Naxos to Release Music by Robert Helps, from Spectrum Concerts Berlin

Date: 
Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - 12:00pm

 September 2011 release includes chamber music with piano by a "composer's composer".

Click here to purchase.

From Naxos: This recording is an exploration of Robert Helps’s ‘subtle sound world’ (ClassicsToday.com on Naxos), and his shared history with Spectrum Concerts Berlin. Highly regarded as a ‘musician’s musician’, Helps is featured as both composer and pianist. Postlude is suffused with an atmosphere of reminiscence, and the flow of ‘endless melody’ in the Piano Quartet is comparable to Scriabin. Associations with the Second Viennese School are heard in the poetic Quintet and the virtuoso Fantasy, while the two Piano Trios mark the stylistic boundaries of his career. Helps’s Shall We Dance for piano (CD 2, Track 12) was among his last recordings.

"Robert Helps is not only the pianist's pianist, and the composer's composer, he is also the pianist's composer and the composer's pianist, for, since his teen-age performance of music that was deemed unperformable, he has played incomparably: compositions which other pianists could not or would not perform. The singular pianistic mastery which he brought to these performances moulds his own writing for piano, from which pianists have discovered resources of nuance, rhythmic subtlety, dynamic control, and sound which endow their own playing with a new sensitivity and sensibility. His chamber and orchestral compositions are not pianistic transcriptions, but the fresh realization of the same awareness in these non-pianistic media. He long has been a legend in his own time and he deserves it." ---Milton Babbitt (1996)

Robert Helps ACA Composer Page

Richmond's Style Weekly features Allan Blank

Richmond, Virginia's Style Weekly featured composer Allan Blank in a recent article.

Every day, Allan Blank sits down at the same piano, the same music stand, the same computer. But what happens next is never quite the same.

"Every work is a new beginning," says Blank, a composer who lives in Bon Air. "Sometimes I sit down and I say, 'What comes next?'"

Click here to read the article.

Allan Blank's ACA Composer Page.

University of Alabama to Honor Fred Goossen with Memorial Concert

Date: 
Sunday, October 23, 2011 - 3:00pm

From the University of Alabama: 

As you are likely aware, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa and the greater community, and the musical community worldwide lost a great friend with the passing of Dr. Frederic "Fred" Goossen earlier in the summer. This is a great loss to all of us and will certainly be felt in many ways throughout our community. 

Date: Sunday, October 23, 2011
Time: 03:00 PM
Location: Moody Music Building
Cost: FREE

The University of Alabama will honor Dr. Goossen with a memorial concert featuring some of his most significant compositions. This concert will occur on Sunday afternoon October 23, 2011 at 3:00 PM in the Concert Hall of the Moody Music Building at The University of Alabama. We would like to invite your attendance at this concert. It should be a very special and significant afternoon with wonderful performances of some outstanding music by one of the significant composers of the 20th century, Frederic Goossen. It will also serve as an opportunity to celebrate the man, the teacher, the friend, and his many accomplishments.

The concert will feature Mr. Goossen's works including piano works featuring Brad Gowan, clarinet sonata No. 1, a choral piece entitled The Devils Dictionary; a movement from his Symphony No. 4 “Druidica” and Quintet for 2 horns, violin, cello, and piano.

More information here. Frederic Goossen's ACA Page.

Review: String Quartets by Elliott Miles McKinley on Navona Records

From Audiophile Audition: "...jaunty and blues inflected" "captivating" and "original" describes the String Quartets 4, 5, and 6, of Elliott Miles McKinley, just out on Navona Records, in the Parma label family (distributed by Naxos). Originally a student of jazz studies at the New England Conservatory, McKinley studied with Michael Daugherty and William Bolcom, among others. In 2010-2011 McKinley served as composer-in-residence at InverHills College in Minnesota. He is currently Chair of the Department of Music and Assistant Professor of Music and Informatics at Indiana University East. Read the review here.

Review: String Quartet No. 2, "For Louise and Aaron," by Elliot Schwartz "monumental"

String Quartet No. 2 “For Louise and Aaron”: performed by Muneko Otani, violin; Shaun Ho, violin; Sarasa Otake, viola; Antoni Josef Inacay, celloString Quartet No. 2 “For Louise and Aaron”: performed by Muneko Otani, violin; Shaun Ho, violin; Sarasa Otake, viola; Antoni Josef Inacay, celloThe 2011 Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music -- held July 28-31 -- at Bowdoin College's Studzinski Hall -- presented works by Kati Agocs, Robert Beaser, Luciano Berio; Lisa Bielawa, Richard Francis, Ryan Francis, Ramon Lazkano, Gyorgy Ligeti, David T. Little, Adam Schoenberg; Elliott Schwartz, Toru Takemitsu, Iannis Xenakis, three composition participants - Viet Cuong, Noah Meites, and Ashley Fu Tsun Wang - and Molly Joyce, the winner of the 2011 Student Composition Competition.

Christopher Hyde, in the Portland Press Herald, wrote "...Elliot Schwartz, inspired by the work of contemporaries Aaron Copland and Louise Nevelson. The result, like one of Nevelson's sculptures, is a monumental edifice built of (musical) fragments assembled into blocks of sound." Read the full review here:  Review in the Portland Press Herald 

Another review, calling the work, "alternately gorgeous and fiery" appeared in The Dispatch, here.

 

“A Rainbow of American Piano Music” performed by Richard Cameron-Wolfe on a multi-city Russian tour

Date: 
Monday, October 10, 2011 - 8:00pm

Pianist-composer, Richard Cameron-WolfePianist-composer, Richard Cameron-WolfePianist-composer Richard Cameron-Wolfe will embark upon a multi-city Russian concert tour this autumn between October 10 and November 9, performing a program entitled “A Rainbow of American Piano Music” with repertoire including three native-born composers – Charles Griffes, William Flanagan, and Charles Ives; plus three émigré American composers – Leo Ornstein (Ukraine), Dane Rudhyar (France), and Thomas de Hartmann (Russia). Cities thusfar confirmed for Cameron-Wolfe’s tour are Nizhny Novgorod (as part of the Glinka Conservatory's 65th anniversary celebrations), Astrakhan, Novosibirsk, Omsk, and Moscow.

In addition to performing, Cameron-Wolfe will be lecturing on American music and attending performances of his compositions. In Nizhny Novgorod (called “Gorky” during the Soviet era), a new arrangement of his 2009 work “Roerich Rhapsody” will be premiered, in a version for cello and bayan (the Russian button accordion).

World premiere: Le miroir de l'ombre, for piano quartet by Noel Zahler, New York Chamber Music Festival Sept. 16

Date: 
Friday, September 16, 2011 - 8:00pm

Noel ZahlerNoel ZahlerThe New York Chamber Music Festival presents a series of concerts, September 11-16, 2011 at Symphony Space.

On Friday, September 16, at 8pm, A Mahler Tribute with New York Piano Quartet

Elmira Darvarova, violin
Ronald Carbone, viola
Samuel Magill, cello
Linda Hall, piano

 

Program:
Mahler -   Piano Quartet (1876)
Lühl-Dolgorukiy -  Piano Quartet after Mahler (American Premiere)     
Schnittke-  Piano Quartet after Mahler
Gernot Wolfgang- From Vienna With Love (World Premiere)
Wang Jie - Songs for Mahler in the absence of words (World Premiere)
Nicolas Prada Diaz -Reflections on Mahler (World Premiere)
Cristina Spinei - Mahler Remixed (World Premiere)
Barney Johnson- Mahler 99 (World Premiere)
Noel Zahler- Le mirroir l'ombre (World Premiere)
Patricia Leonard - Strangely close yet distant
Busoni-Schönberg -       Berceuse elegiaque

Tickets: $20-25 at symphonyspace.org
Box Office  212.864.5400

Concert version of "The Secret Agent" to be performed August 17th at Merkin Hall

Date: 
Wednesday, August 17, 2011 - 8:00pm

Winnie and Stevie from The Secret Agent: NYC production, March 2011, photo courtesy CCOWinnie and Stevie from The Secret Agent: NYC production, March 2011, photo courtesy CCOIn preparation for a full staged production in Szeged, Hungary at the Armel Opera Festival, CCO presents a concert version of Michael Dellaira's new opera, based on the  Joseph Conrad novel, The Secret Agent. The original  cast welcomes the laureates of the Armel Opera Competition: Adrienn Miksch, soprano, from Hungary, as Winnie and Nicolas Rigas, Baritone, from France, as Verloc. The concert performance will be directed by Sam Helfrich and Emmy-nominated conductor Sara Jobin, will conduct.  The Secret Agent is a story of social tragedy and intimate human drama taking place in late 19th century London.

"In Celebration" by Dorothy Rudd Moore, to be featured in 2011 Atlanta Music Festival

Date: 
Saturday, September 24, 2011 - 7:00pm

The festival concluding  concert  on Saturday, September 24, at 7 PM in Emory’s Schwartz Center for Performing Arts with opera star Indra Thomas, and Dwight Andrews, the Chancel Choir of First Congregational Church, the Meridian Indra ThomasIndra ThomasChorale, and conductor Steven Darsey present an evening of African AmeDwight Andrews, Steven Darsey: Atlanta Music FestivalDwight Andrews, Steven Darsey: Atlanta Music Festivalrican concert music, with narration by Ambassador Andrew Young. Sponsored by Emory University, First Congregational Church, and Meridian Herald, the week builds on a concert tradition begun in 1910 by First Church and resumed in 2001 by Andrews and Darsey.

