Monotonous Forest

Electrical charge

MATA Interval 4.2 at Issue Project Room. MusicWeb International, January 29, 2011

When the weather outside is frightful

Renée Fleming and Hartmut Höll at Carnegie Hall. MusicWeb International, January 29, 2011

Frozen entrées

This weekend will be a chillier one than usual in New York, but there's plenty to do to for those with cabin fever. Tonight at Scandinavia House, Talea Ensemble will present Danish Counterpoints, with works by Bent Sørensen and the U.S. premiere of Hans Abrahamsen's Schnee (Snow). The latter piece requires "wax paper and lumber."

On Saturday night, pianists Roberto Hidalgo and Marc Peloquin (a.k.a. Split Second) give the second installment of Keyed Up Music Project, featuring four-hand and two-piano works by David Lang, Leo Smit, Errollyn Wallen and Pablo Ziegler. The American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) and singer Craig Wedren will perform music of Jefferson Friedman, part of the ongoing Ecstatic Music Festival at Merkin Concert Hall. And Joel Sachs and the New Juilliard Ensemble open this year's Focus! Festival at Alice Tully, kicking off a week called Polish Modern: New Directions in Polish Music Since 1945.

Sunday, composer Bunita Marcus discusses the work of Morton Feldman at Piano Magic in Tribeca (1:00 p.m.), and at 4:00 p.m. at the Roger Smith Hotel, Wet Ink Ensemble has an intriguing program called Broken Voices: Loss, Memory and Fragmentation, including Kurtág's S.K. Remembrance Noise. And at 7:30 p.m., the excellent group counter)induction presents Discourses, a program exploring the relationship between music and speech, part of transit circle, a series presented by Mannes College.

[Photo: Frozen Food Section of a Supermarket, Groton, Connecticut by Todd Gipstein]

Teeming with 21st-century activity

Gloria Cheng and the Calder Quartet at (Le) Poisson Rouge. MusicWeb International, January 21, 2011

Now that we are 5

In 2006, when I began this blog, little did I suspect that it would take flight and travel this long.  Thanks to everyone who checks in now and then, and to many other writers whose output continues to inspire me to do better.  Most of all, thank you to the composers and musicians whose artistry makes music journalism a joy.  Let's be clear: no music means no writing about it—end of story.

[Photo: Charles Demuth, "I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold" (1928, oil on board), from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, via University of Southern California]

Once-a-decade visitors

Japan's Saito Kinen Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.  MusicWeb International, January 14, 2011

Mellon-infused ICE

Just got word that the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) has received a $340,00 grant—the largest in the group's history—from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.  The funds will be used for ICElab, a new program for "incubating and presenting new repertoire by emerging composers." 

The news is not only heartening for the ensemble (and well deserved) but hopefully bodes well for other new music groups struggling to find funding in a lean economic landscape.  Grants of this magnitude are not unusual for larger cultural organizations, but for a group of this size, this is an eye-opening way to begin the new year.

Meanwhile, in between "Pelléas et Mélisande"

Simon Rattle and Ensemble ACJW, with Barbara Hannigan and Christian Tetzlaff.  MusicWeb International, January 7, 2011

"Evolution produces some very strange things"

Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic in CONTACT!.  MusicWeb International, January 7, 2011

Lily pads and sextets

American Modern Ensemble in Pieces of Eight.  MusicWeb International, January 7, 2011