Tan Dun Premieres

This Fall Tan Dun gives 2 major world premieres. On September 6 at the Grafenegg Music Festival in Austria, Tan Dun conducts soloists David Cossin, Haruka Fuji, Wang Bei Bei, and Zhang Meng in his Earth Concerto for ceramic instruments and orchestra, commissioned by the Musik-Festival Grafennegg for the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich. On October 26 at Alice Tully Hall, Cho-Liang Lin and the Juilliard Orchestra, led by Tan Dun, perform the composer's Violin Concerto, The Love, commisssioned by the Juilliard School and the Singapore Symphony.

In Earth Concerto, Tan Dun pays homage to one of the influential voices in classical music: Gustav Mahler. Mahler, in his Das Lied von der Erde, finds muse in 7 ancient Chinese poems and their vision of Earthly beauty and the transience of life. Tan Dun finds inspiration in three of the work's movements, seeing the profound beauty in the depths of the text and Mahler's obvious admiration for their perspective.

This latest concerto is the third piece in Tan Dun's Organic Music Series (preceded by the concertos for paper and water). Scored for orchestra and 99 ceramic and stone instruments it explores the timbres of the natural world with several custom-made instruments designed by the composer. Using stone chimes and pots, ceramic drums and flutes (like the Chinese Xun) to express his passion for the rhythmic and lyrical power of nature, the Earth Concerto evokes a driving, emotional and fragile musical world. Tan Dun comments, "I have always had the belief that Earth, like all other natural elements, holds deep a spirit and speaks with a language all its own — singing and vibrating alongside all beings. As the oldest Chinese wisdom states: humans plus nature always equals one. In harmony with this philosophy, I use the sounds of earth and stone instruments to symbolize the connection of the heavens and earth with the orchestra representing the human beings."

His Violin Concerto The Love, follows on the heels of 2008's Piano Concerto, The Fire. Each movement of the Violin Concerto focuses on different memories, life experiences and impressions. The first movement, about teenage love, incorporates hip-hop and rock & roll beats, the second movement recalls an ideal dream love and the third movement represents so-called sophisticated love. Violinist Choi-Liang Lin comments on the concerto and his long relationship with Tan Dun:

To play Tan Dun's concerto, I have to throw myself completely into the work and his world. Tan's music is extremely expressive and powerful. I feel I need to loosen the usual interpretive perimeters of classical music performance and try to become an actor on stage and speak to the audience using the unique language of Tan Dun. It's a liberating and rewarding experience.
I have known Tan Dun for a long time and think of him as a dear friend. I have also performed a number of his major works. I have gotten to know a great deal about how to perform his works from my many hours spent with Tan. I also have learned to let my violin speak with all sorts of different sounds as required by Tan's music, and to do so while letting go of any musical inhibitions. To be with Tan Dun is to let ideas fly, watch them scatter and then regroup in ever changing and evolving forms. Life is never dull around him.

Earth Concerto for stone and ceramic percussion with orchestra
Percussion Soloist(s) and Orchestra
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Danielpour's A Woman's Life

On October 16, Leonard Slatkin conducts soprano Angela Brown and the Pittsburgh Symphony in the premiere of Richard Danielpour's new orchestral song cycle, A Woman's Life, set to the poetry of Maya Angelou.

Having worked together on the premiere production of his opera Margaret Garner in 2005, Danielpour and Brown had hope to find the opportunity to work together again. When they began to discuss the details of their next collaboration, Brown immediately suggested setting the words of revered American poet, Maya Angelou. Danielpour, who had previously worked with Dr. Angelou for his work, Portraits, was eager to become emmersed again in Angelou's legendary wisdom and the astounding beauty of her words.

A Woman's Life
Soprano Soloist(s) and Orchestra
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Lieberson's The Coming of Light

On September 26, the Chicago Chamber Musicians with baritone John Michael Moore premiere Peter Lieberson's new song cycle, The Coming of Light, for baritone, oboe, and string quartet. The work was commissioned in honor of the 2009 centennial of the dedication of the Unity Temple, Frank Lloyd Wright's modern masterpiece, by the Unity Temple Restoration Foundation and The Chicago Chamber Musicians together with Winsor Music, Inc.

The Unity Temple, a Unitarian Universalist church in Oak Park, Illinois, is considered by many to be the first example of modern architecture in the world and to be one of Frank Lloyd Wright's most important structures.

