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The New Yorker's "Notable Performances and Recordings" for 2017

Jan. 06, 2018

<em>The New Yorker's</em> "Notable Performances and Recordings" for 2017

We were delighted to count several Schott Music family composers among Alex Ross's coveted year-end list of "Notable Performances and Recordings" for 2017. Three exceptional female composers, Chaya Czernowin, Annie Gosfield and Kate Soper, along with Gregory Spears and Scott Wollschleger made Ross's list. PSNY composer Kate Soper was hailed for her Pulitzer Prize-nominated IPSA DIXIT performed at New York's Dixon Place with the Wet Ink Ensemble on February 4, 2017 with Ross proclaiming that this "...maker of erudite entertainments that inhabit a self-invented realm halfway between opera and philosophy" now "deserves a much bigger stage."




("V. Metaphysics" from Kate Soper's IPSA DIXIT live at EMPAC/Kate Soper, soprano; Erin Lesser, flute; Josh Modney, violin; Ian Antonio, percussion/Ashley Tata, director; Anshuman Bhatia, lights; Brad Peterson, projections)

Chaya Czernowin was similarly praised for her opera Infinite Now, given its world premiere at the Flemish Opera on April 18, 2017. Czernowin's haunting depiction of two alternating stories "...has an epiphanic effect, as if a mystery of human misery has been solved."


(Czernowin's Infinite Now at the Nationaltheater Mannheim/Titus Engel, conductor/Luk Perceval, director)

Ross also highlighted Annie Gosfield's site-specific opera, War of the Worlds, premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Christopher Rountree on November 12, 2017 and included the following weekend on the orchestra's "Noon to Midnight" marathon of new music. This tour-de-force opera in one act for seven singers, two actors, and orchestra required musicians to be positioned at multiple locations in downtown Los Angeles effectively riffing on Orson Welles's infamous radio hoax from 1938. The new opera was directed by Yuval Sharon who also provided the libretto. Acclaimed actress Sigourney Weaver served as narrator and Hila Plitmann was a mesmerizing alien presence.


(Trailer for Gosfield's War of the Worlds with the Los Angeles Philharmonic/Christopher Roundtree, conductor/Yuval Sharon, librettist and director/Sigourney Weaver, narrator)

Scott Wollschleger's Soft Aberration (New Focus Records, featuring Longleash, Anne Lanzilotti, Karl Larson, Andy Kozar, Corrine Byrne, and John Popham) was named a notable recording of 2017. Explore more of Wollschleger's work at PSNY here.


(Wollschleger's Bring Something Incomprehensible Into This World/Corrine Byrne, soprano and Andy Kozar, trumpet)

Gregory Spears's Fellow Travelers (recorded live by the Cincinnati Opera for Fanfare Cincinnati, featuring Aaron Blake, Joseph Lattanzi, Devon Guthrie, Alexandra Schoeny, Mark Gibson and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra) was also singled out in Ross's list. Fellow Travelers receives its New York Premiere at the PROTOTYPE Festival in New York City, January 12-14.


("Mary Asked me to Supper" from Fellow Travelers)

Finally, Chaya Czernowin made Ross's list twice with a nod for her recording of HIDDEN for Wergo Records performed by the JACK Quartet for whom it was written. Inbal Hever performs Czernowin's Adiantum Capillus-Veneris for solo voice and breath on the same recording.



(Czernowin's Adiantum Capillus-Veneris/Jeffrey Gavett, baritone)

Read "Notable Performances and Recordings of 2017 in its entirety HERE.

Chaya Czernowin
HIDDEN (2013-2014)
for string quartet and electronics
45’

Adiantum Capillus-Veneris (2015)
etude in fragility for solo voice and breath (ad lib amplified)
8’

Kate Soper
IPSA DIXIT (2010-2016)
for soprano, violin, flute, and percussion
90'

Gregory Spears
Fellow Travelers (2016)
Opera in 2 acts
Libretto by Greg Pierce
based on the novel “Fellow Travelers” by Thomas Mallon
3 sopranos, tenor, 3 baritones, bass-baritone
1.1.1.0-0.0.2.0-pno-str(min 3.3.2.2.1)

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