Tobias Picker on Tzadik Records

by Ted Gordon on April 1, 2014, 2:13 p.m.

Tobias Picker, one of America's strongest composers of the 20th and 21st-centuries, has just released a new CD on John Zorn's Tzadik label, with performances by Sarah Rothenberg and the Brentano Quartet as well as members of the JACK Quartet, the Talea Ensemble, and many more. "Invisible Lilacs: Chamber Music 1976-2011," Picker's entry into Tzadik's "Composer Series", contains striking and authoratative recordings of several of his chamber works spanning four decades, inlcuding Sextet No. 2 ("Halle's Ravine"), available on PSNY, and Nova, soon to be available from PSNY. The CD also includes recordings of Picker's Piano Quintet ("Live Oaks"), and Invisible Lilacs for violin and piano, both available through Hal Leonard. Check out a video documentary of the recording process below! 

Tobias Picker's "Invisible Lilacs: Chamber Music 1976-2011" is available now from iTunes, Amazon, and most retailers. 

The Summer of Alex Mincek

by Ted Gordon on June 13, 2013, 3:18 p.m.

Who knew that one composer could be so busy in such a short amount of time? Alex Mincek, recent recipient of the prestigious Alpert Award in the Arts , is quickly gaining an international reputation for his work, both written for chamber ensembles and for orchestra. His String Quartet No. 3, "lift - tilt - filter - split", has been recently performed by both the MIVOS Quartet and the JACK Quartet, MIVOS giving the Canadian premiere of the piece last month, and JACK performing it alongside the Arditti String Quartet at Wigmore Hall. JACK's performance garnered favorable reviews in The Guardian and severalblogs, and a live recording is available through Wigmore Hall's in-house record label. (The live recording, by the way, also includes recordings of Ligeti's Second String Quartet, as well as Matthias Pintscher's Study IV for Treatise on the Veil!)

The JACK Quartet have also recorded Mincek's String Quartet No. 3 on an album released by Carrier Records, which also has recordings of his Pendulum V, Pendulum III, Poco a Poco, and Nucleus. Be sure to follow us on twitter (@Schott_NY) where we'll be giving away two free copies of Alex's Carrier Records album!

For those of you who can't wait to get your hands on that beautifully recorded and crafted CD, here's a video of the MIVOS quartet performing the work at the Darmstat Summer Course for New Music last year: 

And in addition to the activity surrounding Mincek's String Quartet No. 3, the Ensemble Cairn, which in March commissioned a new chamber work from Mincek entitled "donegal", performed that work for a second time at the Hippodrome Douai-- an archived recording of which is still avaialble from Radio France. 

What's that? You demand even more work from this already-busy, internationally-accoladed composer? Well-- be on the lookout for loadbang, New York's bleeding-edge ensemble for "lung-powered instrumentation" (bass clarinet, trumpet, trombone, and baritone voice), performing Mincek's also-recently-commissioned piece, "number may be defined." And, if you find yourself at the Ostrava Days institute/festival this summer, keep your ears out at the final concert of the festival, which will include an excerpt from a brand-new large orchestral work, to be affiliated with Mincek's Pendulum works. So, keep Mincek's other pendulum works—two of which are available through PSNY— in mind!  

Springtime for PSNY: Awards! String Quartets! Opera!

by Ted Gordon on March 13, 2013, 10:53 a.m.

Great news for our PSNY composers: The American Academy of Arts and Letters has just announced its 2013 awards, and Kamran Ince and Kate Soper are among the recipients. Kamran Ince is awarded a 2013 Arts and Letters Award in Music, which includes both a general award and a specific award toward the composition of a new work. Kate Soper is awarded the 2013 Goddard Lieberson Fellowship, given to "mid-career composers of exceptional gifts." 

And if that weren't a good enough omen, March is shaping up to be a busy month: the JACK Quartet recently performed Ann Cleare's moil at Harvard University's Paine Hall. Listen to an excerpt of this piece here: 

Lei Liang's string quartet, Serashi Fragments, was also recently performed on March 8th by the Calder Quartet at the University of California San Diego. Listen to an excerpt of this work here:

We are also pleased to announce the premiere of Christopher Cerrone's opera, All Wounds Bleed, now available from PSNY. That's right: an opera available on PSNY! This staged premiere, on March 23rd, is produced by Tulsa Opera, and is directed by Kostis Protopapas. We were thrilled to be present at the premiere of Cerrone's Invisible Cities, and look forward to this next venture...