A reminder about tonight’s Penn Contemporary music concert at Penn: soprano Mary Mackenzie will offer works by Harbison, Rochberg, Wernick, Crumb and my own Holy the Firm – details here.
By the way, last night’s concert with Jeffrey Khaner and Charles Abramovic went very well – fantastic performances – will post pictures in the next day or two.
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:
– March 18 – soprano Mary MacKenzie (of SongFusion) performs with Shuffle Concert this Friday, March 18 at Baruch College. It’s a nice idea – the audience picks the program on the spot!
-March 19 and 20 – Orchestra 2001 plays Hindemith, Berio and Roberto Sierra. Julianne Baird, soprano; Marcantonio Barone, piano, Lori Barnett, cello are featured. The performance on the 19th is at the Trinity Center in Center City, Philadelphia, on the 20th at Swarthmore College.
– March 22 – the Philadelphia chapter of the American Composers Forum presents a webcast interview with George Crumb at 7 PM. Audio trailer here.
– March 29 – Penn Contemporary Music presents violinist Maria Bachman and pianist Jon Klibonoff at Penn’s Amado Recital Hall in Irvine Auditorium, 34th and Spruce Street. Program includes Glass: Sonata No. 1; Paul Moravec: Three Pieces; George Rochberg: Sonata; and the first performance of a new work by Penn faculty composer Jay Reise, The Flight of the Red Sea Swallow. The Glass and Moravec works are Philadelphia premieres. The late George Rochberg was, of course, a long-time Penn faculty member, and he wrote his sonata for Bachman.
– April 12 – looking a little ahead, the Curtis Symphony Orchestra will perform Messiaen’s Turangalila Symphony at the Kimmel Center, Christoph Eschenbach conducting, with Di Wu, piano and Thomas Bloch, ondes Martenot.
James Primosch, composer 