I CARE IF YOU LISTEN

This week: concerts in New York (November 12 – November 18, 2012)

coLABoratory: Playing It UNsafe (Workshop I) | American Composers Orchestra

This season, coLABoratory will include a unique incubation process of workshops, public readings, collaborative feedback, and laboratory performances of music, open to the public, taking place from November 2012 through April 2013. Each composer’s work is developed with the orchestra over the course of the season in a process that includes ACO’s Music Director George Manahan, ACO’s artistic leadership Robert Beaser and Derek Bermel, mentor composer Morton Subotnick, plus ACO advisors and members of the orchestra.
Tuesday, November 13 at 2 PM
FREE
Mannes College, The New School, 150 W. 85th St., New York, NY
..:: Website

120 Years of Solo Piano | Lisa Moore

Lisa Moore – Photo by Matthew Fried

Lisa Moore performs works for solo piano by Alexander Scriabin, Leos Janacek, Martin Bresnick, Hannah Lash, Paul Kerekes, and Philip Glass as part of Miller Theatre’s Pop-Up Concerts series.
Tuesday, November 13 at 6 PM
FREE
Miller Theatre at Columbia University, 116 Broadway Manhattan, NY
..:: Website

NYFOS Next | Carla Kihlstedt

The New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) opens a new season of its contemporary music mini-series NYFOS Next. Collaborative composer, singer, and violinist Carla Kihlstedt hosts and curates an hour of music showcasing the work of a diverse range of mostly female artists and composers: Lisa Bielawa, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Susan Botti, Errollyn Wallen, Nicola Lefanu, Eden MacAdam-Somer, Lautaro Mantilla, Nils Frykdahl, Matthias Bossi, as well as her own intriguing works. Several of the composers will perform their own works including Kihlstedt and her husband Matthias Bossi, who together form the duo Rabbit Rabbit, as well as fellow violinist-vocalist Eden MacAdam-Somer.
Tuesday, November 13 at 7 PM
FREE
Mary Flagler Cary Hall at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, 450 West 37th Street, New York, NY
..:: Website

Requiem aeternam

Presented by Park Avenue Christian Church The Latin Requiem Mass has inspired composers throughout the ages. This distinctive program juxtaposes the elegant, chant-inspired setting of Maurice Duruflé with a remarkable new setting by New York composer, Gregory Spears.
Wednesday, November 14 at 8 PM
Tickets $50/$25, Senior & Students $20
Park Avenue Christian Church, 1010 Park Avenue at 85th Street New York, NY 10028
..:: Website

 [INTERPRETATIONS] Camilla Hoitenga & Taavi Kerikmäe // Erik Griswold’s “Wallpaper Music”

Taavi Kerikmäe and Camilla Hoitenga

American born, Australian-based composer and improviser Erik Griswold presents the New York premiere of his prepared piano tour-de-force “Wallpaper Music,” and the duo of Köln-based flutist Camilla Hoitenga and Estonian pianist Taavi Kerikmäe present new works framed by the classic avant-garde of Niccolò Castiglioni’s “Gymel”.
Thursday, November 15 at 8 PM
Tickets General Admission: $15, Members/Students/Seniors: $10
Roulette, 509 Atlantic Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11217
..:: Website

Fred Ho: World Premiere Of  Burning Sister! The Fire This Time

Fred Ho – Photo by Rainer Fehringer

Don’t miss the world premiere of a new Fred Ho piece, a duet between cellist Seth Woods and Ho himself. David Pearson interviewed Ho last year for I CARE IF YOU LISTEN…
Friday, November 16 at 8 PM
Tickets $15, Students with ID $10 | At the door
The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, 450 West 37th Street, New York, NY 10018
..:: Website

Storybook, an evening of new vocal music

The New York-based composers’ collective Random Access Music presents Storybook, an evening of new vocal music by composers Gilbert Galindo, David Fetherolf, Stefan Weisman, Manly Romero, Jonathan Pieslak and Wang Jie.
Sunday, November 18 at 8 PM
Tickets $20
Greenwich House Music School, 46 Barrow Street, New York, NY
..:: Website

25th Bang on a Can Marathon [Video]

On Sunday, June 17 the 25th Bang on a Can Marathon took place at the World Financial Center’s Winter Garden…

For more videos, visit our Videos page or subscribe to our YouTube Channel!

