Pittsburgh New Music Net

This Saturday, March 13, marks the last occasion to see the very unique HiTEC, an ensemble of Pittsburgh musicians and performers utilizing instruction pieces, chance, improvisation, theatrics, and a giant spinning Wheel-of-Fortune. Intrigued? Well, you should be and you probably come to this event, because it is literally your last chance to see the act. Extensive detail below…

HiTEC (Histrionic Thought Experiment Cooperative),
the experimental orchestra founded by
tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
will present its last ‘UNCERT’ (Uncertainty Concert), Saturday, March 13, 2010,
8PM (doors open 7:30PM), at the Kresge Recital Hall
in the CFA (Center for Fine Arts) at CMU (Carnegie Mellon University)
- $6.00 suggested donation, free to CMU students.

HiTEC has previously publicly presented the talents of:

tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: piano, SysMan, electronics, percussion, spinner
Ben Opie – reeds, electronics
Kenny Haney: clarinets
Unfinished Symphonies: electronic keyboard
Hyla Willis: amplified erhu
Jonathan Brodfsky: monome with mabalhabla software
Spat Cannon: upright acoustic bass
Johan Nystrom: extended percussion
Joy Toujours: electric guitar w/ nylon strings, violin
Roger Dannenberg: trumpet, flugelhorn, piccolo trumpet
William Wedler: Experiment 1
Ben Harris: violin
Dani Simmonds: banjo-uke
James Gyre: drums
Tony Balko: camcorder
Julian Krishnamurti: electric bass
David Bernabo: electric guitar
Red Bob Jungkunz: drums
Kerrith Livengood: alto flute
Josh Beyer: cello
Mike Tamburo: hammered dulcimer
Erok: trombone
Mike Kasunic: synthesizer, flute, percussion
Missi St Pierre: toy piano w/ effects
Stuart Anderson: laptop

& will introduce, for this occasion:

Spencer Rafael Diaz: camcorder
Gina Ketter: 5 string electric viola

Videos of HiTEC can be seen online @:

For Tony Balko’s 16mm footage of HiTEC
(Histrionic Thought Experiment Cooperative) ’s beginning
of our 21st rehearsal on September 14, 2008EV:

For the beginning of my documentary of HiTEC’s premier gig:

A soft focus high-definition wide-angle shot of a short excerpt
from the 1/9/9 premier of HiTEC at the New Hazlett Theater:

For the HiTEC movie that also features Ian Page’s
The End of Television project + Sound/Unsound Trio & the Valentine Trio:

The 1st day of HiTEC @ the Visionary Arts Festival
(& days leading up to it):

Hear world premieres by four up-and-coming Carnegie Mellon student composers this Wednesday, February 17 at 8 p.m. in Oakland’s Carnegie Music Hall. Along with guest conductors Tobias Volkmann and Jan Pellant, music director Ronald Zollman will lead the Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic in this concert of original music that also will feature soprano Danielle Messina on Barber’s classic Knoxville, Summer of 1915.

Tickets are $5 general admission, $4 senior citizens and free to all students with ID. Visit music.cmu.edu for more information.

No surprise there as Pitt and CMU are both closed today. Stay tuned for information about when this concert will be rescheduled. With the premiere of a new work by Marilyn Taft Thomas, we’ll all be anxious to find out.

Assuming we thaw out eventually, there is a lot of new music on tap for the month of February and I’m still finding out about more events. I’ve also got some very cool interviews in the can that I’ll be posting imminently (i.e., as soon as I’ve finished editing them down): one with Emily Pinkerton and Patrick Burke about their collaborative composition for NOW and one with super flutist Lindsey J. Goodman about her upcoming recital with MOTE. So keep checking in right here and in the meantime, stay warm.

Kresge Theatre

Director Denis Colwell leads the Carnegie Mellon Wind Ensemble in a program that features Rorem’s Sinfornia (1957), Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920) and Gordon Jacob’s Old Wine in New Bottles (1960). The concert begins at 8 pm. Monday, February 8 on CMU’s campus in the College of Fine Arts’ Kresge Theatre. This event is free and open to the public.

A highlight on the program is the world premiere of a newly transcribed Snapshots of a Great City (2008) by Marilyn Taft Thomas, a professor of composition and music theory at Carnegie Mellon.

Soldiers and Sailors Hall

Featuring all Carnegie Mellon School of Music ensembles and select student and faculty soloists, the 2010 Collage Concert will be a feast for the senses! This 90-minute non-stop concert will keep audience members at the edge of their seats as performers appear and disappear from various positions within the concert hall. In one concert, experience the dazzling array of music produced at Carnegie Mellon, including Baroque, Classical, Contemporary, Vocal, Jazz and more in a single performance. Faculty soloists include violinist Cyrus Forough, soprano Laura Knoop Very, pianistEnrique Graf and PSO principal clarinet Michael Rusinek. You won’t want to miss this one-night-only extravaganza of sound produced by Carnegie Mellon’s School of Music and staged by acclaimed director and professor of drama, Gregory Lehane.

