PSNY

Posts tagged 'Los Angeles Philharmonic'

Christopher Cerrone's "The Insects Became Magnetic" Premieres at LA Philharmonic

by Ted Gordon on Oct. 22, 2018, 10:25 a.m.

On November Sixteenth, the Los Angeles Philharmonic will premiere their newly-commissioned work by Christopher Cerrone, entitled The Insects Became Magnetic. Cerrone's choice of title comes from a poem by Adam Clay, in which the poet elegiacally ruminates on nature, music, and materiality. Looking at a painting, birds become "the trash scattered in the air"; the hull of a car emerges; the poet responds with his own hope: "I hope the insects become magnetic // to eat plastic hillsides, to pull a drone down, even."

Cerrone's composition reflects this merging of organic life with technology: it begins with sound heard as "noise", the squeal of a laptop's speakers feeding back signal from its own microphone. Clay's poem continues: "And music is the fluttering trash / in the collage or painting or whatever / we want to call it;" Cerrone that noise, that "fluttering trash," and with the same laptop, began to manipulate it into something otherwise. This is not a simple transformation from noise to signal, but rather a kind of collage in which the distinction fades away.

The collage is unabshedly poetic: electronic textures meld with insect-like, near-electronic sounds from an expertly-orchestrated percussion section, and delicate sonorities emerge from hyper-precisely notated wind, brass, and string sections. The effect of this piece is almost static, a kind of nocturnal rumination on gentle feedback. Indeed, listening to the piece mirrors the final vision from Clay's poem, of the music-like panting-collage in which insects become magnetic: "It is under glass so I place / my face up against the reflection and wait for it to pull me inside."

Tags: Christopher Cerrone Los Angeles Philharmonic

Annie Gosfield's "The War of the Worlds" Premieres at LA Phil

by Ted Gordon on Nov. 2, 2017, 11:22 a.m.

On November 12th and 18th, PSNY composer Annie Gosfield's new multi-location opera, The War of the Worlds, will premiere at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, as well as three remote "siren sites" situated throughout Downtown LA. Performed by the LA Phil New Music Group, The War of the Worlds is directed by Yuval Sharon, and is co-produced by The Industry and Now Art. It will be narrated by Sigourney Weaver, whose voice will reverberate throughout downtown LA via three revamped WWII-era sirens, broadcasting her narration and the orchestra's music.

The War of the Worlds takes its name and libretto from Orson Welles' 1938 radio broadcast, which blurred the lines between news reporting and storytelling. Through Yuval's libretto and direction, Gosfield updates this drama's focus on media, technology, and broadcasting by placing three of the main characters at remote "siren" locations interspersed througout the city, as well as incorporating radio sounds into her composition. Gosfield has worked extensively with radios in her compositional work, including Long Waves and Random Pulses, for violin and jammed radio signals. Check it out below.

The War of the Worlds will be published by PSNY after its premiere. Check back soon for the full score!

Tags: Annie Gosfield Los Angeles Philharmonic

New Works from Richard Carrick, Anthony Cheung, and Christopher Cerrone

by Ted Gordon on Oct. 24, 2017, 10:48 a.m.

On October 27th, Richard Carrick will see the world premiere of his new work, sandstone(s), at the Pacific Rim Festival in Santa Cruz, CA. Pairing flute, violin, and cello with traditional Korean instruments, sandstone(s) is inspired by the temporary, unstable structures created by sand, which the composer explored making at Kenya's Diani Beach during his residence in Rwanda in 2016. Sandstone(s), which will be published by PSNY, is inspired by Carrick's involvement with different iterations of traditional Korean pansori, which he has explored in his solo violin work Seongeum, published by PSNY. It will be premiered by the New York New Music Ensemble alongside the Gugak Contemporary Orchestra of Seoul. For a taste of Carrick's relationship with traditional Korean music, check out a recording of Seongeum below.

On November 18th, Anthony Cheung, in collaboration with Wang Lu, will see a new work for solo piano premiered by Joel Fan at the Open Source Music Festival at New York's Abrons Art Center. A few weeks later on November 29, the Longleash piano trio will perform a new version of Cheung's 2006 work, Flyaway Detours, in addition to the US premiere of Ann Cleare's 93 Million Miles Away. To get a sense of Cheung's writing for solo piano, check out his performance of his own work, Running the (full) Gamut), from 2008.