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Andrew Norman Coast to Coast

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: