Monday, May 27, 2013

JACK Quartet, Eric Huebner, Jonathan Golove, Talujon, kick off opening weekend of June in Buffalo 2013!



We’re looking forward to the opening weekend of June in Buffalo 2013! The festival will kick off with a concert by the JACK Quartet on Thursday, May 30, at 6:30 p.m., at One M&T Plaza, a special historical building in downtown Buffalo which was designed and built in 1966 by Minoru Yamasaki, the architect for the World Trade Center in New York City. In addition to opening JiB 2013, the concert is also part of the Center for 21st Century Music’s Music in Buffalo’s Historic Places series (more on the event and the series here), and will open with a brief presentation by UB Professor of Architecture, Brian Carter, who recently published M&T Bank, a book detailing the history and design of the building. 

The concert, which starts at 7:00 p.m., will consist entirely of Morton Feldman’s String Quartet No. 1, performed by the JACK Quartet. There will be a nice reception with wine and light snacks before the concert, hosted by M&T Bank, and it’s likely the concert will sell out, so we recommend you RSVP.
Eric Huebner


Jonathan Golove
The concert on the following day will be held here at UB in Slee Hall on Friday, May 31st, at 7:30 p.m., and will feature soloists Eric Huebner on piano, and Jonathan Golove on cello and Theremin cello. The program will include Iannis Xenakis' Kottos for solo cello (1977), Roger Reynolds' imAge/E and imagE/E (2007), Edgard Varése's Density 21.5 (1936, revised 1946) arranged for Theremin cello by Jonathan Golove, the world premiere of Eric Wubbels' Psychomechanochronometer (2013), which was commissioned with support from the Mikhashoff Trust for New Music, Elliott Carter's Sonata for cello and piano (1948), and some selections from György Ligeti's Études (1985-94).

Saturday, June 1st, boasts another concert of virtuosic contemporary music in Slee Hall, this time performed by the Talujon Ensemble. Their concert will feature Brian Ferneyhough's Fanfare for Klaus Huber (1987), Charles Wuorinen's Marimba Variations (2012), Marc Mellits' Gravity (2013), Ross Bauer's Echometry (2013), and Iannis Xenakis' Okho (1989).


Talujon Ensemble



RSVP here for the inauguration of the June in Buffalo Performance Institute on Thursday, May 30th, at 6:30 p.m., with the JACK Quartet -- we'll be keeping everyone updated on June in Buffalo 2013 at the Center for 21st Century Music, as well as through facebook and twitter. Also, stay tuned for more on our finale concert on Sunday, June 9th, at 2:30 p.m. with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of JoAnn Falletta, with pianist Geoffrey Burleson, featuring the work of JiB faculty composers at the University of Buffalo in Slee Hall.









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Thursday, May 16, 2013

Ensemble Signal returns for June in Buffalo 2013


Ensemble Signal 
We’re looking forward to Ensemble Signal joining us for June in Buffalo 2013 – we just recently enjoyed hosting them for the world premiere of David Felder’s recent Koussevitsky commission Les Quatre Temps Cardinaux, where they assembled an orchestra of 35 musicians and were joined by soprano Laura Aikin, bass-baritone Ethan Herschenfeld, and 12 channels of electronics. Check out more on the premiere from our friends at the Buffalo NewsArtvoice, and Sequenza21.



More recently, Signal celebrated the release of their Helmut Lachenmann DVD on Mode Records, which features a performance of Zwei Gefühle with Lachenmann himself, which they performed here at Slee Hall back in 2010. Other recent projects of Signal’s include a staged production of the NY Premiere of Charles Wuorinen’s It Happens Like This at the Guggenheim Museum, performing the music of Brian Ferneyhough at The Tanglewood Festival of Comtemporary Music, and the recent premiere of Señales by Hilda Paredes, written for Signal and Irvine Arditti.


Signal will be rehearsing and performing the works of June in Buffalo composer participants on June 4th, and on June 8th they will offer a concert of June in Buffalo faculty composers, including Brian Ferneyhough’s Terrain (1992), Charles Wuorinen’s Big Spinoff (2011), Augusta Read Thomas’ Carillon Sky (2005), and Yehudi Wyner’s Passage (1983). Brad Lubman will be wielding the baton and will be joined by Irvine Arditti on violin and Kenneth Radnofsky on saxophone.


Enjoy the excerpt below of Signal’s recent Lachenmann release on Mode Records:








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Monday, May 13, 2013

Composer Brian Ferneyhough at June in Buffalo 2013



We’ve been profiling some of the June in Buffalo 2013 ensembles and faculty composers, and thought we’d take a quick look at composer and longtime friend of the Center for 21st Century Music, Brian Ferneyhough.

