I CARE IF YOU LISTEN

Certainly not outraged by Muhly’s curated weekend of new music at Barbican/LSO St Luke’s

Though I was certainly not outraged, I was yet somewhat disappointed of missing the other performances from this festival in London. Session Two of Nico Muhly’s curated A Scream and an Outrage at LSO St. Luke’s on Saturday, 11 May 2013 was a compelling programme, thanks to its fluidity and connection between the three works.

Nico Muhly – Photo by Matthew Murphy

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This week: concerts in New York (March 11 – March 17, 2013)

Simons @60 – The Music of David Simons

Lisa Karrer and David Simons

Several performances including a chamber group including Lisa Karrer on voice,and Denman Maroney on keyboards presenting works based on surrealist literature. A trio with Stephanie Griffin viola, Lisa voice and Simons’ Theremin in which all players are triggering percussion from their instruments. Also Gamelan Son of Lion, an 11 piece ensemble.
Wednesday, March 13 at 8 PM
Tickets $15, members/students/seniors $10
Roulette, 509 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
..:: Website

Two X Four

Violinists Jennifer Koh and Jaime Laredo team up to perform four double-concertos, starting with Bach’s Concerto for two violins in D minor. Rounding out the program are Philip Glass’s tranquil Echorus and two newly commissioned pieces by David Ludwig and Anna Clyne, inspired by Bach and written especially for Koh and Laredo. The orchestra features young players from the Curtis Institute of Music, Koh and Laredo’s alma mater, and the institution where they first played the Bach double together as teacher and student.
Wednesday, March 13 at 8 PM
Tickets $35 – $40
Miller Theatre, 2960 Broadway (at 116th Street), New York, NY
..:: Website

Ecstatic Music Festival | Bang on a Can’s People Commissioning Fund Project

Bang on a Can All-Stars – Photo by Pascal Perich & Julien Jourdes

The Bang on a Can People’s Commissioning Fund is a radical partnership between artists and audiences to commission works from adventurous composers. Since the Fund began in 1997, fans of new music have joined together to commission dozens of new pieces of music for the Bang on a Can All-Stars, making PCF one of the most anticipated and reliable launching pads for emerging composers in NYC and beyond. On March 14, the Bang on a Can All-Stars will perform world premieres of new commissions by cutting-edge multimedia composer Anna Clyne, hypnotic electronic guru Dan Deacon, Icelandic electronica minimalist Jóhann Jóhannsson, and electro-acoustic experimentalist and installation artist Paula Matthusen, as well as avant-indie rocker Tyondai Braxton’s Trems and cross-genre composer/performer Fay Kueen Wang’s Weltinseln featuring Wang performing alongside the All-Stars.
Thursday, March 14 at 7:30 PM
Tickets $25, $20 for 3+ concerts, $15 students, $150 festival pass
Merkin Concert Hall, 129 West 67th Street, New York , NY
..:: Website
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This week: concerts in New York (February 25 – March 3, 2013)

Jeffrey Milarsky Conducts World Premieres by Juilliard Composers

Jeffrey Milarsky

Conductor Jeffrey Milarsky leads the Juilliard Orchestra in the School’s annual evening of world premieres by Juilliard student composers on Monday, February 25 at 8 PM in Juilliard’s Peter Jay Sharp Theater. The program features four new works for orchestra, all composed in 2012: Stefan Cwik’s The Illusionist; Yuri Boguinia’s Margarita at the Ball; Paul Frucht’s Relic (winner of the Arthur Friedman Prize); and Peng-Peng Gong’s Death of the Honeybees – Suite No. 1 from the Two-Act Ballet.
Monday, February 25 at 8 PM
FREE
Peter Jay Sharp Theater, 155 West 65th Street New York, NY
..:: Website

Consonant Abstraction | Claude Debussy and Steve Reich

Curated by David Lang, each concert pairs two composers—an early-20th-century innovator and a New Yorker he influenced— and is performed by alumni and faculty of the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA. This evening features works by Claude Debussy and Steve Reich. It is a rare performance of the chamber ensemble arrangement of Debussy’s landmark orchestra piece Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, which was made by one of Schoenberg’s students for his private performing society in Vienna; plus two Reich classics, Electric Counterpoint and Different Trains. Following the concert, Steve Reich joins David Lang for a conversation.
Tuesday, February 26 at 6 PM
Tickets $10; $8 members and corporate members; $5 students, seniors and staff of other museums
The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1, Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd St New York, NY
..:: Website

Ecstatic Music Festival | Artist Talk with composer/performer Daniel Wohl

Composer performer Daniel Wohl, whose work intimately merges electronic and acoustic elements, will talk about his 2013 Ecstatic Music Festival collaboration with Laurel Halo and Julia Holter.
Wednesday, February 27 at 6 PM
Tickets $25, $20 for 3+ concerts, $15 students, $150 festival pass
Merkin Concert Hall, 129 West 67th Street, New York , NY
..:: Website

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Bruce Brubaker at the University of Denver

This is a review that I hadn’t intended to write. I’ve had the pleasure of hearing Bruce Brubaker perform live a few times before. When he emailed me that he was coming to Denver for a January 22, 2013 concert at the Newman Center and had a comp ticket waiting for me, I had planned on simply enjoying the evening. I wasn’t worried about a review because I wasn’t sure what I might add to the vast amount of ink and pixels from the finest sources that have already been devoted this artist. And yet, within the first minute of his program, I was already mentally writing this review. If this review is worthwhile, it might be because it is from the perspective of a pianist who has also devoted himself to similar repertoire. But really, this performance was about seeing a fantastic artist completely in his element, and regardless of the medium, that should be enough for you to know that it was an incredible evening.

Bruce Brubaker

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Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance at the Barbican

To some it was a rare experience.  For fans of Philip Glass, attending a live performance of Koyaanisqatsi was one of the highlights of attending concerts in the London classical music scene this year. Koyaanisqatsi, the first installment of Godfrey Reggio’s film trilogy, was shown with Glass’ live music accompaniment at the Barbican on 14 December, 2012. Michael Riesman conducted the Philip Glass Ensemble, the Britten Sinfonia, and Trinity Laban Chamber Choir (directed by Stephen Jackson) in a newly expanded orchestral score by the composer for this European premiere. For the Glass Ensemble, Glass himself was on keyboards with Lisa Bielawa on vocals. Trinity’s Jeremy Birchall was the lead bass in the opening and closing credits, singing the famous title on low D.

Philip Glass and Lisa Bielawa with the Philip Glass Ensemble (photo credit: wqxr.com)

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Exploring Futurism With Henry Vega’s Wormsongs

Composer Henry Vega‘s latest work, Wormsongs, blends live vocals, real-time electronic audio, and visual projections into a multimedia performance that explores the concepts of extropy, social evolution, and futurism. The product of close collaboration between Vega, vocalist Anat Spiegel and visual artist Emmanuel Flores, Wormsongs celebrates human technological innovation, drawing inspiration from futurist writings, especially those of philosopher Max More.

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