Archived News and Events

Upcoming Premiere Performances of The Wind in the Pines, by Alice Shields:

October 26 @ 3 PM - Online streaming premiere broadcast from the National Opera Center.
October 27 @ 8 PM - Live public concert and reception at the National Opera Center
October 28 @ 7 PM - Live public concert at Hofstra University

Inspired by the famous Japanese Noh play Matsukaze, it is written for soprano, recorder, flute, Gothic bray harp, Turkish ud, Baroque theorbo, and percussionist playing sustained, bell-like sounds on vibraphone, glockenspiel and crotales.

Eurasia Consort and musicians include soprano Martha Cluver, flutist Sarah Carrier, harpist Tomoko Sugawara, udist Adem Birson, theorbist August Denhard, and percussionist Rex Benincasa, conducted by David Bloom.

On October 27 - 28, 2021, Alices Chamber Music America commission The Wind in the Pinesfor soprano and six instruments will be performed and recorded by the Eurasia Consort of Seattle at the National Opera Center in NYC and Hofstra University in Hempstead, Long Island.

The delicate orchestral effects reel in a subtle, shifting dance of tempos, while the soprano voice, floating as if in a dream, warns of the impending climate crisis and the need to protect the earth. The Eurasia Consort, who approached Chamber Music America to commission the piece, specializes in music that crosses cultural boundaries between East and West.

ACA places in four categories - among the finest publishers in the business. The ACA editorial team Will Rowe and Simon Henry Berry together with engraver Eugene McBride have brought four Revere Awards for graphic excellence to the ACA publishing enterprise this year.

Nights Transfigured, various composers - curated by Aaron Larget-Caplan won 1st prize for Guitar Music with music editing and engraving by the curator, the composers, and Simon Henry Berry. In addition it won for book design and cover art by Simon Henry Berry. Concerto for 13 Instruments by recently deceased composer Martin Boykan won for Collated Music, excellence of score + parts, in an engraved setting from Marty's manuscript created by Will Rowe with additional proofreading by Ross Bauer. Sonatine for Viola and Piano by Ulysses Kay, was given to ACA in 2020 by the Estate of Ulysses Kay, after discovery in an archive by Dr. Juliet White-Smith. It was engraved from the manuscript by Eugene McBride and won first prize in the solo with accompaniment category.

Much of our work at ACA is done by volunteer efforts and by generous colleagues working towards shared goals. Making these scores excellent included work by Jennifer B. Lee,Curator, Performing Arts Collections at Butler Library, Columbia University, Virginia Kay,Juliet White-Smith, Susan Schwalb, Aaron Larget-Caplan, Ross Bauer, Eugene McBride, David Froom, Simon Henry Berry, Will Rowe, and others.

The third biennial volume of "Mikrotne: Small is Beautiful", a journal of microtonal music, has been published by the International Ekmelic Music Society, in cooperation with Salzburg's Mozarteum University. This issue, edited by Agustin Castilla-Avila, encapsulates the presentations given at the Mozarteum's 2019 microtonal music symposium, including Richard Cameron-Wolfe's lecture "Microtones and the Human Psyche: The Legacy of John Eaton". This issue will soon be available from the publisher, website link hereMackinger Verlag, Salzburg, Austria, where all three volumes can be found. 25.70 Euros (ca. USD $30.50)

Composer Richard Cameron-Wolfe in this presentation, journal article, honors his mentor John Eaton, microtonalist and electronic music innovator, to perpetuate his memory and his musical legacy.

The Chattanooga Symphony and Opera returns September 23 with a joyous program of international works, conducted byKayoko Dan. The music program includesArturo Mrquez, George Walker, Faure, and Andrew Ardizzoia.Ardizzoia's Ubi Caritas, arranged for orchestral brass ensemble, is based on his 2019 choral work.

Later in the season, on January 27th, the Chattanooga Symphony will perform Ardizzoia'sClair de Lune, transcribed for full orchestrafrom Suite Bergamasque by Claude Debussy.

An Independence Day Salute concert on Fri and Sat Jul 2, 3,2021 at6:30p will be presented this year at the Grant Park Festival,featuring the Grant Park Orchestra with Carlos Kalmar and Christopher Bell, conductors.

This concert is being broadcast and streamed live on 98.7WFMT/wfmt.com.

For more than 80 years, the Grant Park Music Festival has been Chicago's summer musical sensation, demonstrating that classical music, performed by a world-class orchestra and chorus, can have a transformative impact on the city.

Program

John Williams: Summon the Heroes
Scott Joplin:Overture to Treemonisha (Arr and Orch by T. J. Anderson)
Arr. Robert Lowden:Armed Forces Salute
Florence Price:Dances in the Canebrakes
Leonard Bernstein:Selections fromWest Side Story
George Walker:Lyric for Strings
Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky:1812 Overture
John Philip Sousa:Stars and Stripes Forever

St. Marys College of Maryland, along with the Chesapeake Orchestra and its Music Director Jeffrey Silberschlag, are proud to announce the annual River Concert Series will be held in-person for the 2021 season.

