News and Events

May 10: Premiere of Louis Karchin's Four Seasons orchestra work, New York

May 10 will be the premiere date for Louis Karchin's The Four Seasons of Bernini, for orchestra, with the NY Classical players at W83 Auditorium (150 W 83rd St in Manhattan). In a captivating blend of premieres and timeless classics, the evening will open with the premiere of Louis Karchin’s The Four Seasons of Bernini, which draws on Mozart’s style and the sculptures of the Italian Renaissance artist.

This will be followed by the graceful melodies of Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3, featuring the artistry of Stella Chen, the ensemble's artist-in-residence.

The program continues with another premiere, George Meyer’s Triple Concerto for Two Violins and Viola, bringing to life the musical contributions of Emma Frucht, Brian Hong, and Meyer himself.

The night culminates in the intense and passionate strains of Haydn’s Symphony No. 49, "La Passione," bringing the concert to a stirring conclusion.

Concert is Free Admission.

April 28: Gilbert Galindo's Fe Oscura for orchestra, premiere with UTPB Orchestra

UTPB Orchestra Monday, April 28, 2025, 7:30PM CST at the Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center in Midland, Texas conducted by Dr. Jean Gómez.

When the climate becomes dark and light is gone, faith in darkness can sustain one’s spirit. “Fe Oscura” for orchestra was written in 2025 and commissioned by the University of Texas Permian Basin. It is dedicated to the late Ronald Bennett of Odessa, Texas who was a musical giant of the community. He was indispensable and influential in forever shaping me as a composer and musician while in junior high and high school. I will always be indebted to him.

This concert also features Daniela Salinas, violin and Alyssa Dominguez, viola, winners of the 2025 UTPB Concerto Competition. Dr. Brad Light and the UTPB University Choir will be joined by local high school students. Free admission.

UT Permian Basin
Spring Orchestra Concert
Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center
April 28, 2025, 7:30PM
1310 Farm to Market 1788
Midland, TX 79707

NFA Winner: James Balentine's Flute quartet, Invention and Rhapsody II

James Balentine's Flute quartet, Invention and Rhapsody II   for 3 C flutes and alto flute (2024) is among the first place winners of the Newly Published Music Competition by the National Flute Association. 

ACA's newest flute collection curated and edited by Henry Gale was awarded honorable mention, as well as Itch for flute and snare drum by Will Rowe.  Congratulations to ACA notables! 

April 5: Marvelous, a Musical Opera based on L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz series, Gaslight Theatre

Composer Gregory Hall and Visual Artist Vincent Myrand bring their opera Marvelous to the stage on April 5th. 

Soprano Merissa Beddows will sing the role of Ozma and others in this illustrated musical opera, Marvelous. The performance will be on Saturday, April 5th at 7:00 pm at the historic Gaslight Theater, under the auspices of Opera Sistersville (West Virginia). Tickets: 304-652-1707.

Scored for flute, trumpet, percussion and electronic keyboards, Gregory Hall’s opera has received a major grant from the Curtis Institute of Music, will have a major presentation at OzCon International in June 2025 in Burbank, CA, and was a 2023 finalist for the American Prize in Opera.

Musicians from Pittsburgh’s Carnegie-Mellon School of Music will also perform. Renowned Oz artist Vincent Myrand has produced unique imagery to be projected during the performance.

The story is based on author L. Frank Baum's series The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, on Dorothy’s further adventures in Oz.

Gaslight Theatre: 719 Wells St, Sistersville, WV 26175

Composer Gregory Hall holds a B.A. in music from UC Santa Barbara (1982), and a composition degree from the Curtis Institute of Music (1986), where he studied with Ned Rorem. He is a fellow of the Ucross Foundation.

April 10: Dana Richardson's brass trio "Bright Blue" at San Diego State Recital

March 29: Doug Harbin's new work at OME Festival

Jennifer Waleczek will premiere a new work by Doug Harbin at the OME Festival in Phoenix. The new work for piano, electronics, and video will be on the 7pm concert on Saturday, March 29th. 

April 5: Thomas Read's Concerto for Oboe and Strings

Gianna Scire, oboist, and the EMPAC orchestra, conducted by Robert Whalen, will perform Thomas Read's Concerto for Oboe and Strings on April 5 at 2 pm at RPI in Troy, NY. 

