Pittsburgh New Music Net

Composer Jeffrey Nytch sat down with Pittsburgh New Music Net to talk about his new commission for the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble.

PNME premieres Nytch’s new commission on Friday, July 29 & Saturday, July 30 at City Theatre (1300 Bingham, the South Side). Both concerts start at 8PM. Complete details are at www.pnme.org.

Kelly-Strayhorn Theater
Reserve Tickets Online or call 800.838.3006 and then pay what you can at the door!

From Gustav Mahler to Radiohead to Katie Perry…the Eclectic Laboratory Chamber Orchestra (E.L.C.O.) mixes up the sounds of the summer on the KST stage for a special night of music, video, friends and fun!

DJ/VJ Casey Hallas joins the wildly diverse performers of E.L.C.O.  to  create Remix, a unique audiovisual performance combining turntables and flutes, classical and rock, with  electronics and innovation. Fusing classical training and modern technology, E.L.C.O. transcends genres and pushes music to the edge.

Ever wondered what a thru-notated work by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE would be like?  Probably not.  Well, don’t worry about that, come anyway! The night will begin w/ “Volunteers Collective Revisited”.
The Volunteers Collective was (& might still be) an open context for improvisation that started in BalTimOre in 1989 & that became a context for exploring CircumSubstantial Playing in Pittsburgh & beyond from 1997-1998.
Experience footage from this long-term project w/ both old & new sounds!
Also Roger Dannenberg will perform using Patterns, an original visual  programming language for live coding — generating  music using software that is written on-the-fly. And, finally, the thru-notated skeleton of some Volunteers Collective CircumSubstantial Playing ”Reductionism (#6)” + “Interpretive Duncing” + “Artifacts” by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE & featuring the considerable skills & sensitivities of Ben Opie, Roger Dannenberg, Ben Harris, Kenny Haney, Kerrith Livengood and tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE.  8:00 at Garfield Artworks.

Composer Mathew Rosenblum sat down with Pittsburgh New Music Net to talk about his new commission for the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble.

PNME premieres Rosenblum’s new commission on Friday, July 22 & Saturday, July 23 at City Theatre (1300 Bingham, the South Side). Both concerts start at 8PM. Complete details are at www.pnme.org.

You don’t have to wait for the weekend to hear new music as the Burgh’s newest new music group, the Trillium Ensemble, performs tonight (July 14) at Frick Fine Arts Auditorium. The program includes music by Claude Debussy, Libby Larsen, Ernst Bloch, Jennifer Higdon, and Alia Musica composers Matthew Heap and Federico Garcia. Here’s more info.

I always like to ask people who spend a big chunk of their lives with new music whether they see any discernible trends, and I did so again during my sit down with pnme members. The thoughtful and frank conversation that unfolded reinforced some themes that have emerged time and again in this space as to the stylistic fluidity that exists within the alt-classical world today. Here’s the clip.

The next Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble concerts are Friday, July 15 and Saturday, July 16. The program features Schwanter, Xenakis, Hartke, Gilda Lyons, Stucky, Romantini, and MacMillan.

Frick Fine Arts Auditorium
Tickets

The Trillium Ensemble was inaugurated in 2010 by Pittsburgh performers Katie Palumbo (piano), Pamela Murchinson (flute), and Rachael Stutzman (Alia Musica’s principal clarinetist). Their July 14 concert at Frick Fine Arts Auditorium (on Pitt’s Campus) includes music by Claude Debussy, Libby Larsen, Ernst Bloch, Jennifer Higdon, and Alia Musica composers Matthew Heap and Federico Garcia.

As a special offer in partnership with the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble present the program from this concert and get a $5 discount to a pnme concert!

…you should really watch America’s Got Talent tonight. Pittsburgh’s own Squonk Opera has made the quarterfinals.

It’s that time of the year again! Four weeks of outstanding contemporary chamber music—scratch that— theatre of music presented by Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. I had the privilege once again to sit down with Kevin Noe and the members of the ensemble and talk about what was in store for the season, and I’ve uploaded part one of the interview for this week. Look for more installments over the next month, including Jeffrey Nytch discussing the premiere of his new work Notturno, Kevin describing PNME’s collaboration with Pittsburgh artist Val Cox, and what I found to be a really compelling conversation about the challenges and pitfalls of being a composer today. Also check out the TradMed previews from Mark Kanny and Andrew Druckenbrod. The 2011 PNME season starts tonight at the South Side’s City Theatre at 8 p.m.

The Altar Bar
Tickets: $10 in advance, $12 at the door
Doors at 6:30

Suavity’s Showcase II, curated by Suavity’s Mouthpiece, pulls together an eclectic mix of Pittsburgh-based musicians, ranging from the stark juxtapositions of Suavity itself to the the singer-songwriter stylings of The Feel Good Revolution. Here’s the full line-up:

The Feel-Good Revolution — a new songwriting duo that hearken back to the essential creative partnerships of Leiber/Stoller, Pomus/Shuman, Lennon/McCartney while introducing daring new dynamic techniques into their crafting of archetypal acoustic melodies

M. Bellaire — a meticulous electronic texture composer who paints brutal soundscapes along a desolate backdrop of pre-creation chaos

Suavity’s Mouthpiece — the event’s yearly curator, a three-piece outfit concerned with re-formatting song structure, rhythm, and dynamics

Luxe — dance music unlike ever before; a liberated expression of humanity channeled through sonorous vocals and daring new pop melodies.

h/t Justin Trafford