IonSound Project presents the first works from their Commissions for the Future project this Sunday night.

IonSound Project’s concert this Sunday would strike me as particularly significant even if I didn’t have a new piece on the program (but yes, it helps!). There are in fact, three new works on the concert, all by Pittsburgh composers: Christian Kriegeskotte, Nizan Leibovich, and myself. That in and of itself is important, since it illustrates once again that the Burgh is a center for the creation—not just the consumption—of art. But more important still is the reason why there are three new works on this concert, namely IonSound Project’s new Commissions for the Future program. IonSounders have been actively engaging members of the community to support commissions for new works and this is the first program to showcase the fruits of their efforts. It’s a great start to what we hope will grow into an ongoing partnership between a genuinely excellent new music ensemble and the local community.

As usual, the concert will be a treat to for the eyes and the ears. All the musical compositions reference visual art that will be projected on screen, and Rob Frankenberry’s transcription of  Pictures at an Exhibition will feature art by children from the Falk School. My piece is actually a collaboration with artist Ryan Day and his stunning digital animation is being presented for the first time as well. I hope you can come out and join us at Pitt’s Bellefield Hall Auditorium on Sunday night at 7. Tickets are $15 and $10 and you can learn more about the program here.

Capitol Theatre

Tickets

So confusing to see tiny Elisa standing next to the life-size picture of Elisa.

Elisa Kohanski, well-known to Pittsburgh new music fans as the cellist in IonSound Project, has a few other gigs keeping her busy. Like opera and ballet orchestra at the Benedum and being principal cello in Wheeling Symphony. For instance. This week part of her work at Wheeling includes premiering a work by Richard Danielpour for solo cello and baritone voice and orchestra called Come Up from the Fields, Father. Her performance is part of a Veteran’s Day celebration concert by the WSO that will include Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from Westside Story and Copland’s Third Symphony. Cruise on down to Wheeling this Friday and give Elisa and the rest of the orchestra a listen.

Bellefield Hall Auditorium
Tickets at the door only: $15 for general admission, $10 for students and seniors.

Sight meets sound in IonSound Project‘s second program of the season, “From the Mundane to the Macabre.”  Packed with world premieres, this concert represents the first installment of IonSound’s Commissions for the Future project—a fundraising initiative to finance new compositions.  The group will perform commissions by three Pittsburgh composers, Christian Kriegeskotte, Philip Thompson, and Nizan Leibovich. Each work on the program is inspired by, or created in collaboration with a visual art form as promised by this season’s theme:  “aMuse, a Season of Inspiration and Entertainment.”

The range of inspiration spans from 16th century woodcuts to a brand new video collaboration. Christian Kriegeskotte’s Dances of Death explores the sonic possibilities of unusual instrument pairings, and are inspired by the wonderful miniature illustrations of 16th century German painter and engraver Hans Holbein.  In stark contrast, Nizan Leibovich’s Schéhérazade – “…Elle vit apparaître le matin. Elle se tut discrètement” is inspired by the colorful and joyous papercut work by French painter and artist Henri Matisse.  The title roughly translates to:  “…She lived to see the morning appear. She discreetly fell silent”, and evokes the intrigue and mystery of the compelling tale of Arabian princess Scheherazade that has influenced artists and composers for centuries. The third world premiere on the program, Kecow hit tamen, is a multimedia collaboration by composer Philip Thompson and artist Ryan Day which explores one of the popular legends surrounding the origins of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina—namely that they are descended from the Hatteras (or Croatan) and Raleigh’s Lost Colony. Thompson, whose father is a member of the Lumbee Tribe, based his instrumental and electroacoustic music on the few remaining words of Carolina Algonquian language spoken by the Hatteras, while Day used common images from Lumbee art to create a multi-layered digital animation. Kecow hit tamen can mean either “What is this? or “What is your name?”

A visual collaboration between Rob Frankenberry’s new arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition  and a presentation of musically inspired artwork by students from the Falk School completes the program.   IonSound musicians will visit with the students in the preceding weeks to encourage them to create artwork that focuses on two main ideas–recreating their own versions of Hartmann’s existing artwork, the inspiration behind Pictures at an Exhibition and replicating the experience of viewing an exhibit through video.  Join us on Sunday, November 20th at 7:00 pm at Bellefield Hall Auditorium in Oakland for this exciting program!

As you would expect, the program will include music by Jeremy Beck with works by Erik Satie and Jonathan Kolm as well.  Come out and celebrate with IonSound!

Admission: $15 General Admission; $10 students and seniors; Free age 15 and under.

The Voltage Spooks

The last days of summer are slipping away, we’ve recovered from the annual new music gorge with PNME, and  the harvest moon is in the sky. All of which means there is tons of great new music coming our way. And it really starts tonight with a show at the The Shop in Bloomfield that features The Voltage Spooks, Michael Johnson and Matt Wellins, and Host Skull. Check out the full post on this show with lots of good content courtesy of Edgar Um. And as they say in Informercial Land, that’s not all!

The weekend is jampacked with Music on the Edge, IonSound Project CD release, and two new productions from Microscopic Opera. Gonna be good.

WQED’s Hillman Room

IonSound Project celebrates the release of their first CD, music of Jeremy Beck, at WQED on Sunday, September 18th. The concert will feature music from the new CD as well as other works.

“While the outpouring of support from communities across the country has been incredibly generous, the progress towards restoration has been slow due to the totality of the destruction of some neighborhoods in Alabama. The process of recovery could take years, and my sincere hope is that the greater community does not forget as the disaster reporting ceases to be front page news.”

Kathleen and the rest of IonSound Project are doing us a service by helping us keep the needs of our Alabama neighbors in mind, and we can do them a service by showing up for an excellent concert and being generous with donations.

The Alabama Relief Concert takes place at Beulah Presbyterian Church on Saturday, July 25th at 4  p.m. The free concert includes music by Zahab, Corigliano, Brahms, Kolm, and Dvorak with special guest Anna Singer. Donations for the relief effort will be accepted at the door.

Beulah Presbyterian Church
2550 McCrady Road
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Free, Donations for the relief effort can be made at the door.

Anna Singer will join IonSound as featured guest artist for a special event to help raise money for the disaster victims in Alabama. The concert is free. Donations for the relief effort can be made at the door.

The program will include:

ZAHAB entelchronicity between six persons
CORIGLIANO Three Irish Folksongs
BRAHMS Clarinet Trio
KOLM Clarinet Trio
BRAHMS Wie melodien
DVORAK Song to the Moon

Your new music weekend starts tonight (Thursday) when avant jazz improvisors Eugene Chadborune and Tatsuya Nakatani play Garfield Artworks at 8 p.m. That show also includes local luminaries Daryl Fleming and Michael Johnsen.

Saturday night offers IonSound Project performing at Bellefield Hall in a concert that includes Currier, Kriegeskotte, and Sutherland. Can you not go to hear a piece called Overture to a Zombie Apocalypse? I bet you can’t.

Here are the details.

Bellefield Hall Auditorium
ProArts Tickets

IonSound Project performs Nathan Currier’s A Kafka Cantata, Christian Kriegeskotte’s Triangulum, and Gracie Sutherland’s  Overture to a Zombie Apocalypse.