Richard Carrick, Uptown & Downtown

by Ted Gordon on Jan. 29, 2015, 12:57 p.m.

Who says that the Uptown/Downtown divide still exists? Richard Carrick's music might be proof that the entire island of Manhattan (and Brooklyn, too) are truly open territory for new music. This week, on January 29th, Carrick will see his string quintet, Adagios, performed by the Toomai String Quintet at Spectrum NYC, a biotech office-by-day, new music space-by-night, on the Lower East Side. Carrick is also curating a series at Spectrum called Friday Night LOUD, for "full-volume contemporary music", which kicks off with virtuoso electric guitarist Dan Lippel on February 6th. 

Taking the F train uptown will get you to closer to the West End Theater, where Catherine Tharin and three other contemporary dancers have created choreography set to Carrick's Stone Guitars. Their performance will run from February 5th-8th. 

Check out Tharin's choreography below! 

Adrian Knight: Performances in New York, Upcoming Long-Form Piano Composition

by Ted Gordon on Oct. 23, 2014, 2:53 p.m.

San Francisco's Mobius Trio, a classical guitar trio composed of Robert Nance, Mason Fish, and Matthew Holmes-Linder, is coming to New York to perform Adrian Knight's Bon Voyage, a work for three guitars that was composed specificaly for these players. The trio will perform this work in three venues: November 5th at Spectrum in Manhattan, November 6th at Shapeshifter Lab in Brooklyn, and November 7th at Van Dyke Park (AKA New Amsterdam Records' space in Brooklyn). Check out a video of them performing this work on some beautiful, vintage guitars: 

Also, be on the lookout for a new, long-form composition for Piano by Adrian Knight, commissioned by pioneering new music pianist R. Andrew Lee. The piece is a result of Lee's commissioning project for new works "of considerable duration" by Knight and Randy Gibson. The new work is set to be performed at the Wayward Music Series in Seattle, WA, in 2015, and will also make its way to the East coast. Lee said he was inspired by Knight's composition Unruhe, from his 2008 Ricky Bruch Album. Check it out here:   

The British Are Coming! To PSNY!

April 9, 2014, 1:57 p.m.

Steve Martland (1954-2013) and Gavin Bryars (1943-) are two of the most interesting British composers of the 20th and 21st century, bringing unique compositional voices to the concert hall and beyond. Both innovators, they bent the rules of what concert music could be to introduce a plurality of musical aesthetics into their work, and into the lives of their listeners. And now, for the first time, select pieces of chamber music by both of these composers are available for immediate digital download from PSNY. 

Steve Martland, whose voracious appetite for musical influence knew no boundaries, and whose work involved groups as diverse as Manchester's Factory Records and the King's Singers, brings us two works: Kick, for flute, bass clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, and cello; and Starry Night, for string quartet and marimba. 

Bryars' works on PSNY include It Never Rains, for electric guitar, viola, cello, and double bass; and The South Downs, for cello and piano. Listen to a recording of The South Downs here.