Al Hakawati Premiered at 2024 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music
- On August 30, 2024
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, News
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Al Hakawati, a new work for soprano and orchestra received its premiere on August 2nd in Santa Cruz, CA at the 2024 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, with soprano Miriam Khalil and conductor Cristian Mӑcelaru. The work will be repeated on September 21 by the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln in Germany. The work is a co-commission of Cabrillo, WDR and l’Orchestre National de France (who will do the work in 2026).
Al Hakawati (The Storyteller) presents fragments from an opera-in-progress entitled The Book of Tales. The opera is inspired by a recent discovery about a beloved story collection, the so-called “Arabian Nights.” The exact provenance of these medieval Arabic tales, properly known as Alf Laylah wa-Laylah [One Thousand and One Nights], has always been something of a mystery. That all changed in 1993 when a forgotten 18th century Arabic manuscript was found in the Vatican library. It was a travel memoir written by a 75-year-old Syrian storyteller named Hanna Diyab. In 1707, the young Diyab had embarked on an extraordinary, years-long journey to Europe. His incredible adventures culminated in a meeting with the Sun King, King Louis XIV, in the halls of Versailles. Diyab told his entrancing stories to everyone he met in his travels, including to Antoine Galland, a translator and archaeologist in Paris. It was Galland who, in 1710, first introduced Western readers to the stories of Ali Baba and Aladdin in Les Mille et une Nuits—though Galland makes no mention of the storyteller. Diyab returned to Syria in 1709 and eventually became a successful cloth merchant in Aleppo.He seems to have had no idea how far his captivating stories had travelled.
The opera connects stories and storytellers across time and place: from the present day, to the Ancien Régime of France, to the imaginary world of Scheherazade. And, though the “frame story” is Diyab’s, the most significant characters in the story are women. The fragments in Al Hakawati comprise four “scenes” that feature the opera’s three principal female characters.
Al Hakawati preview
- On August 05, 2024
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, News, Uncategorized
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I recently spoke to Jeff Kaliss of The San Francisco Classical Voice about the premiere performance of Al Hakawati at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music.
Al Hakawati @ Cabrillo Preview
- On July 22, 2024
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, News
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I Care If You Listen previews the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music summer 2024 schedule, which includes the premiere of Al Hakawati. Co-Commissioned by Cabrillo, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln & Orchestre National de France, the work was written for Canadian soprano Miriam Khalil and conductor by Cristian Măcelaru and will receive its premiere at the festival on its opening concert Friday August 2nd.
Al Hakawati co-commissioned by Cabrillo Festival, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln & Orchestre National de France
- On May 08, 2024
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, News
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A new work for soprano and orchestra Al Hakawati, co-commissioned by the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln & Orchestre National de France will premiere next season, with Canadian soprano Miriam Khalil and conductor by Cristian Măcelaru. The work will receive its premiere at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music on August 2nd. A second performance with WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln is scheduled for September 21, with a following performance in Paris, TBA.
Al Hakawati (The Storyteller) presents fragments from an opera-in-progress entitled The Book of Tales. The opera is inspired by a recent discovery about a beloved story collection, the so-called “Arabian Nights.” The exact provenance of these medieval Arabic tales, properly known as Alf Laylah wa-Laylah [One Thousand and One Nights], has always been something of a mystery. That all changed in 1993 when a forgotten 18th century Arabic manuscript was found in the Vatican library. It was a travel memoir written by a 75-year-old Syrian storyteller named Hanna Diyab. In 1707, the young Diyab had embarked on an extraordinary, years-long journey to Europe. His incredible adventures culminated in a meeting with the Sun King, King Louis XIV, in the halls of Versailles. Diyab told his entrancing stories to everyone he met in his travels, including to Antoine Galland, a translator and archaeologist in Paris. It was Galland who, in 1710, first introduced Western readers to the stories of Ali Baba and Aladdin in Les Mille et une Nuits—though Galland makes no mention of the storyteller. Diyab returned to Syria in 1709 and eventually became a successful cloth merchant in Aleppo. He seems to have had no idea how far his captivating stories had travelled.
The opera connects stories and storytellers across time and place: from the present day, to the Ancien Régime of France, to the imaginary world of Scheherazade. And, though the “frame story” is Diyab’s, the most significant characters in the story are women. The fragments in Al Hakawati comprise four “scenes” that feature the opera’s three principal female characters.
1. I shiver, I tremble
The famed storyteller Scheherazade contemplates her precarious circumstances: each night she tells stories to the murderous Shahryar to postpone her execution.
