Vijay Iyer Performs with Jennifer Koh at National Sawdust

by Ted Gordon on March 30, 2018, 1:57 p.m.

On March 31st, PSNY composer Vijay Iyer will perform on an all-star program at Brooklyn's National Sawdust that features Jennifer Koh, Tyshawn Sorey, Nina Young, and Du Yun. The program features premieres of new duos for Koh and their respective composers, in a commissioning program run by the arco collective called "Limitless." Iyer has already worked extensively with Koh, composing the violin concerto Trouble and writing Bridgetower Fantasy for her "Bridge to Beethoven" program.

For "Limitless", Koh seeks to address what Douglas Shadle calls the "burden of sameness" in American orchestral culture. In an interview with Steve Smith, Koh asks: 

My question is, why aren’t we doing more – or what can I do more, as an artist – to counteract what I see? What do we do within the industry, in terms of programming? I think finally people are now saying, “Hey, there’s no women on these programs,” whereas five years ago it was the same thing, except nobody was actually doing research. So the reason I created “Limitless” was because oftentimes people are just not seen, and not acknowledged. “Limitless” was about imagining a future in which people are seen, bringing us together and getting rid of the boundary between composer and performer, and really advocating for this new movement of community.

On March 31st, Koh and Iyer will continue to ask these questions—and to seek out the beginnings of an aswer. 

Christopher Cerrone Portrait Concert at Columbia's Miller Theatre

by Ted Gordon on March 28, 2018, 1:31 p.m.

Christopher Cerrone has taken inspiration for many of his works from the worlds of literature and poetry; on March 29th, he will see the premiere of a new work entitled "A Natural History of Vacant Lots" that instead draws from the poesis of the urban landscape.

Echoing the etymological root of the term "poesis" (ποίησις)—to bring something into existence that did not exist before—Cerrone's new piece takes inspiration from a 1987 book that surveys the life that emerges from vacant city lots, a cyclical process that unfolds organically and that can create surprising results. As Cerrone told Broadway World, "Though the growth of the material is extremely gradual, the things that emerge from the cycle of chords are sometimes surprising and veer quite far from the original material." This material is heard developing around the audience in a dimly-lit concert hall, emerging from two vibraphones and several loudspeakers into what New York Magazine calls a "dense sonic tangle."

A Natural History of Vacant Lots will be performed by Third Coast Percussion, with whom Cerrrone has worked extensively, and who co-commissioned the work along with Miller Theatre. Third Coast will also perform Cerrone's 2016 Goldbeater's Skin, accompanied by the soprano Rachel Calloway, and his 2012 work Memory Palace, arranged for percussion quartet. Check out the solo version of Memory Palace below. 

Kate Soper's "Here Be Sirens" Performed in Massachusetts and New York

by Ted Gordon on Jan. 11, 2018, 3:43 p.m.

Kate Soper'sHere Be Sirens has been hailed as "audacious, genre-bending music theatre", and is described by the composer as "an opera/theatre work that blends beautiful music, terrifying noise, screwball comedy, and Aristotelian tragedy." After two widely acclaimed stagings in 2014, Fresh Squeezed Opera will mount a new production directed by Amber Treadway, featuring sopranos Victoria Benson, Claire Myers McCormick, and Devony Smith. Before its performance at National Sawdust on January 28th, Fresh Squeezed Opera will also perform the work on January 12th at the I/O Fest at Williams College, where Soper will also herself perform George Lewis' 2011 work, Anthem, for ensemble. 

Fresh Squeezed Opera has previously performed a suite from Here Be Sirens at New York City's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center on a program of "nano-operas" in 2017.