Archived News and Events

Radio host Eric Charnofsky's show "Not Your Grandmother's Classical Music" will air Monday, May 20th from 2 to 4pm (Cleveland, EDT). Elizabeth R. Austin's work for solo piano An American Triptych will be featured. Stream live online.

Baltimore Musicales presents "The Voices of Time" with songs by prominent African-American composers H. Leslie Adams, Florence Beatrice Price, and Jasmine Barnes, who is a product of the Baltimore City public school system and a graduate of Morgan State University. Other contemporary artists include Baltimore-based composers Joshua Fishbein and Garth Baxter, as well as Frances Pollock, Libby Larsen, Juliana Hall, and Kurt Erickson. Works by Aaron Copland, Claude Debussy, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Alma Mahler, Johannes Brahms, and Herbert Howells complete the program. The event is co-sponsored by event co-sponsored by the War Memorial Arts Initiative. Elise Christina Jenkins and Andrew Stewart will perform "Gone, Gone Again Is Summer the Lovely" by H. Leslie Adams.

Featuring Sopranos Claire Galloway and Thea Tullman Moore, mezzo-soprano Elise Christina Jenkins, baritone Jason Widney, and pianist Andrew Stewart, Baltimore Musicales is a not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to preserving the art of the song recital. Its professional singers and instrumentalists perform repertoire ranging from operatic arias and ensembles to art songs and musical theater. Concerts are set in the intimate venue in the Roland Park neighborhood of Baltimore, we break the traditional boundaries between concert-goers and performers. Singers share the meanings behind poetry and librettos, biographical information about the composers, and historical and literary contexts, allowing listeners to form deeper and more personal connections to the music.

Kontras Quartet will perform Spiritual Fantasy No. 12 for String Quartet by Frederick Tillis at two upcoming concerts, paired with the Dvorak American quartet. On May 13, at Imago Creative Studios, 216 Prairie Street, Elgin, IL. Tickets $20 / $10 students; And on May 23, a free concert at 7:30 PM with a pre-concert talk at 6:30 PM at Grace Lutheran Church, 7300 Division St, River Forest, IL.

Admired for their "superlative artistry" (CVNC Arts Journal), the Kontras Quartet has established an international following for their vibrant and nuanced performances. The "superb Chicago-based ensemble" (Gramophone Magazine) has beenlauded for their "crisp precision" (Palm Beach Daily News) and "enjoyable musical personality" (Fanfare Magazine). Kontras means contrasts in the Afrikaans language - fitting for a string ensemble whose colorful repertoire spans centuries, genres, and continents.

Frederick Tillis is a black American composer who, like his distinguished predecessors William Grant Still and R. Nathaniel Dett, expresses himself in the forms of the European classical music tradition, at the same time infusing them with the spirit of black vernacular music. Tillis matured as a composer in the 1960s. In 1968, he deliberately adopted a compositional style rooted in the thematic and harmonic materials of the spiritual.

The work Spiritual Fantasy No. 12 (Suite for String Quartet), a quartet of spirituals written in 1995, includes movements inspired by the spritual songs Wade in the Water, Nobody Knows the Trouble I See, and others. The composer has written of this work, The composition of the Spiritual Fantasy for String Quartet pays tribute to the essence of the musical expressions of pathos and triumph over worldly obstacles encountered by a people who found hope and strength through faith in God.

The Kontras Quartet's recent and upcoming engagements include international tours of South Africa and Switzerland; broadcasts on classical radio stations nationwide (includingPerformance Todayand a 3-month residency with Chicago'sWFMT 98.7 fm); performances at Chicago's Symphony Center and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.; television appearances on NBC and PBS; and sold out concerts in Telluride, Salt Lake City, Raleigh and Arizona. In the spring of 2018, Kontras and saxophone greatBranford Marsalis gave the world premiere ofDan Visconti'squintet for string quartet and saxophone, a work that the Quartet co-commissioned with San Diego'sArt of Elan.

Kontras enjoys educational work of all kinds, andis in its fourth year as theQuartet in Residence at Western Michigan University. The quartet has also continued its work in the Chicago Public Schools with the support of a grant from the Boeing Company. Outside of the Chicago area, Kontras has made a significant educational impact in North Carolina, bringing over 200 innovative and interactive outreach programs to 40,000 school-age and college students.

