In a (video) Nutshell: Fourth Sundays Chamber Music Concerts
Posted on 24. Mar, 2011 by danikadruttman in Arts, Chamber Music Series, Events, Hotel
Introduction to the Talea Ensemble
Sunday February 27th 2011, 4pm
Talea Ensemble: Buddhism in Music
Koan (1971) James Tenney
for solo viola (1934-2006)
Ji No. 7: Motionless Water (1997) Qu Xiaosong
for solo violin (b. 1952)
Lotuses (1992) Jonathan Harvey
for flute, violin, viola and cello (b. 1939)
Sunday March 27th 2011, 4pm
New York Miniature Ensemble: Works of 100 Notes or Fewer
Sunday April 24th 2011, 4pm
The Talea Ensemble: Language and Text in Music
February 27th: Chamber Music Series, Buddhism in Music
Posted on 15. Feb, 2011 by danikadruttman in Arts, Chamber Music Series, Hotel
The Talea Ensemble explores the influence of Buddhist thought and practice in contemporary music. Buddhism plays a central role in Jonathan Harvey’s output, from the purely metaphysical musical treatment of materials to the thematic inspiration of his pieces, and “Lotuses” is an example of both. Qu Xiaosong’s quietly meditative music works within the space between silence and very limited but essential gestures. James Tenney’s “Koan” is a selection from his “Postal Pieces,” conceptual works with performance instructions etched onto the back of postcards. In Zen Buddhism, a koan is a philosophical proposition or question, often without an immediate solution. Tenney’s work consists of a simple upward-ascending figure, yet its execution and duration is open to interpretation
Once a month, the Talea Ensemble curates The Fourth Sundays Chamber Music Concert in The Penthouse at The Roger Smith Hotel. The series aims to promote the accessibility of contemporary classical music; each concert focuses on one single piece by dissecting its inner-workings, while considering the external factors of its conception and existence. The concerts are interactive in that the audience is considered an equal participant in the performance; they are encouraged to ask questions and participate in discussions after the music is performed. The reception immediately following serves as a platform for discussion of the work among people of all ages and backgrounds.
Roger Smith Arts is a multi-disciplinary arts-production company providing cultural entertainment as a way to promote dialogue within and between the leading disciplines of the New York and global art worlds. The company’s mission is to establish itself as a pre-eminent and sought-after cultural institution to the city of New York. Recognizing dialogue as the backbone of any cultural organization, RSA embraces variety as a means to foster the exchange of creative ideas. RSA produces concerts, readings, performances, installations, and lectures, all with leading creative intellectuals.
For further information please call 212.339.2092 or rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com
***
QUICK INFORMATION
The Fourth Sundays Chamber Music Series with the Talea Ensemble
Buddhism in Music
Presented by Roger Smith Arts
The Penthouse at The Roger Smith Hotel
501 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017, 47th and Lexington (Map)
Subway: E, 6, V to 53rd and Lexington or 4, 5, 6, 7 to Grand Central
Sunday February 27th at 4pm
Price: $15 includes wine and cheese (pay at door, cash only)
Reservations: 212-339-2092 or rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com
For more information: www.rogersmithlife.com/fourth_sundays
January 23rd: Fourth Sundays Chamber Music Concert with Wet Ink Ensemble
Posted on 10. Jan, 2011 by danikadruttman in Arts, Chamber Music Series, Events, Hotel
Fourth Sundays Chamber Music Series
presents Wet Ink Ensemble
January 23rd 2011 at 4pm
The Penthouse at The Roger Smith Hotel
Tickets $15, inc. wine and cheese selection
Wet Ink Ensemble presents a program of intimate duos and trios based on music for the voice and linked by a sonic and thematic focus on loss, memory, and fragmentation. Austrian composer Mathias Spahlinger’s haunting adieu m’amour for violin and cello, the final work on the program, offers a skeletal, enigmatic tracing of an early Renaissance rondeau of the same name by Guillaume Dufay, transforming the original work (programmed in an arrangement for voice and instruments) into halting whispers and strained fragments. These two works will be preceded by György Kurtág’s elusive S.K. Remembrance Noise for violin and soprano, a set of ruminative mood sketches with text by Deszö Tandori, and Kate Soper’s Only the Words Mean What They Say, a virtuosic duo for flute and voice on texts by Lydia Davis which explore the difficulty of communicating reason and logic to the visceral realms of emotion and body. All of the works present an intimate human relationship between the performers, and invite the listener to consider the possibility of closure and catharsis in music for and about the voice.
PROGRAM
Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say for soprano and flute (2010-2011)
by Kate Soper
S.K. Remembrance Noise for soprano and violin (19754-1975)
György Kurtág’s
Adieu m’Amour for three voices (ca. 1440)
by Guillaume Dufay
adieu m’amour (Homage á Guillaume Dufay) for violin and cello (1982-1983)
by Mathias Spahlinger
Once a month, the Talea Ensemble curates The Fourth Sundays Chamber Music concert in The Penthouse at The Roger Smith Hotel. The series aims to promote the accessibility of contemporary classical music. Each concert focuses on one single piece by dissecting its inner-workings, while considering the external factors of its conception and existence. The concerts are interactive in that the audience is considered an equal participant in the performance; they are encouraged to ask questions and participate in discussions after the music is performed. The reception immediately following serves as a platform for discussion of the work among people of all ages and backgrounds.
Roger Smith Arts is a multi-disciplinary arts-production company providing cultural entertainment as a way to promote dialogue within and between the leading disciplines of the New York and global art worlds. The company’s mission is to establish itself as a pre-eminent and sought-after cultural institution to the city of New York. Recognizing dialogue as the backbone of any cultural organization, RSA embraces variety as a means to foster the exchange of creative ideas. RSA produces concerts, readings, performances, installations, and lectures, all with leading creative intellectuals.
For further information please call 212.339.2092 or rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com
QUICK INFO:
The Fourth Sundays Chamber Music Series with Wet Ink Ensemble
Presented by Roger Smith Arts
The Penthouse at The Roger Smith Hotel
501 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017, 47th and Lexington (Map)
Subway: E, 6, V to 53rd and Lexington or 4, 5, 6, 7 to Grand Central
January 23rd at 4pm
Price: $15 includes wine and cheese (pay at door, cash only)
Reservations: 212-339-2092 or rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com
For more information: www.rogersmithlife.com/fourth_sundays
October 24th: Fourth Sundays Chamber Music Concert with Loadbang
Posted on 06. Oct, 2010 by danikadruttman in Arts, Chamber Music Series, Events, Hotel
FOURTH SUNDAYS CHAMBER
MUSIC SERIES
PRESENTS:
LOADBANG
OCTOBER 24TH, 4pm
THE PENTHOUSE AT
THE ROGER SMITH HOTEL
TICKETS $15 INC. WINE AND CHEESE
Pseudorandom
John Cage: Four6 (1992)
Jeffrey Gavett: Proverbial (2009)
John Cage: Five (1988)
Nick Didkovsky: Firm soapy hothead (2010)
Nick Didkovsky: Firm Soapy Hothead (2010)
Performed by Loadbang
The personal computer has transformed modern life in areas both mundane and exalted, and composition is no exception. Computers are very good at processing data and carrying out instructions exactly as they are programmed to do; they are not, however, very good at true randomness. Computer-generated random numbers satisfy general tests for randomness, but are generated by a definite computational process, and are therefore known as pseudorandom. loadbang presents a program of works composed with the aid of computers and pseudorandom numbers.
John Cage had been composing using chance for decades before the personal computer was invented. With the aid of the I Ching, an ancient Chinese oracular tool, he would determine aspects of his work by tossing coins. Near the end of his life, and with the help of assistant and computer programmer Andrew Culver, Cage turned to a computer program to simulate these I Ching coin tosses. The efficiency of the system helped Cage, despite his failing health, to compose some fifty late works known as the “Number Pieces”, as they are named for the number of players they are scored for with a superscript number to indicate further works for the same number of players. The works also make use of “time brackets”, a method Cage devised of specifying the range of time in which a given action was to be performed. Four6 is one of Cage’s final works, and in typical anarchic fashion, is scored for any way of producing sounds. Each performer chooses twelve different sounds to perform which correspond to numbered time brackets in the score. Five is one of the earliest number pieces, and is scored for unspecified instruments or voices. Since loadbang is a quartet, we have commissioned composer Jude Traxler to program a Max/MSP patch to perform the fifth part, complete with pseudorandom deviations within the score’s time brackets, approximating a true human realization of the score.
Loadbang’s own Jeffrey Gavett has been working with modern software for computer-assisted composition (IRCAM’s OpenMusic) for pseudo- and non-random purposes. Proverbial is a setting of three Proverbs of Hell from William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The work’s recasting of the traditional images of Heaven and Hell is reflected in the texts, which express progressive ideas in an outwardly gruesome fashion. OM was used to determine pseudorandom microtonal deviations around central structural pitches, as well as to build the form of the piece. The unique syllabification of each proverb in each language in which it is presented determines the rhythmic structure of the instrumental and vocal parts.
Nick Didkovsky is a guitarist, composer, band leader and software programmer based in New York City. He is the creator of a programming language and the author of many computer programs specifically intended for music composition. The short movements of Firm soapy hothead are entirely composed by this software, with no ex post facto editing by Didkovsky; versions of the works are simply generated, evaluated and selected.
***
The members of Loadbang met as part of the first class of Manhattan School of Music’s Contemporary Performance program, and have been playing together ever since. In the past two years they have premiered more than 20 works for their unique instrumentation (bass clarinet, trumpet, trombone, baritone voice), including several works written by members of the band, and a new arrangement by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang. They also perform works for indeterminate ensemble, including such New York School classics as Brown’s December 1952 and Cage’s Four6. Not content to dwell solely in the realm of notated music, Loadbang is known for its searing and unpredictable improvisations, exploring the edges of instrumental and vocal timbre and technique.
Most recently they have ventured outside New York, performing in art galleries, restaurants, and churches in Boston, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. They have performed alongside musicians and ensembles such as So Percussion, Lukas Ligeti, and Newspeak. Their recent performances in New York include appearances at The Tank, The Stone, The 1st Annual New York New Music Bake Sale, and an all John Cage evening at the Gershwin Hotel.
For more information please contact Danika Druttman on 212.339.2092 or email rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com
QUICK INFO:
Fourth Sundays Chamber Music Concert Series
Performance by Loadbang
October 24th, 2010 at 4pm
Concerts take place in The Penthouse at The Roger Smith Hotel
501 Lexington Ave, at 47th Street, New York NY 10017 (map)
Cross Street: 47th Street and Lexington Avenue
Subway: E, 6, V to 53rd and Lexington or 4, 5, 6, 7 to Grand Central
Tickets: $15 inc. cheese and wine (cash only, paid at door)
Reservations: Please contact Danika Druttman on 212.339.2092 or email rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com
Further info: www.rogersmithlife.com
ALSO
Be part of the Roger Smith Hotel’s Lobby Show: As part of The Roger Smith’s latest Lobby Show Lobby Series #18: iheart variation 003, attendees of this concert are invited to create their own variation of the artist’s work in the lobby corridor, following Loadbang’s performance. Every individual ‘re-mix’ will be documented as part of a 3 month evolution of Seth Carnes’ work, on http://iheartvariation.tumblr.com http://artwelove.com and http://rogersmithlife.com
September 26th: Fourth Sundays Chamber Music Concert with The Talea Ensemble
Posted on 13. Sep, 2010 by danikadruttman in Chamber Music Series, Events
rogersmitharts
The Fourth Sundays Chamber
Music Series
with The Talea Ensemble
Tickets: $15, includes Wine & Cheese
September 26th, 2010 at 4pm
What happens when composers and performers go outside the conventional tuning systems prescribed by centuries of unquestioned pedagogy and the cumulative technological perfection of western classical instruments?
What are the reasons, historical, musical, and spiritual, for these deviations from the norm?
The Talea Ensemble presents a program that addresses these questions in music from the recent and distant past. The technique of scordatura, which literally means “mistuning” in Italian, is a salient feature in the works of all the composers on the concert. The Baroque master Heinrich Biber’s rarely-played Mystery Sonatas explore the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the mood and affect of each reflected in the retuning of the violin’s strings.
Inspired by the micro-inflections of everyday speech, which do not conveniently fit into the confines of a twelve-note system, Harry Partch rediscovered ancient tunings from the Greeks based on Pythagorean ratios, and built his own instruments to fit his personalized musical language. Turning his back on hundreds of years of western music theory, his inventions were built on the foundation of language, the mathematics of overtones, and Corporealism, the unifying of body, action, and spirit in art. Independence and individualism were great traits of Partch’s private life in addition to his music, and for several years he lived as a hobo. Barstow (1941), his first masterpiece, uses graffiti texts culled from a highway railing in Barstow, California, which he encountered during his hobo years. In the true fashion of a bard, Partch accompanied himself on the “adapted Viola,” an instrument of his own invention, as well as the Chromelodeon, capable of 43 tones to an octave.
Over the years, Partch would make several versions of the piece; Talea will perform his student Ben Johnston’s arrangement for voice and string quartet. Johnston’s student Marc Sabat, a Canadian living in Berlin, has been one of the leading exponents of just intonation, the system of tuning that Partch rediscovered from the Greeks. His 3 Chorales for Harry Partch explore the expressive power of pure, just intervals between two retuned string instruments. Taylor Brook is a young American-Canadian composer not only influenced by just intonation, but also the Hindustani music of North India. His Vocalise, for Solo Retuned Violin with Drone, is a work filled with long, sighing phrases; like Partch, he is interested in imitating the human voice through refined micro-intervals, but through the lens of another tradition.
Reimagined Tunings
Heinrich Biber: Selections from the Mystery Sonatas (ca. 1676)
for violin with continuo
Harry Partch: arr. Ben Johnston: Barstow (1941) for voice and string quartet
Marc Sabat: 3 Chorales for Harry Partch (1993) for retuned violin and viola
Taylor Brook: Vocalise (2009) for scordatura violin with drone
For further information please contact Danika Druttman on 212.339.2092 or rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com
QUICK INFO:
The Fourth Sundays Chamber Music Series with The Talea Ensemble
Presented by Roger Smith Arts
The Penthouse at The Roger Smith Hotel
501 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017, 47th and Lexington (Map)
Subway: E, 6, V to 53rd and Lexington or 4, 5, 6, 7 to Grand Central
September 26th, 2010 at 4pm
Price: $15 includes wine and cheese (pay at door, cash only)
Reservations: 212-339-2092 or rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com
For more information: www.rogersmithlife.com/fourth_sundays
Second Sundays Guitar Series: San Francisco Guitar Quartet 8/8/2010 at 4pm
Posted on 06. Aug, 2010 by danikadruttman in Art at Roger Smith, Arts, Chamber Music Series, Hotel
The Solarium, 16th floor at The Roger Smith Hotel Tickets $15, includes wine and cheese. Pay at the door, cash only . For reservations, email rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com or call 212.339.2092. Co-presented by the NYCCGS and Roger Smith Arts
Founded in 1997, the San Francisco Guitar Quartet has established itself as a dynamic force in the guitar world through its ground-breaking concerts and recordings. They are committed to presenting new music – coalescing classical, world, and improvisatory musical traditions.
The members of SFGQ, Mark Simons, Patrick O’Connell, David Dueñas, and Jon Mendle, have each distinguished themselves as recording artists and chamber musicians through their national and international touring, CD releases, and such achievements as first prize in the Baltimore Chamber Music Awards Competition, a Fulbright Scholarship, and a concert appearance in Carnegie Hall. Group members also hold faculty positions in Bay Area colleges and universities.
The SFGQ tours nationally and internationally; with performances on Guam and Taiwan, as well as appearances across the US, including: New York, New Jersey, Florida, the Northwest Guitar Festival, University of Texas Guitar Festival, Arizona State University, UC Santa Cruz, Cal State Fresno, and Glendale Community College. Other past performances include San Francisco’s Omni Series, La Guitarra California Festival, Pasadena’s Guitarra del Mar series, on NPR, and the syndicated radio shows, West Coast Live, and Classical Guitar Alive!
Fourth Sundays Chamber Music Series: Due East
Posted on 12. May, 2010 by Editor in Arts, Chamber Music Series, Events, Hotel
The award-winning contemporary music flute and percussion duo, Due East (Erin Lesser, flutes; Gregory Beyer, percussion; www.dueeast.net) will offer an electrifying program of works focused on the countless ways composers have utilized repetition/variation to focus the listener’s attention to detail.”Timeless Repetition” will take place on the Fourth Sundays Chamber Music Series, curated by Elizabeth Weisser of the iO String Quartet.
