Category: performances

heading home

I am finally heading back to NYC after nearly a year away, first paddling/biking down the Mississippi River and then working at a really fine series of artist colonies (Montalvo, the Hermitage, and Ucross.) I’ll be starting out tomorrow from northeastern Wyoming, thinking perhaps to head up through Canada a bit and down to Vermont, where I will drop off the kayak and the bike and the car, and then hop onto the Ethan Allen Express down to Penn Station on Saturday. Woo hoo!

One of the pleasures of coming home is that in the first days after getting home, there are gonna be a couple of premieres of my work: definitely an excellent way to get settled in!

On 8 June at Merkin Hall, Mary Rowell is going to premiere a brand new piece I wrote for her, called I’m Worried Now, But I Won’t Be Worried Long. (The title comes from a song by Charley Patton.) We’ll also be doing my James Tate setting, It Happens Like This, in a new arrangement, and the whole festival looks really wonderful, check it out here

And on 12 June at the Invisible Dog, the happening guitar quartet, Dither, is doing the first ever live version of The Garden of Cyrus, an electronic piece from 1985. I’m really excited to hear what they do with it live, for sure! Go here for more info.

So if you’re in New York, I hope I’ll be able to see you at one or both of these shows, and if not then, soon!!!

I will not be sad in this world performances

On 3 March at the Greenwich House Music School in NYC, Margaret will be playing I will not be sad in this world on bass flute, along with music by Molly Thompson, Kaija Saariaho, and new works by Milica Paranosic, Kamala Sankaram, Elizabeth Hoffman, and Paula Matthusen.

Sounds like a great show, go here for more info.

And coming right up on 21 February, David Gerry will be playing the piece in Hamilton,Ontario. Go here for details (click Sundays at Three)

Jeffrey Solow playing Grant Beglarian

Here and Now: A suite of American suites and other works for cello solo
David Bennett Thomas Sonata (2007)
Ernest Bloch Suite No. 1 (1956)
arr. Aaron Minsky “Dead Cello”—Four Grateful Dead Songs (2006)
Ernst Toch Impromptu, Op. 90c (1963)
Gregor Piatigorsky “Syrinx” “A Stroll”
Grant Beglarian Elegy for Cellist (1979)
Miklós Rózsa Toccata Capricciosa, Op. 36 (1979)

at Bargemusic
March 13 • Friday, 8 pm
Tickets are $25 regular, $20 senior, $15 student

Wolf Chaser at the Warhol Museum

Mary Rowell will be performing Wolf Chaser with the newly edited video by Vittoria Chierici at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh on 21 February 2008. With music by George Antheil, Jon Appleton, Amy Kohn, Vincert Persichetti, Julia Wolfe, and Arvo Pärt, and with pianist Geoffrey Burleson.

Call 412-394-3353 or go here for tickets and info.

You can also go here to read an interview with Mary and Geoff about the show…

Dangerous Music in Schenectady

Proctors Graphic

a fine crew of folks are presenting a show at the Proctor Music Hall on 9 January, developing music, words, movement, and visuals with Tony Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day as a point of departure. I’ve written some new music (with lyrics by George W. Bush and Robert Frost (not simultaneously, though!)), and I’m looking forward to performing with Peggy Gould, Pamela Sneed, Jules Skloot, Bess Phillips, and Mary Rodriguez!

go here for more info and tickets

Williams Symphonic Winds to perform Landscaping for Privacy

The Williams Symphonic Winds will give a concert on Saturday, Nov. 15, at 8 p.m. in Chapin Hall on the Williams College campus. This free event is open to the public.

Celebrating the 100th birthday of Olivier Messiaen, the Symphonic Winds lives up to its reputation for unusual and creative programming with a concert that explores how Messiaen and other composers construct identity through relationships with the concept of place, ranging from inhabiting celestial villages (Olivier Messiaen’s La ville d’en-Haut) to escaping busy urban centers (Eve Beglarian’s Landscaping for Privacy) to solitary landscapes (John Adams’s El Dorado). Also on the program is music by Gustav Holst, John Harbison, David Lang, Ingram Marshall and the world premiere of Jonathan Newman’s My Hands Are a City.

The Williams Symphonic Winds is a 60-member ensemble dedicated to performing the most significant music written for the chamber and large wind ensemble mediums in provocative concerts. Now in his ninth year as Music Drector, Steven Dennis Bodner has developed the ensemble’s identity as a leading proponent of the performance of new music on campus. The ensemble has commisioned and premiered a number of works by contemporary composers, including Williams faculty and alumni. Recognized as one of the premier wind ensembles in New England, the Symphonic Winds performed at the 2006 College Band Directors National Association Eastern Division Conference. In recent years, the Symphonic Winds has been noted both for its adventurous and creative programming and for the quality of its performance, described as “heroic” and “astounding” by critic-composer Barton McLean and “amazingly good” by the composer Louis Andriessen.

for more information, go here or call the
concert hotline at 413-597-3146.

NY benefit for china earthquake relief: 15 June

a wonderful crew of NYC artists spearheaded by my dear friend and colleague, pianist Ning Yu (Mabou Mines Dollhouse, Bang on a Can All-Stars) have banded together to present a benefit concert to support victims of the earthquake in Sichuan, China.

a totally excellent group of artists at the intersection of new and world music will be performing, including flutist Marya Martin playing my piece I will not be sad in this world, with the premiere of visuals by Silk Road stalwart Kevork Mourad, with whom I just last week had a great time collaborating on a performance of Osculati Fourniture with the Maya Trio.

Other artists include Maya Beiser, Margaret Leng Tan, Derek Bermel, Huang Ruo, members of the M Shanghai String Band, Ken Thomson, NYPO musicians Duoming Ba and Qiang Tu, and the Children Singers of Third Street Music School. There will be a reception for audience members with food and wine, and music performed by the young musicians of the Stuy Jazz Trio.

the concert will be at the Church of the Ascension on Fifth Avenue at 10th Street in the Village on Sunday 15 June at 7 pm. minimum suggested donation: $25 adults, $10 children. donations support Half the Sky Foundation and Doctors Without Borders.

come if you can! donate whether you can come or not! please participate in this outpouring of support for the Chinese Earthquake survivors!

visit http://www.nybenefitforchinaearthquake.org/ to donate, make a reservation, and learn more about the event.

and please tell all your friends!!!!