The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), the nation's leading orchestra dedicated exclusively to performing, commissioning, and recording new music of the 21st century, honors some of its long-standing cherished collaborations in a special Double Entendre concert at Jordan Hall (30 Gainsborough Street), Saturday, March 29th @ 8:00pm. A program soaked by artistic influences includes four world premieres: Double Violin Concerto by BMOP's Composer-in-Residence Lisa Bielawa, featuring two of her frequent muses—violinists Colin Jacobsen and Carla Kihlstedt; Clades by Derek Hurst with Boston's own Firebird Ensemble; On a Sufficient Condition for the Existence of Most Specific Hypothesis by Ken Ueno as throat-singer soloist; and The Conscious Sleepwalker Loops by Argentinian composer Alejandro Rutty. All four works will receive their New York premieres by BMOP at the 10th Annual MATA Festival in April 2008 in collaboration with MATA (Music at the Anthology, Inc.), the leading global catalyst for emerging composers and contemporary music co-founded by Philip Glass. Both the Bielawa and Ueno works will be recorded for future release on BMOP's record label, BMOP/sound. The Double Violin Concerto, co-commissioned by BMOP and the Radcliffe Institute, pays homage to the powerful effectiveness of the musical exchange between composer and musician. Bielawa's deep relationships with soloists Carla Kihlstedt and Colin Jacobsen serve as the piece's guiding force. "BMOP's Gil Rose, Carla, and Colin are each important influences and inspirations in my musical life—some composers are lucky enough to find one or two such musical friendships," explains Bielawa. "I imagine very few are able to bring three of them together in one joyful piece like this one!" This marks Bielawa's first work written expressly for BMOP since her 2006 induction as Composer-in-Residence, a three year residency during which she will yield several new works culminating in a recording of her orchestral music. As a 2007-2008 Radcliffe Institute Fellow, Bielawa has used several invaluable resources, including "Research Partners," to help create this three-movement concerto. She describes it as "the result of encounters between solo and performers, between soloist and orchestra, between creativity and interpretation, between individual musicians with richly varied musical lives." Composer Derek Hurst brings his electro-acoustic computer/music and sound design to the world premiere of Clades for five soloists and orchestra. A Fromm Foundation commission created for members of the Firebird Ensemble, Clades capitalizes off of the group's chameleon-like, risk-taking personality and artistic excellence. As two of Boston's favorites in the new music scene, they have been working together since 2004.
Continuing the theme of artistic collaboration, BMOP recently featured one of Hurst's works as part of its Club Café Concert series, and several members of the Firebird Ensemble are core members of BMOP. Hurst currently teaches in the Composition Division at Berklee College of Music as well as Brandeis and Northeastern Universities. On a Sufficient Condition for the Existence of Most Specific Hypothesis, also commissioned by the Fromm Foundation, Boston-based composer Ken Ueno fuses the culture of Japanese electronic music with an awareness of European modernism. Featuring himself as throat-singer soloist, Ueno is informed by his experience as an electric guitarist and overtone singer. Ueno is no stranger to BMOP. Kaze-no-Oka (Hill of the Winds), was commissioned and premiered by BMOP in 2005 for the orchestra's acclaimed tribute to Asian composer Toru Takemitsu. The Boston Globe described it as "dense, slowly shifting microtonal sound-masses...earthy rumblings against ethereal chord-clouds—painted a vast, brooding aural landscape." Ueno is currently the Assistant Professor and Director of the Electronic Music Studios at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Rounding out the program is the world premiere of The Conscious Sleepwalker Loops, an orchestral work commisioned by MATA, composed by Argentina-native Alejandor Rutty. Focusing on the concepts of echo and reverberation applied to delicately expressive music, Rutty has worked primarily in the field of instrumental music.