When:
8 p.m. Friday, February 12, 2010

Where:
Soldiers & Sailors Auditorium
4141 Fifth Avenue (in Oakland)
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Cost:
$15 general admission
$12 senior citizens
$10 students
Tickets can be purchased in advance via Web

Phone: 412.268.2383 (School of Music’s Concert Line)

Web: Buy tickets online with your credit card at http://music.cmu.edu. Click on ‘Box Office’ to start your order!

On-Site: Tickets will also be available (cash only) at Soldiers & Sailors one hour prior to the performance – at 7:00 p.m., February 12.

Questions? Contact Kristi Ries at kristi@cmu.edu.

Featuring all Carnegie Mellon School of Music ensembles and select student and faculty soloists, the 2010 Collage Concert will be a feast for the senses! This 90-minute non-stop concert will keep audience members at the edge of their seats as performers appear and disappear from various positions within the concert hall. In one concert, experience the dazzling array of music produced at Carnegie Mellon, including Baroque, Classical, Contemporary, Vocal, Jazz and more in a single performance. Faculty soloists include violinist Cyrus Forough, soprano Laura Knoop Very, pianist Enrique Graf and PSO principal clarinet Michael Rusinek. You won’t want to miss this one-night-only extravaganza of sound produced by Carnegie Mellon’s School of Music and staged by acclaimed director and professor of drama, Gregory Lehane.

When:
8 p.m. Friday, February 12, 2010

Where:
Soldiers & Sailors Auditorium
4141 Fifth Avenue (in Oakland)
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Cost:
$15 general admission
$12 senior citizens
$10 students
Tickets can be purchased in advance via Web

Phone: 412.268.2383 (School of Music’s Concert Line)

Web: Buy tickets online with your credit card at http://music.cmu.edu. Click on ‘Box Office’ to start your order!

On-Site: Tickets will also be available (cash only) at Soldiers & Sailors one hour prior to the performance – at 7:00 p.m., February 12.

Questions? Contact Kristi Ries at kristi@cmu.edu.

Director Denis Colwell leads the Carnegie Mellon Wind Ensemble in a program that features Rorem’s Sinfornia (1957), Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920) and Gordon Jacob’s Old Wine in New Bottles (1960). The concert begins at 8 pm. Monday, February 8 on CMU’s campus in the College of Fine Arts’ Kresge Theatre. This event is free and open to the public.

A highlight on the program is the world premiere of a newly transcribed Snapshots of a Great City (2008) by Marilyn Taft Thomas, a professor of composition and music theory at Carnegie Mellon.

The Carnegie Mellon Contemporary Ensemble concert this Friday, November 20th at 6:30 PM in Kresge featuring works by Lutoslawski, Martinu, Knussen, Vasquez, and Birtwistle. The guest conductors are Walter Morales and Tobias Volkmann.

Next week, catch the performance debut of Carnegie Mellon’s Repertoire Orchestra on Monday, November 23 at 5:25 PM in the College of Fine Arts’ Alumni Concert Hall. This first concert of the lab chamber orchestra features soloist Amaury Morales in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23. The program also includes Mozart’s Symphony No. 39 under the direction of Walter Morales.

One of the more disturbing trends in recent American political discourse has been the reflexive way in which more and more people are willing to equate their opponents’ views with Nazism. The sheer frequency and glib nature of these accusations risks minimizing the real horrors that acually did happen in the 20th century. Hopefully, tonight’s concert by the Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic will be something of an antidote to that trend when the orchestra, under the direction of Ronald Zollman, performs a program of music banned in Hitler’s Germany. It’s an opportunity to reflect on the real suffering of real people under real fascists, those who face suppression of free expression today, and to remember that freedom of expression will always exist on the knife’s edge. You can find full details about the event here.

Carnegie Music Hall

Tickets are $5 for general admission, $4 for senior citizens, and free to all college students with valid ID. To purchase tickets in advance, visit www.music.cmu.edu and select “Box Office.” Seating is open and is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Maestro Ronald Zollman leads the Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic in a performance of works by prominent European-Jewish composers whose music was banned during the Nazi regime at 8 p.m., Monday, Nov. 9 in Oakland’s historic Carnegie Music Hall. The performance is part of the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s Light/The Holocaust & Humanity Project.

In close partnership with The Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre is presenting Light/The Holocaust & Humanity Project, a month-long collaborative effort with a broad spectrum of Pittsburgh organizations to create educational programming and inspire a community-wide dialogue about the Holocaust.

The Nazi propaganda that exposed and banned “degenerate” artists and composers was a precursor to the state-sponsored pogrom of Kristallnacht on Nov. 8 and 9, 1938. Held exactly 71 years later, this commemorative performance sheds light on those composers and their music.

The program features Martinu’s Lidiče, Schulhoff’s Symphony No. 1, Barber’s Adagio for Strings, Schoenberg’s A Survivor of Warsaw and Mahler’s Todtenfeier. Special guests Sandy and Edgar Snyder and Kristallnacht survivor Ruth Drescher will address the audience prior to the performance.