Music on the Edge kicks off its 2011–12 season with University of Buffalo’s Slee Sinfonietta, professional chamber orchestra in residence at UB and the flagship ensemble of the Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music. Slee Sinfonietta will perform Donald Erb’sSunlit Peaks and Dark Valleys, David Felder’s Another Face, Andrew Rindfleisch’s What Vibes!, and Mathew Rosenblum’s Ancient Eyes.
Music on the Edge wraps up its season this Saturday night with the totally unique Newband performing on instruments invented by the legendary Just Intonation composer Harry Partch. The concert is at the New Hazlett and includes music by Partch himself, Dean Drummond, and a new work by Mathew Rosenblum titled Yonah’s Dream. Details are here, and you can read the PG’s extensive preview of the concert here. See you at the New Hazlett!
Keeping it short and sweet because I’m heading up to Wisconsin today for the revolution for the premiere of my new song cycle. Free Wisconsin!
MOTE Madness continues on Sunday night at the Warhol with New York’s counter)induction. Eric Moe’s Dead Cat Bounce and music by Douglas Boyce, Gorecki, and Kyle Bartlett are all on the program. Don’t forget to set your clocks ahead this weekend. Already? I know!
If you do show up to the Warhol at the end of the show on Sunday, no worries. Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society presents Trio Cavatina on Monday night and that Naumburg prize-winning group is playing an intriguing program featuring women composers past and present.
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.
Newband and the Harry Partch instruments will wrap up Music on the Edge’s 20th anniversary season at the New Hazlett Theater on March 19th. The masters of microtonal music will perform on instruments invented by the iconoclastic Just Intonation composer Harry Partch (1901-1974) as well as instruments invented by composer and Newband co-founder Dean Drummond.
Newband’s concert in Pittsburgh will feature the Harry Partch works Castor and Pollux and Two Studies on Ancient Greek Scales, Dean Drummond’s Before the Last Laugh, Pitt faculty composer Mathew Rosenblum’s Yonah’s Dream, Gregg Rossetti’s Mutating Aeon, and Thelonius Monk’s ‘Round Midnight. All the compositions will utilize just tunings—tunings that replicate intervals as they occur naturally in the overtone series. From Bach’s time to the present, Western instruments have been designed around a division of the octave into 12 equal steps, making all the intervals somewhat out of tune, so that the will sound mostly in tune regardless of the music’s key. Deeply dissatisfied with the sound of equal-tempered intervals, Harry Partch designed his instruments around his own 43 tone-per-octave just tuning, allowing for much more subtle melodic motion, as well as intervals that are more in tune and stable.
Widely regarded as the world’s pre-eminent microtonal music ensemble, Newband was founded in 1977 by composer Dean Drummond and flutist Stefani Starin who continue as Artistic Directors. With Drummond’s invention of the 31-tone zoomoozophone in 1978, Newband began to explore music using microtonality and alternative tuning systems in an innovative and eclectic repertoire influenced by classical, jazz, and world music. In 1990, Newband received custodianship of the original Harry Partch Instrument Collection. The typical Newband concert involves a stage filled with some of the world’s most amazing musical instruments performed upon by an ensemble of virtuosos who move from instrument to instrument with incredible ease.
Tickets may be purchased in advance from ProArtsTickets. Tickets in advance are $15 for general admission and $10 for non-Pitt students and seniors. Call 412-394-3353 or visit www.proartstickets.org. At the door, general admission is $20 and admission for students and seniors is $15. Pitt students FREE with ID.
Must see TeeVee! Jess Hohman videotaped an extensive interview with Roger Zahab at Pitt’s Music building, in anticipation of entelechron’s all-Cage concert at The Andy Warhol Museum on March 5. The interview happened over two days, and on the first, the fire alarms went off and everyone had to clear out of the building. But it was an unusually nice day, so Jess and Roger continued the interview outside while the rest of us milled around wondering what to do next. Jess worked some of the outdoor sounds in throughout the video, and I suspect Cage would have enjoyed this very much.
New York-based counter)induction will perform at The Andy Warhol Museum on Sunday, March 13 at 8 p.m. The critically acclaimed new music ensemble will perform a program that will include Kyle Bartlett’s Bas Relief, Douglas Boyce’s Deixo Sonata, Henryk Gorecki’s Genesis 1 – Elementi, Pitt faculty composer Eric Moe’s Dead Cat Bounce, and Anna Weesner’s Lift High, Reckon-Fly Low, Come Close.
