Hannah Lash at the New York Philharmonic Biennial

by Ted Gordon on May 31, 2016, 10:58 a.m.

(photo © Bob Handelman)

The New York Philharmonic's second Biennial festival is well underway, with exciting concerts popping up all over the city. Fresh on the heels of the premiere of her chamber opera "Beowulf" in Boston, Hannah Lash returns to New York to see two performances of her works, in venues both intimate and grand. On May 25th, Lash's Leaves, Space, a work for double bass and harp, was performed at New York Public Radio's Jerome L. Greene Space, in a program featuring composers from the Yale School of Music. This New York Premiere was live-streamed on WQXR's Q2, which regularly live-streams concerts in the New Music New Haven series. 

On June 5th, Lash's music will again be heard in the newly-named David Geffen Hall. The Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra has programmed a concert entitled Young Americans, referring both to the youth of their performers and the youth of the composers they've programmed. In addition to works by Jennifer Higdon, Ashley Fure, and Nico Muhly, the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra will perform the World Premiere of Hannah Lash's Chaconnes, commissioned by Interlochen. Don't miss this chance to hear Lash's intimate writing expanded to an entire orchestra! 

Jennifer Koh's "Shared Madness"

by Ted Gordon on May 27, 2016, 11:31 a.m.

The New York Philharmonic's second Biennial is underway, bringing new music programming to venues across the city. In addition to Lincoln Center, the NY Phil is programming concerts at venues in Brooklyn like National Sawdust, a venue that is quickly becoming a vital center for contemporary music. Following its first installment on May 24, violinist Jennifer Koh returns to National Sawdust on May 31 for the second part of her commissioning project entitled "Shared Madness". The program is indeed a bit of a mad idea: 30 virtuosic show-pieces, commissioned and premiered by Koh, all performed over two evenings. As Koh puts it, her program seeks to explore "the meaning of virtuosity in the 21st century." 

Among the composers Koh chose to commission are Timo Andres, Christopher Cerrone, Anthony Cheung, Vijay Iyer, Phil Kline, and Andrew Norman. Koh's recent "Bridge to Beethoven" project saw close collaboration between her and Iyer, Norman, and Cheung, in addition to Jörg Widmann. Be sure to stop by National Sawdust to experience the "shared madness"!

World Premiere of Mario Diaz de Leon's "O Ignis Spiritus" by the TAK Ensemble

by Ted Gordon on May 24, 2016, 4:11 p.m.

The TAK Ensemble, an ambitious young group from New York, will premiere Mario Diaz de Leon's new composition, "O Ignis Spiritus", alongside a performance of Ann Cleare's "Unable to Create an Offscreen World (C)", at Roulette on May 25th. Supported by a Chamber Music America commissioning grant and the GENERATE program at Roulette, this performance follows a busy month for Diaz de Leon, who recently has performed in venues as diverse as Brooklyn metal mecca Saint Vitus, the Donau Festival in Krems, Austria, and the Tectonics Festival in Glasgow, alongside the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and frequent collaborator Nate Young, of the noise group Wolf Eyes. 

Diaz de Leon's new work, "O Ignis Spiritus", shares its title with a medieval sequence of the same name by Hildegard von Bingen; the text, which translates to "O Holy Fire", compliments Diaz de Leon's compositional aesthetic, which explores the extremities of timbre, texture, color, and form. 

Diaz has written about fire before: check out "The Flesh Needs Fire", a 2007 composition for flute, clarinet, and electronics.