Archived News and Events

The new issue of New Music Connoisseur will be out by June 1^st. Some highlights:

Live reviews of ACAs Celebrating Vocal Music, Thomas Ades The Exterminating Angel, Bernsteins A Quiet Place, The Casssatt Quartet and more ..
New CDs by David Del Tredici, soprano Ah Young Hong (sings Babbitt and Hersch), George Tsontakis, Gwendolyn Dease, marimba, plays Paul Lansky, and more
A new memoir by Bethanee Beardslee, Lewis Lockwoods new book on the Beethoven symphonies, Harold Rosenbaums A Practical Guide to Choral Conducting, and more

Subscribe at www.newmusicconnoisseur.org (2 years for $28, 3 years for $35)

APR 17, 2018|7:30 PM

A movement from "Etudes constructives" an expansive new work for solo piano by Brian Schober will be given its premiere performance by pianist Margaret Mills, who commissioned it, on Wednesday, December 12 at 8 p.m. at Christ and St. Stephen's Church in New York City. She will also premiere pieces by American composers Richard Wilson, Betty Weishart and Libby Larsen. More info here.

Margaret Mills enjoys an international reputation as a concert pianist, having performed throughout the United States, Europe and China. In addition to her frequent appearances at universities and festivals around the world, Ms. Mills has given solo recitals in Wigmore Hall, London; Brahms-Saal, Vienna; Merkin Concert Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Her repertoire, spanning the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries, includes traditional European music alongside newer American works, many of them by women composers, and several world premieres.

"... always sensitive, characterized by big, lustrous sound and secure passagework."
~ Tim Page, The New York Times

Deliquescent, a new work for violoncello and piano by Bruce Reiprich. Recent and upcoming performances byEnsemble Sigma Duo -

Upcoming - Dec. 11 in vora, Portugal, Venue: Auditrio da Escola de Artes da Universidade de vora. With Sigma Duo: Ana Claudia de Assis, piano; and Miguel Rocha, cello.

Past -

August 22, 2018
Srie Viva Msica
Escola de Msica, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
Belo Horizonte, Brazil

August 21, 2018
Conservatrio Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
Belo Horizonte, Brazil
August 15, 2018
Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina
Centro de Artes
Florianpolis, Brazil

August 13, 2018
Universidade de Sao Paulo
Sao Paulo, Brazil

NYC-based classical music ensemble Cantata Profanaperformed a portrait concert of music by Matthew Welch during Matthew's Artist-Residency at John Zorn's NYC venue The Stone. The concert was exceptionally performed throughout, asexclaimed by the NY Times review! It was recorded live, andhappily now Kotekan Records releases a mixed and mastered album of thedelectable program, including the Secret Labyrinth of Ts'ui Pen and Ulrikke on December 8. Available in lossless format here!! USE THE DISCOUNT CODE welch2018 FOR 25% OFF THIS ALBUM UNTIL THE NEW YEAR!

"ultra-refined, globally sourced chamber music,exquisitely ethereal, made up of delicate, transparent textures that hum with expressive tension."
- New York Times

Coming up in October - music by Harvery Sollberger - New York Flute Club at Baruch College. The New York Flute Club honors Harvey Sollberger with a birthday concert incl his new piece for 24 flutes, Sunday Oct. 21 at 5:30pm at Baruch College in NYC 55 Lexington Ave at 24th St.

Harvey Sollberger is a composer, conductor and flutist who has been active in many world musical centers. He was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1938, and holds degrees from the University of Iowa and Columbia University. Performers of his music have included Pierre Boulez, Gunther Schuller, Bruno Maderna, the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, Tanglewood, and a wide array of contemporary music ensembles and international festivals. Sollberger has received support in the form of the Award of the American Institute of Arts and Letters, two Guggenheim Fellowships, and various commissions (Koussevitzky, Naumberg, Fromm, NEA). He co-founded the Group for Contemporary Music in 1962, and subsequently led new music ensembles at the Manhattan School of Music, Indiana University and the University of California, San Diego in addition to being Music Director of the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus from 1997 to 2005. As a performer he has given premieres of works by Babbitt, Carter, Davidovsky, Felder, Martino, Perle, Reynolds and Wuorinen, and the American premieres of music by Feldman, Holler, Risset, Scelsi, Schnittke, Stockhausen, Tiensuu and Xenakis.

