Have a look at this new interview with co-artistic directors Dylan Mattingly and David Bloom on SoundNotion TV, a fantastic source for new music news!
Typical Music
Wednesday, May 2, 2012 at 7:00 pm
Chapel of the Holy Innocents, Bard College
Free and open to the public
The final main-stage event of our third season at Bard College features the typical music of our lives: this is the unforgettable music of the beauty that always surrounds us. Come join us for this cathartic finale to an incredible season!
The night opens with the world premiere of Yotam Haber’s in memoriam: Last Skin, a vibrant and pulsing work for eight re-tuned violins. With a set of quarter-tone tunings that push to the very edges of string playing, this piece forges a breathtaking sound world that will come into being for the first time in this performance.
A winner of the Contemporaneous 2011 Call for Scores, Brooklyn composer Ted Hearne’s Cordavi and Fig is a fast-paced, jagged, and driving work for chamber orchestra, including a player who makes sounds exclusively on the inside of the piano.
The second world premiere of the evening, composer and sound designer Mark Van Hare’s new piece, Bard_11_28, is intricately fabricated from improvisations of the players themselves. Spacious and intense, the spontaneity of the performers becomes the material with which this incredible and innovative work is crafted.
Contemporaneous member Tamzin Ferré Elliott’s string quintet Heart on Her Sleeve is an intimate and poetic work whose title takes inspiration from the dance of Silvie Guillem. At times resonant and solemn, at times beautiful and violent, Heart on Her Sleeve carries and suspends the listener in a breathless state of wonder.
Finally, Evan Ziporyn’s Typical Music is a far-reaching and heart-pounding adventure through Balinese Gamelan, blues, and the virtuosic finger-flying musicianship of the piano trio. A deeply satisfying and exuberant journey, Typical Music is bursting with joy, a piece unhindered by the boundaries of genre. This is music that is “all in.”
Typical Music
Yotam Haber (b. 1976): in memoriam: Last Skin (2010-2011) ††
Ted Hearne (b. 1982): Cordavi and Fig (2007) (Winner, Contemporaneous 2011 Call for Scores)
Mark Van Hare (b. 1987): Bard_11_28 (2011) (Contemporaneous commission) ††
Tamzin Ferré Elliott (b. 1992): Heart on Her Sleeve: a piece on the lines of Silvie Guillem (2011/2012)
— Intermission —
Evan Ziporyn (b. 1959): Typical Music (2000)
Contemporaneous presents: John Adams
Friday, April 20, 2012 at 8:00 pm
Chapel of the Holy Innocents, Bard College
Free and open to the public
As the iconic and ever-youthful American composer John Adams celebrates his 65th birthday in 2012, his music continues to provide description and meaning to the very fabric of our lives. He is one of the most respected and influential figures in today’s musical scene, producing music of remarkable emotional depth that connects to people from all walks of life. With three exhilarating works from Adams’ recent output for small and medium performing forces, this exciting program showcases his unique musical voice of unrestrained eclecticism.
With sardonic humor, prairie folksiness, and an incredible emotional directness, Gnarly Buttons, a zany and high-flying romp for solo clarinet and chamber ensemble opens this program. Boston-based composer and deft clarinetist Conor Brown joins us to bring this piece to life. Called “dangerously exhilarating” by the Financial Times, Son of Chamber Symphony is a vibrant rush of airborne riffs and rhythmic edginess. These two works represent Adams the trickster: the fast-moving and joy-riding music of someone who can twist and contort sound at will, pulling the audience along an emotional journey like a puppeteer.
The culmination of our program is Adams’ recent String Quartet, alternatively an intense and intimate work, sending its musicians acrobatically across their instruments in a frenzied but brooding piece of absolute music, itself its own organism, forming and reforming as it moves through time. With its immense emotional palate, the sprawling first movement is musically all-encompassing, while the second and final movement features an electrifyingly inexorable drive to a climactic conclusion.
John Adams Program
John Adams (b. 1947):
Son of Chamber Symphony (2007)
— Intermission —
String Quartet (2008)
Contemporaneous in NYC tonight!
