Tag: Network for New Music

Sunspots

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sunspots_full_diskThese things just happen once in a while - I don’t know why - sunspots? -  but I seem to have six performances coming up next month. To save you from having to click on the “upcoming performances” link above, (although you should feel no inhibitions about doing so), here’s the news for April:

April 2, 2013: Pure Contraption, Absolute Gift (premiere)

Judith Gordon, piano
Sage Hall
Smith College
Northhampton, MA

April 5, 2013: Chamber Concerto

Benjamin Fingland, Clarinet
Network for New Music
Rose Recital Hall
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA

April 13, 2013: Times Like These

Lisa Oberlander, clarinet
Yien Wang, piano
Cheryl G. & Joseph C. Jensen Grand Concert Hall
of the Stephens Performing Arts Center
Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID

April 16, 2013: “Cinder” from Holy the Firm

Kameryn Lueng, soprano
Szilvia Mikó, piano
Longy School of Music
Boston, MA

April 18, 2013: String Quartet #3

Daedalus Quartet
Philadelphia Chamber Music Society
Settlement Music School, Queen Street Branch
Philadelphia, PA
Concert will honor composer Richard Wernick with performances of works by his students.
Program includes music by Melinda Wagner, Yinam Leef, and Philip Maneval.

April 27: “Cinder” from Holy the Firm; How Can I Keep From Singin’? (arranged by Primosch)

Kameryn Lueng, soprano
Szilvia Mikó, piano
Bito Performance Space
Bard College Conservatory of Music
Annandale on Hudson, NY

Would that this kind of thing happened more often. Hope to see you at one or another of these - I’ll be at Smith, in Philly for both concerts, and possibly at Bard.

Third Space

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Network for New Music’s Third Space festival of electronic music is coming next week. There will be three programs: Friday, April 5, 8 pm, at Rose Recital Hall on the Penn campus; Sunday, April 7, 7:30pm, at Rock Hall at Temple University (repeated at Marshall Auditorium of Haverford College on April 12); and Monday, April 8, 7 pm, at Community College of Philadelphia’s Bonnell Hall. I am fortunate to be part of the April 5 event, which will include my Chamber Concerto with Benjamin Fingland as soloist. Click the links for details on repertoire and related events. Here is composer Joo Won Park whose music will be heard on the April 8 program:

Electronic Affinities

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Penn is presenting a number of programs involving electronic music in the coming months, some organized by the Music Department, some created by Network for New Music. Here’s a list of events:

- Wednesday, February 13: Penn Contemporary Music presents violist Jessica Meyer and clarinetist Ben Fingland in recital, with pianist Stephen Gosling. The program includes music by Eric Moe, Vinko Globokar, Robert Karpay, alongside premieres by John Kaefer and Jessica herself. The program also includes a piece of my own: an oldie called Icons for clarinet, piano and tape, which was made in the analog tape studio at Columbia during my student days, and premiered at Tanglewood in 1984. You can hear it on a New World disc.

- Friday, February 15: Network for New Music will screen video interviews with pioneers of electronic music, including Milton Babbitt, Mario Davidovsky, Bebe Barron, Max Mathews, and Pauline Oliveros. Composer Maurice Wright and I will introduce the videos. Registration is required for this event - more information here.

- Wednesday, March 13: Penn Contemporary Music will present soprano Stacey Mastrian in recital, with Scott Crowne, piano. She will be doing a program of 20th century Italian music with pieces by Berio, and Dallapiccola among others. The featured event will be Nono’s La fabbrica illuminata, for soprano and electronic sound. Stephen Lilly will assist with the electronics.

- Friday, April 5: Penn will present one of the concerts in Network’s Third Space mini-festival of works with electronic media. There will be music by Mario Davidovsky, John Chowning, Paul Lansky, Judith Shatin, Kaija Saariaho, and my own Chamber Concerto for clarinet and six players - again featuring Ben Fingland.

All these events will take place in Rose Recital Hall in Fisher-Bennett Hall at 34th and Walnut Streets in Philadelphia. The concerts are at 8:00pm; the video session at 7:30 pm.

Here’s a video from Network regarding the Feb. 15 event:

Icy Miscellany

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3-lazy-polar-bears-thumbYes, it’s pretty chilly here in Philly. Blogging has been sparse lately as I have been finishing the third in a set of six songs I am writing on texts of Susan Stewart. The cycle is called “A Sibyl”, and this latest song is one where the Cumean Sibyl is telling Aeneas about his trip to the underworld. My next task will be to complete a revision of the score and parts for my Chamber Concerto, a piece for clarinet and six players that will be done by Network for New Music here in Philadelphia on April 5. Here are a few links to keep you amused while I get back to work.

- my fellow Columbia alum Paul Moravec has a new album of orchestral music performed by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project that was selected as WQXR’s album of the week. I had been looking forward to the upcoming New York premiere of Paul’s opera The Letter, but this has been delayed until next season. UPDATE: a nice piece on Paul at Deceptive Cadence.

- you can hear performances from Yellow Barn at their website. Current offerings include Eight Songs for a Mad King of Peter Maxwell Davies. An excerpt from the Davies performed by ICE here.