When given the opportunity to compose a work in honor of the building, Lieberson took a more general view a general view when approaching commemorating the landmark and its creator. "I didn’t think it would be very easy to commemorate Frank Lloyd Wright, his work, or the Unity Temple in a very specific way," he explains, "or even in an evocative way by pretending to write a piece about either, so instead I took a more general view about creation."

To Lieberson, the act of creation is an act of love, a gift of generosity, and by its nature creation embodies the impermanence of life — whatever is subject to origination is subject to cessation. For him, the art of architecture, the creation of a physical structure, is a profound reflection of that concept — physical objects are, afterall, constructed out of things that are not permanent.

The paradox of impermanece, and the restoration of the physical structure of the Unity Temple, was not lost on Lieberson as he created this centennial dedication. "Even though physical structures remain as edifices of some kind that point to something sometimes very noble," he explains, "still they aren't permanent. If you look at them that way, they express a certain kind of sacredness about what we as human beings do: we make structures that we think are beautiful and interiors that are inviting and by the very nature of having done so, its an opportunity to reflect on how fleeting all of that really is. Not in a depressing way, but the fragility of it all really makes it more precious."

For the song cycle, Lieberson set two poems by John Ashbery (Rain Moving In and Forgiveness), one having to do with home, the other having to do with human relationships and forgiveness. He then set two sonnets of Shakespeare (When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes and O never say that I was false of heart) related to the transformation of difficult emotions into positive ones based on love. Then he set the last two movements to poems by Mark Strand (The Coming of Light and the seventh section of Poem After The Seven Last Words).

For Lieberson, the final lines of Strand's Poem After The Seven Last Words tie the entire song cycle together, returning to an important place for Lieberson, something that may not be able to be expressed precisely, but, as he states, "has to be manifested in our own creativity" — our own fleeting, generous gift of love:

A place of constant beginning that has within it what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no hand has touched, what has not arisen in the human heart. To that place, to the keeper of that place, I commit myself.
— Mark Strand from Poem After The Seven Last Words

The Coming of Light
oboe, baritone, and string quartet




Dorman's Lost Souls

On November 20, Michael Stern conducts Alon Goldstein and the Kansas City Symphony in the premiere of Avner Dorman's new piano concerto Lost Souls. Referring to the work as a "séance for piano and orchestra," Dorman calls on the ghosts of music's past to weave the three movement concerto.

For Dorman, this work is channeled straight from his relationship with the pianist, Alon Goldstein: "Alon seems like he is from a different era — the way he carries himself, his mannerisms — it seems like he was born and lived in the 19th century," Dorman recalls. He wanted to capture Goldstein's special quality in this new work and took what he could from their relationship and his knowledge of Goldstein's musicianship — Goldstein has performed Dorman's Piano Sonata No. 2 close to forty times. Dorman explains that Goldstein "can go quite crazy during the sonata, but in the end he is a very refined classical pianist, with all of the notes coming out very clear, as if he had predetermined all of the dynamics and articulations — he has very stylized playing. I wrote this concerto to give him those moments, on the one hand, but to also give him the simple melodies, to give him room to bring out his style."

Lost Souls begins quite dramatically: the pianist, in a departure from all other concerti, is not on stage, but is called from beyond by the orchestra's microtonal séance. As the 'soul-oist' emerges, a tense polytonal dialogue begins between the two worlds and Dorman begins to seemlesly echo various musical styles through his own evolved voice, recalling hints of Bach, Art Tatum, Messiaen, Lutoslawski, Ravel, Ligeti, and Gershwin.

Music history's graveyard is a harrowing resource for many composers; for Dorman, the weight of the past is not a burden, but can be embraced in the present through his own art. As with many works by Avner Dorman, Lost Souls brings together his cultural pastiche and melds it into a dynamic work that is a combination of his disperate influences — in one moment in Lost Souls, Cuban Bata drums accompany a baroque toccata, that in the end sounds as if it were Arabic in its origin.

Perhaps for Dorman, his own soul has found its place in this globalized culture where Art Tatum and Johann Sebastian Bach converse on the Ouija board of the 21st century, and where these souls of the past can be the inspiration for the future.

