Timo Andres' "Word of Mouth" at Carnegie Hall

by Ted Gordon on Feb. 9, 2015, 4:41 p.m.

The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, one of America's finest chamber ensembles, is no stranger to new music. In fact, through long-term, innovative commissioning programs, Orpheus has comissioned and premiered dozens of new works by living composers—often explicitly linked to their lush performances of canonical European masterworks. 

Timo Andres has worked with Orpheus in the past, being chosen for their Project 440 commissioning project in 2010, and seeing his Thrive on Routine performed by Orpheus at Galapagos Art Space in 2012. For Andres' new commission, the composer meditates on American identity and the tradition of Sacred Harp singing, resulting in his new composition, Word of Mouth.

Named for the Word of Mouth Chorus, a widely-recorded Sacred Harp singing group from the 1970s, Andres' new piece premiered on February 7, 2015, in a program alongside works by Schubert and Mendelssohn, whose own Songs Without Words echoes Andres' exploration of the relationship between instrumental music and the human voice.   

The New York Times called Word of Mouth an "exhilirating chamber symphony suffused with optimism."

Check out the video below for more information. 

New Music from Christopher Cerrone

by Ted Gordon on Feb. 5, 2015, 10:32 a.m.

2015 has already been a busy year for PSNY composer Christopher Cerrone: a residency at EMPAC, a successful Kickstarter campaign with percussionist Owen Weaver, and on February 6th, the premeire of a new Violin Concerto at a new music venue in New York (new!) called Subculture. Jointly commissioned by violinist Rachel Lee Priday and pianist David Kaplan, with funding from the Fromm Foundation, this new piece will have its first performance on a program curated by Cerrone that centers around the relationship between contemporary music and 19th century Germany. Cerrone's work, a violin sonata, retains the formal sections of classical Sonata form while wildly reimagining its boundaries. Also on the program is Hannah Lash's Liebesbrief an Schumann which draws intertexts from Robert Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze [League of David Dances], instrumental works he wrote at the height of his compositional powers, which pit the fanciful league of David against the "Philistines"—Schumann's vision of (1830s) mass culture. Rounding out the program are new works by Samuel Carl Adams and PSNY's own Scott Wollschleger. 

Part of MATA's Interval series, the concert is jointly produced by Issue Project Room, and was curated by Cerrone. Check out a sneak preview of Priday and Kaplan rehearsing Cerrone's new sonata below. 

Andrew Norman Coast to Coast

by Isaac Bunch on Jan. 30, 2015, noon

This month promises to be a very exciting one for fans of composer Andrew Norman, with performances and two premieres in New York, Santa Monica, and Winnipeg. The performances mark the beginning of a busy year for Norman, who continues to garner premieres from top performing groups around the world.

On January 29th, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's New Music series featured a performance of Norman's Light Screens, for flute, violin, viola, and cello at the Kaplan Penthouse. Like many of Norman’s works, Light Screens draws inspiration from architectural forms and textures. The title of the work comes from the words Frank Lloyd Wright used to describe the art glass window patterns lining many of his prairie homes. 

On February 5th, Andrew Norman’s new piece Frank’s House, scored for two pianos and two percussionists, premieres on the opening night of the Moss Theater’s Westside Connections series in Santa Monica.  The work premieres with members of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, including LACO music director Jeffrey Kahane on piano. Norman’s architectural affinity is right at home in the series, as the Westside Connections events merge musical performance and architectural discussion in an effort to explore parallels between the two disciplines. 

Frank’s House pays homage to the work of Santa Monica-based architectural titan Frank Gehry. Norman’s piece is a nod to the architect’s personal residence, which happens to be located just minutes away from the Moss Theater. Gehry himself rounds out the evening’s program in conversation with Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, and Ara Guzelimian, the provost & dean of The Juilliard School. Frank's House will be available from PSNY following the premiere. 

In between these two concerts, The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra delivers the Canadian premiere of Norman’s Unstuck at Centennial Concert Hall as part of the Winnipeg New Music Festival. The performance takes place alongside the Canadian premieres of works by Georg Friedrich Haas and Wolfgang Rihm for the January 31st concert. The work differs from Norman’s many architectural themed pieces in that it derives its form from the unique temporal structure of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Norman joins Georg Friedrich Haas and others in both a pre-concert panel discussion and a post-concert Q&A session.

Earlier this month, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) released the premiere recording of Andrew Norman’s Play – a remarkable 50 minute work for orchestra, which was premiered by BMOP and conductor Gil Rose in 2013. Play was recently featured as Alex Ross’s “CD of the Week”, which Ross calls “a sprawling, engulfing, furiously unpredictable piece.” Hear the first movement of Play below: