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Minnesota Opera commissions Joel Puckett

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Black-Sox-750x400

One of the most notorious scandals in American history comes to life in this world premiere opera by celebrated composer Joel Puckett. The 1919 Chicago White Sox were arguably the best team in the history of the game–they were also the most poorly paid, always at odds with their penny-pinching owner. Resentment, revenge, and ambition gone awry were the motivating factors that led eight players to conspire with gamblers and throw the World Series to the Cincinnatti Reds. Rich with characters such as Shoeless Joe Jackson, Ring Lardner, and Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, The Black Sox Scandal is a tragic tale of mythic proportions, ripe with greed, power, romance, and redemption, all set against the backdrop of America’s favorite pastime.

Composer Joel Puckett says, “I am thrilled to tell this incredible American story of deception, heartbreak, and disillusionment with an establishment. I am even more thrilled to be bringing this story to life with the amazingly supportive team at Minnesota Opera.”

About Joel Puckett

Named as one of National Public Radio’s favorite composers under the age of 40 by their listeners, Joel Puckett is a composer who is dedicated to the belief that music can bring consolation, hope, and joy to all who need it. The Washington Post has hailed him as both “visionary” and “gifted” and the Baltimore Sun proclaimed his work for the Washington Chorus and Orchestra, This Mourning, as “being of comparable expressive weight” to John Adams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning work.

Mr. Puckett is currently on the full-time faculty of the Peabody Conservatory of Music of Johns Hopkins University where he teaches courses in music theory, co-teaches the composition seminar, and recently finished a term as the composer-in-residence for the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras.

About Eric Simonson

For Minnesota Opera, Eric Simonson recently directed The Dream of Valentino (2014), Silent Night (2011) and Wuthering Heights (2011); and Rusalka for Colorado Opera. Other credits include The Grapes of Wrath at Minnesota Opera, Pittsburgh Opera and Carnegie Hall; numerous plays for Steppenwolf Theatre; and productions at The Huntington Theatre, Milwaukee Rep, Primary Stages in New York, Court Theatre in Chicago, l.a. Theatre Works, The Kennedy Center, City Theater in Pittsburgh, Seattle Rep and San Jose Rep. His production of The Song of Jacob Zulu played on Broadway and received six Tony Awards including Best Director. Mr. Simonson is a member of Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Ensemble Pi Premieres Kaminsky Deception

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Ensemble Pi’s Ninth Peace Project Concert
“Word Interpretations”
World Premieres by Laura Kaminsky and Susan Botti
Works by Jason Eckardt, Bryant Kong, Penderecki, and Shostakovich

Language gets appropriated, translated, and sometimes “reformed” by culture and politics. For their annual Peace Project’s ninth installment, music collective Ensemble Pi performs new commissions and other works which examine the relationship of language, truth and politics – and how words change meaning when used in contexts different than the ones intended.

Clarinetist Moran Katz then joined the trio for another world premiere,  Laura Kaminsky‘s strikingly intense diptych, Deception. Katz’s moody, richly burnished low register in tandem with the cello built an air of mystery and foreboding, occasionally punctured by the piano. The second movement worked clever variations via individual voices in a very Debussy-esque arrangement that also offered a nod to Shostakovich and possibly Penderecki as well.

Read the review of the concert here.

Laura Kaminsky’s Deception, for b-flat clarinet, violin, cello, and piano (2014) – a work exploring the manipulation of language in situations such as reconsidered statements, solo pronouncements, intertwined dialogue, and that which is unspoken. Musical gestures and interruptions are used to symbolize two ways of creating language, then using it in a different context to create new meaning.

Performers include Idith Meshulam, piano; Airi Yoshioka, violin; Katie Schlaikjer Schlaikjer, cello; Moran Katz, clarinet; Kristin Norderval, voice; with guest artist Rachel Rosales, voice.

Ensemble Pi, a socially conscious new music group founded in 2002, features composers whose work seeks to open a dialogue between ideas and music on some of the world’s current and critical issues. For the last ten years, Ensemble Pi has presented an annual Peace Project concert, praised by The New York Times as “gracefully played…a fiery and emotive performance.” The Ensemble has commissioned new works and collaborated with visual artists, writers, actors, and journalists, among them South African artist William Kentridge and American journalist/writer Naomi Wolf, Frederic Rzewski, and Philip Miller. The ensemble was in residence for four American music festivals presented by the American Composers Alliance and now collaborates with the APNM. Ensemble Pi has also created artistic and educational programs in response to major exhibitions at Chelsea Art Museum, The Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, and the Museum of Modern Art. Gramophone wrote of the Ensemble’s first CD, Keep Going, “a touching tribute to Ellias Tanenbaum, played with conviction and verve”.  A second CD featuring Laura Kaminsky’s music was released by Albany Record this year and was described as “played with warmth and variety… in effective fashion” (American Record Guide). www.ensemble-pi.org

