New Music Mondays: Morton Subotnick, Mario Diaz de Leon, & Scott Wollschleger

by Ted Gordon on Dec. 9, 2013, 12:03 p.m.

With snow piling up across America, it's a great opportunity to spend some time indoors practicing... new music! This week we're excited to feature three newly-pubilshed works: Morton Subotnick's "Trembling", Mario Diaz de Leon's "Luciform", and Scott Wollschleger's "America".

Morton Subotnick's "Trembling" is scored for violin, piano and "ghost score" technology, Subotnick's interactive electro-acoustic software which autonomously spatializes and reacts to acoustic phenomena. Taking a recording of Joan La Barbara speaking the word "trembling," Subotnick "recorded, synthesized, and transformed" this utterance and used it as the basis for his composition. Check out a sample of the recording below: 

Mario Diaz de Leon's "Luciform", for solo flute and electronics, also plays with the interaction between performer and software, but in a different way; the work is a "journey inward, a movement through a series of vision states. A difficult path, a rite of passage, hovering between diabolical intensity and lucid wakefulness." Recently recorded by Claire Chase for her fantastic album "Density," "Luciform" is a complex, intensely virtuosic work with a profound depth of both acoustic and electronic textures. 

Though Scott Wollschleger's "America", for solo cello, does not include electronics, it remains connected to Subotnick's and Diaz de Leon's works through its exploration of "timbre, virtuosity, and differential repetition." Not bound to pitch-space or harmonic structures, Wollschleger's work explores the timbral possibilities of the cello with extended technique with both instrumentation and sonic organization. 

PSNY Celebrates its 2 Year Anniversary!

Dec. 4, 2013, 1:06 p.m.

This month we're thrilled to celebrate the 2nd anniversary of Project Schott New York's launch! PSNY has reinvented music publishing by building a dedicated catalog of digital editions of the world's most cutting-edge new music. In just two years, we've made available over 300 works of contemporary music spanning all genres from solo, chamber and electronic music to choral and opera. All of these works are available for immediate download or in print edition. Our composers represent some of the most interesting, challenging, and beautiful creators of contemporary music in the field today. 

And we've had some significant milestones along the way. For the first time ever, we have made available the chamber works of Morton Subotnick. We've also unearthed over a dozen works by René Leibowitz, the man who introduced Serialism to the West, a term he coined. We've published numerous operas, over thirty string quartets, works for voice, electronics, and large ensembles alike. Additionally, this blog offers unique content every week, including media, news and reviews, as well as in-depth composer portraits (including David Franzson, Keeril Makan, René Leibowitz and Lei Liang).

In honor of the anniversary, we've put together a sampler of works from across our catalogue: 

With tablet technology on the rise, it's never been a better time as a music lover to start using digital editions for study and performance. PSNY makes available a new world of cutting-edge works to anyone with access to a computer. And so far, thousands of people have taken advantage of this vital resource in new music. 

PSNY has become a great resource for composers and performers alike. Perhaps Timo Andres, who plays both of these roles, acutely portrays the value of digital editions. To close out our two-year anniversary, here is a video of Timo performing At the River, one of our first published works. 

Mivos Quartet Performs Mincek and Franzson

by Ted Gordon on Nov. 25, 2013, 11:47 a.m.

November has been a great month for new CD releases-- just in time for holiday gifts. (Who wouldn't want a new CD of new music?) In addition to the debut album by The Living Earth Show, which we previously wrote about, Carrier Records has released "Reappearances" by the Mivos Quartet performing works by Alex Mincek, Davið Brynjar Franzson, Wolfgang Rihm and Felipe Lara. 

On this new album, Mivos, whose consistently masterful performance of contemporary repertoire has brought them to the forefront of the new music scene, perform Mincek's String Quartet No. 3 ("lift - tilt - filter - split"), as well as Franzson's On Repetition and Reappearances, both available from PSNY. Mincek's quartet can also be heard performed by the Wet Ink Ensemble from a 2011 album, also on Carrier. Check out a video of Mivos performing Franzson's work in October 2013:

Mivos may be one of the busier string quartets in New York right now, having also recently released a full-length album of works by Patrick Higgins, but they still find time to perform live; they will play an album release concert on December 19th at the DiMenna Center in New York, also featuring a new work by Scott Wollschleger.