Andrew Norman Across America

by Ted Gordon on Oct. 3, 2013, 5:05 p.m.

As the academic year gets underway for students across America, the University of Southern California in Los Angeles can count among its ranks a new Professor of Music: Brooklyn's own Andrew Norman. For the past two years, Norman has engaged with ensembles on both coasts, as Composer-In-Residence for the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Opera Philadelphia, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Norman's BMOP residency has culminated in a recording project, which will be a full-length CD released on BMOP/Sound of his works. In Los Angeles, Norman has completed his LACO Residency and has now been named an assistant professor at the USC Thornton School of Music. And back on the east coast, Norman starts his residence at Opera Philadelphia this month, sponsored by a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Ten of Andrew's works are available through PSNY, including The Companion Guide to Rome, which was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist in 2012. Music in Circles III, which was co-commissioned by LACO's Sound Investment program and Brigham Young University, is also available as a study score. (Next year's Sound Investment is Hannah Lash-- check out her works available from PSNY as well!)

Check out a video of LACO performing The Great Swiftness below! 

Christopher Cerrone in New York and Los Angeles, New Work from Kate Soper, and More!

by Ted Gordon on April 19, 2013, 2:15 p.m.

Christopher Cerrone's music has quickly become a staple of New Music ensembles' repertoire across the country. From electro-acoustic works commissioned and premiered by NYC's Red Light New Music, to chamber operas performed in Virginia, Connecticut, and Oklahoma, Cerrone has gained a huge presence in the past few years. Little wonder, then, that pianist Vicky Chow and percussionist Owen Weaver will be performing his piece for piano and electronics, Hoyt-Schermerhorn, and percussion and electronics, Memory Palace, alongside the New York premiere of John Luther Adams' 2010 work, Four Thousand Holes, on April 22nd at Le Poisson Rouge. Chow and Weaver have been performing Cerrone's works together since 2012's Fast Forward Austin festival; Weaver commissioned and premiered Memory Palace in that same year.

Weaver comments: “We think John Luther Adams’ and Chris Cerrone’s works both compliment and contrast each other. Chris's music focuses on color and simple, elegant forms that allow time and space for ideas to shift and grow. John's music often provides stasis through complex layers of rhythm--so much happening that things blur together to give a slow moving picture with a long-minded trajectory. In different ways, they both draw the listener into their world with a patient, yet focused approach.”

Listeners on the West coast also have an opportunity to hear Cerrone's works this weekend during the Los Angeles Philharmonic's "Brooklyn Festival." On April 18th, 20th, and 21st, Cerrone's Invisible Overture will be performed alongside Hannah Lash's Hush, a world premeire by Ted Hearne, and Aaron Copland's Symphony for Organ and Orchestra. Originally concieved as an overture for his opera, Invisible Cities, based on Italo Calvino's novel of the same name, Invisible Overture is a standalone piece, recalling the drama and interrogation of sonic experience which Cerrone explores in the opera. 

Cerrone writes, "My ideas for the overture began by listening to the resonance of decaying sounds on the piano. By holding down certain notes in the low register while playing, sympathetic vibrations create an unearthly halo of sound. The resonance is both beautiful and unstable, hovering just above silence." 

Check out recordings of these two works here:

 We at PSNY are also pleased to announce the availablity of Kate Soper's powerful work, Only The Words Themselves Mean What They Say. Soper's work, which often revolves around questions of expression, semiotics, vocality, and communication, sees its full manifestation in this work, for flute and voice, with a text by Lydia Davis. This is the first time that Soper's work is available to the public, and we don't doubt that it will hold an invaluable place in any contemporary singer's repertoire. 

And, last but not least, Katharina Rosenberger's Viva Voce project is finally completed! An interactive sound and video installation, Viva Voce involves compositions by Rosenberger for some of the most vital experimental vocal performers in the field, including Juliana Snapper, Shelley Hirsch, and Pamela Z. Keep your eyes out for more videos and documentation of this project at www.vivavoce.ch.