So is this a great weekend for new music in Pittsburgh or a terrible weekend? I think it depends on whether you can bilocate and/or have plenty of time. Here’s the rundown.
Starting tonight (Thursday) and running through March 5, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra will perform Joan Tower’s Tambor and Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite(1945, not 1911. Go figure.).
On Saturday, March 5, the PSO will read works by student composers from CMU, Duquesne, Pitt, and WVU. This is a great program that really gives our up and coming composers a truly unique experience, so bravo to the PSO and all this year’s composers who had their music selected.
The evening of March 5 brings Ravish Momin and Tarana back to town after a very well received concert at the Warhol this summer. Or you can take in entelechron—Roger Zahab, Rob Frankenberry, and David Russell—at the Andy Warhol Museum performing music of John Cage. See what I mean about bilocating?
The Cage program at the Warhol is the first of three Music on the Edge Programs in 15 days, so as they say in the action movies, buckle up! MOTE continues its highly compressed season on March 13 with New York’s counter)induction and finishes off with the entirely unique Newband playing music by Harry Partch, Dean Drummond, and Mathew Rosenblum on the Harry Partch Instruments.
Newband and the Harry Partch instruments will wrap up Music on the Edge’s 20th anniversary season at the New Hazlett Theater on March 19th. The masters of microtonal music will perform on instruments invented by the iconoclastic Just Intonation composer Harry Partch (1901-1974) as well as instruments invented by composer and Newband co-founder Dean Drummond.
Newband’s concert in Pittsburgh will feature the Harry Partch works Castor and Pollux and Two Studies on Ancient Greek Scales, Dean Drummond’s Before the Last Laugh, Pitt faculty composer Mathew Rosenblum’s Yonah’s Dream, Gregg Rossetti’s Mutating Aeon, and Thelonius Monk’s ‘Round Midnight. All the compositions will utilize just tunings—tunings that replicate intervals as they occur naturally in the overtone series. From Bach’s time to the present, Western instruments have been designed around a division of the octave into 12 equal steps, making all the intervals somewhat out of tune, so that the will sound mostly in tune regardless of the music’s key. Deeply dissatisfied with the sound of equal-tempered intervals, Harry Partch designed his instruments around his own 43 tone-per-octave just tuning, allowing for much more subtle melodic motion, as well as intervals that are more in tune and stable.
Widely regarded as the world’s pre-eminent microtonal music ensemble, Newband was founded in 1977 by composer Dean Drummond and flutist Stefani Starin who continue as Artistic Directors. With Drummond’s invention of the 31-tone zoomoozophone in 1978, Newband began to explore music using microtonality and alternative tuning systems in an innovative and eclectic repertoire influenced by classical, jazz, and world music. In 1990, Newband received custodianship of the original Harry Partch Instrument Collection. The typical Newband concert involves a stage filled with some of the world’s most amazing musical instruments performed upon by an ensemble of virtuosos who move from instrument to instrument with incredible ease.
Tickets may be purchased in advance from ProArtsTickets. Tickets in advance are $15 for general admission and $10 for non-Pitt students and seniors. Call 412-394-3353 or visit www.proartstickets.org. At the door, general admission is $20 and admission for students and seniors is $15. Pitt students FREE with ID.
Hot on the heels of a well-received performance at the Warhol Museum last June, Tarana, returns to Pittsburgh! Formed in 2003, the band is led by percussionist/composer Ravish Momin, born in India, while currently residing in New York City. The trio features the unique instrumentation of violin, cello and percussion, and primarily utilizes East-Asian rhythms (including Indian, Japanese, Afghani), Middle-Eastern and North African rhythms as the foundation for a new creative musical experience. Ravish Momin cut his jazz teeth performing/recording with members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). The AACM was co-founded in the 1960s by tenor-saxophonist legend Kalaparush Maurice McIntrye and pianist Muhal Richard Abrams. The AACM initial membership also included Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton, George Lewis, Leroy Jenkins, Lester Bowie and other influential performers who clung to the adage “Ancient to the Future” and still continue to explore the boundaries of jazz. Inspired by their music, Ravish has kept on developing Trio Tarana, continuing to search across various world music genres. Lately, he has managed to re-invent the band with a brand-new line up, as well as introducing the element of electronics to create lush ambient soundscapes and other-worldly textures.