Graham Fitkin “Frame”
for six-mallet marimba and flute
Alexandre Lunsqui “Diogenes Lantern.”
for solo marimba
Eric Wubbels “Shiverer”
Members of the Wet Ink Ensemble, Alex Mincek and Eric Wubbels,
join Due East flutist, Erin Lesser.
Bernhard Lang “Difference/Repetition #1″
for flute, piano and tenor saxophone
Lou Harrison “First Concerto”
for Flute and Percussion
The Solarium, The Roger Smith Hotel
tickets $15 at the door, cash only
includes wine & cheese
Fourth Sundays Chamber Music Series: Jason Eckardt
Posted on 09. Apr, 2010 by Editor in Arts, Chamber Music Series, Events, Hotel
Sunday april 25th, 4pm
The Talea Ensemble, along with the iO Quartet, presents “When Music Becomes Unruly”. The concert focuses on award-winning composer Jason Eckardt’s 16 for flute and string trio. Jason writes, “The work’s title refers to the sixteen words that should have been excised from George Bush’s January 2003 State of the Union address: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” This false claim illustrates the policy of deceit typical of the morally impoverished current administration. As an artist angered and ashamed by my country’s actions, my deepest response is expressed in my work and my faith in art’s ability to contribute to, if not transform , society.
Additionally Jason has curated the concert. Complementing his work will be Brahms’ fierce and tragic c minor String Quartet. Jason will speak about the ideas of struggle and adversity within a musical work.
The Solarium, The Roger Smith Hotel
tickets $15 on the door, cash only
includes wine and cheese
For reservations please contact 212.339.2092
or rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com
Fourth Sundays Chamber Music Series: Stefano Gervasoni 3/28
Posted on 22. Mar, 2010 by Editor in Arts, Chamber Music Series, Events, Hotel
Sunday, March 28th @ 4pm
As part of the Talea Ensemble’s Out of Italy Festival to celebrate Italian Contemporary Music, the Talea Ensemble has invited Composer Stefano Gervasoni to curate and attend the March 28th concert, which will feature his viola solo, Tornasole, Franz Schubert’s Quartettsätz and Hugo Wolf’s Italian Serenade performed by the iO Quartet. Mr. Gervasoni will discuss his work as well as trends in Italian Contemporary Music.
Hugo Wolf Italian Serenade
(performed by the iO Quartet)
Stefano Gervasoni Tornasole for solo viola
(performed by Elizabeth Weisser, Talea Ensemble)
Franz Schubert Quartettsätz
(performed by the iO Quartet)
The Solarium, The Roger Smith Hotel
tickets $15 on the door, cash only
includes wine and cheese
For reservations please contact 212.339.2092
or rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com
Second Sundays Guitar Series: Daniel Acsadi
Posted on 25. Feb, 2010 by Editor in Arts, Chamber Music Series, Events, Hotel
Sunday March 14th, 4PM.
Daniel Acsadi is the Director of the Boston Classical Guitar Society and is finishing his Doctor of Musical Arts degree at New England Conservatory with Eliot Fisk. Through his acclaimed performances, arrangements, and teaching, Dan is a passionate advocate for both the guitar and the music of his native Hungary. Dan’s arrangements encompass art and folk music of the 18th through 21st centuries, innovatively expanding the guitar’s repertoire. He is firmly committed to the guitar as a versatile chamber music instrument, performing regularly with voice, viola, violin, flute string quartet, and guitar ensemble. Beginning his musical studies at age six, Dan earned his M.M. from New England Conservatory (NEC) and B.A. from Cornell University, where he double majored in music and economics. Dan has previously studied with Pablo Cohen and John Hall, and has performed in the masterclasses of Manuel Barrueco, Leo Brouwer, Eduardo Fernandez, and Adam Holzman. Dan maintains a large and diverse teaching studio in the Boston area.
co-presented by the NYCCGS and RogerSmithArts
The Solarium, 16th Floor
The Roger Smith Hotel
Tickets $15, includes wine and cheese
Pay at the door, cash only
For reservations, email rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com or call 212.339.2092
