New Sounds for Changing Seasons: September in Seattle

Posted on September 1, 2018 by maestrobeats

Second Inversion and the Live Music Project create a monthly calendar featuring contemporary classical, cross-genre, and experimental performances in Seattle, the Eastside, Tacoma, and places in between!

Keep an eye out for our this flyer in concert programs and coffee shops around town. Feel free to download, print, and distribute it yourself! If you’d like to be included on this list, submit your event to the Live Music Project at least 6 weeks prior to the event and tag it with “new music.”

New music flyer September 2018

Wayward Music Series
Concerts of contemporary composition, free improvisation, electroacoustic music, and sonic experiments. This month: dismantled sounds, distorted guitar, improvised quartets, analog electronics, and more.
Various days, 7:30/8pm, Good Shepherd Chapel | $5-$15

Racer Sessions: CHA
This brand new improvising trio takes its title from the names of its members: Carol Levin on electric harp, Heather Bentley on violin, viola, and electronics, and Amelia Love Clearheart on vocals and movement. See their spontaneous improvisations in action and bring an instrument, as groups of three are encouraged to improvise following CHA’s performance.
Sun, 9/2, 8pm, Café Racer | FREE

Karen Bentley Pollick
Slip into a hypnotic sound world of violin and electronics in Karen Bentley Pollick’s performance of wide-ranging works by David A. Jaffe, Constantin Basica, Nina C. Young, Milica Parasonic, Melanie Mitrano, and more.
Thurs, 9/6, 8pm, Good Shepherd Chapel | $5-$15

Ladies Musical Club: Zelos Saxophone Quartet
It’s not everyday you hear Bach performed by saxophone quartet—but there are three chances to hear it this month. The Zelos Quartet performs saxophone arrangements of Bach, Gershwin, Glazunov, and more. Plus, tune in to hear them perform on Classical KING FM’s NW Focus LIVE.
Sun, 9/9, 1pm, Church of the Redeemer (Kenmore) | FREE
Thurs, 9/13, 7pm, Seattle Central Library | FREE
Fri, 9/14, 8pm, NW Focus LIVE on Classical KING FM 98.1 | FREE

Distant Worlds: Music From ‘Final Fantasy’ with the Seattle Symphony
Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu will be in attendance at this multimedia concert featuring the Seattle Symphony performing music from the critically-acclaimed video game series. Grammy Award-winner Arnie Roth conducts.
Wed-Thurs, 9/12-9/13, 7:30pm, Benaroya Hall | $35-$150

Composer Paul Wiancko.

Emerald City Music: Four Seasons
Travel from Paul Wiancko’s intercontinental American Haiku through Astor Piazzolla’s intoxicating Four Seasons of Buenos Aires in this evening of virtuosic duets from across history. Tartini’s Devil’s Trill and Bottesini’s Gran Duo Concertante complete the program.
Fri, 9/14, 8pm, 415 Westlake | $45
Sat, 9/15, 7:30pm, The Minnaert Center (Olympia) | $28-$43

The Sound Ensemble: ‘L’histoire du soldat’
In Stravinsky’s timeless Soldier’s Tale, a young man trades his violin to the devil in exchange for wealth and learns a thing or two about the relationship between money and happiness. Hear the Sound Ensemble perform the classic tale with narrator as part of their season opener.
Sat, 9/15, 7pm, Good Shepherd Chapel | $20

Opera on Tap: ‘Aide’ to ‘Zaide’
Local singers let their hair down and sing their hearts out, performing famous operatic masterpieces and hidden musical gems from ‘A’ to ‘Z’ in a friendly, relaxed atmosphere.
Sun, 9/16, 7:30pm, Blue Moon Tavern | $5

The Westerlies, photo by Shervin Lainez.

Westerlies Fest
The Seattle-bred, New York-based brass quartet returns home to host their first ever Westerlies Fest, a four-day music festival combining performances with daytime workshops for young players. In the evenings, catch the Westerlies performing alongside guest stars ranging from poets Troy Osaki and Azura Tyabji to Grammy-nominated vocalist Theo Bleckmann, TORCH chamber ensemble, and more.

Vocalist Theo Bleckmann.

Troy Osaki, Azura Tyuabji, The Westerlies
Thurs, 9/20, 7:30pm, Wing Luke Museum | FREE

TORCH, The Westerlies
Fri, 9/21, 7:30pm, Nickerson Studios | $15-$20

Theo Bleckmann, Kate Davis, The Westerlies
Sat, 9/22, 7:30pm, First Free Methodist Church | $15-$25

The Westerlies, Workshop Students
Sun, 9/23, 4pm, Nickerson Studios | FREE

Seattle Symphony: Morlot Conducts Ravel
French composers past and present are featured in this concert of shimmering musical colors. Ludovic Morlot conducts the Seattle Symphony in performances of Marc-André Dalbavie’s exquisite La source d’un regard alongside Ravel’s rapturous Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2 and his sultry Piano Concerto in G Major featuring soloist Steven Osborne. Debussy’s mystical Printemps completes the program.
Thurs-Sat, 9/27-9/29, Various times, Benaroya Hall | $22-$92

Ilha Formosa: Music of Taiwan
Philharmonia Northwest is joined by Taiwanese choirs from Seattle, Vancouver B.C., and Taiwan for a rare performance of Tyzen Hsiao’s Ilha Formosa: Requiem for Formosa’s Martyrs, a piece dedicated to Taiwanese victims of the White Terror. The program also features Shui-Long Ma’s musical portrayal of the legendary Taiwanese Robin Hood figure Liao Tian-Ding, plus violinist Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu, cellist Felix Fan, and pianist Angelo Rondello join the orchestra for a performance of Gordon Chin’s theatrical Triple Concerto.
Sat, 9/29, 2pm, Benaroya Hall | $25-$50

Live at Benaroya Hall: Gabriel Royal
Cellist Gabriel Royal got his start as a busker on the New York City subway, but has since grown into a globe-trotting singer-songwriter who layers cello and voice into lush serenades.
Sun, 9/30, 7:30pm, Nordstrom Recital Hall | $40-$50

Cellist Gabriel Royal.

ALBUM REVIEW: Michael Gordon’s ‘Clouded Yellow’

Posted on August 20, 2018 by maestrobeats

by Gabriela Tedeschi

Michael Gordon. Photo by Peter Serling.

After throwing out a piece he’d been working on seriously for months, Michael Gordon sat down for just nine days to create something new, something uninhibited where “all the colors are flying.” That piece became “Clouded Yellow,” titled after the smudged, colorful wing patterns of the clouded yellow butterfly. It also became the title track for his new album, a collection of string quartets where blurred, distorted, and layered sounds coalesce into a vibrant, fluttering haze.

Gordon, one of the three co-founders of Bang on a Can, has a passion for exploring ways in which classical chamber works can be warped with electronic effects and guitar pedals. His latest album is the product of a decades-long collaboration with the Kronos Quartet, an ensemble comprised of violinists David Harrington and John Sherba, violist Hank Dutt, and cellist Sunny Yang that is committed to stretching the limits of string quartet music. Clouded Yellow features four works that revel in blurred harmonies and melodies, shedding light on the beauty of opaqueness.

Kronos Quartet. Photo by Jay Blakesburg.

The title piece, “Clouded Yellow” creates this blurred effect with driving melodic lines and overlapping rhythms that obscure the beat. Chromatic movement with slides and trills encompasses much of the violin lines, developing dark, intricate harmonies that flutter restlessly around the listener.

Similarly, “Potassium” layers different sliding lines of sustained notes and uses a fuzz box to distort the strings, creating a mysterious cloud of sound. The piece alternates between slower, melancholic sliding sections, dramatic periods where the violins slide rapidly above driving viola and cello accompaniment, and conventionally beautiful sections with tender, lyrical melodies. As these contradictory elements are woven together, “Potassium” becomes an ornate musical web that is impossible to untangle.

The album’s blurred aesthetic brilliantly suits the thematic content in “Sad Park,” a four-part piece that layers the quartet’s music under sentences from toddlers who were asked to explain the events of 9/11. Following the pattern laid out by the previous tracks, the piece features electronic sounds, slides, and complex, interlocking patterns that intentionally disorient the listener. As the young children’s words are replayed over and over, they are electronically warped, becoming eerie non-verbal sounds—almost like wails of pain at some moments. The children’s confused words and the distortion of both their voices and the instruments reflects the confusion, pain, and helplessness felt in the wake of 9/11.

“Exalted,” the final track, serves as a response to the mourning of “Sad Park.” Featuring the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, the piece sets the opening of the Kaddish, a prayer sequence recited for the dead in the Jewish faith. The voices layer chromatic, descending lines over a rhythmic violin pattern and the slides of the cello and viola. While the dark intensity of the piece never diminishes, it begins to move over time toward a quiet finality that offers a sense of peace. “Exalted” both captures the complexity of mourning and artfully juxtaposes something ancient and religious with the immediacy of modern sounds.

Clouded Yellow documents Gordon and the Kronos Quartet’s innovative experimentation with electronics, clashing layers, and disorienting rhythmic patterns. The resulting music is intricate, dramatic, and thought-provoking: it speaks powerfully to the confusion we all experience when so much of the world around us is blurred.

All Tomorrow’s Parties: Paying Homage while Looking Ahead with Nadia Shpachenko

Posted on August 15, 2018 by maestrobeats

Photo by Albert Chang.

by Dacia Clay

Nadia Shpachenko is a multiple Grammy-nominated pianist and Professor of Music at Cal Poly Pomona University who has never stopped playing with her toys.

Shpachenko’s love of playing—both with toys and on her piano, and sometimes, with her toy piano—is part of what makes her new album, Quotations and Homages, so much fun to listen to. She’s got this wide-open sense of adventure that comes across not only in her playing, but in the pieces she commissions and the composers from whom she commissions them. (Shpachenko seems to choose composers by their willingness to be co-conspirators in her exploits as much as for their compositional aptitude.) An album of pieces that pay homage to everyone from Messiaen to the Velvet Underground? Yes! A piece inspired by Stravinsky called “Igor to Please” written for 6 pianists on 2 toy pianos, 2 pianos, and electronics? Yay! Let’s do it!

In this interview, Nadia talks about why she’s such an advocate for new classical music, about the ideas that inspired this new album and the pieces therein, and about breaking piano strings.

VIDEO PREMIERE: Joshua Roman’s ‘Tornado’ ft. the JACK Quartet

Posted on August 13, 2018 by maestrobeats

by Gabriela Tedeschi

Photo by Hayley Young.

Joshua Roman is a native of Oklahoma, where the gentle beauty of spring is routinely dismantled by the awesome and destructive power of tornadoes.

His newest composition is inspired by just that. Composed for cello quintet, Tornado paints a musical portrait of his childhood storm experiences, using chaotic string textures to conjure up the stunning and terrifying natural imagery of tornado season. The piece was commissioned by Town Hall and Music Academy of the West and premiered this past spring by Roman and the JACK Quartet.

With its complex and vivid musical storytelling, Tornado depicts the fear and destruction that tornadoes bring while also capturing their wild beauty. Tender and playful pastoral melodies repeatedly give way to sinister, driving motifs and unsettling dissonances. Over time, the thrilling sonic storm builds as the quintet begins plucking, scratching, and striking the strings. Some parts of the performance are even left up to chance, with aleatoric writing and microtone smears gesturing toward the unpredictability of nature.

We’re thrilled to premiere our video of Joshua Roman and the JACK Quartet performing Roman’s Tornado.

Notorious RBG in Song

Posted on August 10, 2018 by maestrobeats

by Dacia Clay

Today—that’s August 10, 2018 if you’re reading this from the future world—marks Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s 25^th year on the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1993, she became the second woman in history to be confirmed to the court, and since then, she’s been a part of important court decisions on everything from gender equality and same-sex marriage to Bush v. Gore. When the Court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Ginsburg’s dissenting opinion was so impassioned that she earned the nickname “Notorious RBG” after a college student started a meme on Tumblr.

Patrice Michaels and Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Glimmerglass Festival, 2016.

Notorious RBG is now the name of a new album of art song released to celebrate Ginsburg’s 25 years with SCOTUS. The album came about organically through a series of family commissions and personal projects. As it turns out, Ginsburg’s son James is the head of Cedille Records, and her daughter-in-law is soprano and composer Patrice Michaels. In this interview, James and Patrice tell the story of how the album came together, and talk about the woman its songs were inspired by.