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Posts tagged 'Pierre Jalbert'

PSNY Works at Summer Festivals

Ah, summer: when classical musicians and fans retreat to the country to enjoy music in the great outdoors. This year, across the country, festival orchestras are mixing time-honored performances of the classical repertoire with exciting new compositions from America's living composers, keeping their tradition vibrant and accessible to a new generation. 

Chicago's Grant Park Music Festival brings music to all parts of the city, and on July 21st and 23rd they're presenting Douglas J. Cuomo's Kyrie both at the South Shore Cultural Center and the Columbus Park Refectory. Two arias from Cuomo's Doubt—The Boy's Nature and The Doubt Sermon will aslo be premiered at the Jay Pritzker Pavilian at Millenium Park on July 22nd. 

Back on the East Coast, the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music book-ends its 2015 season with two works by George PerleCritical Moments and Critical Moments II. Commissioned for the New York New Music Ensemble and Eighth Blackbird, respectively, these two short chamber works epitomize Perle's distinctively American take on Modernism. 

In the rocky mountains of Colorado, the Aspen Music Festival presents Anthony Cheung's SynchroniCities on August 15th. A wide-ranging meditation on the commonalities between sound and setting, this "sonic travelogue" beautifully illustrates the power of music to unite aesthetic experiences between vastly different locations. With that in mind, those lucky enough to have already visited Aspen this year will have seen George Perle's Critical Moments II, along with Pierre Jalbert's Secret Alchemy, performed on a July 6th cocnert

 Finally, on the West Coast, Santa Cruz audiences will hear the world premiere of a new orchestral work by Hannah Lash, entitled Eating Flowers at this year's Cabrillo Festival, under the baton of Marin Alsop. This new orchestral work expresses Lash's "digestion" of the beautiful flowers of Late Romantic orchestral masterworks, metabolizing them into something unique and fitting for the 21st century. 

September Premieres for Hannah Lash & Pierre Jalbert

September has arrived and brought with it two upcoming premieres of new music by Hannah Lash and Pierre Jalbert. Lash’s piece Liebesbrief an Schumann (Love Letter to Schumann) is--as its title suggests--a work for solo piano paying homage to various compositional aspects of Robert Schumann’s (1810-1856) music. Lash recalls,

I approached the composition of this piece both from the standpoint of paying homage to Schumann and fulfilling my own compositional needs.

Referencing Schumann’s “fluid,” “malleable” harmonies and chromatic figuration, Lash “based [her] entire composition on a chromatic line that was able to move in an infinite variety of ways, using a songful melodic disposition as a foil.” 

Liebesbrief will receive its world premiere on September 21st presented by Lyrica Chamber Music as part of a program in which pianist and Lyrica Artistic Director David Kaplan will intersperse specially commissioned miniatures by 17 composers throughout Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze

Check out a recording of Lash's piece Friction, Pressure, Impact (2012) for Cello and Piano: 

The second September premiere that should be on your radar is of Pierre Jalbert’s Howl for clarinet quintet. Howl was commissioned by the Pro Arte Quartet with Charles Neidich on B-flat and bass clarinets, and is set to premiere on September 26th at Wisconsin Union Theater on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. The event will be the first classical music concert to take place in the historic theater’s newly refurbished Shannon Hall (for more info on the commission and performers, click here). 

Of Howl's origins, Jalbert maintains, 

The work...was somewhat inspired by the poem of Allen Ginsberg, not so much the content, but the long lyrical line created in the work. This long line is recreated [in Howl] by the clarinet with the strings providing an active underpinning. His poem has been referred to as a kind of 'litany of praise' and the second movement becomes the litany, with the clarinet acting as ‘Vox Dei,’ the voice of God.

Here is a video of the third movement of Jalbert's string quartet Icefield Sonnets (2004)

Following their respective premieres, both works will be available on PSNY.

New Works from Pierre Jalbert, Bruce MacCombie, and Kamran Ince

For some composers, summer is a time to relax in preparation for the oncoming concert season--but for our PSNY composers and staff, the summer season has been extremely busy! We're pleased to announce that Pierre Jalbert'sSonata for Marimba, commissioned in 2001 by percussionist Makoto Nakura, is now available through PSNY. Jalbert's writing for marimba can also be heard in his Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra. NewMusicBox did an interview with Jalbert on his expansive writing style for different instruments, viewable here: 

We're also happy to announce the availablity of two works for guitar by Bruce MacCombie: Lyric Variations and Tango Ambrosium. Both works pay homage to Latin American composers, particularly Astor Piazzola. We're happy to add more works for guitar to our repertoire, and we hope you add these works to yours!

Since its premiere in 2010, Kamran Ince's Far Variations has been performed across the country-- and, newly available on PSNY, we hope to see it performed around the world! This Piano Quartet was written with trans-national longing in mind: the state of being far from home. Ince's signature melding of Western and Turkish traditions shines in this piece. And for violinists and pianists interested in Ince's work, be sure to check out Ince's newly-published Koçekçe, for violin and piano, now available through Hal Leonard. 

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