Anthony Cheung Builds a "Bridge to Beethoven"

by Ted Gordon on March 18, 2016, 12:30 p.m.

As early as ten years after his death, Beethoven had already achieved the status of a Greek God. 

In this famous painting from 1840 of Liszt at the piano (joined by Chopin, Berlioz, George Sand, and others), Beethoven's marble bust, floating on top of the piano in a hazy sunset, looks down upon the composers assembled—or perhaps they look up to it. Beethoven's legacy would be felt throughout the 19th century, through the 20th, and indeed is still felt in the 21st. 

The "Bridge to Beetoven" commissioning project, led by violinist Jennifer Koh, has commissioned contemporary composers (including Vijay Iyer, Andrew Norman, and Anthony Cheung) to write works in dialogue with Beethoven, showing his influence on a diverse group of musicians nearly two centuries after his death.



Anthony Cheung's "Elective Memory", written for Koh and pianist Shai Wosner, evokes Beethoven's Opus 96 violin sonata, written in the same year that Beethoven first met with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Cheung writes, 

This is a piece about the selective affinities that Jenny and I share for this particular Beethoven sonata – it is our favorite amongst the cycle – and the elective memories I have chosen to guide my response to it.

Cheung's orchestral work Lyra, which was written partially in response to Beethoven's fourth Piano Concerto, will also see a performance with The Cleveland Orchestra later in the month. You can listen to the New York Philharmonic's premiere of Lyra from their live broadcast here.

"Elective Memory" will be performed, along with the Op. 96 sonata that inspired it, at the 92nd Street Y on March 21st, following its premeire on March 13 at the Kreeger Auditorium in Rockville, MD. Be sure to check out the final installment of the Bridge to Beethoven series, which features new works by Andrew Norman. 

Sleeping Giant at Carnegie Hall and Le Poisson Rouge

by Ted Gordon on Jan. 18, 2016, 9:50 a.m.

On January 18th, the members of the composer collective Sleeping Giant premiered a new work, Hand Eye, commissioned for the Grammy-award winning sextet eighth blackbird, at Carnegie Hall. Each composer—including PSNY composers Timo Andres, Andrew Norman, Ted Hearne, Christopher Cerrone, in addition to Robert Honstein and Jacob Cooper—composed a piece inspired by a work of art in the collection of the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation. The works they chose ranged from painting to sculpture, resulting in compositions ranging from Hearne's By-By Huey, which meditates on the murder of Huey P. Lewis, to Andres' Checkered Shade, which draws inspiration from Astrid Bowlby's pen and ink drawings. 

Earler in the month, Sleeping Giant also premiered six new works for cellist Ashley Bathgate, inspired by Bach's suites for solo cello. Perhaps the most paradigmatic set of compositions for solo cello, Bach's suites have become canonical repertoire in the 20th century, and have served as models for many contemporary composers. Sleeping Giant continues this tradition by composing six new movements that form Ashgate's evening-length performance, Bach Unwound. Check out Bathgate performing Jacob Cooper's Arches with the Bang on a Can All-Stars in 2015 for a taste of her playing.  

Andrew Norman Premieres "Split" at the New York Philharmonic

by Ted Gordon on Dec. 8, 2015, 11:24 a.m.

As Will Robin writes in his recent in-depth profile on Andrew Norman in The New York Times, a premiere of a new work by Norman is "a major event in the music world." Describing his somewhat hermetic, labor-intensive compositional practice, Norman reveals his dedication to the orchestral institution: "I love the orchestra, and I believe in it, and I think there’s a future there, and I think we should all be trying as hard as we possibly can to figure out where that medium can go." 

On the heels of his successful premiere of Switch at the Utah Symphony, and in anticipation of a new commission from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Norman will see his new work for the New York Philharmonic, entitled Split, premiere on December 10th, performed by pianist Jeffrey Kahane. Picking up on ludic cues from Switch, Split also involves a game-like architecture of percussive activation of large swaths of instruments—a feature that Norman culls from our saturated world of media, games, and screens. 

Clearly, Norman's vibrant, interactive musical style has resonated strongly with the contemporary orchestral landscape. In 2015, he has been one of the top ten most performed living composers in America, with nineteen performances of his orchestral works alone. And, only a few years after his Companion Guide to Rome was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Norman's Play, recently recorded by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, has been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. Of course, Play has already shown up on year-end top-ten lists from NPR, Rhapsody, and others; Alex Ross and other critics have hailed it as "a modern classic".