Timo Andres' "Early to Rise" and Home Stretch

by Ted Gordon on Aug. 28, 2013, 2:52 p.m.

Earlier in the summer, Timo Andres-- composer-pianist, graphic design enthusiast, and excellent home cook-- wrote a new string quartet, commissioned by the Library of Congress' Dina Koston and Roger Shapiro Fund for New Music, which premeired in May and is now available through PSNY. The quartet, entitled Early to Rise, combines a work ethic, economy of means, and compactness of action that somehow reminds us of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Shaker furniture, and New American Color photography, all at once. (No wonder that Andres chose a William Eggleston photo for the cover of his new album- but we're getting ahead of ourselves!). Taking a five-note ostinato from Schumann's Gesänge der Frühe, Andres crafts a four-movement string quartet that lasts all of ten minutes, crafting a tidy, expressive, and intricate work that takes Schumann's sentiments and explodes them. A hot gem of a piece-- check it out! 

And of course, we don't need to remind you to check out Timo's recent album on Nonesuch, Home Stretch, but we will. This album contains a recording of its titular work, Home Stretch, composed as a companion piece to Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 12, as well as Andres' re-invention of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 26, and Andres' Paraphrase on Themes of Brian Eno, all performed by the Metropolis Ensemble. It's gotten some fantastic reviews. So as the summer reaches its own home strech, and the temperature grows colder, and you start to crave some music for piano and chamber ensemble... well, you know what to do. 

New Works from Ingolf Dahl, Pierre Jalbert, Fred Lerdahl, and More...

by Ted Gordon on March 26, 2013, 11 a.m.

For the first time ever, the full score for Ingolf Dahl's "Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Ensemble" is available for sale! Previously only available as a piano reduction, the full score for this work can now be purchased and used by conductors, educators, and scholars alike. Dahl's concerto-- among the most performed of his repertoire-- was commissioned and premeired in 1949 by Sigurd Raschér, who was instrumental in integrating the Saxophone into the classical repertoire. After escaping Nazi persecution, Dahl had settled as an ex-patriot in California, among many other European composers and intellectials, including Arnold Schoenberg, Thomas Mann, Ernst Krenek, and others. His students-- including Michael Tilson Thomas-- carry on his legacy as a composer, conductor, pedagogue, and all-around Musikant. We are extremely happy to make this full score available, and hope that it fosters more awareness and performances of this masterwork for saxophone. 

Pierre Jalbert's "Icefield Sonnets" for soprano, baritone, and ensemble, and "Trio" for clarinet, violin, and piano are also now available. This new version of Jalbert's "Icefield Sonnets" includes settings of these poems to spectacular effect: 

Fred Lerdahl's "Time After Time" and "Fantasy Etudes" are also now available. "Time After Time", which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2001, employs Lerdahl's signature process of expanding variations on singular musical units, often to surprising new multiplicities. Throughout these processual, inevitable-sounding evolutions and mutations, melodic lyricism remains a vital part of this piece, especially in the second movement. 

Also among new works now available on PSNY: Douglas Cuomo's "A Far Playground" for cello and piano, and his work for solo cello, "...and Disbelievers". The first of these works was originally written for viola, and is now expanded; listen to an excerpt of the original here: 

And, last but not least, are three works be Lei Liang (bringing the total number of his works available on PSNY to twenty-seven!): "Lakescape Trio", "Lakescape II", and "Dialectical Percussions"; Hannah Lash's "Glockenliebe"; Joseph Schwantner's "Dream Drapery"; and Keeril Makan's "Cut" and "Bleed Through". Keep an eye out for more on Makan's music later this week! 

Springtime for PSNY: Awards! String Quartets! Opera!

by Ted Gordon on March 13, 2013, 10:53 a.m.

Great news for our PSNY composers: The American Academy of Arts and Letters has just announced its 2013 awards, and Kamran Ince and Kate Soper are among the recipients. Kamran Ince is awarded a 2013 Arts and Letters Award in Music, which includes both a general award and a specific award toward the composition of a new work. Kate Soper is awarded the 2013 Goddard Lieberson Fellowship, given to "mid-career composers of exceptional gifts." 

And if that weren't a good enough omen, March is shaping up to be a busy month: the JACK Quartet recently performed Ann Cleare's moil at Harvard University's Paine Hall. Listen to an excerpt of this piece here: 

Lei Liang's string quartet, Serashi Fragments, was also recently performed on March 8th by the Calder Quartet at the University of California San Diego. Listen to an excerpt of this work here:

We are also pleased to announce the premiere of Christopher Cerrone's opera, All Wounds Bleed, now available from PSNY. That's right: an opera available on PSNY! This staged premiere, on March 23rd, is produced by Tulsa Opera, and is directed by Kostis Protopapas. We were thrilled to be present at the premiere of Cerrone's Invisible Cities, and look forward to this next venture...