The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) has had an outstanding reputation amongst Boston's most innovative performing arts organizations for attracting multi-generational audiences and providing thematic, diversified programming, and a national reputation for performing and recording new orchestral music at the highest level. Founded in 1996 by Artistic Director Gil Rose, BMOP strives to illuminate the connections that exist between contemporary music and society by reuniting composers and audiences in a shared concert experience. The 2007-2008 BMOP season offers no fewer than 11 world premieres. In addition, BMOP launches its signature recording label BMOP/sound with the 2008 release of five new albums by composers John Harbison, Michael Gandolfi, Gunther Schuller, Lee Hyla, and Charles Fussell. In just 11 years, BMOP has received nine ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming of Orchestral Music, including the 2006-2007 ASCAP Award for Programming of Contemporary Music, and the 2006 American Symphony Orchestra League's John S. Edwards Award for Strongest Commitment to New American Music.
Ticket Information:
Tickets range from $10 - $48. Students receive a 50% discount. Seniors receive a 10% discount.
FREE pre-concert talk @ 7:00pm. For tickets, call BMOP at 617.363.0396 or visit www.bmop.org.
Tickets are also available for sale at the Jordan Hall Box Office three weeks before the concert and at the door, subject to availability.
About the Composers:
Lisa Bielawa
Composer-vocalist Lisa Bielawa often takes inspiration for her work from literary sources and from close artistic collaborations. A graduate of Yale University with a BA summa cum laude in Literature, her music explores the ritual and phenomenological nature of musicmaking and listening, employing instrumental forces in ways that are both dramatic and intimate in their use of time and space. Bielawa's The Lay of the Love and Death, written for violinist Colin Jacobsen and baritone Jesse Blumberg and based on an epic poem by Rilke, premiered at Alice Tully Hall in March 2006. Hurry, for soprano and chamber ensemble, was commissioned by Carnegie Hall and premiered in 2004 as part of Dawn Upshaw's Perspectives series, and the inaugural season of Zankel Hall included the premiere of The Right Weather by American Composers Orchestra and Van Cliburn prizewinning pianist Andrew Armstrong, prompted by an excerpt from Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. In 2006, she performed as vocalist in unfinish'd at the inaugural concert of her three-year residency with BMOP. She recently premiered Chance Encounter, a piece for migrating ensembles and soprano Susan Narucki for performance in public spaces, a multi-year project of Creative Capital. Her three-year residency with BMOP is one of the six orchestras nationwide to be awarded an extended Music Alive residency, a program of Meet the Composer and the American Symphony Orchestra League. During her residency, Bielawa will write two new works for BMOP, host BMOP's pre-concert talks, curate the popular Club Concerts series, and mentor young composers in local high schools and colleges. http://www.lisabielawa.net
Ken Ueno
A 2006-2007 Rome Prize recipient, Ken Ueno is an internationally-performed composer who actively involves himself in a wide range of activities in order to evangelize for modern music (including producing and hosting a television show about new music). Of a performance in Atlanta, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has said: "The evening was redeemed by the last work... Blood Blossoms... composed last year by Boston-based Ken Ueno... a young composer worth following..." The Boston Phoenix described his music as being "hypnotizing." Ensembles and performers who have played Ken's music include Kim Kashkashian and Robyn Schulkowsky, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Frances-Marie Uitti, the American Composers Orchestra (Whitaker Reading Session), the Cassatt Quartet, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Prism Saxophone Quartet, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Atlas Ensemble, Relâche, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, Dogs of Desire, the Orkest de Ereprijs, and the So Percussion Ensemble. His music has been performed at such venues as Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Musik Triennale Köln Festival, the Muziekgebouw, the Hopkins Center, Spoleto USA, Steim, and at the Norfolk Music Festival, where he was guest composer/lecturer. Ken's piece for the Hilliard Ensemble, Shiroi Ishi, continues to be featured in their repertoire, recently being performed at Queen Elizabeth Hall in England, the Vienna Konzerthaus, and aired on Italian national radio, RAI 3. Another work, Pharmakon, was performed dozens of times nationally by Eighth Blackbird during their 2001-2003 seasons. http://www.kenueno.com
Derek Hurst
The music Derek Hurst broadly exhibits a precarious balance between visceral solemnity and muscular jocularity, and has been performed throughout the United States and abroad by ensembles such as Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Left Coast Ensemble, Brave New Works, The Contemporary Keyboard Society and Firebird Ensemble, with works featured on concert events of League-ISCM, SEAMUS, ICMC, Boston Cyberarts and the Computer Arts Festival (Padova, It). He has received a Fromm Foundation Commission, an Artist's Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Wayne Peterson Prize and awards and fellowships from The Copland House Residency and the Irving Fine Fellowship for Music Composition. Derek received the PhD in composition/theory from Brandeis University and has studied composition with Tomas Svoboda, John Melby, Eric Chasalow, Martin Boykan, Yehudi Wyner and David Rakowski. Currently he teaches at Brown University and Berklee College of Music and has taught courses in electroacoustic music, music theory and composition at Brandeis University and Wheaton College.
