can think of her concept album Night Reigns as a dramatic song cycle in the guise of pop culture. She appeared with her band for a one-hour set at HERE’s Dorothy B. Williams Theatre January 15 – 17.
Aftab’s style bridges world music and jazz with an ethereal aesthetic. Her presentation was casual and unusual – she distributed shots of whiskey to the audience in mid-show. It was also transporting; an atmosphere and music that took me out of the real world, and her clear lilting voice had an emotional impact. Never mind that most of the words were in Urdu. The meaning came across easily.
In this intimate space, seeing Arooj and her band – harpist Maeve Gilchrist, bass player Zwelakhe-Duma Bell Le Pere and Engin Kaan Gunaydin on percussion – was a visceral, and, enhanced by whisps of smoke created by dry ice, often ethereal experience.
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Events, Music Events, New York, News, Premieres
Tonight, the Locrian Chamber Players gives the New York premiere of Quintet 2 by Christian B. Carey.
Sequenza 21 readers know Carey very well through his insightful reviews of concerts and recordings in this publication. He is also a superb composer with a lengthy catalogue of varied works.
Quintet 2 is scored for oboe, clarinet, violin, cello and piano, and Carey wrote it for the East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, who commissioned it and premiered it in 2016. In his program note, Carey writes that much of his music – including this work – is based on the idea of labyrinthine structuring. “Quintet 2 deals with a spectrum of harmonic shadings, from triads to microtonal verticals with a great deal expressed in between. Likewise, the short melody at the beginning is offset by long passages of linear counterpoint. A number of rhythmic layers corruscate to create overlapping and frequently syncopated gestures.”
You can listen and follow along with the score on this YouTube recording.
Also on the program, music by Augusta Read Thomas, Oliver Knusson, Jeremy Beck, Jonathan Newman and the world premiere of “I Like Chocolate Ice Cream” by David Macdonald (me too, says the writer).
Performance Details:
August 15, 2024, 8 pm
Music from the Past Decade
Riverside Church
490 Riverside Drive, NY NY
Admission is free. A reception will follow.
Performers include: Calvin Wiersma and Conrad Harris, violins; Daniel Panner, viola; Chris Gross and Peter Seidenberg, cellos; Huan-Fong Chen, oboe; Benjamin Fingland, clarinet; Jonathan Faiman, piano; Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek, mezzo-soprano
BAM, Bang on a Can, Brooklyn, Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Events, Experimental Music, Minimalism, New York, Opera, Percussion
Long Play …. Not long enough!
This year’s Long Play schedule is particularly dizzying. The annual festival presented by Bang on a Can in Brooklyn, now in its third year, seems to have crammed more events than ever into its three day festival, running May 3, 4 and 5. For instance, on Saturday, May 4 at 2 pm, you’ll have to choose between a new opera by the Pulitzer Prize finalist Alex Weiser with libretto by Ben Kaplan, called The Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language (at American Opera Projects) AND Ensemble Klang imported from the Netherlands playing works by the Dutch composer Peter Adriaansz (who has set texts from “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”) at BRIC Ballroom AND vocal sextet Ekmeles performing music by George Lewis, Hannah Kendall, and Georg Friedrich Haas (actually at 2:30, but I imagine you’d have to get to The Space at Irondale early for a seat). A choice as difficult as any I’ve had to make at Jazzfest in New Orleans (which incidently is also happening this weekend, albeit 1000+ miles from Brooklyn).
Fans of Balinese gamelan music are in luck. A rare confluence of events provides the opportunity to hear two different ensembles, both free, both in Brooklyn, on Saturday. At 3:30 at the BRIC Stoop, you can enjoy the Queens College Gamelan Yowana Sari, performing with the percussion ensemble Talujon, along with the composer / performer Dewa Ketut Alit. Alit has come halfway around the world from Indonesia to Brooklyn for the premiere of his new work commissioned by Long Play. And at 5 pm the ensemble Dharma Swara performs at the Brooklyn Museum. Note: The Dharma Swara performance is not part of Long Play – it is a Carnegie Hall Citywide presentation.
