Pittsburgh New Music Net

That’s right, Friday may be one of your last opportunities to hear new music before the rapture, so you can be glad that a recital at Duquesne by flutist Deidre Hukcabay and pianist Katie Palumbo will include pieces by our own Federico Garcia, a premiere by Robert Morris (Eastman composer, not the University) and works by James Romig. A good way to say farewell to this cruel world to be sure.

And if you are one of the unlucky ones left behind, don’t miss Pittsburgh-based Freya String Quartet performing a new piece by Sean Neukom. FSQ is a versatile group that moves easily from the classical repertoire to contemporary music to providing the lush accompaniments on Joy Ike’s Rumors album, and it’s great to see them taking root here in the Burgh.

Check out PNMNet End Times Calendar for more info.

Update: And don’t forget the Tuple bassoon duo tonight (that’s right, I said bassoon duo) at the Kiva Han on Craig and Forbes in Oakland. All the info is at Manny’s post.

The Pappert Center (Room 322), The Mary Pappert School of Music

Duquesne University
600 Forbes Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA  15282

$10 donation/free to Duquesne students

Join us for our spring concert, filled with upbeat music by young composers to usher in the new season.  We are proud to premiere Infatuation, a lively piece we commissioned by New York composer/improviser David Crowell (Philip Glass Ensemble).  In addition, we will perform works by myself, Scott Steele, Christian Phillips, and others.  Special guest, Duquesne’s Triano Quintet, will perform Ligeti’s Bagatelles.

h/t Patrick Burke

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.

Check out the events calendar for more details.

Bask in that warm, post-championship afterglow with a recital by flutist Lindsey Goodman, pianist Robert Frankenberry, and vocalist Eva Rainforth as they perform chamber music featuring lots of Pittsburgh composers, today at Duquesne University. It’s a free concert at 3 p.m. in PNC Recital Hall and more details are here. Lindsey, a dedicated follower of Troysus, is encouraging people to bring their Terrible Towels, so how can you go wrong?

Lots of great concerts coming up in quick succession, starting off on Saturday with Winter Void, a slate of abstract, noise-based acts including local favorites Edgar Um and Tusk Lord. On Sunday, Ben Opie and friends bring the avant-jazz for the release of his CD of duets with Anthony Braxton. And for the hat trick, Lindsey J. Goodman, Rob Frankenberry, and Eva Rainforth will give a recital of music by living composers at Duquesne’s PNC Recital Hall on Monday afternoon. Have I got your attention yet? Events Calendar. Now. Go.

PNC Bank Recital Hall
Admission is free.

Flutist Lindsey Goodman, pianist Robert Frankenberry, and vocalist Eva Rainforth will perform chamber music by living American composers during a Common Hour recital at Duquesne University. Goodman and Frankenberry will play and sing the world premiere of a new work by Gilda Lyons and play the American premiere of Eli Tamar’s Vicious Circles. Eva Rainforth will join to sing Jeff Nytch’s From the Soul of Silence, and Pittsburgh composers Amy Williams and Roger Zahab will also be featured.

Eli Tamar Vicious Circles (American premiere)
Amy Williams First Lines
Roger Zahab … some measures for living …
Gilda Lyons (world premiere)
Joseph Schwantner Black Anemones
Jeffrey Nytch From the Soul of Silence

So between Cikada performing Eivind Buene’s Possible Cities/Essential Landscapes in October, and Duquesne Contemporary Ensemble’s multimedia production Invisible Patterns (tonight at PNC Recital Hall), I feel like the cosmos is telling me it’s time to read Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, the novel that inspired both Buene’s composition and Duquesne’s production. Or at least Duquesne director Patrick “The Cosmos” Burke is telling me to read it. Either one.

In any case, new music groups at both Duquesne and CMU will present programs this week. Duquesne goes tonight (Thursday at 8 p.m.) and CMU is on Saturday at 5. You can find the details, as always, on the Events Calendar.

PNC Recital Hall
$10 Suggested Donation

Patrick Burke and David Cutler, directors.

The Duquesne Contemporary Ensemble will perform its fall concert, entitled Invisible Patterns, based in part on the novel Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino and Eight Patterns for Eight Instruments by Tom Johnson.  This multimedia event will include brief readings from the novel, a lot of live music, and video by Duquesne grad student Ryan Leber.  Besides the Tom Johnson work, we’ll be performing pattern-filled pieces by young composers Nico Muhly and Mason Bates, works by American icons Joan Tower and Ned Rorem, and a new version of a medieval rondeau by Guilluame de Machaut, arranged by Duquesne student Chris Jarvis.

Calvino’s novel consists of a fictional conversation between Kublai Kahn and Marco Polo, in which Marco describes the cities of the Kahn’s empire to him.  Each chapter is a description of a different city— some are mundane, some are fantastical, but each description reveals something about human nature, as patterns begin to emerge.  The book is hypnotic, like an incantation–like music– and each excerpt describes in some way the music that follows.

PNC Recital Hall at the Mary Pappert School of Music, Duquesne University
Free

Spring has finally arrived and the antarctic-like weather has subsided. Our concert celebrates the arrival of spring with seven very distinct, colorful pieces. I am very happy and excited to say that the concert features not one, but THREE new works by Duquesne student composers…

Chris Jarvis’ Music for When the Sun is Absent from the Sky (world premiere, based on G. Gabrieli and Thomas Hardy)

Gracie Sutherland’s Novaya Zemyla (back by popular demand)

Scott Steele’s Three Cello Shorts (world premiere of second movement)

….as well as a new arrangement of a work by Mark Danciger’s Thaw, a new arrangement of a song by Sarah Kirkland Snider (Chrysalis), and the second Pittsburgh performance of Missy Mazzoli’s Magic with Everyday Objects. All three of these pieces are truly magical, and the performances will be so focused that they will surely help to usher in spring. Please join us for music, magic and food afterwards.

The Duquesne Contemporary Ensemble is:

Caitlyn Bovard, flute

Nolan Petote, clarinet

Abby Gross, alto saxophone

Chris Jarvis, euphonium, composition

Molly Rae Maiolo, soprano

Michael Borowski, electric guitar

Scott Steele, percussion, composition

Mary Kefferstan, piano

Cara Garofalo, violin

Peter Levine, cello

Amy Gilman, contrabass

Patrick Burke, co-director

Submitted by Patrick Burke

The Eclectic Laboratory Chamber Orchestra in rehearsal…we think…

So it’s shaped up to be a really interesting week for new music in the Burgh. Patrick Burke will make his debut as director of Duquesne’s Contemporary Ensemble this Thursday at PNC Recital Hall, The Outer Circle, a group formed by veterans of the local avant-garde improv scene, gives their debut concert on Friday at The Nerve, and Eclectic Laboratory Chamber Orchestra returns with another program that lives up to that band’s name on Sunday at Grey Box Theatre. Check out all the details on the Events Calendar, and as always, shoot me an e-mail if you have, or know of, something interesting going on.