Brian Ferneyhough
Ferneyhough was here for June in Buffalo 2005, and his music enjoyed some sensitive and virtuosic performances: Ensemble SurPlus performed his chamber work Incipits, Quatour Diotima interpretted his String Quartet No. 2, and pianist Ian Pace performed Epigrams. Ferneyhough later returned here for a short residency in February of 2009 alongside composer Hilda Paredes and the Arditti Quartet, who performed a concert in Slee Hall, as well as workshopped and recorded UB student works.

More on Ferneyhough can be found through his publisher Edition Peters, on his wikipedia article, and at the guardian.

Ferneyhough will be giving daily master classes to June in Buffalo composers during June in Buffalo 2013, as well as give a lecture on his recent projects. His music will be featured throughout the evening concerts during the week, including his chamber work Terrain, to be performed by Ensemble Signal, and Mnémosyme, for bass flute and tape, to be performed by Ensemble Linea.


Check out the video of below of Ensemble Linea interpretting Ferneyhough’s 2008 ensemble piece Chronos Aion:










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Thursday, May 9, 2013

Augusta Read Thomas at June in Buffalo 2013



Augusta Read Thomas

We'd like to welcome Augusta Read Thomas to the composition faculty of June in Buffalo 2013. We're excited to have her here for a week of masterclasses and concerts, beginning on June 3rd,  when the JACK Quartet will perform her string quartet Rise Chanting, from Sun Threads.

The rest of the week will feature several other works by her, including Caprice, for solo violin, to be performed by the Talea Ensemble, Carillon Sky for saxophone and small orchestra, to be performed by Ensemble Signal, and her recent Aureole, for orchestra, to be performed by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra

Thomas is the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as an Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, and is currently the University Professor of Composition in the Department of Music at the University of Chicago.


Enjoy the video below of Thomas talking about the inspiration for her violin duet, Double Helix, commissioned for the grand opening of the Mansueto Library, and leading us through her creative process:










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Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Talea Ensemble at June in Buffalo 2013!



We’re gearing up for June in Buffalo 2013 and preparing to host the renown Talea Ensemble for the festival, from June 3 – 9. They’ll be traveling here from New York City with conductor James Baker, and will be rehearsing and performing pieces by June in Buffalo student composers, and offering an evening concert of works by June in Buffalo Faculty composers.

Talea has been very active recently – just last year they released an exquisite album of music by Fausto Romitelli on John Zorn’s label, Tzadik, which they recorded at EMPAC. The CD features five very thoughtfully interpretted chamber ensemble pieces: Amok Koma (2001), Domeniche alla periferia dell”impero (2000), La sabbia del tempo (1991), Nell”alto dei giorni immobili (1990), and Blood on the Floor, Painting 1986 (2000). 


Talea Ensemble

Currently, the Talea Ensemble is preparing a concert of pieces by Austrian composer Beat Furrer, which they’ll be presenting at the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York City on May 14th. Two days later, they’ll give the U.S. premiere of Beat Furrer’s opera Fama, on both May 16th and 17th. More on the premiere here.

One thing we love about Talea is their indefatigable enthusiasm for the music of our time, and the tremendous energy they bring to contemporary American musical life. A bit from their mission statement below:

“In music, the term talea (literally, “cutting” in Latin) refers to collections of repeating, cycling rhythmic patterns. Most often, these patterns are associated with the ars nova period of Medieval music in which new techniques of musical composition were emerging.Talea has also been used in several other traditions including Indian classical music (tala in Sanskrit – a wonderful linguistic coincidence), and throughout the ages in Western music, from the composer Guillaume de Machaut in the 14th Century to Olivier Messiaen and Gérard Grisey in the 20th Century. This idea of a global, timeless, and cutting-edge musical practice, inventive in its construction and beautiful in its execution, is at the root of the Talea Ensemble’s artistic direction.

“The Talea Ensemble is committed to promoting new, groundbreaking music through innovative programming thereby communicating the distinctive voices of composers that deserve to be heard. By commissioning and programming these progressive works alongside the established literature of modern and contemporary repertoire, the ensemble creates a dialogue that challenges the boundaries of music and fosters a greater understanding of the works of today. Additionally, the Talea Ensemble wishes to support and advance familiarity with contemporary American works by bringing it to concert halls and venues not only in New York but also abroad. By developing an interactive relationship between the composers, performers and audience, the Talea Ensemble builds an environment of reciprocal inspiration that sparks the imagination of all.”

Below is a video excerpt of Talea offering a gorgeous interpretation of Helmut Lachenmann's Trio Fluido:













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