Katharina Rosenberger's "Folds" at National Sawdust

by Ted Gordon on Jan. 25, 2019, 9:13 a.m.

Katharina Rosenberger has had a busy winter: in December, her Modules was performed by the Ensemble KNM Berlin at the Heroines of Sound Festival; and in January, Rosenberger, the violinist Miranda Cuckson, and the media artist John Burnett premiered Folds at National Sawdust's FERUS Festival.

Folds begins from the cantata "Sino alla morte," composed by 17th-century composer-performer Barbara Strozzi, and interweaves that composition with new music for violin and electroacoustic sounds made by Rosenberger, accompanied by Burnett's projection work; the sounds are "folded" together, often quite literally, with the sounds of paper—manuscripts, sculptures, scraps, sometimes placed between the violin's strings themelves. 

Continuing this busy season, Rosenberger will see her 2013 work Gesang an das noch namenlose Land [Song for the yet nameless land] performed by Ensemble Contrechamps in Geneva and Sion, Switzerland. This work, made in collaboration with New York-based artist Abdolreza Aminlari, explores Amerigo Vespucci's 1503 publication, "Mundus-Novus," written discussing his travels to the "new world." Check out a recording of the work below. 

PSNY Recent Recordings: Part III

by Ted Gordon on June 5, 2018, 11:11 a.m.

We're back with another post featuring recent recordings of works by PSNY composers. This round begins with Mario Diaz de Leon's  Sanctuary, a 2017 album performed by the TAK Ensemble, which contains a unified, album-length piece created in collaboration with the performers. Sanctuary continues Diaz de Leon's exploration of intensities—of timbre, including the extensive use of electronics alongside acoustic instruments and the human voice; of rhythm, contrasting the bubbling arpeggios of electronic instruments to the cycles of breath and bow; and of the expressive possibilities of melody, carefully interwoven between instruments and voices. As Seth Colter Walls wrote in the New York Times, "The edgy electronic timbres can serve a range of compositional functions: contrasting dramatically with the purity of a soprano’s sound, in one moment, before finding, in the bass clarinet, a partner in grain." Check out "Sanctuary" below. 

In 2017, Alex Mincek also released a major album that collects recordings of several recent works, entitled Torrent. Released by Sound American, Torrent includes recordings of several works performed by members of the Wet Ink Large Ensemble, Yarn/Wire, and the Mivos Quartet. These works were all composed in the past seven years, and include Pendulum VII, which is available from PSNY. Check out an excerpt below: 

Katharina Rosenberger also released a major album in 2017, Shift, performed by memebrs of Los Angeles's wasteLAnd and Rage Trombones (Matt Barbier & Weston Olencki). Released on famed expeirmental label HatHut records, Shift explores spatialization, long-form improvisation, and modularity, and was immaculately recorded by Tom Erbe at the University of California, San Diego. Check out an excerpt below.  

Scott Wollschleger's Soft Aberration, a major release on New Focus Records, collects beautiful performances of many of the composer's works, perfomed by soprano Corrine Byrne, trumpeter Andy Kozar, violist Anne Lanzilotti, cellist John Popham, pianist Karl Larson, Mivos Quartet, and Longleash trio. Check out an in-depth review at I Care If You Listen, which praises Wollschleger's works such as Soft Aberration, Brontal Symmetry, Bring Something Incomprehensible Into This World!, America, and String Quarter No. 2 "White Wall."

And finally on this roundup of dedicated composer portrait albums, we're pleased to feature The Music of Fred Lerdahl, Volume 5, released on Bridge Records. The four performances on this album present works from Lerdahl's long career, including Episodes & Refrains (1982), Quiet Music (1994 arr. 2001), Times 3 (2012), and Time and Again (2014). Check out an excerpt of Quiet Music below.

Katharina Rosenberger Featured in Berlin - Los Angeles, Witten Chamber Music Festival

by Ted Gordon on April 30, 2018, 2:50 p.m.

In her own words, Katharina Rosenberger's family history ranges "from Berlin to Hamburg to Zurich and from East Prussia to the river banks of the Rio de la Plata in Uruguay"— an international heritage that has inspired the composer to participate in several international collaborations. Recently, Rosenberger has been featured by the sister cities of Berlin and Los Angeles, who celebrated their 50th anniversary as sister cities in 2017. Berlin - Los Angeles has interviewed Rosenberger about her collaborative, interactive VIVA VOCE project, which premiered in 2013 in Los Angeles' Human Resources gallery. Created with Berlin-based video artist Heiko Kalmbach, Rosenberger produced an interactice interface that celebrates experimental vocal performance art, with interviews, oral histories, and peformances by three esteemed vocalists in three separate cities: Juliana Snapper (Los Angeles), Shelley Hirsch (New York), and Pamela Z (San Francisco). Check out video from the premiere below: 

Across the Atlantic, Rosenberger's compositions have also recently been featured in the Wittner Tage für neue Kammermusik [Witten Days of New Chamber Music]. The festival featured the world premiere of her new work surge, for clarinet, cello, and piano, and also featured an installation of her video work, Quartet. 

Back in Los Angeles, on May 7th, Rosenberger will oversee the American premiere of SHIFT, conducted by Nicholas Deyoe and featuring trombonists Matt Barbier and Weston Olencki, along with students at the California Institute for the Arts, in a program that also features student compositions and György Ligeti's Violin Concerto.