This Thursday and Friday, dancer Gia Cacalano will premiere new pieces that combine choreography and improvisation in dance with music by vibraphonist Jeff Berman and David Bernabo. The performances take place at The Space Upstairs (214 N. Lexington St, above Construction Junction) and you can see a preview of the show in this week’s City Paper. Find out more about the show here.
And don’t forget that Alia Musica Pittsburgh’s summer recital series continues this weekend as well when clarinetist Rachael Stutzman performs music by Bernstein, Copland, and a premiere by Federico Garcia. The concert takes place at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on Friday at 7:30 and you can find out more about the show from the AMP homepage.
Lots of great new music coming up as we head into the fall and I’ll be updating the main events calendar in the near future.
This Friday and Saturday, Gia Cacalano will premiere new pieces that combine choreography and improvisation in dance with music by vibraphonist Jeff Berman and (ahem) myself, David Bernabo. The four dancers will do a few group pieces, some solos, and a very great duo. We’ll be performing five pieces each night, and (if I can say so) it is turning out very nicely. There is a nice article in this week’s Pittsburgh City Paper that discusses the motivations for the dance, so I’ll mention a few things about the music. The first piece, which lasts roughly 30 minutes, combines electronic soundscapes, text, and freely improvised sections for vibraphone and amplified objects. The electronic score was assembled from closed-circuit electronics that I recorded in 2004. The text piece is a newer piece where each word is slowed down by 1% until the ending text is deep bass rumbling. And of course, there is much more…
Hope to see you there. Details below:
Friday, August 20 and Saturday, August 21, 2010
8PM, $12 students, $15 general admission
@ THE SPACE UPSTAIRS
214 N. Lexington St (above Construction Junction)
Point Breeze, Pittsburgh, PA
$15, $12 Students
More info: 4120758-3265
Gia Cacalano / Movement / Choreography / Concepts
Allie Greene / Movement
Jasmine Hearn / Movement
Beth Ratas / Movement
Jeff Berman / Vibraphone
David Bernabo / Electronics, Percussion
Don’t forget that tonight’s the last night of the PNME 2010 season featuring the premiere of Ned McGowan’s Radiance, music by David Lang, Radiohead, and more.
And if you haven’t already heard, there’s an Alia Music recital on Sunday, August 1 featuring flutist Kerrith Livengood, cellist Simon Cummings, and pianist Matthew Gillespie. Sorry I didn’t get around to posting this on the calendar, but consider yourself fully informed.
Composer Ned McGowan sat down with Pittsburgh New Music Net to talk about his new commission for the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble.
PNME premieres McGowan’s new commission on Friday, July 30 & Saturday, July 31 at City Theatre (1300 Bingham, the South Side). Both concerts start at 8PM. Complete details are at www.pnme.org.
On Monday, May 17th, Antithesis, CAPA High School’s new music ensemble, will present its annual concert. The concert is at 7pm in CAPA’s Cabaret Theater (where Dowe’s used to be).
The program will include a variety of works, many of which are student compositions. The works on the program are very diverse, ranging from fully-composed works to chance music to theremin improv with spoken voice.
On Tuesday, March 30th, come see CAPA High School’s new music ensemble, Antithesis, perform alongside percussionist/composer Lukas Ligeti and Ben Opie (saxophonist of Opek and Thoth Trio) at Garfield Artworks, 4931 Penn Ave. The concert begins at 7:30 pm and admission is $10, open to all ages. Hope to see you there!
Carnegie Music Hall
$5 for general admission and can be purchased in advance online at music.cmu.edu. College students w/valid ID receive FREE admission!
Carnegie Mellon’s Wind Ensemble presents a lively program featuring two world premieres: Professor Marilyn Taft Thomas’ Snapshots of a Great City (transcription by director Denis Colwell), and Scatterbrain by composition student Alex Weston (BFA ’11). Other contemporary works will include Ticheli’s Blue Shades, Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments, Whitacre’s October, and High Flight, a high energy piece commissioned by the U.S. Air Force Band. The concert begins at 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 24 in Oakland’s Carnegie Music Hall.
Tickets are $5 for general admission and can be purchased in advance online at http://music.cmu.edu. College students w/valid ID receive FREE admission!
I recently sat down with Pittsburgh music power couple Patrick Burke and Emily Pinkerton. Patrick teaches composition and theory at Duquesne and is a member of the New York-based NOW Ensemble and Emily is well known as a singer-songwriter for her unique blend of American and Chilean folk music (she also has great operatic chops, but that’s a story for another time). Emily and Patrick are collaborating on a new piece for NOW called Red Rocking Chair, based on an Appalachian folk song by the same name (also known as “Sugar Babe”), and the new work will be premiered by now at NYC’s North River Music series on February 25. Red Rocking Chair combines Emily’s crystal-clear voice and nimble banjo picking with the existing NOW instrumentation. The video below includes Patrick and Emily talking about the process of composing the work as well as a preview of the piece. I think you’ll really enjoy it, and if you’re an ex pat Burgher in New York, be sure to catch NOW on February 25.
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.