 

Sparr Houston Grand Opera Premiere

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On This Muddy Water: Voices from the Houston Ship Channel

Wednesday, December 10, 5:30 p.m.
Tudor Gallery, Julia Ideson Library
550 McKinney Street, Houston

HGOco presents the world premiere of On This Muddy Water: Voices from the Houston Ship Channel by D. J. Sparr and Janine Joseph—a 30-minute song cycle for voices and chamber ensemble commissioned to celebrate the Ship Channel’s centennial. Sparr and Joseph combed through hours of oral histories collected by the Houston Arts Alliance to create this compelling portrait of the men and women at the heart of one of Houston’s most vibrant centers of industry.

For more information, click here.

Mason Bates’ Orchestra Performances at All-time High

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The Baltimore Symphony surveyed the 2014/15 season and prepared some fascinating statistics on programming. Mason Bates soars to the top as the second most performed living composer. Among the information they collected is the news that works by living composers amount to 11.4% of all works performed.

You can view the complete statistics here.

Beethoven still gets more performances, but he’s had quite a head start.

Kahane’s THE AMBASSADOR released on Sony Masterworks

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From Die Hard to the architecture of Richard Neutra and R.M. Schindler, from Blade Runner to the fiction of James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler, and from fires, riots, and earthquakes to the lives of so many Americans who have looked to Southern California as a panacea, Gabriel Kahane’s The Ambassador draws its inspiration from a multitude of sources to tell intimate, human stories against the backdrop of Los Angeles architecture and popular culture.

Order the CD here.

Moby-Dick National Telecast on PBS Great Performances

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Jake Heggie/Gene Scheer’s MOBY-DICK will be broadcast nationally on PBS Great Performances. This is San Francisco Opera‘s production from last year, with a cast featuring Jay Hunter Morris (Ahab), Stephen Costello (Greenhorn/Ishmael), Morgan Smith (Starbuck), Jonathan Lemalu (Queequeg), Talise Trevigne (Pip), Robert Orth (Stubb), Matthew O’Neill (Flask), and Joo Won Kang (Gardiner); conducted by Patrick Summers and directed by Leonard Foglia in the Robert Brill production with projections by Elaine McCarthy. The opera was commissioned by The Dallas Opera with San Francisco Opera, San Diego Opera, State Opera of South Australia, and Calgary Opera.

Heggie MOBY-DICK DVD with San Francisco Opera

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On this world premiere recording, Grammy-winning tenor Jay Hunter Morris plays the role of Captain Ahab in Herman Meville’s epic tale of a fierce, obsessive whaling-boat captain who descends into madness and puts his crew in mortal danger is brought to the stage in this thrilling production from San Francisco Opera. Composer Jake Heggie is in his ‘finest creation since Dead Man Walking,’ and librettist Gene Scheer adaptation is ‘a vibrant, compelling piece of musical theater’ (San Francisco Chronicle).

Watch the video on YouTube.

Purchase the DVD here.

Quad City Symphony premieres Torke’s Oracle

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michael-torkeOn October 5, the Quad City Symphony gave the premiere of a new concert opener by veteran orchestra composer, Michael Torke. Led by music director Mark Russell Smith, the concert was followed by a second performance in Augustana College’s Centennial Hall a day later. According to Torke:

Oracle was composed in a burst of creative energy from mid-June to mid-July. “I think this is going to be one of the best pieces I’ve ever written,” Torke predicted the day after the five-minute composition was completed. “I am so jazzed up about it. It starts off with this kind of ‘Pines of Rome’ thing, with one variation of the melody warm and juicy, and another noble.”

He said the short duration of the commission allowed him to “obsess over the orchestration, help the audience focus on what I’m doing with the music, where every detail is clearly heard.” Torke described the result as “very thematic, based on melodic intervals” as opposed to a 12-tone row, or static tones with varying rhythms. Fundamentally, he wanted the music “grounded in American sounds, [similar to] the pandiatonicism” found in the music of Aaron Copland.

When asked about the title, Torke said, “Titles are something I agonize over. They can help a piece live or die.” As a springboard to naming the work, Torke imagined “the audience just settling into their seats and the conductor walks out … the opening piece of the concert and the season.” Inspired by the Oracle of Delphi, the ancient Greek priestess known for her prophecies, Torke realized his mission was musically foreshadowing both the concert and the season.

Torke also said color informs the title. He experiences music as a synesthete, someone who, in his case, “involuntarily sees colors” when he hears music. In Oracle, Torke said he “sees an off-white, creamy color … travertine” that recalls marble – another link to ancient Greece, but also to the rock’s use in concert halls across the country. The composer originally considered using “Travertine” as the title but rejected the idea because “it didn’t really tell you the emotions involved in the music.”