TONIGHT! Wednesday, April 11, 8PM
Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Center
129 West 67th Street, NYC
Come hear Contemporaneous play Dylan Mattingly’s epic chamber orchestra work “Atlas of Somewhere on the Way to Howland Island” at the CD release event for our debut album on Innova Recordings and the opening night of the Tribeca New Music Festival! It’s a spit show with William Zuckerman’s new group Symphony Z and should be fantastic!
Contemporaneous co-artistic director Dylan Mattingly wrote his chamber orchestra epic Atlas of Somewhere on the way to Howland Island specifically for us. Come hear us play it at the Tribeca New Music Festival April 11 at 8 pm at Merkin Hall at the release event for our debut album for Innova Recordings, which includes this work! Here are Dylan’s beautiful program notes:
Atlas of Somewhere on the Way to Howland Island is for all those voyagers between horizons: for those — past and present — who have flown into storms, for those floating dreamscapes out beyond the curvature of the sunrise, for those that reach escape velocity, for when even your endless arms can’t rearrange the constellations.
For Amelia Earhart and her whirring Lockheed Electra 10e like the soft black humming of the universe compressing a night down onto our windows, that vastness that makes our little lights shine so warm and microscopic, that turns planets into lighthouses, for her radial engine spinning and spinning like an echo, flying, flying, flying, flying, flying across such desolate beauty between the stars.
Atlas of Somewhere on the Way to Howland Island is for that strange and wonderful direction in such directionlessness that turns an endless crashing blue to all horizons into forward and backward, that sends waves towards you and away from you and turns a set of moments into the come & gone, that turns a set of interactions — slight movements of hair, words and dances, cloud-borne connections, soft unexpected breath, the rhythm of laughing — into a music of awakeness, that turns a set of towardses and aways and leaps and crossings and climbings and footsteps and the untreadable into a map, and turns a set of maps into an atlas.
Howland Island is a small shadow-shaped stretch of gravel, barely rising above the surface of the South Pacific, about halfway between Fiji and Hawaii. On the island an airstrip was built for Amelia Earhart to land and refuel before the final leg of her journey around the world, but she disappeared somewhere along the way. The airstrip was then bombed by the Japanese in World War II without any plane ever having landed on Howland Island.
Atlas of Somewhere on the Way to Howland Island is scored for a large chamber orchestra, including harp tuned down one-quarter tone and an engine of an eventual three keyboard players (piano, harpsichord, and toy piano). The piece is divided into two major adjoined movements. However, the journey is separated into a series of emotional checkpoints, as follows:
I. Radial Liftoff Music for Amelia Earhart
— Like Electras 10E and Constellations
— City music, when even the snow breathes jazz …
— Crossing Music / Endless Blue
— Desolation music, like waves and shadows between blinks …
— Paradise Engine
— Slight Passacaglia
— Whirring ethereal, like lightning and trains …
— “O Amelia! It was just a false alarm.”
— Radial Engine / Involuntary Memory
II. Islanded in a Stream of Stars
— Sleep translates celestial bodies …
— Elegy
— Starship
— Dylan Mattingly
Tribeca New Music Festival presents:
Atlas of Somewhere on the Way to Howland Island
Wednesday, April 11 at 8:00 pm
Merkin Concert Hall, 129 West 67th Street, NYC
Tickets $10-20 - purchase here
Contemporaneous is incredibly excited to be a guest artist on the 2012 season of the Tribeca New Music Festival, New York City’s avant-pop monster. We will be opening their 11th season with a performance of our co-artistic director Dylan Mattingly’s Atlas of Somewhere on the Way to Howland Island at the superlative Merkin Concert Hall in New York City! You won’t want to miss this live performance of Dylan’s epic and beautiful tone poem for large chamber orchestra that depicts Amelia Earhart’s inspiring final flight.
This exciting show will also be the official CD release event for our debut album, Stream of Stars - Music of Dylan Mattingly, so come to meet the artists and claim your copy after hearing us play the album’s largest work!
