I CARE IF YOU LISTEN

5 questions to Laura Kaminsky (composer, Artistic Director of Symphony Space) about “How To Get Started”

On April 2, Symphony Space will celebrate John Cage’s centenary with this rare performance of Cage’s 1989 How To Get Started, a collaborative experiment exploring improvisation and the origin of ideas. We asked 5 questions to Laura Kaminsky, composer and Artistic Director of Symphony Space.

How did you choose the three pairs of performers?

We wanted, initially, people who knew each other well, or admired each other greatly. I wanted people who had a close personal and/or professional relationship with each other, and who harkened from different disciplines, as I thought it would enliven the evenings by adding a level of intimate interactivity to the post-performance conversation. Wendy Lesser of The Threepenny Review, who was to moderate, suggested Wallace and Allen Shawn because who could know each other better than two brothers? This evening was incredible in that Wallace, the writer and actor, filled his ten thought layers with lots of words and really began to tell a story. Allen, who chose to answer some of his ten questions by performing musical fragments of his own and other composers’ music at the piano, actually seemed to be composing in real time. It seemed that he was truly listening to the layers and inserting either his spoken or musical answers very much in dialogue with the prior layers as they were re-played. And because they had a shared family history, they were able to parse each other’s answers in quite insightful and intimate ways…it was profoundly interesting to watch them be the audience for each other and then to see what themes each picked up from his brother’s performance.

Robert Pinsky and John Wesley Harding are good friends and share a love of words and music, so they, too, made a good pairing. Wendy Lesser knows both of them, so was able to draw them out in the post-performance conversation. Harding brought his guitar yet only used it once, if I recall, making for a less musical performance than Allen’s.

Laura Kaminsky

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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
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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 (March 4 – March 10, 2013) [updated]

Interval 6.2 | Solos, Duos, & Trios: Alex Mincek Curates

Wet Ink

The Wet Ink ensemble will present an evening of works for solo, duo and trio combinations by Simon Steen-Andersen, Ben Hackbarth, Sam Pluta, and Ted Hearne.

Monday, March 4 at 7:30 PM
Tickets $15
New York Live Arts, 219 West 19th Street, New York, New York 10011
..:: Website

Dissonant Abstraction | Arnold Schoenberg and Morton Feldman

In conjunction with the MoMA exhibition Inventing Abstraction, 1910–1925, Bang on a Can presents a pair of concerts that reveal how pioneering European composers of 100 years ago forever changed the music in New York. Each concert pairs two composers—an early-20th-century innovator, and a New Yorker they influenced. The music is performed by alumni and faculty of the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA, a program dedicated entirely to the creation, study, and performance of the most adventurous music of our time. This second evening in the series features one of Arnold Schoenberg’s shortest, oddest, most intense pieces, Herzgewächse, a shockingly expressive vocal miniature originally written for Vasily Kandinsky’s journal The Blue Rider. Morton Feldman’s meditative work Three Voices, for solo voice and two prerecorded solo voices, a luxurious, introspective setting of a poem by Frank O’Hara, has a much slower tempo than the Schoenberg piece, but is ultimately no less intense.
Monday, March 4 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 Street, New York, NY
..:: Website

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

coLABoratory: Playing It UNsafe is the first and only professional research and development lab to support the creation of cutting-edge new American orchestral music through no-holds-barred experimentation, encouraging composers to do anything but play it safe.The composers participating in coLABoratory this season are Du Yun, Troy Herion, Raymond J. Lustig, Judith Sainte Croix, and Dan Visconti. This concert marks the fourth workshop of the series.
Tuesday, March 5 at 10 AM
FREE
Flushing Town Hall, 137-35 Northern Blvd., Flushing, NY
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Ashley Bathgate & Bonjour

Ashley Bathgate and Bonjour perform at Spectrum. Ashley Bathgate performs music by Jacob Cooper, Yoav Shemesh, Peteris Vasks, Steve Reich, and Evan Ziporyn. Bonjour performs the music of Florent Ghys.
Wednesday, March 6 at 7:30 PM
Tickets $15
Spectrum, 121 Ludlow street, 2nd floor, New York, NY
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Amphibian presents the NY premiere of Augusta Thomas’ Sun Songs

Claire Chase

Claire Chase, the Brooklyn-based flutist and 2012 MacArthur Fellow, offers a rare solo recital spanning more than a half century of innovations in the repertoire for solo flute, from Berio’s 1951 virtuoso masterpiece and Brecht’s 1962 fluxus “flute solo” consisting of a single action, to her new recording of the ten tape tracks heard on Steve Reich’s Vermont Counterpoint, to the premieres of three stunning new works she has commissioned recently by emerging composers Mario Diaz de Leon, Marcos Balter, and Evan Johnson. In between selections, Chase offers seven different interpretations of Pauline Oliveros’ 2008 game-piece “A Fluting Moment,” creating a seamless 70-minute tour de force solo performance.
Friday, March 8 at 8 PM
Tickets $15, members/students/seniors $10
Roulette, 509 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
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A Century of New York Psalms, featuring Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms

Three new works commissioned by the Manhattan Choral Ensemble from James Bassi, Christian Carey, and Martha Sullivan will be premiered alongside illustrations by New York artist Brett Helquist (best known for the children’s books A Series of Unfortunate Events), bringing to life these ancient poems in one of New York’s most beautiful churches. Following music by John Corigliano, Virgil Thomson, and Bobby McFerrin, the program will conclude with Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms.