2. He sleeps, this one
Shahryar is finally asleep. Consumed with fury, Scheherazade prepares to set his bed alight.
3. Dance of the seven swords (orchestra)
Murjana dances for her husband, Ali Baba, and a visiting merchant. She alone has discerned their guest’s true intent: he plans to kill her witless husband, who has foolishly stolen treasure from a band of thieves. At the dance’s climax she dispatches the villain.
4. For all I know
Tarina Safar*, a modern-day scholar of medieval Arabic, has discovered Hanna Diyab’s manuscript in the Vatican library. She marvels at the power of stories and of storytellers.
* Safar’s character is fictional, but she is inspired by the American scholar of Islam, Nabia Abbott (1897–1981), the first female professor at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute. Abbott discovered some of the earliest known fragments from the Thousand and One Nights.
Houston Symphony Orchestra commissions new work for 24-25 season
- On May 08, 2024
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, News
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Al-Jazari’s Ingenious Clocks is inspired by the fantastical inventions of 12th century Islamic polymath Ismail al-Jazari: scholar, inventor, engineer, artist and mathematician. His remarkable treatise, “The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices,” describes fifty machines he engineered to perform various tasks. Coupled with his own colorful illustrations, the fountain, a band of mechanical musicians, a hydraulic “perpetual flute,” a self-cleaning washbasin, and a mechanized“butler” who prepares drinks. book evokes a fairy-tale world of automated devices: a dancing water Known as the “father of robotics” for his revolutionary work in engineering and automation, al-Jazari’s devices are fascinating both functionally and aesthetically.
But perhaps his most beautiful and captivating designs are his many mechanical clocks. These include elaborate candle clocks (triggered by dripping wax), an astronomical “castle clock,” a programmable clock of mechanical drummers (who beat out the hours!), a portable “scribe clock” and a giant “elephant clock” (at right).
Al-Jazari’s Ingenious Clocks is an evocative time piece, a musical journey to a vivid world of invention and imagination. It captures the vision and whimsy of these enchanting time machines, built with a prescience that anticipates our automated modern world.
Luctus Profugis to feature in Minnesota Orchestra’s 24-25 season
- On May 07, 2024
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, News
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Luctus Profugis will be featured in the 2024-205 season of the Minnesota Orchestra, conducted by Thomas Søndergård. The concerts on May 8 & 9, 2025 at Orchestra Hall, will also feature Mozart (Ingrid Fliter playing Piano Concerto No. 17) and Shostakovich (Symphony No. 11, The Year 1905). Written in 2016, Luctus Profugis is a lament for string orchestra and vibraphone that reflects on the 2015–2019 European refugee crisis. The title translates roughly from the Latin as “Grief for the Displaced.”
Cabinet of Curiosities on Musiqa
- On January 26, 2024
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, Musiqa, News
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The Harlequin Duo (Clarinetist Nick Davies and pianist Wesley Ducote) performed Cabinet of Curiosities on a Musiqa concert on January 20th and 21st in Houston, a program in which Musiqa and NobleMotion Dance continued their pioneering collaboration with the University of Houston BRAIN Center. “Meeting of Minds” featured a new ballet with music by Anthony Brandt, choreography by Andy and Dionne Noble, and projections by Badie Khaleghian. The program also included new works for dance by Badie Khaleghian and Marcus Karl Maroney. Davies and Ducote later recorded Cabinet of Curiosities (and another chamber work, Swimmy) in a session with engineer Andy Bradley in Stude Concert Hall at Rice University—both recordings slated for upcoming release. Below, the Harlequin Duo jam in 11/8 (2+2+3+2+2) for the sixth movement, Divisions on a Bulgarian Rhythm.
The Sky With All Its Stars
- On December 19, 2023
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, News
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A January 16th recital at the Shepherd School of Music features the premiere of several new song cycles for voice and piano performed by guest artists Aidan Soder (mezzo-soprano), Wesley Ducote (piano), Mark Diamond (baritone), Michael Clark (piano), Marcus DeLoach (baritone), Grant Loehnig (piano), and Shepherd School students James Palmer (piano), Caitlin Aloia (soprano), Julia Holoman (mezzo-soprano) and William Dopp (bass-baritone). The program includes selections from Tagore Love Songs, Orange Torches Against the Rain, and Two Songs on poems of Reg Huston and the world premiere of: Vespertine Songs, Four Not So Serious Songs, Unsentimental Love Songs and Your Letter Pleased Me Greatly.
Vespertine Songs are melodies of the night. Of an Evening is drawn from the descriptive prose of Charles Dickens (1812–1870), whose brooding evocation of a darkening city emphasizes a timeless, cyclic quality. Marina Tsvetaeva’s (1892–1941) Insomnia has us wandering with a sleepless night owl and finding no solace in the streets. In Points and Lines Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) paints a beautiful metaphor of a night sky, a summer lake and the revelatory wonder of stars. “Anne Knish” is a pseudonym of Arthur Davison Ficke (1883–1945), a conservative American poet whose many “spectralist” poems like Nocturne parodied the imagist movement. Poetic irony then, that these are the only verses for which he is remembered. Nocturne is a nighttime soundscape of sorts: the enveloping noises of the evening fade into the distance, replaced by something even more magical.
Four Not So Serious Songs comprise light-hearted settings of two poems by Robert Graves (1895–1985) and two by me. In This Song is Going to End our poor singer faces a looming existential crisis. An intemperate child protests his lot in Careers, a song which takes the form of a school-yard taunt. The nested structure of Warning to Children makes it a perfect poem for a patter song, its tripping rhythms spiraling down the page. So You Say is a gentle rebuke of melodramatic love songs, and a parody of their romantic tropes.
Unsentimental Love Songs are devoted to the quotidian side of love. The text of This is the Question is drawn from a page in Charles Darwin’s diary (above), when the famed scientist methodically weighs the pros and cons of his impending nuptials. His sensitive, if somewhat self-absorbed character comes across charmingly in his amorous analysis. Edna St. Vincent Millay’s (1892–1950) sonnet I Shall Forget You Presently, My Dear is a classic unsentimental love poem, one of many to feature her delicate balance of scoffing wit and fragile sincerity.
Your Letter Pleased Me Greatly is based on text by Erasmus (1466–1536), from the Dutch theologian’s book on rhetoric, Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style (1512). In a virtuosic demonstration of prose embellishment, he famously provides 195 variations of the simple sentence “Tuae litterae me magnopere delectarunt” [Your letter pleased me greatly]—each variation bringing a very different sense and sentiment to the same basic point. Twenty variants are used in my piece for soprano and piano, and the work’s approach reflects the same conceit: each short “variation” uses similar musical material, but projected with a succession of different moods, characters, and structural forms.
Balourdet Quartet performs Strange Machines in Summer Season
- On June 28, 2023
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, News, Reviews/Press
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The Balourdet Quartet will include Strange Machines in their summer season with performances at festivals including:
Taos School of Music Chamber Music Festival
Rockport Chamber Music Festival
Green Lake Festival of Music
Honest Brook Music Festival
Music Mountain Summer Festival
Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival
Nantucket Musical Arts Society
Portsmouth Athenaeum Chamber Music Series.
The Boston Musical Intelligencer reviewed their recent performance at Rockport.
Merz Trio premieres Lines in Motion at Chamber Music Columbus
- On May 08, 2023
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, News
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May 6th saw the Merz Trio premiere Lines in Motion at the concluding concert of Chamber Music Columbus‘ 75th anniversary season. Works by seven composers were commissioned by CMC over the course of their 2022-2023 season. (Lines in Motion was co-commissioned by Chamber Music Houston, where the work was played on January 17th.) The program, presented at the beautiful historic Southern Theatre, included works by Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and Schumann, and opened with a celebratory fanfare by Ching-chu Hu and poetry by poet laureate Jennifer Hambrick.
Parizade and the Singing Tree performed for Family Concert
- On February 20, 2023
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, News
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Rice University’s annual “Family Concert” will present Parizade and the Singing Tree for narrator and ensemble. This tale from the 1001 Nights (or, so called “Arabian Nights”) will be narrated by singer and educator Rachel Buchman, and conducted by Michael Webster. Take your family on a thrilling adventure as a musical story unfolds before your ears! A brave and determined Parizade is on a quest to find a magical singing tree but encounters challenges (like a mysterious old dervish) along the way. Will she prevail in her journey?
Saturday, Jan. 28 | Stude Concert Hall at Rice University; Shepherd School Chamber Orchestra | Rachel Buchman, narrator| Michael Webster, conductor
• 10:30 a.m. — Meet the musicians and their instruments before the concert.
• 11 a.m. — Enjoy a family-friendly, 55-minute concert, featuring a living composer!
Best for ages 6 and up. Registration is recommended but not required. Park in West Lot 2 for $5.
