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Posts tagged 'Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum '

"Law of Mosaics" Live with A Far Cry at the Gardner Museum



A Far Cry
's acclaimed 2014 album The Law of Mosaics pairs two works by Andrew Norman and Ted Hearne: Norman's A Companion Guide to Rome and Hearne's Law of Mosaics. Both works are synoptic: they stitch together the composer's experience with some kind of landscape (or soundscape), creating compositional wholes that are greater than the sum of their parts.

In an interview with musicologist Ryan Dohoney from the liner notes to the album, Norman writes: 

I really like the idea that music can contain layer upon layer of refer­ence, and that those references can add up to a potentially rich experience that goes beyond the notes and rhythms on the page. I think this is something I share in common with Ted, though I’m not using direct quotation and sampling to create that web of reference in the way that he does.

Similarly, Hearne notes:

I wanted to play with sampling’s ability to access our shared histories in different ways. […] And by giving the movement an arbitrary formal restraint (“Palindrome’’), I hoped to create a space where the listener could hear each sample in a new context while still interacting with their historical ramifications.

A Far Cry will perform the album in its entirety at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on April 6th, a rare opportunity to hear what WQXR calls "an aural View-Master worth peering through". Above, check out Hearne's "Palindrome for Andrew Norman", a movement from Law of Mosaics that uses Norman's music as its source material. You can find A Far Cry's album via Crier Records.

An Exciting Month for Lei Liang

You've probably seen Lei Liang's name crop up on this blog before; as one of our first composers, Lei now has over twenty-five works available through PSNY! And that doesn't include his works published by Schott Music, such as Yuan, for saxophone quartet, or VERGE, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic. Lei is a prolific composer, and we're proud to make his work available for any interested performers. (And judging by your response, interested performers abound!)

Up in Boston, the Callithumpian Consort has just commissioned Lei to write a new piece for ensemble -- Bamboo Lights -- and in addition to the premiere on February 21st, Callithumpian will offer a program they call an "Open FOR'm": "equal parts teach-in, demonstration, free-form discussion, open rehearsal, Q and A session, pre-concert lecture, and post-concert reception." The FOR'm takes place on February 20th at the Isabella Stewart Gardener museum, and Lei's works will include Brush Stroke (2004), Aural Hypothesis (2010), Bamboo Lights (2013), and Parts for a Floating Space (2002). 

We applaud the Callithumpian Consort for their innovative programming (which, this season, includes works by John Cage, Earle Brown, and Alvin Lucier) and their thorough collaboration with Lei, whose music uniquely bridges lyrical figuration with strikingly original performance techniques for ensemble, organized with the masterful energy of a composer pushing the limits of contemporary composition. In much of Liang's music, haunting, etherial motifs emerge out of the wilderness of the real, the noisy, non-traditional soundings of instruments pushed to their limits, often performed on instruments whose timbres reflect an emergent embodiment of the human voice. We've edited together excertps of several of Lei's works, including some of those to be performed this week; take some time to listen to these on good speakers or headphones! 

And wind players, take note: we've just made Lei's Lake for two flutes or clarinet and flute, available on PSNY. 

For more on Lei's compositional process, check out an interview he did with WQXR during his residency at the American Academy in Rome in 2012: 

We congratulate Lei and the Callithumpian Consort for this exciting program! 

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