Dorothy Rudd Moore's "In Celebration" on texts by Langston Hughes is scheduled to be performed. Andrews, artistic director, and Darsey, music director, explore their race’s historic relationships through inherited musical forms and their evolutions into contemporary classical expressions.

Location:  Emerson Concert Hall, Schwartz Center for Performing Arts; 1700 North Decatur Road
Atlanta, GA 30322; Donna & Marvin Schwartz Center for Performing Arts; Tickets $25/$10; 404-727-5050; boxoffice [at] emory [dot] edu;

ACA receives prestigious Cary New Music Performance Fund award for second year in a row

Cary New Music Fund Press Release 2011Cary New Music Fund Press Release 2011ACA, among 50 other professional music organizations and presenters in the five boroughs of New York City, was awarded a grant for its upcoming 2012 season, during which ACA will celebrate the 75th anniversary of its founding in 1937 by Aaron Copland and other composers.   These prestigous awards, given by Meet the Composer, are for organizations and presenters that are primarily or exclusively dedicated to supporting and presenting new works by living composers through electronic music, jazz, multimedia, opera, chamber ensembles, and more. ACA received its first award  recognition from Meet the Composer in 2010.

Robert Carl's "Fear No" to be performed by Khorikos, September 17th in NYC

Date: 
Saturday, September 17, 2011 - 7:30pm

Saturday, September 17th: Khorikos, a cappella vocal ensembleSaturday, September 17th: Khorikos, a cappella vocal ensembleKHORIKOS will perform the World Premiere of "Encountering an Illusion" by Jan Jirasek and "Fear No" by Robert Carl. The evening's performance will also feature music by Benjamin Britten, and the New York Premiere of "Psalm 91" by Augusta Read Thomas on Saturday, Sept. 17, at 7:30pm.  St. Anthony's Shrine, 154 Sullivan Street @ Houston, New York City.

Matthew Welch on Morton Feldman's use of voice leading - DRAM online

The Database of Recorded American Music web blog has published Matthew Welch's new article on Morton Feldman's music in its DRAM News June/July 2011 online edition. In it, composer and bagpiper Welch discusses Feldman's Last Pieces for solo piano, Triadic Memories and Patterns in a Chromatic Field, among many other examples.

Elliott Miles McKinley - new CD - String Quartets 4, 5, and 6

Date: 
Friday, July 29, 2011

Elliott Miles McKinley, String Quartets no. 4, 5, and 6, all recorded by the Martinu Quartet, released on Navona Records, and now available through Amazon, iTunes, and NaxosDirect.

Summer performances of music by Elliott Schwartz in July and August

Date: 
Saturday, July 30, 2011

Upcoming performances of works by Elliott Schwartz:

July 13: Bar Harbor Music Festival, "Souvenir" for clarinet & piano was performed by Maureen Hurd Hause & Blair McMillen.

July 30: Bowdoin International Music Festival, perf of "String Quartet No.2: for Louise and Aaron." Staff quartet led by Muneko Otani of the Cassatt String Quartet.

August 15-16: Composer residency at Kneisel Hall in Blue Hill, ME, with performances of "Shaker Variations" for viola & cello, "Three Inventions on a Name" for solo viola, and "Prelude, Memorial and Aria" for cello & piano." Programs directed, coached by Scott Woolweaver.

August 20: Winter Harbor Music Festival, perf of "Aerie" for six flutes with percussion and keyboard obbligato. Directed/ coached by Carol Wincenc.

 

The Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra to perform the Overture to Treemonisha, with orchestration by TJ Anderson, Sept. 10

Date: 
Saturday, September 10, 2011 - 9:00pm

Metropolitan Orchestra of LisbonMetropolitan Orchestra of LisbonThe Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra, with Cesário Costa, musical director, presents its first concert of the 2011/12 season on September 10, with Jean Sibelius - Finlandia, op. 26; Magnus Lindberg - Concerto for Clarinet (Kari Kriikku, clarinet); Scott Joplin's Treemonisha Overture (Adapted, arranged, and orchestrated by TJ Anderson); and George Gershwin - An American in Paris. The season is presented in the Main Auditorium at Centro Cultural de Belém (CCB), in Lisbon, Portugal. The CCB mission includes production and hosting of cultural events, from theatre to dance, from classical music to jazz, from opera to cinema. For tickets and further information, click here.

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