RESERVE YOUR FREE TICKETS TODAY! MUSIC.RICE.EDU/FAMILY
Music for these Distracted Times
- On February 20, 2023
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, News
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Music for these Distracted Times was a January 23rd concert featuring recent works connected by their shared commentary on recent times. From the program notes: “At this point, it’s difficult to describe the last few years in anything but glib catchphrases: “unprecedented events,” “the new normal,” “shocking but not surprising,” and so on… It has felt maddeningly absurd, impossible to escape, never-ending: health crises, political deceit, violent extremism, racial animus. Typically, the music I write isn’t reactive. But like many composers, my recent work has been inspired (if that’s the word) by the upheaval around us. Tonight’s program contains compositions written mostly over the last few years, a product of these distracted times. The pieces have a variety of moods and characters, but they share a kind of tattered anxiety—a sentiment that has perhaps become the temperament of our time.”
The concert featured guest appearances by Matthew Roitstein, Natalie Lin Douglas, Ally Smither, Ben Roidl-Ward, Mei Rui, Jon Kimura Parker, Brian Connelly, and students of the Shepherd School of Music. The program included Songs from the Post Truth Era (written in 2018 for the Pushback Collective, who reprised the work), Pattern Preludes, Book 4, Ignoble Dances (written in 2020 for Mathew Roitstein, but here receiving its LIVE premiere), Loop Studies (the premiere of this work for violin and looper pedal, written in 2021 for Natalie Lin Douglas) and Lamentation on The Disasters of War (a string sextet from 2006).
Balourdet Quartet plays Strange Machines in UK Tour
- On February 20, 2023
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, News
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In February the Balourdet Quartet embarked on their first UK tour, including a debut performance at Wigmore Hall. Their programs feature Strange Machines, a new work written for them, and commissioned with the assistance of Chamber Music America. The tour included an appearance on BBC 3 Radio 3’s In Tune, where they played the second movement of the work, “Goldberg Machine.” Listen to the performance here (starts at 1:36:32). The Balourdet will perform the piece in the US in upcoming concerts beginning with the New York City premiere on April 4 at the Kaufman Music Center’s Merkin Hall.
The Cleveland Orchestra plays Lamentation on The Disasters of War
- On October 18, 2022
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, News, Reviews/Press
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The Cleveland Orchestra performed Lamentation on The Disasters of War as part of their 2022–2023 season, under conductor Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider on October 13-16 in Severance Hall. The program featured Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 Eroica and Bloch’s Schelomo: Rhapsodie Hébraïque for Violoncello and Orchestra. The theme of the concert, as expressed by David Patrick Stearns in his notes for the concert:
“Music created in times of war so often comes down to the question “Why?” On one level, we question the politics of war, an often confusing and complex web of governmental policies and prejudices. On another is the heartbreaking bloodshed and loss of soldiers and civilians. Why do we so often turn to music and art during these troubled times? Why can a tone poem, symphony, or concerto more clearly express what can be communicated in words, or, more to the point, beyond words.
The three composers on this program each confront — and transform — the question of “why” through pre-established musical forms. Karim Al-Zand’s Lamentation on The Disasters of War (2006) finds renewed resonance in Francisco de Goya’s tortured 19th-century etchings of Napoleon’s invasion of Spain; Ernest Bloch’s World War I–era Schelomo, Hebraic Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra (1916), invokes the Old Testament wisdom of King Solomon; and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (1803–04) finds inspiration — and later criticism — in the conquests of Napoleon. In contemplating war, they illuminate dual sides of humanity: not only to endure through unimaginable hardship, but to find meaning, purpose, and eventually beauty in it.”
The program was also featured by Szeps-Znaider in his role as director of the Orchestre National de Lyon. [reviews: Cleveland Plain Dealer; Seen and Heard International]
NEW ALBUM AVAILABLE from NAVONA RECORDS
- On September 05, 2022
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, News
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Announcing a new recording from NAVONA records released on 9/9/2022, The Leader and other works. The album features the titular chamber opera (with a libretto by Eugène Ionesco), paired with several new instrumental works
The Leader | Six Bagatelles | Songs from the Post Truth Era | Capriccios Nos. 5 & 6
Personnel
Mark Diamond baritone | Aidan Smerud baritone | Megan Berti mezzo-soprano | Zach Averyt tenor | Lindsay Russsel Bowden soprano | Eiki Isomura conductor
Omri Barak cornet | Michael Clark piano | Matthew J. Detrick violin | Wesley Ducote piano | Thomas Frey clarinet | Alex Garde percussion | Max Geissler cello | Sonja Harasim violin | Mary-Grace Johnson violin |Julia Kirk viola | Andrew Laven cello | Natalie; Lin Douglas violin | John Mietus double bass | Sam Park violin | Ben Roidl-Ward bassoon | Jihong Son trombone | Alexandra Smither soprano | Chapman Welch mandolin | Willie Yeh flute/piccolo
NV6469 NAVONA RECORDS
Available on all major streaming services, or from NAVONA.