NEW MUSIC CENTRAL: Richard Cameron-Wolfe's "An Inventory of Damaged Goods" - May 27, 2019 at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. Los Angeles-based pianist Gayle Blankenburg will perform Richard Cameron-Wolfe's 2016 suite "An Inventory of Damaged Goods" (modeled after Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition") on her May 27 concert in Christchurch New Zealand, which also includes music by Terry Riley and New Zealand composer Mark Menzies. This free event will take place at the University of Canterbury School of Music's Arts Recital Hall - Arts Centre, 3 Hereford Street - on its "New Music Central" series.

June 1, 2019 7:30PM
Miller Theatre at Columbia University
2960 Broadway
New York, NY 10027

Orchestra of the League of Composers
Louis Karchin and David Fulmer, conductors
Heather Buck, soprano
Curtis Macomber, violin

Program
Thea Musgrave - Aurora (1999)
Martin Boykan - Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (2003)
Friedrich Heinrich Kern - Von Taufedern und Sternen (2018)
Louis Karchin - Four Songs on Poems of Seamus Heaney (2018)

Richard Cameron-Wolfes Mirage desprit premieres on June 8 at the Cxid Opera House in Kharkiv, Ukraine

The Kharkiv Guitar Quartet, one of the premiere performing ensembles in Ukraine, is celebrating its 10th anniversary with an 8:30PM June 8 concert at Kharkivs Cxid Opera Chamber Stage featuring 10 works written for and dedicated to the Quartet. Six of them are premieres, including Richard Cameron-Wolfes new microtonal work Mirage desprit on the concert, along with music by Denys Bocharov, Agustin Castilla-Avila, Andriy Andrushko, and others. Admission: 100 Hryvnia (ca. $3.70).

Wallace Cheatham will be playing one of his own compositions for organ, Toccata on Acts 2: 1-4, at the Centennial of the National Association of Negro Musicians Convention in Chicago, on July 14th during the opening session.

The convention takes place from Sunday, July 14th through Friday, July 19th,2019, at the Palmer House Hilton Hotel in Chicago. NANM has supported the careers of many famous and talented artists through scholarships and concert presentations, and strives to foster appreciation for African-American music and to support working educators and musicians.

Music by Christopher Shultis, with video and stage design by Hee Sook Kim, performed by Stacey Mastrian, Soprano, and the Akros Percussion Collective. Free Admission - Cary Hall at the DiMenna Center in New York City. Libretto and texts by the composer, based on the writings of Henry David Thoreau.

New and recent compositions by Gary Philo, Amy Reich, and James Bergin.

Program includes Philo's Fantasia Capriccio for Solo Violin, performed by Emily Kalish; and Five Impromptus for Solo Piano with Geoffrey Burleson, piano.

DiMenna Center for Classical Music - Benzaquen Hall
450 W 37th St
New York, NY 10018

Dove Songs showcases composer David Liptaks poignant music in the title work for soprano and piano, and other pieces for violin and piano, guitar, and cello and piano. Artists on this upcoming album from New Focus Recordings include Tony Arnold, Alison dAmato, Rene Jolles, Margaret Kampmeier, Dieter Hennings Yeomans, Steven Doane, and Barry Snyder. The title track Dove Songs was written for soprano Tony Arnold, whose moving performance with pianist Alison dAmato is heard here. Based on poems by Rita Dove, the 1987 Pulitzer Prize winner in poetry, Liptaks music mirrors the storytelling sensibility of the texts. Other works on the album include The Sighs (Dieter Hennings Yeomans, guitar); Impromptus, written for and performed here by violinist Rene Jolles with pianist Margaret Kampmeier; and Sonata for Cello and Piano, written for cellist Steven Doane, who originally premiered the work in 2008 with pianist Barry Snyder.

David Liptaks music has been described as luminous and arresting, richly atmospheric, and having transparent textures, incisive rhythms, shimmering lightness. His compositions have been performed throughout the United States and abroad by the San Francisco Symphony, the Montreal Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Group for Contemporary Music, EARPLAY, the Ying, Cassatt, and JACK String Quartets, the Dinosaur Annex Ensemble, the New York New Music Ensemble, the 20th-Century Consort, baritone William Sharp, soprano Tony Arnold, and by many other soloists and ensembles.

