Andrew Tholl’s piece for Nat Evans’ The Tortoise and His Raincoat
Composer Nat Evans is currently somewhere in Washington state, walking to the Canadian border. This is significant because his walk started at the Mexican border in the Californian desert. It’s a project he’s calling The Tortoise and His Raincoat, in which he not only walks 2,600 miles, but records sounds along the way, and sends those sounds to composers to turn into pieces. Composer/violinist Andrew Tholl is one of those composers. His piece, Hi/Hey was released a few weeks ago. It’s got some really beautiful textures, and combines its electronic sounds (some kind of monosynth pad) with the field recordings in a very convincing way.
Other composers on the project are Scott Worthington, Carolyn Chen, Chris Kallmyer, Brenna Noonan, Scott Unrein, Hanna Benn, and John Teske. Once complete, the whole thing will be released on Quakebasket Records.
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.
Timur and the Dime Museum CD Release Party
X-Ray Sunsets, the new record from LA’s operatic gypsy rock collective from the future Timur and the Dime Museum, is finally getting a CD release party this Saturday, September 21, at the Bootleg in Silverlake. Live Arts Exchange is hosting the show, and tickets are available at https://bootlegtheater.secure.force.com/ticket/#sections_a02A000000Al7nsIAB.
The record, which was largely written, arranged, recorded, edited, mixed, and produced by band member and local composer Daniel Corral, is up on bandcamp now. Timur’s voice is as impossibly flexible as ever, and there’s an enormous range of sounds in the arrangements. They’re featuring the final track, Until the Break of Dawn, on the bandcamp page, but my favorite by far is Here With Me. Enjoy:
Go see Julia Holter and wild Up! tonight
Julia Holter is back in town tonight, and our hometown underground orchestra heroes wild Up! are opening. They’re playing at First Unitarian Church in a show presented by Spaceland and Dublab. Nedelle Torrisi, Anenon, and Dublab DJs are also on the bill.
All the info (and tickets) are up here: http://www.theecho.com/event/326705-church-sessions-julia-holter-los-angeles/
Julia’s most recent record, Loud City Song, came out on Domino less than a month ago, and she’s been on tour pretty much nonstop.
Here’s a video:
Scott Worthington/ensemble et cetra: Even The Light Itself Falls
Though based in San Diego, bassist and composer Scott Worthington is no stranger to the LA scene. UPDATE: SCOTT HAS MOVED TO PASADENA.
Populist Records just released a recording of his epic yet introspective Even The Light Itself Falls, performed by the composer’s own ensemble et cetra. Give it a listen and a share and a buy below.
People Inside Electronics and Classical Revolution this Saturday
This is yet another great weekend for shows in LA. People Inside Electronics are bringing bass-baritone Nicholas Isherwood to MorYork Gallery for a Saturday night program of music for voice and electronics.
Looking for a slightly earlier way to hear some music on September 7th? Classical Revolution LA have you covered. Elliott Goldkind and the Krysalis Ensemble will be rocking The Silverlake Lounge at 6.
IT IS POSSIBLE TO MAKE BOTH.
Here are links:
What’s Next? Ensemble have two awesome shows coming up
LA Composers Project 2013: Richard Valitutto
The name of your piece being performed at LACP 2013 is:
Tell us about it.
For most of my life as a composer (which is, relatively speaking, not all that long), I’ve kept various notebooks or scraps of paper with little musical ideas jotted down on them. Sometimes, I’ll not write down anything for weeks at a time, and then it will only be one measure of music – just a few pitches, harmonies, or basic gestures. At times when I have a specific project in mind, these ideas are more plentiful or involved. Two similarities I noticed about all these collected scraps is that I have a ton of seemingly disconnected, completely unused ideas, and a majority of them came to mind and were recorded at night (like many people, I simply work better and more freely when it’s dark and quiet).
In November 2012, my good friend and colleague Mark Menzies and I performed a recital at the Hammer Museum which focused on Morton Feldman’s epic 80-minute duo for violin and piano, For John Cage. We also performed a substantial first half of shorter compositions for violin or viola and piano by Cage, Feldman, Anton von Webern, and – with mutual coercion – one each by Mark and I. Although slightly absurd in retrospect (the concert was about 3 hours long!), this first half allowed the audience to really attune the senses to Feldman’s lengthy (and quiet!) journey. It also afforded Mark and I each the opportunity to write pieces for one other, and more abstractly – though no less meaningfully – for John, Morton, and Anton as well.
This duo for violin and piano, frammenti notturni, was my contribution to that event, and in it I have included a wide array of some of the aforementioned compositional fragments from over two years of random jottings: many of which were primarily influenced by Cage, Feldman, Webern, and Menzies; their techniques, philosophies, playing styles, distinguishing characteristics, formal structures, etc. Basically, everything in this piece – from its formal plan to very specific harmonic and melodic gestures – comes from and points back to these four people. And it is to the four of them that I owe a great deal of my development as a musician, composer, thinker, and human being. This small compositional offering is dedicated to Morton, John, Anton, and Mark.
Favorite X : Y
Breakfast :: two eggs sunny-side up, link sausage, home fries, sourdough toast, some good cheese, grapefruit juice, and coffee.