New Solo Organ Work: Let Down the Scale of Music from the Sky
- On September 05, 2022
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, News
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Let Down the Scale of Music from the Sky is a major new work for solo organ commissioned by the American Guild of Organists for the 2023 Ronald G. Pogorzelski and Lester D. Yankee Annual Competition, written to be premiered on the Pogorzelski/Yankee organ at Indiana University Pennsylvania.
The Heav’ly Choir, who heard his Notes from high,
Let down the Scale of Music from the Sky.
Strange Machines premiere
- On September 05, 2022
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, News
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Strange Machines, a new work for the Balourdet Quartet, will be premiered in the group’s 2022–2023 season, including a performance at Wigmore Hall. The work is commissioned with support from a Chamber Music America Commissioning Grant
Strange Machines imagines three quirky musical automata. In Alberti Machine we encounter a steam-punk music box, its buttons, levers and dials adjusting a familiar accompanimental pattern until the machine breaks. Bach meets Rube in Goldberg Machine, a contraption that careens between variations in a musical chain reaction. Mannheim Machine is a cliché-bot, an unhinged device that furiously spits out distorted musical tropes from the dawn of the symphony.
Loop Studies premiere
- On September 05, 2022
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, News
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Loop Studies was written during the covid-19 pandemic for violinist Natalie Lin Douglas. Chamber music performances during the pandemic have often relied on asynchronous multi-tracking as a necessity. Loop Studies is a duet, but is playable in real-time by a single musician with the aid of a loop pedal.
Each of its four studies uses an idiosyncratic musical fragment that is played, recorded and repeated. The first study, Berceuse, is a lullaby based on a gentle, rocking, cross-string figure. Lines is a short set of variations on a fragment by Luigi Dallapiccola, an improvisatory fantasy over a chromatic accompaniment drawn from the composer’s Quaderna Musicali. Straw Man Parade has the violinist using in turn various coloristic effects: pizzicato, harmonics, bowing near the bridge of the instrument—all heard over a bouncing figure performed with the wood of the bow. Tone Up/Tone Down features a syncopated, irregular groove underlying a vigorous and “athletic” foreground part. Natalie Lin Douglas will premiere Loop Studies in the 2022–2023 season in Boston and Houston.
Merz Trio to premiere new work for Columbus Chamber Music and Chamber Music Houston
- On June 07, 2022
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, News
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A new piano trio, Lines in Motion, will be premiered in the 2022-2023 season by the acclaimed Merz Trio. The work is commissioned by Columbus Chamber Music (as part of their 75th Anniversary season) and by Chamber Music Houston.
Merz Trio is a dynamic young ensemble “praised for their “fresh and surprising interpretations,” … their passionate playing and uniquely artistic programming style, interspersing classic trio works with interdisciplinary elements and their own arrangements. The Trio have made a sweep of recent US chamber awards, taking top prizes at the 2021 Naumburg, 2019 Concert Artists Guild, 2019 Fischoff, and 2018 Chesapeake Competitions. Upcoming debut appearances include performances at NYC’s Merkin Hall, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.”
Lines in Motion for violin, cello and piano, explores the relationship between music art, and is inspired by three striking line-drawings from the early 20th century: On the Open Sea [En pleine mer], a 1921 woodcut by French artist René Quillivic, Amerika [America], a 1922 line drawing by Flemish artist Frans Masereel, and Rhythms, a 1922 woodcut by American artist Wharton Esherick. The distinct technique used for each black and white illustration creates form and shape through linear motion: sweeping curled lines, dramatic vertical lines, and the sinewy lines of the human body. The three movement of Lines in Motion aim to project a similar effect in their musical character and atmosphere.
City Scenes broadcast on BBC Radio 3
- On February 23, 2022
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, News
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The January 3, 2022 concert of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, featuring City Scenes, will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on February 22, and available for online listening afterwards.
Sian Edwards conducts a programme that ends with Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances. Before it come two much newer pieces, Dani Howard’s Coalescence – which explores how the human race has attempted to ‘outsmart’ nature over the centuries, and Karim Al-Zand’s City Scenes, which captures the beauty and chaos of life in a city.