Alejandro Rutty
Born in Argentina, composer Alejandro Rutty's output includes orchestral, chamber and mixed-media music, arrangements of Argentine traditional music, and innovative outreach musical projects. Rutty's compositions and arrangements have been played by the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Argentina, National Symphony Orchestra of Brazil, New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, Linköping Symphony Orchestra, Kiev Philharmonic, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Amherst Saxophone Quartet, and the Cassatt String Quartet among other groups. Recordings of his music have been released by Capstone Records, Arizona University Recordings, and ERM Media. Recent events include: the performance of Rutty's arrangement of Roop Verma's Concerto for Sitar and orchestra in Linkoping, Sweden, the premiere of L'accordeoniste by the East-Wind Quartet, and a concert of the Hey, Mozart New Mexico's project with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra. Founder and Artistic Director of the Hey, Mozart! Project, Rutty's activities have included his work as conductor for numerous organizations, and arranger and pianist for Argentine-Tango performances. He has been Artistic Director of the Hartwick College Summer Music Festival for the 2006 and 2007 seasons. Rutty is currently Assistant Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
http://www.uncg.edu/~ahrutty
About the Guest Artists:
Colin Jacobsen
Violinist Colin Jacobsen, a 2003 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, has pursued a varied career of solo and chamber music engagements. In addition to his recent appearance with the New York Philharmonic with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Mr. Jacobsen has been guest soloist with the symphony orchestras of Albany, Charlotte, Eugene, Rhode Island, Nashville, Charleston, the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, Santa Fe Pro Musica and the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra. As a touring member of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project, Mr. Jacobsen has collaborated with musicians from Asia and the Middle East including the kemanche virtuoso Kayhan Kalhor and the great Azerbaijani singer, Alim Qasimov. The group has recorded for the Sony Classical label and appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman. He has also enjoyed cross-disciplinary explorations with several dance companies, including the New York City Ballet, Mark Morris Dance Group, and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. Jacobsen performs regularly with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, at Bargemusic, and is a member of the Metropolitan Museum Artists in Concert.
Carla Kihlstedt
A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Kihlstedt has continuously pushed the boundaries of sonic vocabulary on both the acoustic and the electric violin. A violinist, vocalist, and multi-instrumentist, she is a founding member of Tin Hat Trio (now renamed Tin Hat), Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and The Book of Knots. Other musical projects include 2 Foot Yard, Charming Hostess, and Carla Kihlstedt & Satoko Fujii. She has also worked occasionally on projects with Tom Waits, and recorded numerous albums as a guest or session musician.
The Firebird Ensemble
Firebird Ensemble is a group of adventurous Boston-based musicians described as "flat out terrific" (New Music Connoisseur) and "ambitious and eclectic" (New York Times). Founded in 2001 by New England Conservatory alumnus Kate Vincent (Director) and Aaron Trant (Assistant Director), it promises a huge array of new music from all stylistic corners of the repertoire. 2007-2008 season highlights include another eclectic "MEAT the Composer" sequel at Redbones Barbecue Restaurant, and a sold-out concert at New York City's Symphony Space.
http://www.firebirdensemble.com