Once your head has gone to Indonesia, you may want to continue on an around-the-world trip at Long Play. On Sunday at 2 at the Bam Café, hear DoYeon Kim playing gayageum (a traditional Korean plucked zither with 12 strings) along with her quartet featuring some New York jazz and classical luminaries.
Stick around at Bam Café after Kim’s set for another musician with sounds of a far-flung continent: At 3 pm the master kora player Yacouba Sissoko from Mali is joined by percussionist Moussa Diabaté. Diabaté is an internationally acclaimed dancer, choreographer, drummer and balafon player and together the two bring the sounds and culture of West Africa to us.
Come to think of it, when was the last time you heard music by Philip Glass played on accordion? Might as well settle in at Bam Café for the 4 pm show on Sunday, then, to hear a rare performance of the Polish virtuoso Iwo Jedynecki. Jedynecki has created some inventive arrangements of Glass’ piano etudes for button accordion.
The pinnacle of Long Play comes Sunday evening at 8 at the BAM Opera House, when the Bang on a Can All-Stars along with a bunch of special guests perform a seminal work by Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians.
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, New York
How does a composer write music? Whether she pulls interesting sounds out of the air, or creates an elaborate scheme of hieroglyphics – can an uninformed listener tell the difference? Sometimes not, as was the case Wednesday night at the 92nd Street Y where the incomparable Takács Quartet gave the New York premiere of Flow by Nokuthula Endo Ngwenyama.
Flow was backed up by an elaborate set of program notes that described inspiration ranging from the sound of the Big Bang to the breathing discipline “Pranayama”. Even with that knowledge in hand, for the most part I couldn’t detect the connection between concept and sound. Within the four-movement piece, I heard a heartbeat depicted by the viola’s pizzicato, observed sultry pitch slides in the second violin and enjoyed a wacky waltz where every measure seemed purposely just a little bit out of kilter. But the “outburst of energy and matter at the birth of our universe”? Not apparent at all. On the other hand, Flow ingeniously and successfully meshed extended technique with conventional sounds, and overall is a beguiling piece.
I’ve been a fan of the Takács Quartet for at least half of the group’s 49 years of ensemble-hood. This evening was the first time I heard them in their current lineup, with violinist Harumi Rhodes (joined in 2018) and violist Richard O’Neill (came on board in 2019), merging with first violinist Edward Dusinberre who has been with Takács since 1993, and the sole original member, cellist András Fejér.
This long-lived ensemble retained its aesthetic and its tight sound over the years and throughout its personnel changes. The Beethoven String Quartet in E Minor, Op. 59, No. 2 “Razumovsky” which made up the second half of the concert was so captivating that, in that moment, I felt like I would never want to hear any other quartet, ever. The group’s lightness and joie de vivre, dramatic attention to dynamics, and intonation and rhythmic accuracy so good, it might as well be a single instrument, all contributed to the quartet’s breathtaking performance. Their reading of the String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 76, No. 4 “Sunrise” by Franz Josef Haydn which opened the program was equally outstanding.
Flow by Nokuthula Endo Ngwenyama was commissioned for the Takács Quartet by Cal Performances and a consortium including 92NY. They’ll perform the work several more times in March and April 2024, in Philadelphia, Schenectady, Scottsdale, Buffalo, Ann Arbor, and Rochester, NY.
Classical Music, Commissions, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Events, Lincoln Center, Music Events, New York, Orchestral, Women composers
A few months ago, I wrote an article that distilled the New York Philharmonic Fall 2023 season into enticing programs for contemporary music lovers.
“When you see New York Philharmonic’s glossy brochures and online ads, you might be hard pressed to spot the new music offerings that are in nearly every program. For instance, “Trifonov Plays Schumann” hides the fact that there is a work for strings by the Lithuanian composer Raminta Šerkšnytė, a composition which Gidon Kremer referred to as ‘the calling card of Baltic music.'”
