Christopher Cerrone's "Invisible Cities": The Album

by Ted Gordon on Nov. 24, 2014, 11:22 a.m.

If you haven't heard about Christopher Cerrone's opera Invisible Cities, based on the novel by Italo Calvino, let us give you a primer: workshopped in 2009 at the New York City Opera, performed in 2011 at Columbia University with Red Light New Music, fully staged and performed in Los Angeles' Union Station by The Industry in 2013, and nominated as a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2014. And if that weren't enough, a studio recording by The Industry is now available for digital download, and limited-edition CD Box Set. We'd recommend the box set: designed by Traci Larson, it includes a laser-cut wooden box with postcards, images, and texts from the "Invisible Cities" of Calvino's novel, as well as the recordings of Cerrone's opera. Each of the 500 boxes is signed by Cerrone, and serves as a powerful reminder of the live concert experience.

And in case you missed the performance in Union Station, The Industry has launched a new website with an immersive video experience to give you an idea of what it was like. As composer John Adams says, "Listen to Christopher Cerrone's Invisible Cities on headphones, preferably in the dark. Your mind's eye will will with sonic phantoms, darting shapes, tolling bells, snarling brass, plangent voices and the rhythms of alien rituals."

The opera's Invisible Overture, for ensemble or chamber orchestra, is available for purchase from PSNY. Also be sure to check out Cerrone's other vocal music on PSNY, including How to Breathe Underwater, inspired by Jonathan Franzen's Freedom, and I Will Learn To Love A Person (available as chamber ensemble and piano/vocal versions), a song cycle based on poetry by Tao Lin.

Party with Ensemble Dal Niente

by Ted Gordon on Nov. 18, 2014, 1:21 p.m.

On a blustery Chicago night, over a hundred people packed into the Jackson Junge Gallery in Wicker Park to attend a party—typical for an art opening on a Saturday night. But in addition to the art, food, beer, and craft cocktails, these partiers got to experience something extra: Ensemble Dal Niente, one of Chicago and the US' leading New Music ensembles, performing over 15 works, many of which were composed in the past decade.

The ensemble, conducted by Michael Lewanski, split the evening's performances into sets of two to three works, allowing for conversation, commentary, and mingling with the musicians in-between. From solo works to pieces for larger ensembles, Dal Niente executed each piece with precision and grace—from technically demanding pieces such as Ted Hearne's Crispy Gentlemen or Ashley Fure's something to hunt to simpler but more theoretically complex works such as Johannes Kreidler's Stil 1f. Beat Furrer's Aria, Alex Mincek's Nucleus, and Thomas Ades' Traced Overhead were standouts in a concert that the Chicago Classical Review called 'exhilarating' and 'wide-ranging'.

Check out a video preview for the Party below: 

Timo Andres's "Early to Rise" at NY Phil's CONTACT! Series

by Jordan Rae Borg on Nov. 17, 2014, 3:51 p.m.

On November 17, SubCulture presents a concert of new music curated and hosted by composer John Adams, featuring the New York premiere of Timo Andres's Early to Rise. The piece was commissioned by the Library of Congress for the Attacca Quartet and received its premiere in 2013 in Washington, D.C.

Timo writes that the ten-minute, four-movement string quartet is “the most recent in a series of Schumann-inspired pieces I’ve written; this time, the seed is a five-note accompanimental figure from his late piano cycle Gesänge der Frühe (Morning Songs). At first, Early to Rise uses this figure in a canon, gently cycling through harmonies while its rhythms rub against each other in expanding and contracting patterns.… In the final section, momentum builds in the opposite direction with a simple downward-drifting chorale, picking up speed until it reaches a frenetic conclusion.”

The concert is a co-presentation of the New York Philharmonic and 92nd Street Y and also includes works by Daníel Bjarnason, Ingram Marshall, and Missy Mazzoli.

Check out an excerpt of Early to Rise below.