|
Event
LONGLEASH presents Recent Works
RECENT WORKS
8:00 pm Monday, May 18, 2015
Benzaquen Hall. The DiMenna Center for Classical Music
Program
CLARA IANNOTTA: Il colore dell'ombra (2010)
CHRISTOPHER TRAPANI: Passing Through, Staying Put (2011)
LISA STREICH: Sai Ballare? (2015)
YUKIKO WATANABE: ver_flies_sen (2012)
LONGLEASH's first annual Recent Works Show presents four trios by an international group of brilliant, critically acclaimed young composers. Every piece on this ensemble-curated program draws inspiration from an existing work of music, literature, film, or painting. Inspired by Ravel's piano trio, Clara Iannotta's Il colore dell'ombra plays with musical shadows and establishes a sound that is both assertively self-representative and invitingly nuanced. In Passing Through, Staying Put, Christopher Trapani mimics the two-part structure of a novel by Geoff Dyer, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi. Trapani's piece is similarly bisected. The first section fixates on motion and change; the second, on "settling and stasis, a sense of arrival." Lisa Streich's Sai Ballare?, inspired by the final scene of Pier Paolo Pasolini's film Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, is "devoted to the crevices between ugliness and beauty". The work imagines a fictitious dance to be performed in the shadows of the film's often disturbing content. Yukiko Watanabe's ver_flies_sen was inspired by the tiled structure and contorted visuals of Adriana Varejão's painting O Hungaro. In a constant state of motion, Watanabe's musical layers change their shape, like an aural mosaic perceived through rippling water.
LONGLEASH, formed in 2013, has been praised for navigating "an incredible breadth of musical styles with technical expertise and expressive innovation" (Feast of Music) and has quickly earned a reputation in the US and abroad for innovative programming, artistic excellence, and new music advocacy. 2014-15 season highlights include performances on Louisville Public Radio (WUOL), the Trondheim Chamber Music Festival (Norway), Selective Truths at New Amsterdam (Brooklyn, NY), St. Peter's Church, and an artist residency at pianoSonoma. Other performance venues include the Center for New Music (San Francisco), the Metropolitan Museum's Balcony Bar, and the Kunstuniversität Graz (Austria). Longleash has worked closely with composers including Beat Furrer, Klaus Lang, and Reiko Füting, and premiered works by Younghi Pagh-Paan, Scott Wollschleger, Ken Ueno, and Chris Swithinbank. Longleash has presented lectures and composition readings at the Manhattan School of Music, New York University, Rutgers University, and Ohio University. Longleash's current season is supported in part by Columbia University's Alice M. Ditson Fund for American music.
LONGLEASH takes its name from the CIA's Cold War era project Operation Long Leash, designed to disseminate American avant-garde art throughout Europe. It was the CIA's intention to influence international public opinion of the United States, promoting the idea of the US as a beacon of cultural enlightenment, while exposing the contrived limitations of Socialist Realism and the artistic controls imposed on Soviet artists. Ironically, the CIA had to circumvent the Truman administration's hostility toward the American avant-garde, as well as establishment-averse artists. The operation was at a remove from both standpoints hence the long leash.
Born in Rome in 1983, composer Clara Iannotta has been commissioned worldwide by ensembles and orchestras such as the Westdeutschen Rundfunk, Accentus Choir, Radio France and Ensemble Intercontemporain. She received her Bachelor's degree at the Conservatoire of Milan (Italy), in the class of Alessandro Solbiati. Further studies led her to the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris (CNSMDP), in the class of Frédéric Durieux, and she is currently a PhD student in composition at Harvard University with Chaya Czernowin.
Christopher Trapani was born in New Orleans. He studied at Harvard as an undergraduate, then headed overseas: a year in London, working on a Master's; a year in Istanbul, on a Fulbright grant; and seven years in Paris, in part at IRCAM. Christopher is currently based in New York City. Christopher is the winner of the 2007 Gaudeamus Prize, the Julius F. Ježek Prize, and awards from ASCAP, BMI, and The American Academy of Arts and Letters. Current projects include a new piece for Ensemble Modern and an orchestral work for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
Lisa Streich, Swedish-German composer/organist, studied in Berlin, Stockholm, Salzburg, Paris, and Cologne. Her music has been played by Quatuor Diotima, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Ensemble Recherche, Norköpping Symphony Orchestra, et al., at Ircam, Ultraschall, Acht Brücken, and MATA Festival, among others. She has received scholarships from Cité des Arts, Paris; the Swedish Arts Grants Committee; the Anne-Sophie Mutter Fund, and is a recipient of the Busoni Förderpreis of the Academy of Arts, Berlin and the Bernd Alois Zimmermann Prize. Her chamber and orchestral music, which incorporates found objects, electronics, and home-made motorized instruments, tries also subtly to address the listeners' eyes.
Yukiko Watanabe began her formal training at Toho Gakuen School of Music Japan with Keiko Harada. In 2008 she moved to Austria and studied with Beat Furrer at Kunst universität Graz and was awarded Master of Musik-Komposition with highest distinction in 2012. Currently she is studying at the Musikhochschule Köln under Johannes Schöllhorn. Her studies have been supported by Nomura Cultural Foundation, Rohm Music Foundation, Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs, and DAAD. Since 2011, her scores have been published by Universal Edition as part of her award "Ö1 Talentebörse-Kompositionspreise". Recently, her opera "Die weiche Mondin" was premiered at Graz Opera under conductor and composer Beat Furrer.
|
|
 |
LocationThe DiMenna Center for Classical Music, Benzaquen Hall (New York City,NY) (View)
450 West 37th Street
New York, NY 10018
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: Yes! |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
|
Contact
|
