OtherARTS

WHAT’S GOING ON:

December 1, 2023

Bang on a Can announces the 3rd year of Long Play, a three-day destination music festival, presented from Friday, May 3 through Sunday, May 5, 2024. Featuring 50+ concerts (a current list of artists is below, + more to come soon!), Long Play also showcases a dense network of inventive music venues in Brooklyn – with performances at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), Roulette, Public Records, BRIC, Murmrr, Irondale Center for the Arts, The Center for Fiction, plus outdoor events and more. A limited number of 3-day Early Bird Festival and Supporter Passes are on sale now at www.longplayfestival.org!

Some featured concerts in the 2024 lineup include Soundwalk Collective + Patti Smith, Jeff Mills’ Tomorrow Comes the Harvest, Steve Reich’s master-work Music for 18 Musicians, Deerhoof, BlankFor.ms + Jason Moran, Anna Meredith + Ligeti Quartet, Raw Poetic and Damu the Fudgemunk, Bang on a Can All-Stars performing Ryuichi Sakamoto 1996, and many others.

April 28, 2023 New Focus Recordings releases Sirventès, an album of 21st century chamber music written by members of the Iranian Female Composers Association – including  Anahita Abbasi, Mina Arissian, Nina Barzegar, Niloufar Iravani, Mahdis Golzar Kashani, and Nasim Khorassan.

Curated by cellist Brian Thornton (longtime member of the Cleveland Orchestra, and founder and Artistic Director of the Aronson Cello Festival) Sirventès is produced by Grammy-award winning Elaine Martone and the late and much-beloved Thom Moore. Brian Thornton performs alongside fellow Cleveland Orchestra musicians, violinists Katherine Bormann and Alicia Koelz and violist Eliesha Nelson; the Callisto Quartet; and Toronto-based musicians, cellist Amahl Arulanandam and percussionist Nathan Petitpas.

August 20, 2021

Today Shokat Projects welcomes the world-premiere recording of Hold Fast Your Dreams, performed by the wife-and-husband team, soprano Zoe Allen and conductor/pianist Christopher Allen, and composed by the renowned composer/lyricist, music director, pianist, and music producer Georgia Stitt. Hold Fast Your Dreams is the first single from the Allens’ upcoming album (out September 7, 2021), Beneath the Sky.

Listen to Hold Fast Your Dreams here.

July 14, 2021

On September 7, 2021, Shokat Projects welcomes the release of a unique new song album from wife-and-husband team, soprano Zoe Allen and conductor/pianist Christopher Allen: Beneath the Sky.

Led by the expressive, crystalline voice of Zoe Allen and the sensitive playing of Christopher Allen, and available as a digital and hard-copy album, Beneath the Sky is a gorgeous meditation on childhood, motherhood, family ties, and hope for the future. Watch the album trailer, and read the full press release here.

June 2, 2021

Composer and percussionist Jason Treuting is featured twice on the New York Times’ “Five Minutes That Will Make You Love Percussion” – first, as the composer of “extremes,” in a selection from composer Andy Akiho, and second, as a contributor, sharing a favorite recording of the Balinese Gamelan, “Genderan.”

Read the full article here.

March 19, 2021

Nonesuch Records releases an album of songs written and performed by Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion, Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part, on June 25, 2021. The musicians, who have known each other since their student days, were presented with three days of gratis studio time and decided to experiment with ideas they had begun putting to tape during the sessions for their January 2021 Nonesuch release Narrow Sea. With Shaw on vocals and Sō—Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting—filling out this new band, they developed songs in the studio, with lyrics inspired by their own wide-ranging interests: James Joyce, the Sacred Harp hymn book, a poem by Anne Carson, the Bible’s Book of Ruth, the American roots tune “I’ll Fly Away,” and the pop perfection of ABBA, among others. The album is co-produced by Shaw, Sō Percussion, and the Grammy Award–winning engineer Jonathan Low (The National, Taylor Swift).

December 30, 2020

Pianist Orli Shaham celebrates the end of the year by offering a MidWeek Mozart binge: six complete sonatas, spanning her extraordinary trek through the complete Mozart sonatas (a journey that is being recorded/released by Canary Records). Listen to the full binge on her YouTube channel here.

June 18, 2020

On Thursday, June 25, 2020, The Living Earth Show and composer Danny Clay welcome the release of Music for Hard Times.

Music for Hard Times is a multimedia work consisting of: the digital album (which will be released on Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, etc.); a companion film created by San Francisco filmmaker and mixed media artist Jon Fischer and released on YouTube; and a zine featuring a series of calming musical exercises the artists used to create the piece, shared with simple instructions – musical training is not needed, and everyone is encouraged to employ the exercises for their individual use.

The album release is celebrated by a two-part presentation by Living Music with Nadia Sirota, including a preview of a movement on the Tuesday, June 23 Facebook livestream of Living Music: Pirate Radio Edition, and the full premiere of the work on Thursday, June 25, including the film by Jon Fischer.

Music for Hard Times will also be presented by San Francisco Performances (SFP) on July 2, when the album audio will be shared with SFP audiences as part of the Front Row online free concert series, alongside an exclusive conversation with Andy Meyerson, Travis Andrews, and Danny Clay, moderated by the composer-pianist Timo Andres.

May 25, 2020

The New York Times has published a story by Joshua Barone detailing Timo Andres’s re-creation of his Covid-cancelled Carnegie Hall debut recital; “How a Pianist Salvaged His Lost Carnegie Hall Debut.” 

Watch the brilliant YouTube recital here.

August 26, 2019

On Friday, October 25, 2019, Sono Luminus releases The Etudes Project, Volume One: ICEBERG, an album of twenty concert etudes – including ten new works from the noted composer collective ICEBERG New Music – performed by the celebrated pianist Jenny Lin. On the same day, the complete score of the new works from The Etudes Project, Volume One: ICEBERG will be published by NewMusicShelf, and Ms. Lin will perform a concert of all ten new works (as well as selected other works from the album) at the National Opera Center in New York City.

Read the full press release here.

August 5, 2019

In 2019/20, the ferociously creative percussion-guitar duo The Living Earth Show (Travis Andrews and Andy Meyerson) celebrates its tenth anniversary with a slate of projects and original collaborations, each radically different but distinctly shaped by The Living Earth Show’s fierce and virtuosic voice. Built on repertoire that springs from The Living Earth Show’s mission to commission, collaborate, and amplify vital creators from a truly diverse range of communities – including crucial artists from communities that are often marginalized and overlooked by the traditional US arts institutions – the season offers audiences in San Francisco and the US an opportunity to hear work that challenges, engages, and inspires.

Read the full press release here.

August 31, 2018
Fresh Squeezed Opera, marking its sixth year of producing, commissioning, and performing new opera, offers a season of new and historic works that actively examine and celebrate explorations of identity, chance, collaboration, and cultural influences in the 21st century.

Click here to see the full press release, detailing a season of works by Huang Ruo, Gemma Peacocke, Gabi Herbst, and Whitney George, John Aylward, Miriam Gideon, and many others.

January 30, 2018
Right now the composer/pianist Timo Andres is at San Francisco Performances, appearing in a series of concerts including a collaboration with LA Dance Project (Jan. 23), a solo recital (Jan. 26), and on Fri, Feb. 2, a conversation/performance with the Kronos Quartet, On Philip Glass.

September 19, 2017
On Friday, September 22, 2017, New Focus Recordings releases a debut album from percussion/cello duo New Morse Code, Simplicity Itself.

Featuring new and recent works written for New Morse by Caroline Shaw, Robert Honstein, Paul Kerekes, and Tonia Ko, and with guest performances by violinist Katie Hyun and composer/pianist Timo Andres, this album provides an intimate snapshot of New Morse Code’s distinctively personal approach to commissioning, performing, and advocacy.

November 15, 2016
This week composer Timo Andres has a world premiere with Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra!

