European American Music Distributors Company is a member of the Schott Music Group

Hannah Lash Portrait at New York's Miller Theatre

Apr. 01, 2016

Hannah Lash Portrait at New York's Miller Theatre

Miller Theatre at Columbia University celebrates the music of Hannah Lash with a Composer Portrait concert on April 7. The program features the world premieres of two new works: Six Etudes and a Dream for solo piano, performed by Lisa Moore, and Music for Eight Lungs for trumpet, trombone, bass clarinet and baritone voice, written for and perfomed by the new music ensemble, loadbang. Lash joins the JACK Quartet for a performance of Filigree in Textile, her 2011 work for string quartet and harp. 

Six Etudes and a Dream was composed for Lisa Moore, who Lash describes as demonstrating “extraordinary charisma and energy at her instrument, with a kind of musical laser focus that I find tremendously inspiring.” Each Etude exploits a different type of technique or pianistic color, intended to “reflect [her] deep admiration for Lisa’s musicianship and playing.” 

In writing Music for Eight Lungs, which was commissioned by Miller Theater, Lash set out to treat the voice similarly to the instruments, “so that the piece would weave all four parts into a fabric equally.” The vocal part is given various phonemes drawn from the vowel sounds of Purcell’s Dido’s Lament, informing the elegiac quality of the music.

Filigree in Textile was inspired by tapestry art in the Middle Ages and early imitative contrapuntal practice. The materials used for the weft threads in these early textiles suggested the characters and titles of the three movements: Gold, Silver, and Silk. The piece was written for the JACK Quartet and harpist Yolanda Kondonassis, who premiered the work at Miller Theatre in October of 2011.

Also this month, Lash's This Ease, for chamber orchestra, is featured again in performances by the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Mainz. The performances, led by Hermann Bäumer, take place at the Staatstheater in Mainz, Germany on April 22 and 23.

For tickets and concert information on the Portrait Concert, visit millertheatre.com.

For more information on Hannah Lash, visit schott-music.com. 

Hannah Lash
Six Etudes and a Dream (2015)
for solo piano
25’

Music for Eight Lungs (2015)
for baritone voice, trumpet, trombone, and bass clarinet
10’

Filigree in Textile (2011)
for harp and string quartet
21’

This Ease (2014)
for chamber orchestra
2.2.2.2-1.1 in C.0.0-timp.3perc-hp-str
15’ 

News