March 16: Gwen Krosnick plays music of Dorothy Rudd Moore, Ralph Shapey, and more, at Oberlin

March 7: Violinist Claudia Schaer and pianist Marc Péloquin play American violin-piano duos

March 7 at 7pm - Bloomingdale School of Music
323 W 108th Street New York, NY 10025

 

Program

Philip Wharton ~ Tombeau de Ravel (2003)
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich ~ Partita (2000)
I. Introduction and Allegro
II. Serenade
III. Tango
IV. Meditation
V. Finale
Jessie Montgomery ~ Peace (2020)
Christopher James ~ Labyrinths, 2nd mvt (2024)
Max Lifchitz ~ Raoul's Tango-Waltz, from Four Tango Sketches (2022)
Ernesto Lecuona (arr. Ed Cionek) ~ La Comparsa (1912/2024)
Andrew Thomas ~ Premonitions (2017)

About the featured works:
Philip Wharton's Tombeau de Ravel harkens back not just to the impressionist composer Ravel, but also even earlier, to baroque composer François Couperin, two older legacies doubly inspiring vivid fresh imagination.

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's Partita is a light-hearted and fun take on many genres, including fiddle music, tango, and a serenade.

Jessie Montgomery composed Peace in 2020; it is a deeply pensive yet also hopeful meditation on sadness as part of the fabric of life.

 Christopher James wrote Labyrinths for Claudia Schaer and Marc Péloquin, who premiered and recorded it in spring 2024; it is a very expressive 12-tone work with many-faceted phrases and characters.

Max Lifchitz' Raoul's Tango-Waltz, from Four Tango Sketches (which Claudia Schaer and the North/South Consonance Ensemble premiered in the original chamber orchestra version in 2022), is a tongue-in-cheek fusion of tango and waltz styles.

Ed Cionek's arrangement of Ernesto Lecuona's La Comparsa pays homage to the incomparable Cuban composer and the carnival tradition.

The program ends with Andrew Thomas' colourful Premonitions, written for and premiered by Claudia Schaer and the North/South Consonance Ensemble in a ten-instrument version in 2017, later transcribed by the composer for violin and piano. The inscription reads, “...with affection and joy...” - and the singing and dancing work communicates that although premonitions are often worrisome, potentially, things just might turn out well in the end!

 

March 6: Music of Vally Weigl at Austrian Cultural Forum, New York City

“The Zero Hour” – Austrian Literature and Music at the End of World War II -- An evening of literature and music with Elysium that reflects on the past while asking the urgent question: What do we do with the freedom we have gained? 

Austrian Cultural Forum New York 11 East 52nd Street New York, NY 10022; 6:30pm March 6, 2025

Artists Jeannie Im, Peter Kendall Clark, and more will bring to life the music and songs of Paul Dessau, Hanns Eisler, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Ernst Krenek, Frederick Schreiber, Vally Weigl, and Kurt Weill—composers whose music embodies both the sorrow and resilience of the time. 

Image: WStLA, Presse- und Informationsdienst, FC1, 45011 | Young people clearing rubble in Vienna, October 1945

March 28, 30, and April 6: Music of Edward Smaldone in concert - and retirement celebrations

The Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College presents a concert and appreciation of Prof. Edward Smaldone on the occasion of his retirement from ACSM after 35 years. In addition to his many years in the classroom, Prof. Smaldone was the Director of the School of Music from 2002 to 2016.

Sunday April 6, 2025 @ 2:00PM - LeFrak Concert Hall. Free Admission by RSVP, with Reception to follow. Come celebrate memories as well as performances by ACSM students, alumni, and faculty including: Marcy Rosen, cello; Sahun Sam Hong, piano; Donald Pirone, piano; Chlöe Dickens, violin; Sara Juneau, cello; Ricky Moreira, piano; Michael Lipsey, Alphonso Valentin, Dylan Ofrias, Nicholas Gleeson, percussion; Annalisa Emmet and Willow Macol, voice; Karen Smaldone, piano; Edward Smaldone, guitar; Michael Mossman, trumpet; David Berkman, piano; Sean Lo, drums; and Teresa Sanchez, bass.

Additionally, 

March 14, 16 Ray Luedeke's new opera, The Lady from the Sea

American Soprano Julie Liston Johnson will sing the role of Ellida Wangel in Ray Luedeke's new opera, The Lady from the Sea. Performances on Friday March 14 at 7:00pm at The National Opera Center and on Sunday March 16 at 3:00pm at Symphony Space here in New York City. Tickets can be obtained at Event brite and at The Symphony Space Box office.