Saturday, March 9 at 8PM
Tickets $35 Premium Reserved / $25 General / $15 Senior/Student
The Church of the Holy Trinity, 316 East 88th Street, between 1st and 2nd Avenues New York City
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Liaisons II: Re-Imagining Sondheim from the Piano

Anthony de Mare

Returning for the second round of Sondheim-inspired piano works based on some of the master’s greatest songs, pianist Anthony De Mare presents music by leading composers from the musical theater, film, popular music and the concert world including, among others, Adam Guettel, Nico Muhly, Steve Reich, Phil Kline, Frederic Rzewski, and Jason Robert Brown. The evening will include an on-stage discussion with Stephen Sondheim led by Mark Eden Horowitz, author of the critically acclaimed Sondheim on Music.

Saturday, March 9 at 7 PM
Tickets $55; Members $47; Under 30 $15
Peter Jay Sharp Theatre at Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway New York, NY
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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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This week: concerts in New York (January 28 – February 3, 2013)

FOCUS! 2013: The British Renaissance Chamber Concert

George Benjamin – Copyright F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd

British music since World War II will be performed, including one piece receiving its premiere outside of Europe. Featuring music by Richard Rodney Bennett, Brian Ferneyhough, George Benjamin, Judith Weir, Deirdre Bribbin, and Peter Maxwell Davies.
Monday, January 28 at 8 PM
FREE
Paul Hall at the Juilliard School, 60 Lincoln Center Plaza, Broadway at 65th Street Manhattan, NY
..:: Website

Etudes and Studies | counter)induction

counter)induction, winner of an ASCAP/Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming will present a concert of works by Debussy, Chopin, Paganini, Hosokawa, and Berio, including a premiere of Book of Etudes by Douglas Boyce and a new work by Ryan Streber.
Thursday, January 31 at 6 PM
FREE
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center 40 Lincoln Center Plaza New York, NY
..:: Website

New Music in the Kaplan Penthouse

James MacMillan

The CMS New Music series showcases an eclectic mix of current composers and styles with three concerts in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse. This concert features music by Tower, MacMillan, and Adès.
Thursday, January 31 at 7:30 PM
Tickets $35
Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, 165 West 65th Street, New York, NY
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Firehouse New Music Series hosted by Iktus Percussion: Cadillac Moon Ensemble, Iktus and New Morse Code

Firehouse New Music Series hosted by Iktus Percussion and curated by Christopher Graham begins Friday February 1 and continues the first Friday of each month through June.
Friday, February 1 at 8 PM
Tickets $10
The Firehouse Space, 246 Frost St. Brooklyn, NY
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The Music of Now Marathon

Kicking off the fourth annual citywide Composers Now Festival (under the leadership of composer Tania León) is Symphony Space’s genre-busting music marathon, curated by Symphony Space Artistic Director, composer Laura Kaminsky. From electronic experimentation to post-minimalism, to spectralist sonorities to Latin jazz, the marathon brings the broadest range of new music by today’s emerging and established composers and composer-performers to the stage.
Saturday, February 2 from 4 PM to midnight
Tickets $20, $15 under 30
Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th Street, New York, NY
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Ecstatic Music Festival | DJ /rupture & Zs

The border-crossing bass visionary and turntable artist DJ /rupture will join Zs to perform an evening of music by each artist that blends, overlaps and extends toward the other. Zs and DJ /rupture will present alternating mini-sets, with transitional collaborative works and improvisations that connect these sets to one another, varying in form and containing elements of the surrounding “solo” material.
Saturday, February 2 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

Jerome Residency | Laura Andel

Laura Andel – Photo by Gerry Murphy

New York-based, Argentinean composer and conductor Laura Andel premieres new works for an eclectic instrumentation, featuring musicians of the Buenos Aires, and the New York music-scenes, creating a crossover not only of instruments, but also of geographies, and idiosyncrasies. Featuring Daniel Binelli (bandoneon), Elliott Sharp (guitars), Carl Maguire (Fender Rhodes), Andrew Drury (percussion).
Saturday, February 2 at 8 PM
Tickets $15, members/students/seniors $10
Roulette, 509 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
..:: Website

This week: concerts in New York (December 17 – December 23, 2012)

A Winter Solstice Landscape | Yarn/Wire

This concert—another installment of Amelia Lukas’ Ear Heart Music series—features the inimitable Yarn/Wire performing the world premiere of the complete Negotiation of Context cycle by leading Icelandic composer Davi∂ Brynjar Franzson. The performance also includes the haunting new piece Solus by Turkish composer Cenk Ergün. We spoke to Yarn/Wire about their upcoming concert back in September:

Tuesday, December 18 at 8 PM
Tickets $15 for general admission, $10 for members/students/seniors
Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn, NY
..:: Website
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