Annie Gosfield's "The War of the Worlds" Premieres at LA Phil

by Ted Gordon on Nov. 2, 2017, 11:22 a.m.

On November 12th and 18th, PSNY composer Annie Gosfield's new multi-location opera, The War of the Worlds, will premiere at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, as well as three remote "siren sites" situated throughout Downtown LA. Performed by the LA Phil New Music Group, The War of the Worlds is directed by Yuval Sharon, and is co-produced by The Industry and Now Art. It will be narrated by Sigourney Weaver, whose voice will reverberate throughout downtown LA via three revamped WWII-era sirens, broadcasting her narration and the orchestra's music. 

The War of the Worlds takes its name and libretto from Orson Welles' 1938 radio broadcast, which blurred the lines between news reporting and storytelling. Through Yuval's libretto and direction, Gosfield updates this drama's focus on media, technology, and broadcasting by placing three of the main characters at remote "siren" locations interspersed througout the city, as well as incorporating radio sounds into her composition. Gosfield has worked extensively with radios in her compositional work, including Long Waves and Random Pulses, for violin and jammed radio signals. Check it out below.

The War of the Worlds will be published by PSNY after its premiere. Check back soon for the full score!  

New Works from Richard Carrick, Anthony Cheung, and Christopher Cerrone

by Ted Gordon on Oct. 24, 2017, 10:48 a.m.

On October 27th, Richard Carrick will see the world premiere of his new work, sandstone(s), at the Pacific Rim Festival in Santa Cruz, CA. Pairing flute, violin, and cello with traditional Korean instruments, sandstone(s) is inspired by the temporary, unstable structures created by sand, which the composer explored making at Kenya's Diani Beach during his residence in Rwanda in 2016. Sandstone(s), which will be published by PSNY, is inspired by Carrick's involvement with different iterations of traditional Korean pansori, which he has explored in his solo violin work Seongeum, published by PSNY. It will be premiered by the New York New Music Ensemble alongside the Gugak Contemporary Orchestra of Seoul. For a taste of Carrick's relationship with traditional Korean music, check out a recording of Seongeum below.

On November 18th, Anthony Cheung, in collaboration with Wang Lu, will see a new work for solo piano premiered by Joel Fan at the Open Source Music Festival at New York's Abrons Art Center. A few weeks later on November 29, the Longleash piano trio will perform a new version of Cheung's 2006 work, Flyaway Detours, in addition to the US premiere of Ann Cleare's 93 Million Miles Away. To get a sense of Cheung's writing for solo piano, check out his performance of his own work, Running the (full) Gamut), from 2008.

In addition to performances of his work across the country, Christopher Cerrone will see the world premiere of his new string quartet, can't and won't, on December 7th at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Co-Commissioned by the LA Phil and the Calder Quartet, this new work is Cerrone's second string quartet, after 2016's How to Breathe Underwater, which was originally written for male voice, bass clarinet, trumpet, trombone, and electroincs, in 2011.

New Music from Wollschleger, Hearne, and Balter

by Ted Gordon on Oct. 20, 2017, 1:56 p.m.

Scott Wollschleger's long-anticipated album, Soft Aberration, has just been released on New Focus Recordings. Featuring Brontal Symmetry, Soft Aberration, Bring Something Incomprehensible Into This World, and String Quartet No. 2 "White Wall", Wollschleger's new album features performances by soprano Corrine Byrne, trumpeter Andy Kozar, violist Anne Lanzilotti, cellist John Popham, pianist Karl Larson, the Mivos Quartet, and the Longleash trio. In a series of informative blog posts, Lanzilotti has written extensively on Wollschleger's concept of "brontal": 

a made up word that longtime collaborator Kevin Sims coined after making a series of pencil drawings on orange paper. The word now embodies Wollschleger’s aesthetic: the idea that we can create something very basic and human by discovering the sensation of an object. In doing this, we are making something unfamiliar very immediate. This process of discovery can be very focused and also, at times, very funny.

Check out Wollschleger's new album below. 

On October 21st at 7.30pm, the New World Symphony will premiere a new work by Ted Hearne entitled Miami in Movements. But while this piece was composed by Hearne, the musical material that Hearne had composed is made up of over 1,050 videos and audio recordings, made by the people of Miami, that record the feelings, impressions, and emotions they associate with their city. Working with videographer Jonathan David Kane, Hearne has created Miami in Movements for Project 305, a concert program by the NWS that features Hearne's new work in a free, public "wallcast" performance. 

Just as Miami in Movements was created specificly for the city of Miami, the Jack Quartet has put together a touring program of American string quartets from the 20th and 21st centuries, which they have titled "Soundscape America". Their program, which premieres on October 21 at Columbia University's Miller Theatre, includes classics such as Ruth Crawford Seeger's String Quartet 1931, as well as more contemporary works such as Marcos Balter'sChambers. This work, which was commissioned and premiered in 2011 by the Spektral Quartet, offers three movements that condense the different aspects of Balter's musical identity into a single work. Check out Spektral's recording, released on Parlour Tapes, below.