Also featured on the show will be Brooklyn-based composer William Zuckerman, who wrote a new piece specifically for Contemporaneous last year. His new group Symphony Z will make it’s debut performing William’s Music in Pluralism, a wildly eclectic work for large ensemble, with Contemporaneous co-artistic director David Bloom conducting. For more information on this show, click here.
It is with incredible excitement that Contemporaneous delivers this news:
We have been invited to release our debut album, which consists of Dylan Mattingly’s Atlas of Somewhere on the Way to Howland Island, Lighthouse, and Six Night Sunrise on innova Recordings! This is quite a well-known label, affiliated with the American Composers Forum, that releases the most exciting music of our time from a broad range of genres and artists. We will be launching a Kickstarter campaign soon to help fund this release and to promote the new disc. Stay tuned to see it on the air in the coming weeks!
Also, Contemporaneous was revently invited to play Dylan’s Atlas at the Tribeca New Music Festival, a really cool annual festival of cutting-edge new music that breaks down traditional ideas of genre. This show will be in late April or early May in New York City, so look out for the announcement soon!
Shawn Jaeger reflects on premiere
Contemporaneous featured composer Shawn Jaeger was selected for Carnegie Hall’s Professional Training Workshop, where he had the opportunity to work with specially selected vocalists and two stellar professional musicians: Dawn Upshaw, Donnacha Dennehy, and Contemporaneous Advisory Board member Alan Pierson. Contemporaneous will perform Shawn’s piece “Letters Made with Gold,” premiered at Carnegie Hall, on September 24 and 25, 2011 with his wife, Lucy Dhegrae, as soprano soloist. Below, Shawn shares his experience of with the Carnegie Workshop.
As a young composer, I’m used to working on a piece in isolation, attending a single rehearsal the day before the concert, then doing my best to savor the premiere, as it’s often the last time I’ll hear that work again live! Last week, though, I participated in an exciting Weill Music Institute Professional Training Workshop that upended everything about this typical scenario.
For one, there was no isolation: I collaborated with two wonderful singers—sharing recordings, texts, and sketches with them—and received feedback from two wonderful mentors, soprano Dawn Upshaw and composer Donnacha Dennehy. There was an entire week of rehearsals, and I participated in every one! Finally, the Weill Music Institute organized a Neighborhood Concert in addition to the premiere in Zankel Hall because they believed in giving my piece a life on stage.
Beyond all this, I had the privilege to work with mentors and musicians who put themselves fully into my music. Often, in rhythmically challenging music—as mine is—a merely accurate performance is considered a success. But right away, Dawn pushed the singers and the ensemble to get past the rhythms and shape the long line. This was hard for me to accept initially, being the creator of those intricate rhythms, although I soon realized that Dawn’s foresight was inspired—and the culminating performances much stronger for it. On several occasions, the performers realized my intentions more fully than I did. To take one example, I had written a humming passage for one of my singers, Margot Rood, that didn’t quite work. She realized the intent was to sound like she was singing to herself, and by mixing a few wordless vocalises (a skill drill) into the humming, she made the passage sound wonderfully intimate and natural.
To have mentors and performers that devote this level of care and intention to one’s music is a rare treat, and I was honored and humbled to have worked with them. It was a highlight of my creative life.
— Shawn Jaeger
One of two sopranos to perform the premiere of Shawn’s piece was Margot Rood, a versatile, Boston-based new and early music specialist. She shares her experiences below.
Upon receiving my acceptance notification for this workshop, I have to admit I was giddy with excitement. The chance to work with such professionals as Dawn Upshaw and Donnacha Dennehy (at the same time!) was, forgive the expression, a dream come true. I had the privilege to sing Shawn Jaeger’s song cycle, Letters Made with Gold, and as soon as I opened the score I knew an incredible week in New York was in store. I started work as soon as I could by e-mailing Shawn with questions and ideas. I was thrilled to receive enthusiastic and immediate responses!
After months of working on the piece by myself with only an electronic representation of it to guide me, it came time to start rehearsals. I was amazed at how approachable Dawn and Donnacha were; how they encouraged a constant supportive dialogue about the piece and made every rehearsal fulfilling, productive, and fun. Not once did I feel intimidated when I had a question for Shawn or for our fearless conductor, Alan Pierson.
