Kronos founder David Harrington recently spoke to San Francisco Classical Voice about the group’s upcoming concerts with the Alim Qasimov Ensemble. Prior to the Lively Arts performance on February 12, visiting artists Alim and Fargana Qasimov discuss and demonstrate the music of Azerbaijan, with Harrington in a free event at the Stanford Humanities Center on February 9.
READ THE INTERVIEW

—Posted by Robert Cable, Public Relations Manager

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer (and Stanford alum) David Lang recently blogged on the Carnegie Hall site about his new work Death Speaks, slated to premiere at Dinkelspiel Auditorium on January 25.

“death speaks was commissioned by Carnegie Hall and Stanford Lively Arts, specifically to go on a program with the little match girl passion. The opportunity came without many other parameters, so there were a lot of questions I had to answer. Would the new piece be for an existing ensemble or some group I would assemble for these performances only? Would it relate to little match girl, musically or emotionally, or would it start from its own place?” READ MORE

—Posted by Robert Cable, Public Relations Manager

Stanford composer Mark Applebaum recently performed his Aphasia, a piece for “hand gestures synchronized to prerecorded sound,” at CCRMA in December. The work, which Lively Arts premiered in February 2011, features the prerecorded voice of Nicholas Isherwood who took part in the initial performance.

Mark Applebaum writes:

“Aphasia, for performer and two-channel audio, consists of an idiosyncratic explosion of warped and mangled sounds. This audio is made up exclusively of vocal samples—all provided by Nicholas Isherwood and subsequently transformed digitally. Against the backdrop of this audio narrative, the live performer executes an elaborate set of hand gestures, an assiduously choreographed sign language of sorts. Each gesture is fastidiously synchronized to the audio in tight rhythmic coordination.

There is no gesture tracking technology employed in the performance. It is decidedly ‘old school’: the performer simply must memorize the entire score and learn the micro-timing of the rhythms so that a sense of visual mimesis results. The performance shown in the video is entirely unedited. And while a few of the timings could have been improved (and I made one mistake—that only I would notice) it does have the charm and spontaneity of being realized in one take.”

Aphasia from Mark Applebaum on Vimeo.

—Posted by Robert Cable, Public Relations Manager

Several recent Lively Arts-commissioned works were included in the 2012 GRAMMY Award nominations announced last night.

Music from Steven Mackey’s SLIDE (given its Bay Area premiere at Stanford with eighth blackbird in 2011) was nominated for three categories: “Best Engineered Album,” “Best Small Ensemble Performance,” and “Best Contemporary Composition.”

John Adams’ recording for Son of Chamber Symphony (given its world premiere at Stanford in 2007) and String Quartet (given its West Coast premiere at Stanford in 2009) with the St. Lawrence String Quartet was nominated in the “Producer of the Year” category.

Steve Reich’s Mallet Quartet (U.S. premiere at Stanford in 2010) and Meredith Monk’s Songs of Ascension (world premiere at Stanford in 2008) were also nominated in the “Producer of the Year” category.

In addition, nominations went to the Pacifica Quartet’s recent Shostakovitch recording (seen earlier this season at Lively Arts) and to John Hollenbeck (seen last season at Lively Arts).

The 54th Annual GRAMMY Awards will be held on Feb. 12, 2012, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. See full list of nominees.

—Posted by Robert Cable, Public Relations Manager