Curtis 20/21 Showcases Music of Joan Tower at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre in NYC

By -

On May 5, Curtis 20/21, the contemporary music ensemble of the world-renowned Curtis Institute of Music, devotes an evening to the music of Grammy Award-winning American composer Joan Tower. The concert caps Tower’s composer residency at Curtis and takes place in New York at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre as part of the venue’s “Composer Portraits” series. The wide-ranging program features works for a variety of soloists and ensembles, including string quartet, piano trio, percussion ensemble, brass quintet, and solo violin, viola, and piano. At intermission, Curtis 20/21’s artistic director, David Ludwig, will conduct an onstage interview with the composer. A video preview of the concert is available at vimeo.com.

Joan Tower (b.1938) is widely regarded as one of the most important American composers living today; the New York Times has judged her works “expertly wrought, full of character, and instantly communicative.” Over a career spanning more than 50 years, she has made lasting contributions to American musical life as composer, performer, conductor, and educator. Her works have been commissioned by major ensembles, soloists, and orchestras, including the Emerson, Tokyo, and Muir string quartets; soloists Evelyn Glennie, Carol Wincenc, David Shifrin, and John Browning; and the orchestras of Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Washington, DC. Tower was the first composer to be chosen for a Ford Made in America consortium commission by 65 orchestras. Leonard Slatkin and the Nashville Symphony recorded her resulting work, Made in America, on an album of her orchestral music that went on to collect three 2008 Grammy Awards, including those for Best Classical Contemporary Composition and Best Classical Album. As the Detroit News reported, “Tower has truly earned a place among the most original and forceful voices in modern American music.”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Role of Music in Opera

By -
There are numerous books on the topic, and every composer, librettist, director, singer and audience member has their opinion as to what role the music should play in an opera. In a play without music, the words ought to support the meaning behind a character's actions. However, in the case of action movies, often times the action is what tells the story and there aren't words, just images to forward the plot. We might hear music to accompany action, build tension, but the action tells the story. Musicals tend to speak until the emotion of the moment just "has" to break out in song - unless it's something like "Mama Mia" where the dialog is the rails we travel on between songs; the songs themselves, written before the concept of the musical, are the focus of the production, while the story is secondary. Operas are a different beast. The music provides emotion to the words spoken, but it also plays the role of ambience when there is only action. In &quo
Read more

Episode 210b: Joyeuse le départ

By -
Image
Podcast:  Play in new window  |  Download Subscribe:  Apple Podcasts  |  Android  |  Google Play  |  Stitcher  |  TuneIn  |  RSS Provost Cunningham has Transmigrated, but to where! What is Dr Sage going to do with his body? And how can she bring home her friends, Abigail and Erasmus, without also bring home Cunningham? What are they going to say when they find the “skeleton” she’s hiding in her closet? Cast: Eddie Louise Clark  as Dr Sage Chip Clark  as Professor Savant Justin Bremer  as the Narrator Emily Riley Piatt  as Abigail Entwhistle, Calypso & Dean Stewart Written by  Eddie Louise Theme music by  Unwoman Sound Design by  Chip Michael
Read more

The Art of String Quartets by Brian Ferneyhough

By -
Image
When an artist sets paint to canvas, there are brush strokes used for different effects. Sometimes those strokes are subtle, imperceptible; they produce works of art like the Mona Lisa . Other times the very obvious nature of the stroke is the art, as in works by Van Gogh. With some composers of music, the notes on the page are their craft. How those notes translate into an aural experience is what defines some composers as great artists. Brian Ferneyhough has a masterful command of the techniques of putting notes on the page. These techniques are sometimes so subtle, even though written in black and white, they escape detection. Some of what he attempts with his music is just that, to escape detection, to bury the framework, diverting the ear away from the structure, so only the music is heard . The subtlety is so fine it is almost imperceptible. Even though he studied at several institutions, he is considered self-taught, studying scores from Boule
Read more