Talea Ensemble in the PSNY Greenroom

by Ted Gordon on June 10, 2014, 6:32 p.m.

The PSNY Greenroom is where cutting-edge music ensembles share their excitement about new compositions, highlighting their picks from our ever-expanding catalogue of chamber works and more. Our last installment featured Kevin Stalheim of Present Music, who shared his love of works by Andrew Norman, Christopher Cerrone, Kamran Ince, Timothy Andres, and Marcos Balter.

For our most recent installment, Alex Lipowski of New York's powerhouse Talea Ensemble explores his taste in chamber music, with composers from around the world. The Talea Ensemble is one of the most innovative ensembles on the scene today, and one of the largest, with twenty members filling out their ranks. Co-founded by Lipowski and our very own Anthony Cheung, the ensemble commissions composers both local and abroad and is committed to performing vital pieces from the expanding landscape of contemporary music, a cosmopolitanism that is reflected in Lipowski's picks from our catalogue. Check out recordings of his selections below and visit Talea's Greenroom to read more about Alex's Picks. 

The Summer of Alex Mincek

by Ted Gordon on June 13, 2013, 3:18 p.m.

Who knew that one composer could be so busy in such a short amount of time? Alex Mincek, recent recipient of the prestigious Alpert Award in the Arts , is quickly gaining an international reputation for his work, both written for chamber ensembles and for orchestra. His String Quartet No. 3, "lift - tilt - filter - split", has been recently performed by both the MIVOS Quartet and the JACK Quartet, MIVOS giving the Canadian premiere of the piece last month, and JACK performing it alongside the Arditti String Quartet at Wigmore Hall. JACK's performance garnered favorable reviews in The Guardian and severalblogs, and a live recording is available through Wigmore Hall's in-house record label. (The live recording, by the way, also includes recordings of Ligeti's Second String Quartet, as well as Matthias Pintscher's Study IV for Treatise on the Veil!)

The JACK Quartet have also recorded Mincek's String Quartet No. 3 on an album released by Carrier Records, which also has recordings of his Pendulum V, Pendulum III, Poco a Poco, and Nucleus. Be sure to follow us on twitter (@Schott_NY) where we'll be giving away two free copies of Alex's Carrier Records album!

For those of you who can't wait to get your hands on that beautifully recorded and crafted CD, here's a video of the MIVOS quartet performing the work at the Darmstat Summer Course for New Music last year: 

And in addition to the activity surrounding Mincek's String Quartet No. 3, the Ensemble Cairn, which in March commissioned a new chamber work from Mincek entitled "donegal", performed that work for a second time at the Hippodrome Douai-- an archived recording of which is still avaialble from Radio France. 

What's that? You demand even more work from this already-busy, internationally-accoladed composer? Well-- be on the lookout for loadbang, New York's bleeding-edge ensemble for "lung-powered instrumentation" (bass clarinet, trumpet, trombone, and baritone voice), performing Mincek's also-recently-commissioned piece, "number may be defined." And, if you find yourself at the Ostrava Days institute/festival this summer, keep your ears out at the final concert of the festival, which will include an excerpt from a brand-new large orchestral work, to be affiliated with Mincek's Pendulum works. So, keep Mincek's other pendulum works—two of which are available through PSNY— in mind!  

Matthias Pintscher on the East Coast: Upcoming Curtis, Washington, DC Concerts

by Ted Gordon on Dec. 4, 2012, 9:52 p.m.

Matthias Pintscher, who in 2013 takes up the reigns of the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris, isn't leaving the States quite yet: this weekend, December 8th and 9th, Pintscher conducts a series of two concerts featuring eighth blackbird and Curtis 20/21, the Curtis Institute of Music's resident student new music ensemble, in Philadelphia. With Pintscher conducting, the two ensembles perform a program of works curated by Pintscher including his solo piano work, on a clear day, as well as works by Berio, Donatoni, and Schoenberg. The performances are free and open to the public, and take place in Curtis' Gould Rehearsal Hall. 

And if you can't make the performances in Philadelphia, check out Pintscher in Washington, DC: on December 13th, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) presents their Composer Portrait on Matthias Pintscher at the Phillips Collection. The program also includes on a clear day, as well as a rare performance of dernier espace avec introspecteur, for accordion and cello, featuring accordion player William Schimmel. 

Watch Claire Chase of ICE and Melissa Smey of Columbia's Miller Theater discuss this Composer Portrait concert below: 

We're sure these are concerts you won't want to miss!