To put it simply, the collaboration aspect of this workshop is what truly stood out to me, from my first email exchanges with Shawn to the performance on Zankel Hall’s stage. Everyone in the rehearsal room worked tirelessly to give life to this music—hat tip to the instrumentalists who were absolutely fantastic and a blast to work with! The workshop itself was only one week of rehearsing in New York, but in reality it was several months of learning and growing with a brand-new, very special piece of music—an experience that will stay with me forever.
— Margot Rood
The premiere performance at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall garnered an excellent New York Times review. Here is an excerpt about Shawn’s piece:
Shawn Jaeger, in Letters Made with Gold, memorably reset the lyrics of three folk songs to spare, enigmatic melodies that leapt and oozed unpredictably. Margot Rood, a soprano, performed with luminosity and grace. And when Fanny Alofs, a mezzo-soprano, brought an arresting intensity to And am I born to die? you sensed the entire audience holding its breath in wonder.
— Steve Smith, The New York Times
Don’t miss Contemporaneous performing this incredibly moving piece with the dazzling soprano Lucy Dhegrae, the composer’s wife, as soloist. The performances will be Saturday, September 24 at 8:00 pm at the Chapel of the Holy Innocents at Bard College and Sunday, September 25 at 8:00 pm at Galapagos in Brooklyn.
Contemporaneous presents: “Internal/External Combustion”
Friday, April 1, 2011 at 8:00 pm
Chapel of the Holy Innocents, Bard College
Free and open to the public
Saturday, April 2, 2011 at 7:00 pm
Colony Café, Woodstock, NY
General admission $10 – Student admission $5
Whether driven by the ignition of a tight, internal chamber or a blazing combustion from outside, Contemporaneous brings a program of music that is sure to set your spirits aflame. Including three world premieres and a New York premiere, this concert fuses works that will move you from within with works that will make you move on the outside. Three young, emerging composers join three established sages for a high-octane result.
Brilliant young composer Ryan Chase’s inspired new setting of the classic Lewis Carroll poem Jabberwocky captures the bizarre nature of the text with deft precision, sharp wit, and staggering intricacy. Contemporaneous is thrilled to be joined by the voraciously versatile soprano Ariadne Greif, to whom the work is dedicated, to present the world premiere of this fantastic new work. For more information about this piece, look at our blog post about it. In a beautifully introverted new piece written for Contemporaneous, Bill Zuckerman brings a heart-warming world premiere to the concert that is propelled by the memory of someone close. Don’t be alarmed as we kick it back into high gear for Stephen Feigenbaum’s dynamically funky Grooves and Ruts.
John Halle’s rock-infused setting of Sam Smith’s poignantly hilarious essay Apology to Younger Americans opens the second half of the program with immensely talented soprano Lucy Dhegrae displaying her amazing ability to blend classical and popular vocal styles. Spinning almost out of control, Kyle Gann’s world premiere string quartet is a spacial experience lying somewhere between internal and external combustion. To close the program, Bang on a Can co-founder Julia Wolfe’s Four Marys is a magnification and infusion of the folk sounds of the mountain dulcimer and the accordion in passionately intimate and wildly strumming piece.
Internal/External Combustion Program:
Ryan Chase (b. 1987): Jabberwocky (2010) †
William Zuckerman (b. 1989): The Sky Ending from Infinity Plus One (2011) (Contemporaneous commission) †
Stephen Feigenbaum (b. 1989): Grooves and Ruts (2008) *
– Intermission –
John Halle (b. 1959): Apology to Younger Americans (2007)
Kyle Gann (b. 1955): Concord Spiral (2010) †
Julia Wolfe (b. 1958): Four Marys (1991)
* New York premiere
† World premiere
Putting music into Sibelius is one of the most tedious processes I’ve ever experienced. I don’t think it’ll ever go by quickly or become anything less than a hassle.
Too true, Jesse Brown, too! Too true!
About me
Contemporaneous is a versatile, entirely youth-run new music ensemble based in New York. www.contemporaneous.org