Album cover photography is by Danish photographer Kim Hltermand, Mons Klimt, a coastal area south of Copenhagen.

On Tues. Feb. 19, archive * archive - the Dialogues opening festival concert at St Cecilias Hall features museum instruments that have been sampled to create a new, dynamic library of sounds. Performances on the original instruments will be remixed and reinterpreted through new pieces and projects made with the sample libraries by Gavin McCabe and Leo Butt. On the program is Nullius in Verba by Robert Scott Thompson, presented in octophonic surround sound, diffused by composer Pete Stollery.

Nullius in Verba translates from the Latin as on the word of no one. This acousmatic composition incorporates field and studio recordings and their transformation and elaboration. Sound sources include vocal, percussion, flute and cello sources together with mechanical and environmental sounds. The music is conceived as a kind of song without words, and in working on it, I was reminded of Mendelssohn: What the music I love expresses to me, is not thought too indefinite to be put into words, but on the contrary, too definite. Techniques used for the work include ambisonic spatialization and spectral transformation methods. Tools used include Kyma, Csound, Metasynth, Cecelia, Trajectory and Spat Revolution.

Robert Scott Thompson is a composer of instrumental and electroacoustic music and is Professor of Music Composition at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He is the recipient of several prizes and distinctions for his music including the First Prize in the 2003 Musica Nova Competition, the First Prize in the 2001 Pierre Schaeffer Competition, and awards in the Concorso Internazionale Luigi Russolo, Irino Prize Foundation Competition for Chamber Music, and Concours International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges including the Commande Commission 2007. His work has been presented in festivals such as the Koriyama Bienalle, Helsinki Bienalle, Sound, Prsences, Synthse, Sonorities, ICMC, SEAMUS and the Cabrillo Music Festival, and broadcast on Radio France, BBC, NHK, ABC, WDR, and NPR. His music is published on numerous solo recordings and compilations by EMF Media, Neuma, Drimala, Capstone, Hypnos, Oasis/Mirage, Groove, Lens, Space for Music, Zero Music, Twelfth Root, Relaxed Machinery and Aucourant record labels, among others.

Thompsons work in the area of computer music is oriented toward high modernism in the tradition of the founders and pioneers of the field such as Pierre Schaeffer, Stockhausen, and Xenakis. His music is also informed by the naturalistic soundscape and importantly notions of contemporary expressions in chamber and orchestral music. Thompsons aesthetics attempts to blend and meld the real and imaginary into a musical context that invites deep listening and engagement in the listener. The music the tonality, sonority, transformation of materials is the primary focus rather than the outworking of a specific technique or technology. In recent years Thompson has become an adherent of the techniques of ambisonic spatialization and increasingly creates work that is based in this approach to both multi- channel and stereophonic presentation.

Enjoy a concert of truly unique music featuring the virtuosic masterwork "Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III)" by George Crumb as well as the world premiere of a new piece by Moorhead composer Doug Harbin! Featuring Dr. Kenyon Williams, Dr. David P. Eyler, Dr. Jay Hershberger, Dr. Doug Harbin, and Dr. Holly Janz. Two concerts: Saturday, February 23 @7pm at Concordia College (Christiansen Recital Hall) & Sunday, February 24 @3pm at Minnesota State University, Moorhead (Fox Recital Hall).

The Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) 2019 National Conference will be held at Berklee College of Music and Boston Conservatory at Berklee in Boston Massachusetts, March 21-23, 2019. SEAMUS 2019 will present an eclectic and diverse blend of electro-acoustic music and music-oriented forms including fixed media electroacoustic works, works composed for real-time interactive performance, works combining sound and video, and sound installations. Scott L. Miller's work Meditation will be featured in the listening room, as recorded by Dan Lippel on Scott's album, Raba. Works by John Gibson and Hubert Howe will also be featured at the conference.

