Concert at MIT
- On February 20, 2023
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In Uncategorized
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Natalie Lin Douglas will perform several works in a February 25th concert at MIT, assisted by Wesley Ducote, Evan Ziporyn, and Mi-Eun Kim. The recital will feature Loop Studies, a work for violin and looper pedal, written for Lin Douglas in 2021 as a “pandemic project.” Also on the program is Imaginary Scenes (for violin and piano) and Stomping Grounds (for violin, clarinet and piano).
Music for these Distracted Times
- On February 20, 2023
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In EVENTS, News
- 0
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
- 0
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
- 0
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
- 0
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.
