Lei Liang: World Premiere, New Recordings

by Ted Gordon on Oct. 2, 2014, 11:04 a.m.

The World Premiere of Lei Liang's Inkscape, for percussion quartet and piano, commissioned by the Boston Conservatory, Manhattan School of Music and Third Coast Percussion, will be premiered on October 2, 2014 with Samuel Solomon leading pianist Yukiko Takagi and the Boston Conservatory Percussion Ensemble. Also on the program are two selections from Liang's Garden Eight (arranged for percussion quartet), as well as works by Toru Takemitsu and James Tenney. The concert is free—so if you're in the Boston area be sure to check it out! 

Liang has also seen a string of new recordings in the past year. Bridge Records has just released a solo CD of Liang's work, "Bamboo Lights", which features Listening for Blossoms, Lakescape, Serashi Fragments, Lakescape II, Gobi Gloria, Lake, and Bamboo Lights. These works are performed by some of the most talented ensembles working in the field today, including the JACK Quartet and the Callithumpian Consort. 

In addition to this album dedicated to Liang's work, several other groups have included his compositions in recent releases: the PRISM Saxophone Quartet has recorded his Messages of White on their new release, "The Singing Gobi Desert". Also, the Zentripetal Duo has recorded Liang's Gobi Canticle on their new self-titled album.

Check out a video of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble performing his Serashi Fragments:  

yMusic Releases New Album on New Amsterdam Records

by Ted Gordon on Sept. 23, 2014, 10:44 a.m.

On September 30th, 2014, New York-based new music ensemble yMusic will release Balance Problems on the New Amsterdam record label. The album features music by PSNY composers Andew Norman, Marcos Balter, and Timo Andres, as well as Nico Muhly, Marc Dancigers, and Sufjan Stevens. yMusic's previous album, Beautiful Mechanical, was Time Out New York's #1 Classical recording of the year in 2011. 

The press is buzzing again, anticipating the release of Balance Problems; Pitchfork previewed the album, featuring Andrew Norman's composition "Music in Circles." Check out a preview of the track here: 

 Produced and engineered by Son Lux (aka Ryan Lott), the album stands to be a landmark collaboration between composers and performers, chamber music and electronics. Check out a preview for Balance Problems below: 

September Premieres for Hannah Lash & Pierre Jalbert

by Jordan Rae Borg on Sept. 15, 2014, 3:30 p.m.

September has arrived and brought with it two upcoming premieres of new music by Hannah Lash and Pierre Jalbert. Lash’s piece Liebesbrief an Schumann (Love Letter to Schumann) is--as its title suggests--a work for solo piano paying homage to various compositional aspects of Robert Schumann’s (1810-1856) music. Lash recalls,

I approached the composition of this piece both from the standpoint of paying homage to Schumann and fulfilling my own compositional needs.

Referencing Schumann’s “fluid,” “malleable” harmonies and chromatic figuration, Lash “based [her] entire composition on a chromatic line that was able to move in an infinite variety of ways, using a songful melodic disposition as a foil.” 

Liebesbrief will receive its world premiere on September 21st presented by Lyrica Chamber Music as part of a program in which pianist and Lyrica Artistic Director David Kaplan will intersperse specially commissioned miniatures by 17 composers throughout Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze. 

Check out a recording of Lash's piece Friction, Pressure, Impact (2012) for Cello and Piano: 

The second September premiere that should be on your radar is of Pierre Jalbert’s Howl for clarinet quintet. Howl was commissioned by the Pro Arte Quartet with Charles Neidich on B-flat and bass clarinets, and is set to premiere on September 26th at Wisconsin Union Theater on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. The event will be the first classical music concert to take place in the historic theater’s newly refurbished Shannon Hall (for more info on the commission and performers, click here). 

Of Howl's origins, Jalbert maintains, 

The work...was somewhat inspired by the poem of Allen Ginsberg, not so much the content, but the long lyrical line created in the work. This long line is recreated [in Howl] by the clarinet with the strings providing an active underpinning. His poem has been referred to as a kind of 'litany of praise' and the second movement becomes the litany, with the clarinet acting as ‘Vox Dei,’ the voice of God.

Here is a video of the third movement of Jalbert's string quartet Icefield Sonnets (2004): 

Following their respective premieres, both works will be available on PSNY.