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.

Ted Hearne's "The Source" Released on New Amsterdam Records

by Ted Gordon on Sept. 16, 2015, 12:50 p.m.

Ted Hearne's The Source, an immanently engrossing work based on the story of U.S. Army Private Chelsea Manning, will be released by New Amsterdam Records in late October of this year. The work, a "modern-day oratorio", sets texts made available via WikiLeaks to Hearne's charactaristically powerful musical language. Hearne emphasizes that the work "never asks the audience to pretend the musicians are fictional characters," and also "approaches its subject matter through discrete movements with tangentially related texts, rather than through traditional narrative storytelling"—two features of oratorios stretching back to the 18th century. 

Hearne will also see the West-coast premiere of Dispatches, a co-commission from the New World Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony. The new work will be performed on programs from September 30th-October 3rd, paired with Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 (Pathétique). In addition to an interview with I Care If You Listen, Hearne has also done a video interview with the SF Symphony, with some previews of the piece itself: 

Finally, Hearne will also have another premiere on the American Composers' Orchestra SONiC Festival by Grammy-award winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth. The new work, Coloring Book, will premiere on October 17th at National Sawdust, a new venue for contemporary music in Williasburg, Brooklyn. Hearne is no stranger to writing for vocal ensembles; check out his Consent, for 16 voices, to get a taste for Hearne's cascading, generative, and powerful compositional voice.

Christopher Cerrone in Los Angeles, Albany, Charleston, and more...

by Ted Gordon on May 19, 2015, 4:50 p.m.

Just after being awarded this year's prestigious Rome Prize, PSNY composer Christopher Cerrone has a slew of performances and premieres throughout the US before heading off to Italy. Last Friday, May 15th, saw the premiere of Cerrone's Four Naomi Songs at EMPAC, as a part of the composer collective Sleeping Giant's residency. Performed by The Dogs of Desire, the Albany Symphony Orchestra's resident new music ensemble, along with vocalist Theo Bleckmann, Cerrone's songs were accompanied by contributions from the other composers in the collective—which includes Timo Andres, Andrew Norman, Ted Hearne, Jacob Cooper, and Robert Honstein. Check out a preview of the Naomi Songs, with Cerrone, Bleckmann, and Andres, here: 

Coming up next is Cerrone's premiere of The Pieces That Fall to Earth by the LA Philharmonic on May 26th. Commissioned by the LA Philharmonic, the piece is a symphonic setting of poems by Kay Ryan. The premiere takes place as part of the LA Phil's Green Umbrella series and will be conducted by John Adams with soprano Hila Plitmann as soloist. 

Rounding out Cerrone's activities in May, The Living Earth Show will be performing his Double Happiness, along with Timo Andres' You Broke It, You Bought It and Adrian Knight's Family Man at the Spoleto USA Festival on May 28th. Check out the band performing Andres' piece at San Francisco's Mission Science Workshop below.