Made up of a group of top-notch performers and composers, counter)induction has established itself as a major force in contemporary music. Philosopher of science Paul K. Feyerabend coined the term counter)induction to describe the occasional but persistent a-rational behavior of scientists performing revolutionary research. He describes thinkers abandoning the patterns of thought fostered by their training and thinking freshly: “we need a dreamworld in order to discover the features of the real world we think we inhabit.” counter)induction provides a place where listeners and musicians can discover features of the musical landscape which they had previously not imagined as possible.
counter)induction has strived to live up to this ideal, and the critics have noticed. Hailed by the New York Times for its “fiery ensemble virtuosity” and for its “first-rate performances” by the Washington Post, counter)induction has given critically-acclaimed performances at venues such as Miller Theatre, Merkin Hall, and Roulette. Of a 2005 c)i concert, Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times wrote that it was “brilliantly performed…masterly….the most bracing of musical experiences.” Perhaps reviewer Allan Kozinn summed up counter)induction’s performance most tellingly when he wrote, “Everything was right… The performance was almost shattering enough to make a listener forget all that had gone before it.” Join us at the Warhol on the evening of March 13th to see what all the fuss is about.
Tickets in advance through ProArtsTickets $15 for general admission and $10 for students and seniors. Call 412-394-3353 or visit www.proartstickets.org. At the door, general admission is $20 and admission for students and seniors is $15.
Entelechron trio will perform the music of John Cage on Saturday, March 5th at 8 p.m. at the Andy Warhol Museum. Pianist Robert Frankenberry, cellist David Russell, and violinist/composer Roger Zahab formed entelechron in Akron, Ohio in 1994 when they convened to premiere Zahab’s Illegible Streets. As members of Ohio entelechron, which Zahab describes as “an imaginative utility providing continuous service in all dimensions,” their repertoire encompasses more than seven hundred years of music often involving consultants and guest artists. Frankenberry, Russell, and Zahab are also well known to Pittsburgh new music audiences for their performances with The Music on the Edge Chamber Orchestra (which Zahab directs), IonSound Project, and the Music on the Edge Ensemble.
Entlechron has chosen to beat the rush of Cage performances we can expect to see next year, as 2012 will mark 100 years since the composer’s birth on September 5th, 1912. During his lifetime, Cage became one of the most recognized avante-garde composers of the 20th century. He pioneered chance music, electronic music, and non-standard uses of musical instruments such as the prepared piano. Cage loved all types of sound and often included unconventional props in his pieces to create new sound combinations. Water Walk, for example, featured prepared piano, five radios, goose call, rubber ducky, a steaming kettle, a vase of flowers, and a bathtub. Child of Tree (which will be performed on the March 5th program by guest percussionist Bill Sallak) makes uses of certain plants, such as the cactus, as percussion instruments. Other selections on the upcoming program will include Cage’s Harmonies from Apartment House 1776, Etudes Boreales, Freeman Etudes, Etudes Australes, Music for … (four in this case), and Water Music.
Tickets in advance through ProArtsTickets are $15 for general admission and $10 for students and seniors. Call 412-394-3353 or visit www.proartstickets.org. Ticket at the door are $20 for general admission and $15 for students and seniors.
Keep your eyes peeled for an interview with Roger Zahab on entelechon and John Cage.
Plenty of great sounds to take in this weekend. On Friday night, you can start downtown at 6 p.m. where CAPA’s Antithesis will play Satie, Reich, and Cage along with members’ compositions. After that, swing up to Garfield Artworks to hear Norwegian group Vertex perform on a bill that also includes Radic Sun’til (tribal electronic postrock ensemble) and Dreamweapon (local electronic artist).
MOTE’s next concert takes place on Friday night at Bellefield when Cellist Dave Eggar takes the stage with Chuck Palmer (percussion), Mary Moser (violin), Rob Frankenberry (piano), and Attack Theatre Dancers. Here’s the complete program:
Seize Seas Seeth Seen (2003), Elliott Sharp
Trapped (2008), Somei Satoh
commissioned by and featuring Attack Theatre dancers
Switches, for Dave Eggar (2007), Sam Pluta
Child’s Song (1983) arr. Deoro, Fred Hersch
INTERMISSION
Durations (1953), Morton Feldman
Evocations no. 3, Ralph Shapey
II.
III.
Circadian Rhythms (1989), Mathew Rosenblum
Sweet! Be there!
NOTE: In case you didn’t see it, CAPA’s Antithesis program has been rescheduled for February 18.