Scott Miller will also be the Featured Composer at this years Chicago Electro-Acoustic Music Festival, at Roosevelt University. In addition to lecturing on his music and teaching, bass clarinetist Pat OKeefe will perform Miller's Fun House and flutist Shanna Gutierrez and guitarist Tim Johnson will perform The Frost Performs its Secret Ministry on Friday evening, April 12.

O'keefe and Miller will also perform in Chicago as part of their group Willful Devices with Ted Moore (of Ars Electroacoustica fame!) at Elastic Arts.

Daniel Hallett, a student of Nancy Zeltsman, gives his senior recital at Berklee College of Music on Friday, March 29, at 4pm. The program features solo marimba music from around the world. Hallett, an Australian/Indian/British/Chinese marimbist, presents a survey of marimba music from Serbia, the United States, China, and Germany. including Susurrus by Philip Carlsen. Free Admission. Berklee College of Music, David Friend Recital Hall 921 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

Saturday, March 30th at 8pm
Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Peter Norton Symphony Space
2537 Broadway at 95th St., NY
Free admission

The John Eaton Foundation presents a very special concert to honor the beloved late composer on what would have been his 84th birthday. Celebrating John Eaton's Legacy will present John Eaton's Sor Juana Songs as well as premieres and works by former students Richard Cameron-Wolfe, Winnie Cheung, Jalalu-Kalvert Nelson, Carol Ann Weaver, Marc Satterwhite, Eugene O'Brien, Patricia Morehead, Judith Sainte Croix and Randolph Peters.

Performers:
Kate Maroney, mezzo-soprano
Deanne Meek, mezzo-soprano
Mary-Catherine Pazzano, contralto
The Bowers-Fader Duo: Jessica Bowers, mezzo-soprano & Oren Fader, guitar
Roberta Michel, flutes
Vasko Dukovski, bass clarinet
Daniel Lippel, guitar
Jalalu-Kalvert Nelson, trumpet
Irena Portenko, piano
Carol Ann Weaver, piano
Patricia Morehead, oboe d'amore/oboe, electronics
Yumi Kurosawa, koto
Christopher Otto, violin
Kobi Malkin, violin
Siwoo Kim, violin
Andrew Gonzalez, viola
Jared Blajian, cello
Randolph Peters, electronics

Program:

Songs for My Mother 2017 NYC Premiere
Carol Ann Weaver
Texts by Miriam L. Weaver

Feedsack Curtains
Hard Shell Baptists
Lately Sprung
To The End.

Mary-Catherine Pazzano, contralto
Carol Ann Weaver, piano

Sounds and Sighs for John 2016 NYC Premiere
Patricia Morehead
Patricia Morehead, oboe d'amore/oboe, electronics

Kyrie (Mantra) IV 2016 US Premiere
Richard Cameron-Wolfe
Transcribed by Sergii Gorkusha.

Roberta Michel, flute
Daniel Lippel, guitar

Taking the Scarlet 2004 NYC Premiere
Winnie Cheung

Yumi Kurosawa, koto
Christopher Otto, violin

Juggernaut 1993 US Premiere
Randolph Peters

Kobi Malkin, violin
Siwoo Kim, violin
Andrew Gonzalez, viola
Jared Blajian, cello
Randolph Peters, electronics

INTERMISSION

Improvisations 2019 World Premiere
Jalalu-Kalvert Nelson

on What if this present were the world's last night?
from John Eaton's The Holy Sonnets of John Donne for soprano and piano
Jalalu-Kalvert Nelson, trumpet and inside of piano

For John Eaton 2016 World Premiere
Marc Satterwhite

Roberta Michel, bass flute
Vasko Dukovski, bass clarinet

Los Cuatro Acuerdos 2016
Judith Sainte Croix
The Bowers-Fader Duo: Jessica Bowers, mezzo-soprano & Oren Fader, guitar

Lullaby (W.H. Auden) from Algebra of Night 2015 NY Premiere
Eugene O'Brien

Deanne Meek, mezzo-soprano
Kobi Malkin, violin
Andrew Gonzalez, viola
Jared Blajian, cello

Sor Juana Songs 2016
John Eaton

Kate Maroney, mezzo-soprano
Irena Portenko, piano

Admission is free. Donations to The John Eaton Foundation are welcome.

