A Very Hilary Blog Post IV: The Encore Contest

Photo courtesy of Glenn Ross

When Hilary Hahn announced the In 27 Pieces: The Hilary Hahn Encores project, it sounded like an incredible concept of the likes that had never been tried. I know that she had mentioned in passing that she was going to have some sort of CD that would feature all-new contemporary encores, but I don’t think anyone anticipated that it would be an epic 27 pieces, and from composers as diverse as Jennifer Higdon, Du Yun, Nico Muhly, Mason Bates, Somei Satoh, Edgar Meyer, and James Newton Howard (composer of The Village soundtrack). She’s already been premiering 13 of the pieces in concert and intends to do so with the second half next year, and the 27th will be among them. The recording of the CD is supposed to begin after the performances this season, and she plans to release it sometime in the 2013-14 season.

Musicians: The Lincoln Trio

The Lincoln Trio are (L to R) Desiree Ruhstrat (violin), David Cunliffe (cello), and Marta Aznavoorian (piano)

Chicago-based ensemble The Lincoln Trio have invited me to come hear them at Le Poisson Rouge in NY–And I sadly had to leave early to get a train back to CT (long story; it’s always trains, cabs, directions and timeline issues with me). What I did manage to hear was such a great program of works (some brand new) by Lera Auerbach, Stacy Garrop and Joan Tower among others, and there was absolutely nothing regrettable about having a chance to hear any of that, particularly the jarring modernism of the Stacy Garrop piece Seven (I have to stress that when I hear new music, I’m usually watching it played by people dressed in street clothes or the color black; these people had gowns and a nice suit on, and it has to be the first time I’ve seen a lady in a gown so gorgeous as Marta Aznavoorian’s while she was playing inside the piano).

American Contemporary Music Ensemble: A Night of New Classical at Joe’s Pub

Sequenza21 and Manhattan New Music Project present ACME in Concert
Joe’s Pub, NYC
October 25, 2011

Other than my highly-expensive coke and chocolate brownie (Thanks, Joe’s Pub food policy), the evening for the chamber group American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) left me feeling much more assured and happy I was there to capture it. It was quite a crisp, vital program in the intimate setting of Joe’s Pub, a place that one associates more with indie rock, but these days there’s hardly a chasm between the two anyway.

CD Review: Drew Baker: Stress Position

The works on Drew Baker’s New Focus recording Stress Position are puzzling to analyze. As a listener of new music, it is compelling to hear, but to put in any kind of verbal language after only experiencing it a few times is like trying to describe how you feel after your first taste of a new cuisine. What is very apparent on this recording is that the works are a continuation of the ever-ongoing adventure of examining different ways of performing piano (in this case its amplification), Baker’s use of piano resonance and visceral sound in general, done successfully by pianist Marilyn Nonken and (on the piece Gaeta) the percussionists Sean Connors and Peter Martin.

Musicians: Anne Akiko Meyers

This lady needs no intro, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t make some kind of attempt at it.

Internationally-renowned violinist Anne Akiko Meyers (Yes, that Anne Akiko Meyers) has agreed to talk to The Glass. I need another pinch.

Scheduled to be released on February 13, 2012 (Just in time for that Valentine’s Day gift, music lovers) is Anne’s new CD The Bach ‘Air’ Album, a CD that will feature the Bach Violin Concertos, including the Double Violin Concerto where Anne will be performing both solo parts; one of them on the famous 1697 Strad Molitor that she acquired recently (More about this later), and the 2nd one on her 1730 Strad.
Anne continues to perform numerous classics on the concert circuit as well as premiering new works by David Baker, Mason Bates, Jennifer Higdon, Arvo Part, Somei Satoh, and John Corligliano. She’s also collaborated with artists as diverse as Ryuichi Sakamoto and Michael Bolton.

Composers: Dale Trumbore

Dale Trumbore, originally a “Jersey Girl” but living in L.A. now, is yet another composer I know from the world of Twitter that has been making her mark on the world of new music during what seems like a renaissance of sorts. Along with a new album of art-song cycles titled Snow White Turns Sixty she is also about to have the New York premiere of her work for string quartet titled How It Will Go by ACME (The American Contemporary Music Ensemble). Dale even wrote her own article about the piece that was posted on Sequenza21. Having won numerous awards, grants (among them American Composer’s Forum Subito and USC’s Sadye J. Moss Composition Prize), and academic honors, besides composing, Dale has also been a teaching assistant at USC, and currently provides private piano instruction. She managed to find a window of solitude to talk to us.

TRAG

TRAG are (From L to R) Nora Tragianese (vox/kybd), Mark Tragianese (drums/vox), Bart Bruno (bass/bg vox), and Robert Iandoli (lead guitar)

“Alterna-Prog-Eighties”

This is the genre description that Shelton, CT-based band TRAG goes by these days, and at least lead-vocalist Nora Tragianese takes time to bear this out for me: “Mark [Tragianese] is the progressive, and also the alternative–I’m semi-alternative, but I’m big on the eighties, so kind of throw that all together in a blender, and that’s what we sound like. He brings the progressive sensibility, and I bring my gigantic choruses and multi-layered sequences.”

Jessica Schmitz – Flute (via My Ears Are Open)

By James Holt courtesy of My Ears Are Open

“My name is Jessica Schmitz. I’m a flutist and I play with Asphalt Orchestra (that’s my main gig) and Signal Ensemble, I do some gamelan and some other random assortments of new music about town.”

Jessica Schmitz – Flute (My Ears Are Open; podcast)

A Very Hilary Blog-Post III: Ives CD Geekout Party

Hilary Hahn: Ives CD Release Party
Monday, October 10th, 2011
The Stone, E. Houston Street,
Between Ave C and 2nd St, NY

The Stone is a very small, limited space venue in the area of New York known as Alphabet City. I get there and the place is totally covered in metal guards with no sign. If it weren’t for the small but devoted conglomerate of people waiting to get in for the first of 2 sets of the CD party, I would have completely missed the place.

CD Review: Hilary Hahn: Ives: Four Sonatas (w/Valentina Lisitsa)

On Hilary Hahn’s new album (13th overall, 8th for DG) the vitruoso offers up the 4 completed violin sonatas of Charles Ives, pieces that she’d been performing live in concert for several years with pianist Valentina Lisitsa, who appears on both her first studio recording with Hahn as well as her first on DG.