Lost Souls
Piano Soloist(s) and Orchestra
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Mr. Tambourine Man Down Under

John Corigliano takes his Grammy-award winning composition, Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan to Australia for the premiere on September 11 of a version for chamber ensemble, commissioned by the Sydney Conservatorium of Music as part of their “100 Compositions for 100 Years” project celebrating the Conservatory’s centennial. This version was co-commissioned by the ensemble eighth blackbird who will present the North American premiere performances in Autumn 2010. Corigliano attends the premiere as part of a residency which also includes teaching, lectures and performances of his “Pied Piper Fantasy”. The reduced version takes all of the impact of the original work for orchestra and solo soprano and brings it into a more intimate 'Pierrot-plus' instrumentation: fl(pic).cl(ebcl).vn.vc.pf.perc

Of the original, Corigliano stated:

I had always heard, by reputation, of the high regard accorded the folk-ballad singer/songwriter Bob Dylan. But I was so engaged in developing my orchestral technique during the years when Dylan was heard by the rest of the world that I had never heard his songs. So I bought a collection of his texts, and found many of them to be every bit as beautiful and as immediate as I had heard-and surprisingly well-suited to my own musical language. I then contacted Jeff Rosen, his manager, who approached Bob Dylan with the idea of re-setting his poetry to my music.

I chose seven poems for what became a thirty-five minute cycle. A Prelude: Mr. Tambourine Man, in a fantastic and exuberant manner, precedes five searching and reflective monologues that form the core of the piece; and Epilogue: Forever Young makes a kind of folk-song benediction after the cycle's close. Dramatically, the inner five songs trace a journey of emotional and civic maturation, from the innocence of Clothes Line through the beginnings of awareness of a wider world (Blowin' in the Wind), through the political fury of Masters of War, to a premonition of an apocalyptic future (All Along the Watchtower), culminating in a vision of a victory of ideas (Chimes of Freedom). Musically, each of the five songs introduces an accompanimental motive that becomes the principal motive of the next. The descending scale introduced in Clothes Line resurfaces as the passacaglia which shapes Blowin' in the Wind. The echoing pulse-notes of that song harden into the hammered ostinato under Masters of War; the stringent chords of that song's finale explode into the raucous accompaniment under All Along the Watchtower; and that song's repeated figures dissolve into the bell-sounds of Chimes of Freedom.

Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan
37 Minutes
Solo Voice(s) and up to 6 players
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Leonard Stein Anagrams

On October 13, at Zipper Hall at the Colburn School of Music in Los Angeles, as part of the Piano Spheres Concert Series Gloria Cheng premieres John Harbison's new piano solo, Leonard Stein Anagrams, commissioned by Piano Spheres and donors to the Memorial Fund for its founder, Leonard Stein.

Leonard Stein, Arnold Schoenberg's personal assistant, was ecumenical in his musical interests and befriended most of the world's leading composers, conducting and performing their music throughout his career. After his retirement in 1991 from the Arnold Schoenberg Institute, Stein founded the concert series Piano Spheres.

Stein passed away in 2004. For Harbison, composing this new work was "a privelege, melancholic and joyful...a chance to reflect on a rich twenty-year friendship...Just his voice on the phone could make the day — when he called to celebrate his mutual birthday with Rose Mary Harbison, or just to report west-coast news, with his unique blend of enthusiasm and skepticism."

While appearing one year at Harbison's Token Creek Festival in Wisconsin, Stein was happy to discover Harbison's tradition of making anagrams from names of the summer's composers and performers. When Harbison began writing this new work he found, in Stein's hand, six anagrams he had created based on his own name. Harbison has used all six (plus 7 others Harbison penned) as titles for the short movements, no letter-to-pitch correspondences, but simply reactions to the titles and "fleeting images of Leonard, present to absent."

1. I'd learn tones
2. Note slid near
3. End tonal rise
4. Liar, send tone!
5. Listen, a drone (A silent drone)
6. Learns to dine
7. LA trend: noise
8. Rise tone, lad!
9. Linen ear-dots
10.Tender as lion
11.Rest: no denial
12. Earns toil-end
12A. Done: entrails

Leonard Stein Anagrams
15 Minutes
Solo Keyboard(s)
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Augusta Reed Thomas @ BBC Proms

The 2008-09 season was a particularly fruitful one for Augusta Read Thomas who had eight world premieres in that season alone, including her Violin Concerto No 3, Juggler in Paradise in Paris. This September, the BBC Proms will present the young American soloist Jennifer Koh in performances of the third violin concerto with Jirí Belohlávek conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Of the concerto, Ms. Koh states: “I first became immersed in Gusty's music through performing and recording her Pulsar for solo violin. I immediately realized that she understands the violin's expressive abilities. Juggler In Paradise is all about expanding upon the musical language that I found in Pulsar — It sends the violin through beautiful soaring gestures and spins it into distilled, concentrated rhythms in play with the orchestra.”

In addition, the Proms will feature a composer portrait concert of Ms. Thomas’ music which will include A Circle Around the Sun… for piano trio, Invocations for string quartet and Passion Prayers for cello and ensemble.

Violin Concerto No. 3, Juggler in Paradise
20 Minutes
Violin Soloist(s) and Orchestra
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Kernis' Brandenberg

The conductor-less and perennially adventurous Orpheus Chamber Orchestra opens its 2009-10 season on October 8 with the world premiere of Aaron Jay Kernis’ Concerto with Echoes at Carnegie Hall. The New Brandenburgs, Orpheus’ groundbreaking commissioning project, involves six composers, each taking one of J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos and writing a companion piece inspired by the original.

Kernis’ new work, the fifth commissioned work in Orpheus’ series, draws from Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 6. Of the connection between his concerto and the sixth Brandenburg, Kernis states “The essential element in the Sixth Brandenburg Concerto that inspired this work comes from its very first measure — the opening passage with two spiraling solo violas, like identical twins following each other breathlessly through a hall of mirrors — the echoing of the title. Each of the Brandenburgs is exceptional in its use of instruments, and this concerto mirrors the Sixth by using only violas, celli and basses, while gradually adding reeds and horns into a loop back to the sound world of First Brandenburg Concerto (and extending it with trumpet and percussion).”

Concerto with Echoes
14 minutes
Violin Soloist(s) and Orchestra
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Tower: Ivory and Ebony

Between October 11-17 participants at the 2009 The San Antonio International Piano Competition will perform Joan Tower's Ivory and Ebony, the SAIPC's Andrew Gurwitz Memorial Composition. The competition takes places every three years.

"We are honored to have a composer of Joan Tower's stature compose the commissioned work in the 2009 competition, which will be a celebration of our 25th year and 10th triennial competition," said SAIPC President Anne Johnson.

Tower remarks, "Ivory and Ebony is about the black and white notes of the piano which alternate 'thematically' but occasionally mix together. Since I am also a pianist, this was a fun and challenging piece to write for the upcoming piano virtuosos coming to the San Antonio competition. I hope they enjoy working on it and I very much look forward to their different interpretations."

Ivory and Ebony
8 Minutes
Solo Keyboard(s)
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Chester Music signs Nigel Kennedy
Chester Music has entered into a long term publishing relationship with violinist and composer Nigel Kennedy.

The new relationship will embrace his existing catalogue, including the albums East Meets East and A Very Nice Album, and his future work in all media, not only his upcoming album releases but also plans for a range of music in film and in the concert hall.

Nigel Kennedy: ‘Writing has become increasingly important to me over recent years so this is perfect timing for me. It is very exciting to be working with one of the most creative publishers in the business and I am very much looking forward to working with James Rushton and the fantastic team at Chester Music and Music Sales.’

James Rushton, Managing Director of Chester Music, welcomes a relationship that brings a different voice to the Music Sales profile. ‘Nigel has been spending more and more time writing in recent years and this is now a major part of his creative life. This is an ideal match and a perfect time to begin to work together. Nigel brings to us a passionate involvement in a very wide range of music, and a strong desire to see his work used across all forms of media. Further, for the first time we will give Nigel the opportunity to create his own line of printed publications, reflecting his pre-eminence as a violinist, across a range of genres.’

For over twenty-five years, Nigel Kennedy has been acknowledged as one of the world's leading violin virtuosos and is, without doubt, one of the most important violinists Britain has ever produced. His virtuoso technique, unique talent and mass appeal have brought fresh perspectives to both the classical and contemporary repertoire. He is the best selling classical violinist of all time.

As a child he was Yehudi Menuhin’s most famous protégé, studying first at the Menuhin School (where it emerged, following Menuhin's death, that the legendary violinist had personally paid the young Kennedy’s fees throughout his education at the school) before moving to the Juilliard School to study under the celebrated teacher, Dorothy DeLay.

