Sequenza21
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Welcome to the thriving hub of the Contemporary Classical Music Community-Sequenza21. For over a decade, it has been the go-to online space for creators, performers, and enthusiasts of new music. Join them in celebrating the convergence of innovation, exploration, and artistic appreciation in the world of contemporary classical music.
Sequenza21
1d ago
George Crumb via Bridge Records
There was a time when the death of a composer as prominent and long-lived as George Crumb would engender the kind of monumental obituaries and career surveys that serious music writers once aspired to. That so little in this vein actually materialized following his February 2022 demise at the age of 92 could be a reflection of the dilapidated state of North American music criticism. But it might also be that his career eulogies had already been written years before. Among contemporary composers, only Stockhausen seems to have traced a more dramatic arc of reputa ..read more
Sequenza21
2d ago
Kyle Bruckmann
of rivers
New Focus Recordings
Oboist, composer, and electronic musician Kyle Bruckmann is a dedicated advocate for contemporary concert music. One of the founding members of Splinter Reeds, he currently plays in a number of ensembles in the San Francisco Bay area, including sfSound, San Francisco Contemporary Players, and the Stockton Symphony. Bruckann teaches oboe and contemporary music at University of the Pacific.
On his latest recording, Bruckmann programs a number of pieces that incorporate wildly challenging extended techniques and, in some, e ..read more
Sequenza21
2d ago
Long Play …. Not long enough!
This year’s Long Play schedule is particularly dizzying. The annual festival presented by Bang on a Can in Brooklyn, now in its third year, seems to have crammed more events than ever into its three day festival, running May 3, 4 and 5. For instance, on Saturday, May 4 at 2 pm, you’ll have to choose between a new opera by the Pulitzer Prize finalist Alex Weiser with libretto by Ben Kaplan, called The Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language (at American Opera Projects) AND Ensemble Klang imported from the Netherlands playing works by the Dutch composer Peter ..read more
Sequenza21
1w ago
One of Sequenza 21’s friends is the “Diasporic Soprano” Candice Hoyes. A versatile vocalist and songwriter, she sings everything from opera to jazz to pop adjacent new music.
Her new single, “In the Upper Room (For Mary Winnifred)” for soprano, piano, and bass is out today and available on Bandcamp. Mary Winnifred was Hoyes’s grandmother and a mentor figure for her.
In the Upper Room (for Mary Winnifred) by Candice Hoyes
The song is part of the inaugural Lincoln Center Social Sculpture Projects “Sadah Espii Proctor’s adrift: the bayou project, curated by the incred ..read more
Sequenza21
1w ago
Carl Philip Emanuel Bach
Symphonies from Berlin to Hamburg
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin
Mayumi Hirasaki and Georg Kallweit, concertmasters
Harmonia Mundi
Carl Philip Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) was the middle of Johann Sebastian Bach’s three surviving sons. His music occupies the period between the baroque and classical, often called the galant or rococo style. It truly is a transitional era, with the development of the orchestra, symphony, and a move toward more homophonic textures. Several recordings of his works have recently been issued, and it is nice to see this talented composer ..read more
Sequenza21
2w ago
Philip Glass Solo
Philip Glass, piano
Orange Mountain Music
This is the second piano album made by Philip Glass. Solo Piano (1989) contains some overlap of tracks with the latest recording, Philip Glass Solo (2024), but there are distinct differences between the renditions on each. At 87 years of age, and in demand from opera houses, symphony orchestras, chamber ensembles, and filmmakers for a steady spate of new works, a solo performance recording might seem like an unnecessary addition to Glass’s catalog. But it is in those aforementioned differences found in the music that he shares a diff ..read more
Sequenza21
3w ago
On Saturday, March 30, 2024 Brightwork newmusic presented I Will Learn to Love a Person, a concert of new music at Boston Court Pasadena. Brightwork musicians Aron Kallay, Stacey Fraser, Brian Walsh and Nick Terry contributed excellent performances of works by noted composers.. The six works on the concert program dated from 2012 to 2024 and featured unusual combinations of vocals, piano, woodwinds and percussion.
The first piece on the concert program was Wagon Wheeling (2012) by Tom Flaherty and written for Aron Kallay. This piece was inspired by those old western movies where the camera f ..read more
Sequenza21
1M ago
On Sunday, March 24, 2024 the Pasadena Conservatory of Music presented the second in this season’s Wicked GOAT concert series of Contemporary Music for Young People. The concert is free to the Conservatory community and every seat in Barrett Hall was filled with eager faces and proud parents. The theme for this occasion was Stories and a stellar group of Los Angeles-based performers were on hand to bring four new music compositions to life, including a world premiere. Sopranos Hila Plitmann and Elissa Johnston brought their extraordinary voices to the stage, and this was the first Wicked GOAT ..read more
Sequenza21
1M ago
Saturday, March 30th: Kafka Fragments at Tenri
On Saturday at 8 PM, Kafka-Fragmente by György Kurtág will be performed at Tenri Cultural Institute (43A West 13th Street,New York NY), by soprano Susan Narucki and violinist Curtis Macomber (tickets). Earlier this week, they performed it at another venue also abundantly supportive of contemporary classical music, Buffalo University.
Kafka-Fragmente is based on aphoristic texts by Franz Kafka from his diaries and correspondence. As is his practice, Kurtág brought the composition together gradually, collecting fragments over time and ..read more
Sequenza21
1M ago
Polytempic Polymicrotonal Music in Four Pieces, by Peter Thoegersen, is a new digital release from the Fragments of Blue recording label. Since obtaining his Doctorate in Composition from the University of Illinois, Urbana, Thoegersen has devoted much of his composing career to the exploration of the musical possibilities at the intersection of rhythmic structures in multiple meters combined with scales built from microtonal pitches. This latest album builds on earlier works by simultaneously combining different meters and tempi with various microtonal temperaments. These pieces originally da ..read more