- Lots of electronic music at Penn this spring. Benjamin Fingland, Steve Gosling, and Jessica Meyer present a program including my Icons for clarinet, piano and tape (tape? well, OK, a CD, actually. “Fixed media” is the fashionable term.) on February 13 at 8:00, Rose Recital Hall in Fisher-Bennett Hall. Two days later, Network for New Music will screen videos of interviews with electronic music pioneers, more info here. Soprano Stacey Mastrian offers a program at Penn including a Nono work with electronics on March 13, and the Network performance mentioned above is part of their season of electronic music.

- The most inconvenient USB here.

Network Becomes Electric

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Network for New Music has announced its new season here in Philadelphia - they are calling it electronic.nnm. The electronic part takes the form of a three-day festival of electronic music taking place April 5, 7, and 8, and exploring a great many ways of making sounds by moving electrons around. Composers include folks who are in the history books, like Paul Lansky, Mario Davidovsky, and John Chowning, as well as mid-career artists such as Eric Chasalow and youngsters like Andrew MacPherson. I’m happy to say I’ll be part of the fun, with a performance on April 5 of my Chamber Concerto for clarinet, which includes a part for live synthesizer. Ben Fingland is the clarinet soloist.

While most of the group’s efforts are concentrated in the spring, this fall there will be a collaboration between Network and one of the newest groups in Philly, Voice of This Generation, featuring music by half a dozen young Philadelphia composers.

 

Easter Tuesday Miscellany

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After a break for the Easter Triduum, I am back with a few random bits:

- I found this quite moving. I wish more folks who do liturgy showed this kind of sensitivity and imagination.

- Have been listening to this. These are complete versions of the ballets. If you only know the suite, some of the parts you don’t know in Appalachian Spring are unexpectedly edgy. The complete Rodeo is not much different from the Four Episodes, and it is inspired throughout, unlike Billy the Kid, which has some vacant pages. Dance Panels sounds a little dated, unlike the earlier ballets.

-upcoming in Philly:

- Dolce Suono Ensemble presents an intriguing program at Trinity Center this Friday, April 13, including two works by Shulamit Ran. (Go here and scroll down.)

- Network for New Music offers a premiere by Matthew Greenbaum called Rope and Chasm - a work for video and soprano - Sunday, April 15 at 7:30 in Rock Hall at Temple University. A preview:

Rainy Friday Miscellany

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- I’ll be hearing lots of music in the next few days - the Network/Mendelssohn Club/Philadelphia Chamber Music Society performances of my Ariel Songs this weekend;  the NY Phil at the Kimmel Center here in Philadelphia tonight (a run-out of this week’s subscription program of Stucky, Berlioz and Mussorgsky-Ravel, with Joyce DiDonato, Alan Gilbert conducting) as well as Eric Owens‘s recital, again at Kimmel, next Tuesday.

- My hometown is also home to an amazing book store.

- A lovely post for the beginning of Lent.

- Many of these are quite funny.

 

“Ariel” premiere

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The first performances of my Ariel Songs are coming up. These settings of texts from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” began life as part of a larger set of pieces composed for the early instruments of the Folger Consort, with soloists William Sharp and Ellen Hargis. I subsequently arranged the work for modern instruments, and then made this piano and voice version of Ariel’s songs.

The piece will be performed on joint concerts by Network for New Music and FELYX_M, the chamber choir of the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia. The first is 8:00 pm, Saturday, February 25 at the Community Music School in Trappe, PA. The second, presented by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, will be at 7:30, Sunday, February 26 at the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia. Soprano Barbara Berry will be accompanied by pianist Susan Nowicki. The program also includes music by Cynthia Folio, Jan Krzywicki, Thomas Whitman, Jennifer Higdon, and Donald St. Pierre. If you are in the Philadelphia area, I hope to see you there. Update: video from Tom Whitman about his piece here.

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(image: “Ariel” by Henry Fuseli. c. 1800-10. Oil on canvas, approx. 36.5 ” x 28 “. The Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C. The painting is inspired by Ariel’s line: “…on the bat’s back I do fly…”)

No Extra Notes

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Richard Zarou, proprietor of the website No Extra Notes, invited me to prepare a podcast of my music to post on his site. I am told it will be available starting at some point tonight (Sunday, November 13.) The podcast is mostly samples of my music - The first movement from Dream Journal, played by Network for New Music; a motet sung by Emmanuel Music; and a clarinet and piano piece with Jean Kopperud and Stephen Gosling. (Thanks to Albany Records for the go-ahead on using the first and third of those pieces.) There are lots of other composers featured at No Extra Notes, definitely worth looking around.

All Saint’s Day Miscellany

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- Network for New Music’s season opener is this coming Sunday, Nov. 6 at 7:30 pm at the World Cafe Live in Philadelphia. Program includes music by Ingrid Arauco, Joseph Hallman, Louis Karchin, Thomas Kraines, Andrew Rudin, Arne Running, and Robert Schultz.

- John Harbison talks about his 2nd Symphony here.

- the Library of Congress lets you see Elliott Carter’s sketches for his Piano Sonata, among other pieces,  here.

- visit The Crooked Line to read how extraordinary a place Boston’s Emmanuel Church is, and why it is not a bad idea to have an artistic director who is also a gifted tenor. I have plans for a new Emmanuel motet, too early to let on about details.

- I have just about finished setting this poem for voice and piano, again, more details later.