New York-based counter)induction will perform at The Andy Warhol Museum on Sunday, March 13 at 8 p.m. The critically acclaimed new music ensemble will perform a program that will include Kyle Bartlett’s Bas Relief, Douglas Boyce’s Deixo Sonata, Henryk Gorecki’s Genesis 1 – Elementi, Pitt faculty composer Eric Moe’s Dead Cat Bounce, and Anna Weesner’s Lift High, Reckon-Fly Low, Come Close.
Made up of a group of top-notch performers and composers, counter)induction has established itself as a major force in contemporary music. Philosopher of science Paul K. Feyerabend coined the term counter)induction to describe the occasional but persistent a-rational behavior of scientists performing revolutionary research. He describes thinkers abandoning the patterns of thought fostered by their training and thinking freshly: “we need a dreamworld in order to discover the features of the real world we think we inhabit.” counter)induction provides a place where listeners and musicians can discover features of the musical landscape which they had previously not imagined as possible.
counter)induction has strived to live up to this ideal, and the critics have noticed. Hailed by the New York Times for its “fiery ensemble virtuosity” and for its “first-rate performances” by the Washington Post, counter)induction has given critically-acclaimed performances at venues such as Miller Theatre, Merkin Hall, and Roulette. Of a 2005 c)i concert, Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times wrote that it was “brilliantly performed…masterly….the most bracing of musical experiences.” Perhaps reviewer Allan Kozinn summed up counter)induction’s performance most tellingly when he wrote, “Everything was right… The performance was almost shattering enough to make a listener forget all that had gone before it.” Join us at the Warhol on the evening of March 13th to see what all the fuss is about.
Tickets in advance through ProArtsTickets $15 for general admission and $10 for students and seniors. Call 412-394-3353 or visit www.proartstickets.org. At the door, general admission is $20 and admission for students and seniors is $15.
Entelechron trio will perform the music of John Cage on Saturday, March 5th at 8 p.m. at the Andy Warhol Museum. Pianist Robert Frankenberry, cellist David Russell, and violinist/composer Roger Zahab formed entelechron in Akron, Ohio in 1994 when they convened to premiere Zahab’s Illegible Streets. As members of Ohio entelechron, which Zahab describes as “an imaginative utility providing continuous service in all dimensions,” their repertoire encompasses more than seven hundred years of music often involving consultants and guest artists. Frankenberry, Russell, and Zahab are also well known to Pittsburgh new music audiences for their performances with The Music on the Edge Chamber Orchestra (which Zahab directs), IonSound Project, and the Music on the Edge Ensemble.
Entlechron has chosen to beat the rush of Cage performances we can expect to see next year, as 2012 will mark 100 years since the composer’s birth on September 5th, 1912. During his lifetime, Cage became one of the most recognized avante-garde composers of the 20th century. He pioneered chance music, electronic music, and non-standard uses of musical instruments such as the prepared piano. Cage loved all types of sound and often included unconventional props in his pieces to create new sound combinations. Water Walk, for example, featured prepared piano, five radios, goose call, rubber ducky, a steaming kettle, a vase of flowers, and a bathtub. Child of Tree (which will be performed on the March 5th program by guest percussionist Bill Sallak) makes uses of certain plants, such as the cactus, as percussion instruments. Other selections on the upcoming program will include Cage’s Harmonies from Apartment House 1776, Etudes Boreales, Freeman Etudes, Etudes Australes, Music for … (four in this case), and Water Music.
Tickets in advance through ProArtsTickets are $15 for general admission and $10 for students and seniors. Call 412-394-3353 or visit www.proartstickets.org. Ticket at the door are $20 for general admission and $15 for students and seniors.
Keep your eyes peeled for an interview with Roger Zahab on entelechon and John Cage.