Five Duets for Soprano and Baritone, by Karl Weigl, will be performed on a recital of British, German and French composers active during WW1, to mark the centenary of the end of that war. At Beverley Minster (East Yorkshire, U.K.) on 9th November 2018. One of the finest medieval churches in Europe, the Minster is a popular venue for concerts, recitals, and events.

The Little Orchestra Society of New York will present Scott Joplin's opera, Treemonisha - excerpts - with orchestration by T. J. Anderson, on six concerts over October 20, 21, 22 at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College in New York City.

Selections from the opera to include the Overture, and three numbers from Act III: Wrong is Never Right, When Villains Ramble Near and Far, and A Real Slow Drag.

Little Orchestra Society's LOS KIDS (recommended for ages 3-10), is a popular concert series for families, introduces children to composers to learn what makes them and their music unique. A season not to be missed, with great music and renowned composers - Duke Ellington & Scott Joplin, Clara & Robert Schumann, Gioachino Rossini, and Ludwig Van Beethoven.

The Orchestras 2018-19 concert season features the fourth year of the LOS KIDS series at The Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College, performing dynamic repertoire and incorporating multiple art forms with a variety of artists to create meaningful musical experiences for todays audiences. More than a third of the 16,000 children and family members who attend LOS concerts, dress rehearsals, and public service performances, are able to do so for free, courtesy of LOS sponsors.

Music for Tamtams II with classical avant-garde works for percussion performed by Dominic Donato, is now available at Spotify, Amazon, CD Baby and all usual online and store outlets. The album includes music by Dominic Donato, the album title track "Precious Metals" by Arthur Kreiger, and John Cage.

Program note: Precious Metals (2012) by Arthur Kreiger - An overwhelming attraction to the sound of vibrating metals eventually led to the creation the musical composition, Precious Metals, (2012) by Arthur Kreiger. Written especially for percussionist Dominic Donato, the ensemble contains both familiar instruments (gongs, cymbals, tam-tams) as well as less familiar ones (a deep, inverted metal wash tub). The electronic soundtrack was realized at the Cummings Electronic and Digital Sound Studio of Connecticut College in New London, CT. Interesting musical noise is the sonic focus of Precious Metals. Timbre, rhythm, and dynamics are at the core of this work. Traditionally pitched elements (melody, harmony, etc.) assume a secondary importance. Dominic Donato presented the premiere performance in November of 2013 at the Conservatory of Music, SUNY Purchase, NY.

Music and audio file available from composers.com/arthur-kreiger.

The Auriga String Quartet - Hillary Kingsley and Erik Rohde, violins,Jacob Tews, viola, and Isaac Pastor-Chermak, violoncello, will be performing works by Elliott Miles McKinley, Joseph Haydn, and Elliott Carter on Monday, September 24th at Alden Memorial Auditorium in Worchester, MA, at Worchester Polytechnic Institute, in the Great Hall. The concert is free and open to the Public. Commissioned by violinistErik Rohdeand the Indiana State University Faculty String Quartet, the McKinley work will also be performed on tour by the Martinu Quartet through October.

McKinley is a recipient of a number of awards and fellowships including aBMI Student Composer Award, a fellowship at theVirginia Center for the Creative Arts, and grants fromMeet the Composer, theAmerican Music Center, and theAmerican Composers Forum. In 2012, his percussion concerto, Four Grooves, won theIndiana State University Contemporary Music Festivals MusicNowcompetition. Among other honors, McKinley was awarded aNew Frontiers for the Arts and Humanitiesgrant from Indiana University, received two Indiana University Faculty Research Grants, and a Roger Williams University Foundation Grant. Also active as a performer and improviser, McKinley is a founding member ofearWorm, an electroacoustic improvisation ensemble of composer-performers.

Thomas L. Read's trio for flute, viola, and piano, "October Light", will be performed at Dartmouth College, Vaughn Recital Series inFaulkner Recital Hall, in Hanover, NH. Heidi Baxter, flute, Jeanne Chambers, piano, and Marcia Cassidy, viola will be the featured artists in a program of works by composers Martinu, Ewazen, Gieseking, Read, Bloch, and Mower.

Vaughan recitals are free and open to the public.