May 1, 2015
This month, the Chicago-based percussion quartet, Third Coast Percussion, joins composer/percussionist Glenn Kotche for performances of their collaborative work, Wild Sound, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (May 21 and 22) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York (May 29).

Watch a preview of Wild Sound here.

April 16, 2015
The American Academy in Rome has announced that composer Christopher Cerrone is the winner of the 2015 Samuel Barber Rome Prize. The award will enable him to live, study, and compose in Rome for eleven months.
Congratulations, Chris!

December 2, 2014
We’re very pleased to announce that composer Robert Honstein and Baroque ensemble the Sebastians have teamed up for a new album, out on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2015, Night Scenes from the Ospedale.

With selections from Vivaldi’s L’Estro Armonico interleaved with Honstein’s 2011 companion suite for the work, Night Scenes from the Ospedale is more than a old-new mash-up; it is a beautifully illuminated sonic journey through time and place.

Preview the album on SoundCloud, pre-order on BandCamp and the Sebastians’ online shop, and check out the full press release to learn more.

September 3, 2014
It’s been a wonderfully busy summer, and we’ve lots of updates, coming in a newsletter, soon!

For the moment, though, we’re happy to share the press release with details on permutations092714, the newest concert from the San Francisco and New York-based Permutations series, featuring performances of new and recent works from Robert Honstein and Ravi Kittappa, by Brooklyn-based ensembles Concert Black and TIGUE.

Click here to learn more.

April 1, 2014
It’s our pleasure to announce that on May 27, New Focus Recordings will release the debut album from composer Robert Honstein, RE: You. A chamber music cycle of songs without words inspired by a series of real-world misdirected lonely-hearts emails, RE: You is Honstein’s musical meditation on the yearning for human connection in a networked world.

Click here for full details about the album, and preview several tracks of the disc, courtesy of Q2 Music.

And catch the full cycle live on May 6 at Brooklyn’s Roulette, presented by Ear Heart Music on a double bill with the Mivos Quartet.

March 14, 2014
We’re heading into a wonderfully busy stretch, including MELLISSA HUGHES‘ American Songbook recital on March 20 for Lincoln Center, and the world premiere of TIMO ANDRES‘ new song cycle, Work Songs — featuring Andres and Ted Hearne, Gabriel Kahane, Nathan Koci and Becca Stevens — on March 19 at the Ecstatic Music Festival and on March 21 and 22 for the SPCO’s Liquid Music series.

We also offer you a preview of THIRD COAST PERCUSSION‘s newest album, David T. Little’s Haunt of the Last Nightfall, from New Amsterdam Records.

Click here for all of this information, and more!

January 21, 2014
Tonight at (le) Poisson Rouge, the quicksilver pianist Jenny Q Chai offer’s If on a Winter’s Night…, an imaginative journey through the landscape of Western Music, visiting an array of composers with whom she feels a vibrant kinship. The featured selections, by Bach, Debussy, Gibbons, Schumann, Stockhausen, and Stroppa, are interleaved with miniatures from Kurtág’s playful Játékok (Games), in a structural gesture inspired by Italo Calvino’s intricately raveled novel examining the nature of reality and fiction, If on a winter’s night a traveler.

Click here for the full program listing, here for concert details and tickets and here to live-stream the performance (beginning at 7:30pm.)

September 17, 2013
On Tuesday, October 29, 2013 New Focus Recordings releases a new album from THIRD COAST PERCUSSION; Resounding Earth, featuring a single four-movement, 35-minute work of the same name, by Augusta Read Thomas.
Click here to read the full press release and here to visit the album’s page on the New Focus website.

July 30, 2013
On this day, Nonesuch Records releases Timo Andres‘ sophomore album, Home Stretch.
Timo celebrates the album release tonight with an event at the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe; The Anxiety of Influence, which brings him into conversation with The New Yorker‘s Senior Editor Leo Carey and artist/book designer Peter Mendelsund. He’ll also play a few solo tunes! It’s going to be a great evening, and yes, we hope to see you there.

---