Kresge Theatre
Free, 8 p.m.
What do you get when you make a couch out of the kite-eating tree?
Carnegie Mellon Contemporary Ensemble performs
Mason Bates’ Omnivorous Furniture for chamber orchestra and electronica
Featuring the North American premiere of Leonardo Balada’s Caprichios No. 7 for solo clarinet and ensemble.
Hey there, Pittsburgh new music community! Just want to draw your attention to the two CMU composers concerts happening tonight (Feb, 22) and next Friday (March 1) at Soldiers and Sailors. Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic will present nine (count-em! 9!) new pieces by CMU student composers. A great way to feature their students and give them the invaluable experience of writing for orchestra. The concerts are free, so do try to get there if you can.
| March 1, 2013 | ||
| 8:00 pm |
Soldiers and Sailors Hall
Free
Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic
Ronald Zollman, Music Director
Conductor(s) to be announced.
The second in a two-part concert series, the Philharmonic will perform 9 original works by School of Music composition students. The February 22 concert will feature Jolivet’s Suite en Concerte for flute and four percussionists.
| February 22, 2013 | ||
| 8:00 pm |
Soldiers and Sailors Hall
Free
Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic
Ronald Zollman, Music Director
Conductor(s) to be announced.
The first in a two-part concert series, the Philharmonic will perform 9 original works by School of Music composition students. The February 22 concert will feature Jolivet’s Suite en Concerte for flute and four percussionists.
Molly Joyce is a young up-and-coming Pittsburgh-borned-and-raised composer. She’s studying composition at Julliard since 2011, and her music is getting a lot of attention around the country… ensembles, blogs, audiences, etc. Her piece Dollhouse was selected as one of the 5 finalists in the PNME/Alia Musica 2012-13 Competition, so it’s part of the program in Alia Musica’s concert Friday (Kresge Hall, 7:30, $15/12).
I had a nice talk with her last Friday. We had ‘skyped her in’ for one of the rehearsals, so we thought, why not have a conversation about things? Here’s some of it, check it out:
Watching the Stillers, streaming the Veep debate, and blogging new music in the Burgh. Hey! James Harrison just sacked Paul Ryan!
Great concerts coming up this week starting with the first installment on IonSound Project’s “Music for Humans and Robots,” a recital by Donna Amato and Warren Davidson featuring music of Carson Cooman, Johanna Ballou playing Rzewski, and the Carnegie Mellon Contemporary Music Ensemble.
There’s a lot more coming soon from Alia Musica, ELCO, Music on the Edge and much more, so stay tuned.
| February 5, 2012 | ||
| 3:00 pm |
Kresge Recital Hall
Free
Violinist Monique Meade and pianist Luz Manriquez will perform a recital that includes Lutoslawski’s Subito along with music by Mozart, Sarasate, and Prokofiev. The program will feature concert commentary by CMU Music Preparatory School students Tino Cardenes, Madeline Hilf, Maine Hoppo, Morgan Dufer, William Wang, and Gabrielle Faetini.
Elisa and Elisa in Wheeling.
Cellist extraordinaire Elisa Kohanski will be one of two soloists in Wheeling Symphony Orchestra’s premiere of Richard Danielpour’s Come Up from the Fields, Father. It’s a one night only Veteran’s Day celebration which you can find out more about here.
I’m also grateful to Michael Ceurvorst for sending me information about the CMU student composers concert this Saturday, Nov. 12 , 6 p.m. at Alumni Hall. It’s a free concert and open to the public and features all new works. Here’s more info about that event on FB. Check it out, if you can.
Let’s see, what else? Oh yeah. Tomorrow is Nigel Tufnel Day…
| October 27, 2011 | ||
| 8:00 pm |
CMU’s Kresge Hall
Free
loadbang returns to Pittsburgh on October 27th.
Trumpeter and Pittsburgh native Andy Kozar returns with loadbang for a concert at CMU’s Kresge Theatre. The New York City-based new music ensemble (comprising trumpet, trombone, bass clarinet, and baritone voice) showcases the breadth and variety of their repertoire with a program of recent commissions and avant-garde classics.
Reiko Füting’s Land of Silence and Alexandre Lunsqui’s Guttural both exploit the air-based sound production employed by the ensemble as a whole, calling on the baritone to act as an instrument, and the instrumentalists to act as vocalists, blurring and blending the sounds. As a complement to these commissions, John Cage’s classic Living Room Music also calls on the players to speak and play household items as instruments. Paul Pinto’s Goodbye Dido is a kind of foggy remembrance of a small portion of the lament of Dido from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, stretching and exploring the spaces between the original notes. With How to breathe underwater, Chris Cerrone has written a kind of wordless ambient pop song for loadbang; Nick Didkovksy’s Firm, soapy hothead on the other hand is a wild and jittery computer-composed setting of faux aphorisms. To round out the program, loadbang splits into its component parts as an instrumental trio and vocal solo. Timothy McCormack’s Disfix explores the limits of notation and its link to the physical activity of loadbang’s instrumentalists; Aaron Cassidy’s I, purples, spat blood, laugh of beautiful lips pushes the voice similarly, battling with an ever-changing computer counterpart.