Three Premieres for PSNY Composers

by Ted Gordon on March 26, 2014, 12:35 p.m.

Only a week after announcing the publication of works by Marcos Balter, we're excited to spread the word about his upcoming World Premiere with the American Composers Orchestra on April 4th at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall! Balter's work, Favela, was commissioned by the ACO and draws sonic inspiration from the favelas of Brazil, Balter's home country. Check out Balter himself talking about this piece, his first for a full orchestra:

For those in New York, be sure to check out the Czech Center's 80th birthday celebration for Christian Wolff on March 27th. The program features the American premiere of Alex Mincek's Subito: No. 2, which premeired at the Ostrava Days fesitval last year. Musicians featured in the concert include Mincek himself, Christian Wolff, Philip Glass, Thomas Buckner, and many more. Mincek's Nucleus will also be performed on the second half of the concert. Check out an excerpt of Subito: No. 2 here:

For those in Boston, be sure to attend the Boston Modern Orchestra Project's concert on Friday, March 28th, which includes the American premiere of Lei Liang's Saxophone Concerto "Xiaoxiang", for saxophone and orchestra. The piece is an orchestration of his earlier work, Memories of Xiaoxiang, for saxophone and tape, available here on PSNY. Listen to a recording to be transported to the intersection of the rivers Xiao and Xiang during the cultural revolution, where Liang "search[es] for memories of realities, fragments of the truths in this broken, fractured, and scattered soundscape."

If you happen to be in Texas, Houston's Da Camera hosts Loadbang on April 8 for a performance of Christopher Cerrone's How to Breathe Underwater, Adrian Knight's 20 Maj, as well as works by Hannah Lash, Charles Wuorinen and Andy Akiho. 

The OPERA America Songbook is Here!

by Ted Gordon on Sept. 14, 2012, 12:10 p.m.

Good news for opera lovers across America: the OPERA America Songbook is here! The Songbook is a new publication by Schott Music, co-edited by Scott Wollschleger and fellow PSNY composer Christopher Cerrone, to commemorate the launch of OPERA America's National Opera Center. The Songbook is now available for sale, in advance of the opening of the Center, and contains songs by PSNY composers Christopher Cerrone, David T. Little, Gregory Spears, and Stewart Wallace, as well as other prominent composers such as David Lang, Nico Muhly, Tod Machover, Howard Shore, Derek Bermel, and many more.

And if you'd like a taste of what kind of music the Songbook contains, American Public Media has featured one of the songs on their weekly program, Performance Today: That Night With The Green Sky, by Christopher Cerrone. That Night is a setting of text by Tao Lin, featuring soprano Melissa Hughes with pianist Thomas Bagwell. (Yes, that Tao Lin.) Check out the archived recording here.

For those of you in the NYC area, be sure to check out Loadbang performing Cerrone's How to Breathe Underwater, as well as a work by Adrian Knight, at (Le) Poission Rouge on September 18th, 2012. Stick around for The Respect Sextet performing works by Rahsaan Roland Kirk!