A Busy Weekend for Timo Andres

by Ted Gordon on Sept. 29, 2017, 3:45 p.m.

(Illustration by Dadu Shin for The New Yorker)

Timo Andres has had a busy run of recent performances across the country, including concerts in New York, Jacksonville, and Big Sur. On September 26th, Andres participated in a marathon performance of Erik Satie's Vexations—a four-line piece for solo piano that tells the performer to repeat it eight hundred and forty times. Among a roster that included Christian Wolff, Philip Corner, and David Del Tredici, Andres performed Vexations at 2.20am on September 27th, commenting to the New York Times that though he thinks about all music sculpturally, "vexations takes on a very dark presence". 

Two days later, Andres' piano concerto The Blind Banister was performed by the Jacksonville Symphony featuring Jonathan Biss, for whom it was written and dedicated. A finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize, The Blind Banister respnds to Beethoven's second piano concerto, and is part of Biss' Beethoven/5 project with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, which asks composers to respond to Beethoven's piano concerti. 

And to cap off the week, in idyllic Carmel-By-The-Sea, California, Andres performed his own piano music as a part of Philip Glass' "Days and Nights" Festival, in a program that also featured Claire Chase, Jennifer Curtis, Pauchi Sasaki, and the Philip Glass Ensemble. Andres has frequently performed with Glass, and has performed Glass' complete Piano Etudes around the world. 

Hannah Lash & Ted Hearne at the Guggenheim

by Ted Gordon on Feb. 19, 2015, 10:43 a.m.

The Guggenheim Musem's Works and Process series, which pairs artists working across media and presents collaborations in the making, will present the culminating performance of Broken Story (wherein there is no ecstasy), a collaborative work between composers Hannah Lash, Ted Hearne, Caroline Shaw, and David Lang, and choreographer Pam Tanowitz. Performed by four dancers and the FLUX Quartet, this collaborative work consists of four new works for string quartet, specifically composed and molded to the space of the Guggenheim's Peter B. Lewis Theater. 

Hannah Lash's contribution to this work is also available as a standalone string quartet, entitled Pulse-Space. Hearne's quartet will be available from PSNY; in the meantime, be sure to check out his ambitious opera project The Source, which, after its celebrated premiere at BAM, is now entering the recording studio. 

Hannah Lash: New Monodrama, Works for Choreography

by Ted Gordon on Nov. 3, 2014, 10:01 a.m.

On Sunday, November 2nd, the audience at the Guggenheim Museum in New York witnessed a rare glimpse at new music and new choreography, "fresh out of the oven," by composers Hannah Lash, Ted Hearne, and Caroline Shaw. Curated by David Lang, with choreography by Pam Tanowitz, this performance, part of the Works and Process series, previewed a collaborative project between composers and choreographers, slated to be performed in February, 2015. Check out a recording of the event, including an interview with the composers and choreographer, here: 

Hannah Lash is no stranger to collaboration: her recent monodrama, Stoned Prince, has just been recorded by loadbang, and is slated to be released on November 5th on ANALOG Arts. Listen to an excerpt from the recording below: