Richard Carrick Named 2015 Guggenheim Fellow

by Ted Gordon on April 20, 2015, 10:25 a.m.

Richard Carrick has been named a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow in Music Composition, joining the historic ranks of fellow composers such as Aaron Copland, George Antheil, and countless other American composers throughout the years. Carrick has been hard at work in the past year, releasing a new album on New World Records entitled "Cycles of Evolution", which features instrumentalists from a who's who of contemporary music ensembles in New York: the New York Philharmonic, Either/Or, Hotel Elefant, the String Orchestra of Brooklyn, and the Toomai String Quartet. The album features several works available through PSNY, including Sub-merge and Adagios, in an arrangement for string orchestra. Check out the String Orchestra of Brooklyn performing Adagios live at St. Ann's Church: 

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! 

Keeril Makan's Composer Portrait at Miller Theatre

by Ted Gordon on Dec. 1, 2014, 8 a.m.

Columbia University's Miller Theatre has been a singular venue in New York for their Composer Portrait series, which explores the works of single composers in depth. Recent Composer Portraits have featured the works of Chaya Czernowin and Bernard Rands, both performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble. On Friday, December 5th, the Either/Or Ensemble, led by Richard Carrick, will perform an evening of works by Keeril Makan, including the World Premeire of If We Knew The Sky, composed in 2014, and the New York Premeire of Letting Time Circle Through Us, commissioned and premiered in 2013 by Either/Or. 

Either/Or and Makan have enjoyed numerous collaborations, with the ensemble's sensitive, virtuosic playing nurturing Makan's compositional focus on stillness, flow, timbre, and reverberation. Makan has written eloquently in the New York Times about his compositional process, and we have featured his work here on the PSNY Blog. Check out a performance of Makan's The Noise Between Thoughts by Either/Or: 

Don't miss The New Yorker's portrait article on Makan, writen by Russell Platt, in anticipation of his Miller Theatre concert on Friday.