Apologies to the acts that were not featured in this video. I (Thomas Deneuville) was also live blogging and taking pictures for I CARE IF YOU LISTEN. The post is here.

Embedding is cool. Crediting is really cool.

Video + Editing: Thomas Deneuville
Opening animation: Daniel Thompson at DTWebart (http://www.dtwebart.com)

© 2012 I CARE IF YOU LISTEN

5 questions to Evan Ziporyn (composer, clarinetist, member of Bang on a Can All-Stars)

With the 25th Bang on a Can (BOAC) Marathon taking place at the end of the week (Sunday, June 17—see the full program here) we thought that Evan Ziporyn would be a great candidate for a 5-question interview. He kindly took the time to answer them and shared much more than we could have hoped…

You’ve been part of the BOAC Marathon since its first installment in 1987, in the Exit Art Gallery in Soho. How did you end up playing this gig at the time and how was it?

I’d been working with Michael Gordon since 1980, we met backstage at a new music concert at Yale, where we had a ‘where have you been all my life’ moment after hearing each other’s music for the first time. And I’d done numerous projects with all of them throughout the 80s, including the pre-Bang “Composers Banging on Cans” concert at Cooper-Hewitt Museum in 1986. By then I had moved to the west coast but had kept in close contact with them all, I’d fly back to play with Michael’s band, etc. This wasn’t hard because we only had about 3 concerts a year…

Also, as you probably know, the idea of the marathon came from Martin Bresnick’s Sheep’s Clothing ensemble at Yale, which did an annual all-night concert in the late 70s and early 80s. Martin went on leave in 1980, I ran the group in his absence, and Michael came to all the concerts – after that David [Lang] arrived in New Haven and also became very active in that group – so we all were aware of the benefits of marathon concerts.

Still, that first Bang marathon was memorable to me for a number of reasons – a lot of my heroes were there, Reich & Cage & Milton Babbitt – it was amazing to me to be in the same room with them, let alone on a program with them. I met Robert Black there, he performed immediately before me, and of course I’m still working with him in the All-stars now. And I’ll always remember Babbitt speaking before his piece, saying “I’m sorry I got here late, but I got lost – I’ve never been this far downtown before!”

Evan Ziporyn - Photo by Andy Ryan

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Lisa Moore & Sō Percussion: Martin Bresnick’s “Caprichos Enfáticos” on Cantaloupe

Francisco Goya’s famous series of prints Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War) were created between 1810 and 1820, though not actually published until 35 years after Goya’s death, in 1863.  There are 82 prints in all, each highly critical of both Spanish and French rulers during the conflicts between the two countries in the early 19th century, and they are shockingly graphic: realistic depictions of mutilated corpses in the aftermath of battle and the effects of famine, and gross mockeries of the ruling classes and the clergy.  They are less high art and more a sort of proto-photojournalism.

Martin Bresnick’s Caprichos Enfáticos: Los Desastres de la Guerra, an 8-movement concerto for pianist Lisa Moore and Sō Percussion, begins with, of all things, a farandole/farándula––a popular, jaunty 6/8 chain dance.  In live performance, Lisa Moore plays the opening line of the farandúla on xylophone, alone on stage.  A percussionist enters behind her and seamlessly takes over the line, and Moore continues to the second line.  A second percussionist enters, taking over the first line, and the first percussionist moves to the second line, and Moore moves to the next layer, etc.  It’s torturous to try and describe the effect in words, especially since it’s been three years since I saw it live at the 2008 Canberra International Music Festival in Australia, but it really does look and feel like a musical chain dance.  It’s also just really cool to watch Lisa Moore play toms.

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