Here is my annotation of Philharmonic concerts in Spring 2024 for the tiny niche of new music fans.
February 20, 2024 – Lunar New Year Hidden beneath Bruch and Saint-Saëns are two composers who are very much alive. The young Hong Kong-born composer Elliot Leung is making his mark in the Hollywood film scoring world, and the world premiere of his Lunar Overture leads the program. Grammy-nominated Chinese-American composer Zhou Tian is showcased with excerpts from Transcend, which was commissioned by over a dozen orchestras to commemorate the 150th Anniversary of the Transcontinental Railroad’s completion.
February 22-24 – Emanuel Ax, Hillborg, and Rachmaninoff This one’s right there in the tease: Hillborg. It would be natural to assume that Mr. Ax would be playing Rachmaninoff, and we’d get a five-minute piece by the Swedish composer Anders Hillborg. Nope. Hillborg wrote a 22 minute concerto: Piano Concerto No.2 – the MAX Concerto for Emanuel Ax, and we get to hear the New York premiere of the piece. San Francisco Chronicle’s Joshua Kosman said it was “vivacious, funny, heroic, eloquent, plain-spoken, thoughtful and wholly irresistible”. Now, don’t you want to go hear it?
February 29 – March 1 – Émigré The concert program title “Émigré” could mean just about anything. Here, it is the name of a “semi-staged musical drama” that weaves the true tale of German Jewish brothers who fled Nazi Germany and wound up in Shanghai. It was performed in Shangai in the fall, and the New York Philharmonic and conductor Long Yu give us the first American performances. Music by Aaron Zigman and lyrics by Mark Campbell.
March 7-9 – Sol Gabetta, Elim Chan, and Scheherazade Sure, cellist Sol Gabetta is great, and I’ll look forward to seeing the conductor Elim Chan who is making waves in Europe. The part of the program I am especially excited about is the world premiere by the Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate. Pisachi, Tate’s tribute to Hopi and Pueblo Indian music, was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic. I’ve been a fan of Tate since a National Symphony premiere performance knocked my socks off 20 years ago.
March 21-24 – Mendelssohn, Tan Dun, and Joel Thompson A rare instance in which the new music is all in the program title. Joe Alessi plays the New York premiere of Tan Dun’s Trombone Concerto: Three Muses in Video Game. The thought of hearing it makes my heart go aflutter. Music by the Atlanta composer Joel Thompson seems to be everywhere lately, and the world premiere of To See the Sky (a NY Phil co-commission) is on this program.
April 4-6 – Alice Sara Ott Performs Ravel He’s dead, but you’d probably want to know that Anton Webern’s Six Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6 is on this program. With any luck, the orchestra will play these shorties twice. Also dead: Scriabin. But as I recall, his Poem of Ecstasy is pretty trippy.
April 12-14 – Beatrice Rana Plays Rachmaninoff In addition to heavy hitters Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky, we get to hear the New York premiere of a new work by Katherine Balch, co-commissioned by the Philharmonic.
April 18-20 – Olga Neuwirth and Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony Okay, Olga Neuwirth’s name is front and center. The US Premiere of Keyframes for a Hippogriff — Musical Calligrams is settings of texts by Ariosto, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Friedrich Nietzsche, graffiti artists, and Neuwirth. Brooklyn Youth Chorus sings. This is one of the NY Phil’s Project 19 commissions.
April 20 – Young People’s Concert: Composing Inclusion Yes, it’s a concert for kids, and the hall will be full of families. Show up to hear world premieres by Andrés Soto and Nicolás Lell Benavides, co-commissioned by the Philharmonic.
May 10 – Sound On This one is probably on your radar already. Another Project 19 commission, the world premiere of an as yet unnamed work by Mary Kouyoumdjian. Kwamé Ryan conducts.
May 23-28 – The Mozart Requiem and Sofia Gubaidulina’s Viola Concerto Finally. The title says it all.