A Southern Maryland tradition, this family-friendly music festival, and winner of two Governor's Awards for Arts, Tourism, and Community Economic Development will be held on the St. Marys College Townhouse Green every Friday evening from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. (grounds opening at 5 p.m.) from June 25 through July 16. Each of the four concerts will also be livestreamed from the Colleges website.

The 23rd anniversary of the series will feature acclaimed musicians and rising stars performing the orchestras traditional mix of iconic Classical symphonic works, along with selections from the Pops, Jazz, and Broadway repertoire.

Introduction and Allegrothe first completed orchestral work by T.J. Anderson wasfirst performed in 1959, and will be presented from a new edition (2021) from American Composers Alliance.

July 2: A Night of Music & Americana

Jeffrey Silberschlag, music director
Music of Gershwin, Ellington, Ibert, Dvorak, Copland, TJ Anderson, LeRoy Anderson, John Williams

Zeitgeist presents the premiere of COINCIDENT Episode 4 (approximately 10 minutes), followed by a virtual reception (bring your own refreshments!) with composer Scott L. Miller and members of Zeitgeist.

COINCIDENT is a telematic, multi-episode, audiovisual collaboration between Zeitgeist, Miller, visual artist Carole Kim, and an evolving list of artists. Each artist performs from their home studio, and they connect to each other through specialized software that facilitates real-time performance with greatly reduced latency issues (lag in time due to internet connection). Because latency is reduced, but not gone, the music embraces a certain amount of asynchronicity; individual events can occur at different times without compromising the musical idea.

If you missed the first three episodes, watch here!

Thursday, July 15 at 7:30 p.m. CDT
Free, donations accepted
Online via Zoom: More info here.

COINCIDENT Episodes 1-3 have also been accepted into the Bogot Experimental Film Festival CineAutopsia.

Steven Christopher Sacco's Quintet for Brass (2003) was performed at the Aspen Music Festival and School recital program on Tuesday, July 20th at Harris Concert Hall as part of the American Brass Quintet seminar at Aspen.

Steven Sacco was born in Brooklyn, New York. His work is performed internationally by some of todays leading soloists and ensembles. Critics praise him for writing absorbing, poetic and passionate music that easily engages the sympathies and attention of a concert audience. International tours have seen his work performed in Australia, Asia, Europe and North and South America. Some highlights include:

John D. Rojaks, recording of Sonata, for bass trombone and piano, with Antoinette Perry appears on hisROJAK ROCKSalbum and was released in 2016 on the Navano record label. Rojak and Perry gave the premiere at the Aspen Music Festival in 2007. Blair Bollinger, bass trombonist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, performed the Sonata, at the 2016 the International Trombone Festival, at the Juilliard School in New York City. Also in 2016, Michael Powells recordings of theSonata,for tenor trombone and piano with the composer at the piano was released by the label USA Made.

Distinguished guitarist William Anderson will premiere Delusional?by Richard Cameron-Wolfeon September 11 at Lithuanias cutting-edge three-day microtonal music festival, organized by Ruta Staneviciute and others. Cameron-Wolfes new guitar solo is composed in 8th-tones, with five of the instruments six strings re-tuned to create a 48-tone sonic environment. The concert will be held in the Concert Hall of the Franciscan Monastery in Vilnius at 5:00PM (10:00 AM-ET). The concert will not be streamed, but audio recordings of the festival will be made available thereafter. Program book online here.

Guitarist Anderson has performed withNew York's finest ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera Chamber Players, Sequitur, the Group for Contemporary Music, and the Da Capo Chamber Players, among others.

Members of The Cleveland Orchestra will perform music by Black American composers Florence Price, Leslie Adams, and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson in new video recordings filmed at Severance Hall.Starting on January 18, 2021, and presented daily through February 8, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration will include videos released on the Orchestras social media channels.

• A composer, pianist, and organist, Florence Price became the first Black American woman to have one of her compositions performed by a major American orchestra. Over the course of her career, she composed more than 300 works and found inspiration in jazz, spirituals, church music, and European art music.
• Leslie Adams was born in Cleveland and received his bachelor of music degree from Oberlin College. His classical works, which incorporate elements of traditional African-American music, have been performed throughout Ohio and across the U.S., including a 1994 commission from The Cleveland Orchestra titled Western Adventure.
• Coleridge-Taylor Perkinsons music career spanned the genres and mediums of pop, jazz, film, TV, and classical music. In addition to serving as music director for Jerome Robbinss American Theater Lab and The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Perkinson wrote arrangements for Marvin Gaye, Harry Belafonte, and Max Roach, among others. His innovative compositions feature hints of Baroque counterpoint, American Romanticism, blues, and Black folk music.

Karl Weigls 28 Variations on an original theme, written in 1907, will be performed by Max Lifchitz on February 8th, 4pm EST. Tune in to Live from theNational Opera CenteronYoutube.

Other works on the program include music ofMikhail Johnson, Max Lifchitz, Gilberto Mendes, Doug Ovens, Harold Schiffman, William Toutant, and Jorge Vidales.