The lyricism and social activism found in Dorothy Rudd Moores opera Frederick Douglass still resonate more than thirty years after its composition, yet the music has been rarely heard, much less investigated. The current Lowens Room exhibit, Why am I Called to Speak? explores one of the most memorable moments from Moore's opera, including the Fourth of July Speech aria, which is among the American Composers Alliance scores at Special Collections in Performing Arts at the University of Maryland. The song score will be on display alongside related promotion and reception materials from Moore's opera.

The aria takes its lyrics from the abolitionist Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), whose memorable speech was given on July 5, 1852 during the height of his anti-slavery advocacy work. In his speech, Douglass questions the very idea of Independence Day for people of African descent in a nation practicing slavery, Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? Moores opera reexamines Douglasss speech and the idea of liberty in which it traffics through music and dramatic focus. The exhibit, in turn, looks beyond the music to the context surrounding it. In the process it asks visitors to contemplate the barriers we have to seeing and hearing each other clearly, and the treasures we find upon overcoming such obstacles. Curated by Christina Taylor Gibson with materials from the American Composers Alliance official records and score collection, the exhibit will be on display through December 2019. The Lowens Room for Special Collections is open during the regular business hours for the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library.

On April 17, 2019 the New England Conservatory in Boston will celebrate the official renaming of the Electronic Music Studio to the Robert Ceely Electronic Music Studio. The concert will feature works by NEC alumni and current students, as well as a performance of Robert Ceely's "Synoecy" by Stephanie Key (NEC alumnus 1992; Director, Soli Chamber Ensemble). Synoecey is now available in a new edition, engraved, at composers.com/robert-ceely. The Robert Ceely Electronic Music Studiois supervised by John Mallia of the Composition faculty, andallows students to access the most recent tools and techniques required to create work at an advanced level. See behind the scenes, inside the studio here.

ROBERT SCOTT THOMPSON is nominated for the SCHALLWELLE (SOUND WAVE) PRIZE (Germany). TWO recent recordings are nominated in the 2018 ALBUM category and Thompson is also nominated in the 2018 ARTIST category. The nominated recordings are:
PHONOTOPOLOGICAL Acousmatique Records, San Francisco, California, and TELEMETRY Aucourant Records, Atlanta, Georgia.

The SOUNDWAVE (Schallwelle) is the German prize for musicians working in the field of electronic music. The achievements of these artists are honored, both from the perspective of an experienced jury and the listener and lover of this musical style.
Since 2009, Schallwelle together with media and event organizers active in the traditional electronic music genre orchestrate the Schallwelle Awards, where the best national and international albums and artists will be honored for their particular achievements on a per year basis. Besides artists and albums, further prizes are given to special categories for best newcomer, and, of course, a special award for great accomplishments or lifetime achievements, respectively.
While awards on albums and artists are voted for by fans of the genre and a jury together, receivers of special awards are chosen by the jury only. The fan voting is open to anyone and is held online.
In spring of the following year, the awards ceremony takes place to praise and hand over the Schallwelle to the winners of the voting.

PLACES IN TIME - The Musical Journeys of Richard Brooks - album reviews are in from Pizzicato online, calling the album "authentic," and Review Graveyard online, awards the album a 10 out of 10 "the standout highlight is 'Chorale Variations', a beautifully melancholic and at times discordant piece which is incredibly haunting." -Review Graveyard.

Happy Birthday to Richard Brooks - December 26th !

RICHARD BROOKS (b. 1942) is a native of upstate New York and holds a B.S. degree in Music Education from the Crane School of Music, Potsdam College, an M.A. in Composition from Binghamton University and a Ph. D. in Composition from New York University. From 1975-2004 he was on the music faculty of Nassau Community College where he was Professor and Department Chair for 22 years.

From 1977 to 1982 he was Chairman of the Executive Committee of the American Society of University Composers (now the Society of Composers, Inc.) on which he continues to serve as the Producer of the SCI Compact Disk Series. In 1981 he was elected to the Board of Governors of the American Composers Alliance. After serving two terms as Secretary and three terms as Vice-President he was elected President in the Fall of 1993 and served until 2002; he served as the Chair of the Board of Governors until 2011. Brooks also served as a member of the Junior/Community College Commission on Accreditation of the National Association of Schools of Music for ten years.