During his career Nigel Kennedy has undertaken countless international tours, performing with the world's major orchestras and conductors, from Europe to the United States of America, Central and South America, to South East Asia and Australia. Major debuts have included London's Royal Festival Hall in 1977, the Berlin Philharmonic in 1980, his New York orchestral debut in 1987 and his 2004 French debut.

Nigel Kennedy has attracted an enormous amount of worldwide media attention throughout his extraordinary career. His television appearances have been wide and varied and he has given numerous public and private performances for members of the British royal family. He has also been presented with many awards including, amongst others, Outstanding Contribution to British Music and Male Artist of the Year at the UK Brit Awards; in France a Gold Award on the major network TV programme Vivement Dimanche and in Switzerland The Gold Rose of Montreux.

An exclusive and major EMI artist since early in his career, Nigel Kennedy's multi-award-winning discography is extensive. His first highly-acclaimed recording was Elgar's Violin Concerto which was voted 1985 Record of the Year by Gramophone magazine and was awarded Best Classical Album of the Year at the BPI Awards, selling in excess of 300,000 copies. His first landmark recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the best-selling classical work of all time. Over 2 million copies have been sold and the album remained top of the UK classical charts for well over a year. His second Vivaldi volume with the Berliner Philharmoniker won the prestigious German Echo Award for Best Performance of 18th Century music and the supreme Austrian classical award The Amadeus Prize for Best Instrumental Recording of 2005. He has also made best-selling concerto recordings of Bach, Beethoven, Berg, Brahms, Bruch, Mendelssohn, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky and Walton, alongside chamber music and recital discs.

His passion for jazz resulted in the album "Blue Note Sessions" made under the eye of Grammy award winning producer Jay Newland featuring a band of jazz giants such as Ron Carter and Jack DeJohnette among others. Released in 2006 on the legendary Blue Note Label, Kennedy was the first EMI Classics artist to be invited to join the label.

In September 2002 Kennedy was appointed Artistic Director of the Polish Chamber Orchestra, a role Kennedy's teacher and mentor, the late Lord Menuhin, once held. With this orchestra he rediscovered a stunning and forgotten late Romantic Polish concerto, Emil Mlynarski's Violin Concerto No 2, and combined it with Mieczyslaw Karlowicz's Violin Concerto in A major, which was released under the title 'Polish Spirit' on EMI last year.

‘Polish Spirit’ has won numerous awards the world over, including the prestigious 2008 ECHO Klassik Award in Germany for Instrumentalist of the Year and Poland's Fryderyki 2008 Album of the Year Award.

Kennedy's latest double album on EMI, named in typically idiosyncratic fashion, “A Very Nice Album”, marks another bold excursion into non-classical repertoire and was recorded with his group, 'The Nigel Kennedy Quintet', made up of the violinist and four dynamic musicians from Poland. His Bluenote album focused on interpreting compositions from past masters of the jazz repertoire but, this time, Kennedy steps to the fore as composer as well as improviser. Since its release in 2009, the quintet has been making 'Very Nice Album' appearances throughout the world.

Nigel Kennedy is currently founding a new chamber orchestra, made up of vibrant young musicians from Poland. In 2010, he will undertake a major recording and international tour with the orchestra, with a unique program of Bach and Duke Ellington.

2010 will also see Kennedy as Artistic Director of a major Polish Festival weekend, an exciting and first of a kind event hosted by London's South Bank Center which will celebrate Polish culture and bring together musicians and artists from a wide range of backgrounds and styles.

Nigel Kennedy is a passionate Aston Villa fan and attends as many games as his schedule allows. He has one son, is married to Polish lawyer, Agnieszka, and they divide their time between homes in London and Krakow.




Alberto Iglesias New Work
On November 6, 2009, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra features the incomparable soprano and SPCO Artistic Partner Dawn Upshaw with conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya in a program exploring Spanish and Latin American influences.

Headlining the evening is Three Songs in the Land of the Lemon Trees, a new work by Spanish composer Alberto Iglesias. Best known for his film scores for several critically acclaimed films by fellow Spaniard Pedro Almodovar, such as Talk to Her and Volver, Iglesias has crafted this new piece specifically for Ms. Upshaw and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. For Three Songs in the Land of the Lemon Trees, Iglesias draws on the poems of John Ashbery, René Char and Wallace Stevens.

Three Songs in the Land of the Lemon Trees
Soprano Soloist(s) and Orchestra






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