“One soloist after another sang beautifully, but the standouts were soprano Julie Liston Johnson  ...” Dallas Morning News

March 18-19 Floes Music by Judith Shatin premieres on New@Graham

Floes, a multimedia collaboration of artist SoHyun Bae, choreographer Virginie Mécène and composer Judith Shatin, will premiere on the NEW@Graham: Graham and Tech at the Martha Graham Studio on March 18th and 19th at 7:00 p.m., 55 Bethune St. in New York City. Floes is the result of an interactive process, with each of the collaborators sharing their work and using it as a cross-media springboard that led to cross-media responses and discussion. Inspired by our concern for the havoc wrought by climate change and named for the large ice sheets that form ever more frequently on bodies of water around melting glaciers, our sonic/visual/ kinetic collaboration embodies formation, collision, breaking, flowing. This piece would not have been possible without technological mediation for the collaboration, including the flow of the video, dance and digital music, the latter created by processing underwater recordings of glaciers, Tickets available here. (photo credit SoHyun Bae)

California concerts with composer - guitarist Aaron Larget-Caplan, 2/26 to 3/6

Upcoming programs: Southern California events feature works from recent recordings, new arrangements, standards, and a special guest.

The Northern California concert includes three premieres: Clould Lacrymae for guitar and electronics by Douglas Knehans, the California premiere of Heretic, a micro-opera by Richard Cameron-Wolfe, and a new work by Aaron Larget-Caplan.

Honorary Doctorate for Marilyn Shrude, Nov. 2024

Marilyn Shrude received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of the West, Romania, November 2024.  The Romanian university honors BGSU’s Marilyn Shrude as composer, pianist, educator, & role model.

In her remarks, she addressed the importance of the arts in the contemporary world. Art helps people “make sense out of the confusion, to sort things out, to prioritize,” she said. “Those of us who make our living as artists must secure its place in the future.  We should embrace the responsibility of protecting and nurturing the artistic soul of our society. It would be wrong to watch to idly watch the arts dwindle to a state of non-existence.

(photo) Marilyn Shrude (center) with educators at the West University of Timisoara, Romania.

Feb 23: Earl Louis Stewart's Adagio Alla Spiritual for chorus and orchestra, Toledo Symphony with Antoine Clark.

Earl Louis Stewart’s Adagio alla Spiritual from Symphony No. 4, Juneteenth will be performed in a ‘Neighborhood’ concert in Toledo, Ohio on February 23, 2025. The conductor will be Antoine Clark. The performance will be in St. Martin de Porres Church, in Toledo.

Feb 13 Gilbert Galindo's Sonata for Viola and Piano - CMW Center Rhode Island

Sonata for Viola and Piano by Gilbert Galindo will be performed in Rhode Island by  Ivan Tan, guest pianist and violist Walter Muelling on the 13th of February.  The Sonata is an eclectic and harmonically modern piece that combines tasteful lyricism with jazz, in ultimately what the composer writes is “a heartfelt song for viola.”  

More info here.

Pianist Dale Tsang performs Judith Shatin's Scirocco

Pianist Dale Tsang will perform Scirocco twice under the auspices of Ensemble 4 These Times (E4TT), first on February 22 at 7:30 pm at the Berkeley Piano Club in Berkley, CA, and then on March 2 at 4:00 p.m. at the SF Music Center. Named for the hot wind that sweeps up from the Sahara to the Mediterranean, it is a short whirl of a piece that is newly published by ACA. 

Dale Tsang's full program:

Alexa Canales: "(un)ravel"
Michael Coleman: "Eastern Shore Rag"
Albert de la Fuente : Sonata, Movement 1
Lilyanne Dorilas: "Black Amber"
George N. Gianopoulos: "Fughetta on Monk's 'Well You Needn't'" ("Five Pieces," #4)
Jon Grier:"Quantum Entanglement"
Dorothy Hindman: "Wanting - Night Music" ("Forward Looking Back," #5)
Ye-Chong Jeon: "Drum of Creation" (Shiva Nataraja, #2)
Evans Kocja: "Prelude No. 1 for Piano"
Kian Ravaei: "The Sea Serpent" ("Marvels of Creatures and Strange Things Existed," #5)
Judith Shatin: "Scirocco"

Consuela Lee's "The Sun Is Rising" at WSMR Classical

Pianist Clare Longendyke performed Consuela's Lee's piano solo "The Sun is Rising" on Classical WSMR's live broadcast series, October 22, alongside Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 30 and Debussy's Claire de Lune. 

Longendyke also performed "The Sun is Rising" alongside Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 30 and Amy Beach's "Variations on Balkan Themes" on Dec. 4, 2024, at the University of Northern Iowa School of Music.

Feb. 8: Wanchi Huang performs Judith Shatin's "For the Fallen"

For the Fallen, in the version for violin and electronics commissioned by Wanchi Huang, will be performed at Garth Newel Music Center on February 8, at 6 p.m., when she will reprise selections from her recent album Imagining Worlds (including music by Adolphus Hailstork, Judith Shatin, Meira M. Warshauer, Jeffrey Mumford, and John Corigliano).