The OPERA America Songbook is Here!

by Ted Gordon on Sept. 14, 2012, 12:10 p.m.

Good news for opera lovers across America: the OPERA America Songbook is here! The Songbook is a new publication by Schott Music, co-edited by Scott Wollschleger and fellow PSNY composer Christopher Cerrone, to commemorate the launch of OPERA America's National Opera Center. The Songbook is now available for sale, in advance of the opening of the Center, and contains songs by PSNY composers Christopher Cerrone, David T. Little, Gregory Spears, and Stewart Wallace, as well as other prominent composers such as David Lang, Nico Muhly, Tod Machover, Howard Shore, Derek Bermel, and many more.

And if you'd like a taste of what kind of music the Songbook contains, American Public Media has featured one of the songs on their weekly program, Performance Today: That Night With The Green Sky, by Christopher Cerrone. That Night is a setting of text by Tao Lin, featuring soprano Melissa Hughes with pianist Thomas Bagwell. (Yes, that Tao Lin.) Check out the archived recording here.

For those of you in the NYC area, be sure to check out Loadbang performing Cerrone's How to Breathe Underwater, as well as a work by Adrian Knight, at (Le) Poission Rouge on September 18th, 2012. Stick around for The Respect Sextet performing works by Rahsaan Roland Kirk! 

Two New Commissions for Alex Mincek

Sept. 12, 2012, 1:15 p.m.

Alex Mincek was awarded two commissions in September: a Barlow Endowment Commission for a new percussion trio for Line Upon Percussion, and the French Commission of the State for a large ensemble piece for Ensemble Linea. 

Alex's award from the Barlow Endowment will allow him to create a new work for Adam Bedell, Matthew Teodori, and Cullen Faulk, who make up Line Upon Line Percussion, hailed as "the premiere new music percussion ensemble in Texas" by The Austinist. We think they'll be a great fit for Mincek's work, as evidenced by some of their past performances: 

We're equally excited about Mincek's new work for Ensemble Linea, who have performed his music in the past; here they are playing poco a poco, available on PSNY: 

And coming up in NYC, cellist Mariel Roberts premieres Mincek's flutter for solo cello on September 26th, 2012, and the work will be available for sale immediately after the performance. Be sure to stop by the concert, presented by Issue Project Room, which takes place at Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral in Brooklyn Heights. 

Late Summer News from Keeril Makan, Annie Gosfield, and Pierre Jalbert

by Ted Gordon on Aug. 31, 2012, 5:40 p.m.

The dog days of summer are upon us, though you wouldn't know it from the activities of our PSNY composers! Annie Gosfield has just released her fourth album on John Zorn's Tzadik label, entitled Almost Truths and Open Deceptions. New York City audiences will be able to hear new works from the album, as well as other works by Gosfield, performed on September 14th at the Bohemian National Hall at the Czech Center, as a part of the Austrian Cultural Forum's annual Moving Sounds Festival. For those unfamiliar with Gosfield's music, here's a clip of the MIVOS Quartet performing The Blue Horse Walks on the Horizon, available on PSNY:

On the other side of the Atlantic, BBC Radio 3 has recently broadcast two works by Keeril Makan on Max Reinhardt's Late Junction show: The Noise Between Thoughts and Resonance Alloy, both available on PSNY. Sample the beautiful recording of Resonance Alloy here: 

Finishing up this week's news, we have recently published Pierre Jalbert's The Invention of the Saxophone on a poem by Billy Collins, for alto saxophone, percussion, and optional narrator. Listen to a sample of the piece here: 

Keep tuned for our next post next week with some exciting announcements for the new season!