Concert Announcements
« Previous Entries Next Entries »Weaving Olden Dances performed by the Griffin Ensemble in Liepāja, Latvia on December 4
Monday, December 3rd, 2007
The Griffin Ensemble will perform my Weaving Olden Dances, a work based on traditional Irish and Appalachian music and scored for Clarinet, String Quartet, Piano and Bodhrán on December 4 at Liepājas Biedribas Nams (Liepāja’s Society House) at 5PM, as part of a concert in honor of the 70th Birthday of local artist Irina Ture. Several of the musicians in the ensemble, as well as others performing on the concert, have all been the subjects of Ture’s photographic portraits, many of which are currently on exhibition in the hall.
U of Michigan Percussion Ensemble performs The Persistence of Past Chemistries on December 2
Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
On Sunday December 2, 2007 at 3PM at the McIntosh Theatre of the University of Michigan, The University of Michigan Percussion Ensemble, directed by Joe Gramley, will present their semester-end concert called American Tradition and Innovation, featuring seminal works that demonstrate the twentieth-century rise of percussion as a chamber-music art as well as the ever-more-global focus of American classical percussion in our time. Along with three works by John Cage and Lou Harrison that brought an array of never-before-heard instruments from around the world to the American stage, the Ensemble will perform a rock etude (co-written by Michigan’s own Michael Udow) that marries American percussion and the modern marimba to a range of vocal traditions spanning several continents. The program is rounded out with two other unique pieces: Steve Reich’s minimalist composition “Six Marimbas” and Charles Griffin’s “The Persistence of Past Chemistries,” written entirely for wood instruments.
PROGRAM: Cage/Harrison - Double Music; Cage - Third Construction;
Harrison - Concerto for Violin with Percussion Orchestra;
Udow/Douglas - Rock Etude No. 7;
Reich - Six Marimbas;
Griffin - The Persistence of Past Chemistries.
Free - no tickets required
Percussia performs Kusanganisa in New York on December 2
Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
Flutist Margaret Lancaster joins Ingrid Gordon’s ensemble Percussia, for an eclectic flute and percussion program featuring Asian and African compositions, my Kusanganisa (Mixing, for flute and marimba 4-hands, based in part on Zimbabwean mbira patterns), as well as other contemporary classical works.
The concert will take place on December 02 at 2:00 PM at the Hart Memorial Library in Shrub Oak, New York. Admission is free.
Flutist Liene Denisjuka performs Fragmentary Rondo in Riga November 24
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
Liene Denisjuka will include my Fragmentary Rondo for unaccompanied solo flute on her concert of solo and chamber works at Rīgas Latviešu Biedrības Zālē (The Latvian Society Hall) at 7PM on November 24 in Riga.She will be joined by Liene Neija-Kalniņa (Violin) and Kristīne Paula (Piano). Other composers on the program include Artūrs Grīnups, Pēteris Vasks, Lowell Lieberman and Ian Clarke.
Gastesi-Bezerra Duo perform From the Faraway Nearby on Florida’s Anna Maria Island November 23
Friday, November 16th, 2007
The Piano Duo Gastesi-Bezerra will be performing selections from my suite of pieces for piano four-hands From the Faraway Nearby, inspired by paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church on Florida’s Anna Maria Island on Friday, November 23 at 3:00 p.m. Other composers on the program include Mozart and Debussy, plus contemporary duets by Marlene Woodward-Cooper (Deceptions), and Ronaldo Miranda (Variações Sérias).
Gastesi-Bezerra’s upcoming season will take them to Las Vegas, Washington D.C., Miami and Gainesville, and a tour of Serbia in December and of Brazil in June 2008.
Putni performs El Paso de la Seguiriya in Riga, November 23
Monday, November 12th, 2007
The women’s vocal ensemble Putni will give a repeat performance of my El Paso de la Seguiriya, a brand new setting of the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca, on Friday, November 23 at 7PM at The Dome Cathedral of Riga, located at 1 Dome Square (Doma laukums 1) in Riga as part of their program Music in the Cathedral (Mūzika katedrālē).
Commissioned with funds from the Latvian Culture Capital Fund and having grown out of some workshops I had created for Putni last year that included an introduction to flamenco, the piece includes a substantial amount of clapping in the flamenco style where the two parts interlock, called the palmas and contrapalmas.
Viksnes Piano Duo perform From the Faraway Nearby in Riga on November 16
Monday, November 12th, 2007
The piano duo Antra and Normunds Viksne will give a repeat perfomance of their program War and Peace, which includes the entire suite of my piano four-hand work inspired by paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe From the Faraway Nearby at the Bolderāja School of Music and Art in Riga (31 Stūrmaņu Street) on November 16 at 5PM. The other composers on the program are Juris Ābols, Arvo Pärt, and Arthur Benjamin.
Ana Cervantes plays Murmuring in Comala at UT Dallas on November 9
Monday, October 29th, 2007
Pianist Ana Cervantes returns to the University of Texas at Dallas, where on Saturday 9 November she will perform the US premiere of 6 pieces from Rumor de Páramo: pieces of Mexican composers Georgina Derbez and Federico Ibarra; of US composers Anne LeBaron and Charles Griffin (my Murmuring in Comala); and England’s Stephen McNeff. And there Hill be a sneak preview of two pieces from her forthcoming CD Solo Rumores –Volume 2 of the Project, to be released 29 November in Mexico City– works by Mexican composers Arturo Márquez and Juan Fernando Durán .
Cervantes appears in Dallas as part of the 30th anniversary Congress of ALTA (the American Literary Translators Association); her concert will take place after a homage to Margaret Sayers Peden and Gregory Rabassa, distinguished translators from Spanish to English of masterpieces like Pedro Páramo of Juan Rulfo and One Hundred Years of Solitude of Gabriel García Márquez, among many other works.
During her stay at UTD Cervantes will interact with Humanities students through some of her famous “concert-conversations” and teach master classes.
Moon of the Floating World performed by Cantala Women’s Choir on October 27
Monday, October 22nd, 2007
The Cantala Women’s Choir of the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music will perform my The Moon of the Floating World, an a cappella setting for women’s voices in eight parts of a haiku by Ihara Saikaku (1642-1693). The theme of the concert is Dusk to Dawn and will be conducted by Richard Bjella and Phillip A. Swan in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin on October 27 at 8PM.
Set fire to have light performed by the Madison String Quartet, October 14 & 15
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007
The New Jersey-based Madison String Quartet will perform my Set fire to have light on a program called New Worlds, along with works by Arcangel Castillo Olivari and Antonín Dvořák on Sunday October 14 at 3PM at St. Bernards Episcopal Church in Bernardsville, New Jersey. They will repeat the program the following afternoon at 1PM at the Bernards Township Library in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, as part of their Leisure Learning Series.