News
Concert tonight: Jack Curtis Dubowsky Ensemble at Blue Bag Records
The headline says it all on this one. The Jack Curtis Dubowsky Ensemble has a free show tonight at Blue Bag Records in Echo Park. They’ll be performing the ensemble’s new work, How I Got To Long Beach. The show is free and starts at 8.
Tonight at Monk Space: a Mark Robson harpsichord premiere, Ligeti, Cowell, and old music
Tuesdays at Monk Space, the series run by Aron Kallay and Jason Heath in K-town, has a really cool mix of old and new happening tonight at 8. The first half of the program features Ensemble Hotteterre performing music by Couperin, Telemann and Phillidor on period instruments. The second is a Mark Robson solo harpsichord show, with pieces by Henry Cowell, Alexander Tcherepnin, Maurice Ohana, György Ligeti, and a premiere from Robson himself, along with selections from Froberger, Rossi, Scarlatti, and Giovanni de Macque for flavor.
Full info on the show is available at http://tuesdaysatmonkspace.org/shows/oldmusic-newmusic.
Last day to vote for The Industry’s Hopscotch for #LA2050
The Industry, Yuval Sharon’s visionary opera company, has announced their next project. Hopscotch will be a mobile opera that takes place simultaneously in 18 cars driving around LA, with audiences either riding along or watching from a central hub. Six composers are involved, and, importantly, they’re in the running for a $100,000 grant.
You can help them out by casting a vote in their favor at http://myla2050create.maker.good.is/projects/HOPSCOTCH. There are just a few hours left.
Here’s a video that The Industry posted introducing the project.
Chris Rountree + wild Up: Stand Still Like the Hummingbird
wild Up are accompanying Ezralow Dance at the Ford Theatre tonight, so I thought it’d be appropriate to post a track. Plus I heard this as background music on KRCW yesterday and thought “whoa, Chris is on KCRW!” (To be fair, it was an ad for the show.)
Stand still like the hummingbird opens wild Up’s record Feather & Stone, which was released earlier this year on Populist Records. It’s jazzy in a 40’s mellow bop kind of way, but has no shortage of insane left-turns that only an ensemble as flexible as these guys can pull off.
Discount code today for Synchromy’s Friday concert
Synchromy’s concert tomorrow with Brightwork and Mark Robson at Occidental College’s Bird Studio is looking like it’s going to be rad. They’ve put up a discount code for tickets that will work through 10 PM tonight. If you haven’t grabbed yours yet, enter 6OFFFRIDAY on the ticket page for $6 off.
Tickets are available at http://synchromyrelaunch.brownpapertickets.com.
See you tomorrow.
Welcoming Andrew Glick to New Classic LA
I’m pleased to announce that New Classic LA has snagged a great first round pick for new writers. As of today, you’ll start seeing posts from Andrew Glick.
Andrew has previously worked at the American Composers Orchestra, Brooklyn Philharmonic (R.I.P.), Opus 3 Artists as well as Programming Manager at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia and as Associate Manager, Artistic Planning for the LA Philharmonic. He has always had a close relationship with composers and contemporary music and looks forward to sharing his diverse and varied musical tastes while helping promote music and events happening in and around Los Angeles.
I’m so glad to have Andrew on the team, and am sure that you’ll enjoy reading his writing. If anyone else is interested in contributing to New Classic LA, please send us a message via the form on the “about” page.
9/8 – 9/14: Event picks this week
Tuesday, 9/9
Southland Ensemble plays Oliveros at Human Resources
Southland Ensemble and guest duelist Jake Rosenzweig as we explore the work of Pauline Oliveros on Tuesday September 9th at Human Resources!! From tape pieces to a duel for Double Basses (with referee), these are some very beautiful and odd pieces by the wonderful Pauline Oliveros.
Ticket price: $12
Sonic Rorschach
Thirteen Changes
Double Basses at Twenty Paces
Rock Piece
Bye Bye Butterfly
Song for Margrit
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Thursday, 9/11
Earth @ Hollywood Forever Cemetary
For those of you who like your metal drone-y and minimal, these guys are not to be missed.
$20
Friday, 9/12
Synchromy returns in 2014 with re: Launch, a concert of 21st Century chamber music at Occidental College’s historic Bird Studio in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles. The program includes the works of Jason Barabba, Tom Flaherty, John Frantzen, Vera Ivanova, Shaun Naidoo, Nick Norton, Ben Phelps and Mark Robson.
Synchromy is proud to be partnering with Brightwork newmusic, a recently-formed sextet of world class instrumentalists on reLaunch. Brightwork will be bringing Shaun Naidoo’s Ararat to the program, as well as participating in several other works, marking the beginning of a long-term collaboration between the two organizations. Brightwork newmusic is Sara Andon, Aron Kallay, Roger Lebow, Tereza Stanislav, Nick Terry and Brian Walsh.
Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/793348
Free parking is available in the structure, entrance on Campus Road, one half block up the hill from Bird Road on Campus Road.
