Pittsburgh New Music Net

You might think I’m being snarky, but I’m not. Something that grabbed my attention from Mana Saxophone Quartet’s press kit was this:

“A particularly intriguing element in the Mana Quartet’s performances is their use of historical instruments. When the Belgian born inventor, Adolphe Sax, set out to create his newest invention, he envisioned an instrument that would reconcile the timbres of the standard orchestra. The result was a tone that was highly praised by composers such as Berlioz, Rossini, and Meyerbeer. Over the years, the saxophone has undergone acoustical changes which have given the instrument a different character. Audiences today readily notice these tonal differences and find the “vintage” sound delightful.”

Now if we could  just get them to release a recording on vinyl. The Mana Saxophone Quartet performs Tuesday night, October 13 at Bellefield Auditorium as part of Pitt’s Music on the Edge. Included on their program is Mathew Rosenblum’s Möbius Loop and a world premiere by David Mecionis. These guys are good. Come hear them Tuesday night so that when they are really big you can say, “I remember when Mana was first starting out and I heard them in Pittsburgh…” Full press release is here.

Online, free

Pittsburgh Symphony Insider will present a live chat with Composer of the Year Richard Danielpour on Friday, October 16 at 3 p.m. The chat will be hosted by yours truly on behalf of Pittsburgh New Music Net, so be sure to log in and ask questions. There will also be opportunities to submit your questions via a related thread on this blog, so check back soon for more details.

Among the many gifts Eugene and Natalie Phillips have given to the world of music (pristine performances, inspired teaching, masterful compositions) not least is 50% of the Orion String Quartet in the form of sons Danny and Todd. Tonight, the Orion will perform Eugene’s composition A Tribute for Two when they open the season for the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society at Carnegie Music Hall. A reminder that all Chamber Music Society concerts are starting at 7:30 this season, and if you visit Union Grill (on Craig St.) after the concert, a portion of the proceeds from your purchase will be donated to the Society, so bonus!

Just a brief reminder about the CMU Contemporary Ensemble tomorrow at 5 p.m. This one sort of snuck up on me, but there’s lots of Lutoslawski and Reza Vali’s Folk Songs, Set No. 15. See all the details here. Hat tip to CMU’s Kristi Ries for helping me pull this together.

This Saturday PSO Principal Pops Conductor Marvin Hamlisch will take questions about his score for The Informant before a special screening of the film at Waterworks Cinema. Even better, PSO Marketing Guru Trish Imbrogno has offered a pair of free tickets for the event to PNMNet Readers. To get the tickets, just leave a comment and tell us your favorite film score by noon on Friday, October 9. I’ll use random.org to generate a winner based on the number of comments, then post the winner with info about how to claim your tickets. (To post comments on PNMNet you have to be a registered user [In the sidebar, Meta—Register]. Your first comment will be moderated to insure you’re not a spammer, but after that your comments will post immediately.)

Here are the details about Saturday’s event.

Saturday, October 10 at 2:00 PM
Waterworks Cinemas
930 Freeport Rd
Blawnox, PA 15238-6154
(412) 784-1402

Tickets: $4

Join Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Principal Pops Conductor Marvin Hamlisch for a special screening of his latest film effort, The Informant!, at Waterworks Cinemas in Fox Chapel on Saturday, October 10. Hamlisch will speak and lead a Q&A before the film at 1:45 p.m. The price of admission is $4.

The Informant! is the tale of Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon), an Ivy League Ph.D. and a rising star at Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), an agricultural company, in the early 1990s. Whitacre blew the whistle on the company’s price fixing tactics and became the highest-ranked executive to ever turn whistleblower in U.S. history. He secretly gathered hundreds of hours of video and audio tapes, over several years, to present to the FBI. The case became one of the largest price fixing cases in history. The film is directed by Steven Soderbergh (Ocean’s Eleven and Erin Brockovich).

As a composer, Hamlisch has won virtually every major award: three Oscars, four Grammys, four Emmys, a Tony and three Golden Globe awards; his groundbreaking show, A Chorus Line, received the Pulitzer Prize. He is the composer of many motion picture scores including his Oscar-winning score and song for The Way We Were and his adaptation of Scott Joplin’s music for The Sting, for which he received a third Oscar.

Guest conductors: Walter Morales and Tobias Volkmann

Concert Program:

Witold Lutoslawski – Mini Overture
Witold Lutoslawski – Dance Preludes
Reza Vali – Folk Songs, Set No. 15 (1999)
George Benjamin – Octet
Igor Stravinsky – Octet

Carnegie Mellon School of Music
Kresge Recital Hall, free

Carnegie Mellon University School of Fine Arts
Kresge Recital Hall, free

Pianist Bruce Brubaker will give a recital of contemporary  piano music with classics intermingled. The program includes Philip Glass’ Mad Rush, Franz Joseph Haydn’s Sonata in C Major, Hoboken XVI:50, Alvin Lucier’s Nothing is Real, Chopin’s Polonaise-fantaisie in A-flat Major, Opus 61, and Alvin Curran’s Hope Street Tunnel Blues III.

Acclaimed for his subtle mastery of the classical repertory, Bruce Brubaker has become a champion of contemporary American music, particularly the works of composers Philip Glass and John Adams. Brubaker is creating a new role for the pianist. He is highly regarded for his innovative programming, often combining music with other media.

He has recorded three CDs on the Arabesque label in a continuing series exploring American piano music. The newest, Hope Street Tunnel Blues, was released in 2007, and includes Brubaker’s transcription of Knee Play 4 from Glass’s opera Einstein on the Beach. Brubaker’s CD Glass Cage, with pieces by Glass and John Cage, was named one of the ten best releases of 2000 by The New Yorker.

As an advocate for new music, Brubaker has premiered works by Glass, Mark-Anthony Turnage, and John Cage. He performed at Sanders Theater in collaboration with Cage during the composer’s tenure as Charles Eliot Norton Lecturer at Harvard University. Of Brubaker’s playing at a later recital at Harvard, the Boston Globe wrote: “A big-toned, brainy, firebrand kind of music making that made you think of—dare one say this?—Rudolf Serkin.”

Usually I put up a “highlights of the week” type post on Thursday or Friday, but this week you want to know about Tuesday.  This Tuesday, October 6, you can start out downtown listening to  Thoth (comprising Ben Opie, Paul Thompson, and David Throckmorton) at the Backstage Bar beginning at 5 p.m. Then shoot over to the North Side Shore to catch Diamanda Galas at the New Hazlett Theater courtesy of The Warhol’s Off the Wall series. More details and links are on the Events Calendar.

Carnegie Music Hall

Tickets

The Orion String Quartet will perform Eugen Phillips’ A Tribute for Two (dedicated to the memory of Irving Faigen and Robert Holloway) as part of the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society’s 2009–10 kickoff. Also on the program are Mozart’s Quartet in G major, K. 387, and Dvorak’s Quintet in G major, Op. 77 with bassist Timothy Cobb.

Backstage Bar

Thoth comprises Ben Opie: reeds; Paul Thompson: bass; David Throckmorton: drums.