Thomas L. Read's Lullaby for Guitar (Moon through the window shines down) will be performed in a recital by Aaron Larget-Caplan as part of the Festival of Arts and Ideas, New Haven, CT, festival center, on the New Haven Green. Explore the sounds and secrets of night-music through compositions written for virtuoso guitarist Larget-Caplans New Lullaby Project, with composers from Spain, Australia, India, and the USA. There will be two world premieres commissioned by the International Festival of Arts & Ideas by Koji Nakano (Japan) and Milad Yousufi (Afghanistan). Explore time and movement, timbre and silence, transition and possibility through the universal tradition of lullabies. Free, no tickets required. The International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven is an annual festival with 15 days of performing arts, stimulating lectures and more.

April 17, 2018 @ 8:00pm
Saint Peters Episopcal Church, Chelsea
346 West 20th Street (between Eighth & Ninth Avenues)

(Note this concerts new date (Apr. 17), time, and location!)

New York Composers Circle presents:
Miscellaneous Ensembles and Electronics

Frederick Boyle, Hippolopolus
Richard Brooks, Swansong Suite
Robert Cohen, Love Triangles
Eric Heilner, Exercise for Looped Cello
Hubert Howe, Expansions
Carl Kanter, Piano Trio
David Mecionis, Die Sprechmasken von Hofmannsthal
Catherine Neville, Three Witch Pieces
Joseph Pehrson, Trombone Explorations

The Music of Steven Christopher Sacco

Sonata for Bass Trombone and Piano
Imagination Studies
for trumpet, trombone and piano
Quintet for brass
for 2 trumpets, horn, trombone and bass trombone
Octet (Water, Energy, Time) World Premiere
for 6 tenor trombones and 2 bass trombones

The Astra Choir; John McCaughey, director, new disk: 'We, Like Salangan Swallows' Music of Morton Feldman, Earle Brown, Robert Carl, Pauline Oliveros, and more. Available at New World Records, iTunes, and other distributors.

Festival 5 Giornate in Milan, Italy will feature DUO ALTERNO with the music of Ennio Morricone,Matteo DAmico, and ACA's David Froom, with performances on 21 March in Milan, and later at St Mary's College of Maryland (April 9), University of Maryland Baltimore (April 12), and the Italian Cultural Institute in San Francisco (April 17). Duo Alterno is Tiziana Scandaletti (soprano) and Riccardo Piacentini (pianoforte e foto-suoni).

The six American Composers Alliance (BMI) published works on this disc were composed over a 57-year span from 1958 to 2015. They present a series of snapshots of composer Harvey Sollberger's compositional concerns through the medium of the flute. In the 35 compositions that feature the flute, these six can be thought of as the plums, but are not the only ones by any means. Harvey Sollberger, now 80 years old, has had a distinguished career as a composer, flutist, and conductor. He co-founded the Group for Contemporary Music, the first contemporary music ensemble in residence at an American university. His music has been performed throughout the world, his discography now tops 150 commercial releases and he has taught at Columbia, the Manhattan School of Music, the Indiana University School of Music and the University of California, San Diego. The IWO Flute Quartet, named after its members' home states of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon, was formed in 2011 by four leading Pacific Northwest flutists. Each member (Sydney Carlson, Leonard Garrison, Jennifer Rhyne, and Paul Taub) are advocates for contemporary music and enjoy significant careers as performers and educators.

Disk available from Albany and other online retailers and streaming services.

The concert premiere of ZHAOJUN - The Woman Who Saved the World will take place on Nov. 20, 2018, 7:30 pm at the Baruch Performing Arts Center in Manhattan, presented by APNM - The Association for the Promotion of New Music and Ensemble Pi. Alice's new opera theme is preserving the earth's natural environment by bringing down the patriarchy and forcing leaders to practice compassion. For two singers and seven instruments, with soprano Sharon Harms, baritone Jeremy Huw Williams, conductor Carl Bettendorf, director Ashley Tata and the musicians of Ensemple Pi. Please come if you can. Tickets at https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3743447

This year's Abravanel Distinguished Visiting Composers Series will feature David Froom who was a former professor at the University of Utah. As a composer, Froom's music has been performed extensively around the world including performances by the Chesapeake Symphony Orchestras, the United States Marine and Navy Bands, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the 21st Century Consort, Boston Musica Viva, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Haydn Trio Eisenstadt, and the Aurelia Saxophone Quartet. The events will include a lecture and concert, featuring Froom's Piano Trio #2, Grenzen" played by Curtis Macomber, violin, Chris Finckel, cello; and Stephen Gosling, piano. Campus Locations Dumke Recital Hall Free, no tickets required. Contact School of Music [emailprotected] Campus Wide Event.