Saturday, 9/13
Following his success choreographing for the 2014 Sochi Olympics opening ceremonies, Daniel Ezralow brings his LA based Ezralow Dance to the Ford, featuring a commissioned premiere with live music by contemporary music collective wild Up. “Unforgettably gutsy” (NY Times) and hailed as “One of the best American dancer-choreographers now working on an international scale” (Chicago Tribune), Ezralow has created choreography and aerial choreography for theatre, film, opera and television around the world. He choreographed The Beatles LOVE by Cirque du Soleil, Broadway’s Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark, the film Across the Universe and for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Batsheva Dance Company and Paris Opera Ballet among others. Ezralow is a co-founder of ISO Dance and an original dancer/choreographer of MOMIX.
LA, I Have Missed You SO Much
You might remember a couple of years ago, when New Classic LA was posting a few items a week, keeping totally up-to-date concert listings, and generally being an active website about our town’s scene. It was great. There was a lot going on to cover. So why did we stop?
In short, I moved out of town. I had to for the first couple of years of my PhD in composition. Going back to school was a great decision for me, and I’m glad I did it, but man did I miss what was going on here. I tried to keep active with our scene from Santa Barbara (a mere two hours North), but getting into town on weeknights was really challenging, as was finding time to write for the site with classes and projects and such taking priority.
By the end of the second year there, being away from Los Angeles was driving me nuts. There was SO MUCH going on here. The LA Phil had an LA composers’ concert, and wild Up got onstage at Disney Hall. What’s Next? Ensemble brought Jacob TV over from the Netherlands for a weeklong residency. Gnarwhallaby played Carnegie Hall. The Industry blew everyone’s collective mind with their interactive staging of Chris Cerrone’s Invisible Cities at Union Station. Nick Deyoe, Matt Barbier, Brian Griffeath-Loeb, and Scott Worthington founded WasteLAnd (which is quickly becoming my favorite concert series). Populist records has been putting out amazing records left and right. Aron Kallay founded Brightwork newmusic. People Inside Electronics partnered with the Hear Now Festival for their largest festival yet. Julia Adolphe got a piece played by the New York Phil. Synchromy – which I’m now a part of – reconfigured themselves for a fantastic upcoming season. Oh, and Alex Ross said we had the best orchestra in the US. Not that this is a competition.
Why am I saying all this? Because I want to say thanks, and let everyone know that New Classic LA is back. Thanks for keeping the seat warm while we were gone. I moved back to LA last week, and intend to get the site going full steam again in short order. We’ll have a new, easier-to-navigate concert listing. We’ll post sounds way, way more often. We’ll plug your shows, and interview composers and musicians who are doing interesting things.
I was sitting at Intelligentsia in Pasadena today and thinking that, while this is the most-hyped coffee in the US, it entirely deserves and lives up to the hype. So does LA’s new music scene. It’s great to be back. See you at the Southland Ensemble’s all Pauline Oliveros show on Tuesday.
Now Hear Ensemble: Made in California release concert at REDCAT on Saturday
Now Hear Ensemble‘s Made in California project, which commissioned works from 11 Californian composers for a tour and record, is nearing completion. The record came out yesterday, and they’re having a release concert, this Saturday, November 2, at REDCAT. Here’s a preview video:
The whole record is pretty rad. I went to see them in San Diego last weekend (full disclosure: I have a piece in the project), and while all the music they’ve commissioned and perform is impressive, and covers a pretty wide range of styles and ideas (Todd Lerew’s Variable Speed Machine, a drone-based piece custom-made monochords, provide a fantastic and beautiful contrast to the post-minimal groove of a few earlier tracks on the CD), they’ve managed to bring something of a masterpiece into the world with Dan VanHassel’s Ghost in the Machine. It comes across well on recording, but seeing its robot-controlled deconstruction of a drumset onstage, which is far more peaceful and introspective than it sounds, is the rare completely-new-experience-that-actually-sounds-great that we so often fall short of. This piece needs to be heard, seen, talked about, and learned from.
Full info on the record is at nowhearensemble.com/MadeInCaliforniaAlbum. Tickets for the show are at redcat.org/event/now-hear-ensemble. No streaming links just yet, but it’s available on iTunes and Amazon, among all the other standard places.
Aron Kallay’s Beyond 12 is out now
Dedicated readers may remember pianist, composer, teacher, and concert organizer Aron Kallay’s interview about his Beyond 12 project. If not…well, that was a link, and here’s a picture of him with a toy piano:
In any case, he’s released a CD of works by composers who have drastically retuned and reorganized the piano. And it rocks. It’s out now on Microfest records. Composers include Isaac Schankler, Kyle Gann, Tom Flaherty, Brian Shepard (with the standout All The Pretty Colour of The Rainbow) and others. It’s absolutely fascinating listening. Available via Mircofest Records’ store at microfestrecords.com/store, iTunes at itunes.apple.com/us/album/beyond-12/id707673261, and pretty much all the other big ones.