28 Variations has been recorded by Joseph Banowetz (Naxos) and Leonore Aumaier (Camerata).

Max Lifchitz was awarded first prize in the 1976 International Gaudeamus Competition for Performers of Twentieth Century Music held in Holland. Robert Commanday, writing for The San Francisco Chronicle described him as "a young composer of brilliant imagination and a stunning, ultra-sensitive pianist."A graduate of The Juilliard School and Harvard University, Mr. Lifchitz has appeared in concert and recital throughout the US, Latin America and Europe.

A Shinkoskey Noon Concert presented on January 28 by UC Davis Music featured members of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble'sMatilda Hofman, viola and UC Davis lecturer in music and Leighton Fong, cello, in Ross Bauer's Pas de deux, for viola and cello. Bauer is a professor emeritus of the Department of Music at UC Davis. The performance was streamed live at 12 Noon in California, and is now available on Youtube. Other works on the program includeCraig Walsh:Pipeline Burst Cache for Solo Cello and Tape*animation by Maria Fong*Ross Bauer: Pas de Deuxfor Viola and CelloPeter Tornyai:fiori sfiorati for solo cello *animation by Maria Fong* andMelinda Wagner:Romanze with Faux Variations (Piano Trio No. 2).

Violinist Steven Moeckel, this week's guest artist on "The Way Back Sessions," is featured in solo performance with the debut of a new composition,Unreal Dwellingfor unaccompanied violin by Glenn Stallcop,as well as in discussions surrounding being a concertmaster, influences, background, and his new album. Join online for this LIVE performance on YOUTUBE on Thursday evening, 7pm Mountain Time, 9pm Eastern.

COINCIDENT is a telematic, multi-episode, audiovisual collaboration between Zeitgeist, composer Scott L. Miller, visual artist Carole Kim, and an evolving list of artists. Each artist performs from their home studio, and they connect to each other through specialized software that facilitates real-time performance with greatly reduced latency issues (lag in time due to internet connection). Because latency is reduced, but not gone, the music embraces a certain amount of asynchronicity; individual events can occur at different times without compromising the musical idea. The music is paired with a projection world created by Carole Kim that is derived from micro-installations (located under her kitchen table) and projections performed in real-time with the music.

Sunday, Feb. 21, 4 p.m. CST
Free, donations accepted
Online via Zoom: click here to join!
Meeting ID: 830 6355 1738
Passcode: ZEITGEIST

On April 27th, Lawrence Dillon's seventh string quartet, "Consensus", will receive its Asian premiere in Hong Kong by the Cong Quartet. Splitting a double bill with the Romer Quartet, "Consensus" will open the program for Shostakovich's 3rd String Quartet, a Joyce Tang world premiere, and the Mendelssohn Octet. The performance will be live in-person at the JC Cube, Tai Kwun - for more information, click here.

The relentlesslycreative pianist Lara Downeshas launchedRising Sun Music, a digital-format record label presenting works by Black composers spanning two centuries. The ongoing series will present monthly EPs celebrating specific themes: Remember Me to Harlem (February), Phenomenal Women (March), and Spring Fever (April). All performances can be found on Spotify

Downes, a Billboard Chart-topping pianist and NPR Music personality, is inspired by the exploration of her own mixed-race heritage as a trailblazing interpreter of diverse American traditions and building on the legacies of history, family, and collective memory.

Hear her performance, with violist Jordan Bak, of L'extase d'amour (Ecstasy of Love) for viola and piano, by H. Leslie Adams. This month's program also features music ofBetty Jackson King:Spring Intermezzo;Nkeiru Okoye:When Young Spring Comes; and Alvin Singleton'sChanging Faces.Hear this latest release (total 14 min) on Spotify

Marcus Wilcher's "Shades" for bass trombone and piano will be performed at afaculty recital atEccles Performing Arts Centerat Snow College in Ephraim, UT at 11am Mountain/1pm Eastern Time on April 24th. Other works on the program include music by Juraj Filas, Norman Bolter, and Luciano Berio. The Radium Duo is Curtis Biggs, trombone, and Jackie Biggs, piano.

The 1st Cavalry Division Band, conducted by Bonnie Algeris thrilled to welcome composer David Froom to Central Texas this week, and to give the world premiere performance of Manna Variations for wind ensemble. Live concert atTablerock Amphitheaterin Salado, Texas, at 7 PM on Saturday May 15th -- an evening of live music! Music by John Williams, Holst, Sousa, and much more.

Nullius in Verba by Robert Scott Thompson andInharmonic Fantasy No. 10by Hubert Howe have been selected for performance atthe 2021 International Computer Music Conference. The theme for the conference is the virtuoso computer: redefining limits. Is the computer a virtuoso? Are performers who performs laptops on stage virtuosos as well? How can we compare digital virtuosity with the general notion used for acoustic performers? Are we talking about the same concept?

Officially hosted in Santiago, Chile, the 2021 conference will take place in an online digital format hosted by Deck10 Media. Registration for the conference, including general admission tickets with further instructions on accessing virtual performances, can be obtained from ICMC on Eventbrite.