PSNY Around America

by Ted Gordon on Nov. 5, 2015, 3:53 p.m.

It's an exciting week for new music in America. Though plenty of concerts will be happening on both coasts, this week boasts three events in Nebraska, Chicago, and Miami that showcase the works of PSNY Composers outside of their normal haunts. Premieres of new works, master classes, and presentations will be given by five PSNY composers over the next several days in both the urban centers of Chicago and Miami, as well as the regional center of Kearney, Nebraska. Who says new music only happens in New York? 

Kicking off this weekend of new music in America's heartland is a performance on November 6th by pianist Karl Larson at the University of Nebraska, Kearney. Larson, who has premiered several works by PSNY composers, will perform Scott Wollschleger's Secret Machines No. 6 and Adrian Knight's Death of Paneloux, alongside Morton Feldman's Palais de Mari. Larson recently premiered Wollschleger's Meditation on Dust with the String Orchestra of Brooklyn, and has played all of Wollschleger's works for piano. The University of Nebraska Kearny recently wrote a preview of the concert, which calls Larson's playing "adventurous," and includes a short interview with Dr. Anthony Donofrio, UNK assistant professor in music theory and composition. Get a taste of Larson's program with a sample of Adrian Knight's Death of Paneloux: 

The following evening, Adrian Knight's hour-long piece Obsessions will be performed by pianist R. Andrew Lee at the FETA Foundation in Miami, Florida. Obsessions, commissioned by Lee, will be heard again at the University of Central Florida on November 10th. The piece is described as "a fifty-minute work which explores stubborn habits, routines, patterns, and, well, obsessions."

During the same weekend, Northwestern University's second annual New Music Conference and Festival will take place at the Bienen School of Music. This hybrid conference and festival brings together scholars, composers, performers, and students for a free weekend of workshops, performances, master classes, and presentations. Participating ensmebles include Ensemble Dal Niente and Third Coast Percussion, and participating composers include PSNY composers Ann Cleare, Kate Soper, and Ted Hearne, among others. 

On Saturday, November 7th, Northwestern's Contemporary Music Ensemble (co-directed by Alan Pierson) will perform excerpts from Ted Hearne's Katrina Ballads, as well as Ann Cleare's on magnetic fields, which will be published soon on PSNY. The following afternoon, Hearne, Cleare, and fellow PSNY composer Kate Soper will present on their work as a part of the conference. A complete schedule of events is available here.

Kate Soper Closes 2015's Resonant Bodies Festival with Members of Wet Ink

by Ted Gordon on Sept. 11, 2015, 11:43 a.m.

Since its founding in 2013, The Resonant Bodies Festival has been the premiere venue for the performance of new vocal works in New York. Tonight at Roulette, the festival concludes with a trio of vocalists performing repertoire from around the world, and across the spectrum of contemporary compositional styles. Our very own PSNY composer Kate Soper is featured in tonight's performance, closing out the festival with selections from Ipsa-Dixit (2010-2015), a musical theater piece that "explores the treachery of language". Accompanied by members of the Wet Ink Ensemble—Erin Lesser, flute; Josh Modney, violin; Ian Antonio, percussion—Soper's work uses texts from sources as varied as Plato, Lydia Davis, Wittgenstein, and Freud. Two sections from Ipsa-Dixit are available from PSNY, both duets between voice and another instrument: Cipher, for voice and violin, and Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say, for voice and flute. 

For a preview of tonight's festival-closer, check out Soper performing Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say with Erin Lesser at EMPAC: 

Kate Soper: Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say from Kate Soper on Vimeo.

Kate Soper in the New York Times

by Ted Gordon on Dec. 11, 2014, 10 a.m.

The New York Times' "In Performance" series is a regular feature of their Culture section's video archive. Recently they've chosen to feature composer Kate Soper performing a section of her own work, "Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say," along with flutist Erin Lesser. A three-part piece based on texts by Lydia Davis, it explores tensions and serendipities between written text, spoken text, the human voice, and the voice as played through instruments. Soper writes, "Lydia Davis' words suggested an unhinged virtuosity and idiosyncratic, multi-layered musical reading that took me from screwball comedy to paired musical gymnastics: the flute becomes a kind of Iron Man suit for the voice, amplifying it to new planes of expressivity, intensity, and insanity as the two players struggle, with a single addled brain, to navigate the treacherous labyrinth of simple logic."

Click below to see the video at the New York Times.