Gems from the New World Records & NWCRI catalogue
This thread is an attemt to highlight some of the albums from the massive drop on Amie Street. I ended up with 200+ albums, so it can be a bit overwhelming just to browse through the titles. I just know there are still gems I have not discovered yet.
- And maybe there are others who are in the same situation around here. If there is, feel free to chip in.
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RE:
Composers Recordings Inc. (CRI)
Profile:
"Non-profit label founded in 1954 in New York City by Otto Luening, Douglas Moore, and Oliver Daniel. The label released over 600 recordings, mainly of contemporary classical music by American composers.
It went out of business in 2003 due to financial pressures, and the rights to CRI's recordings were transferred to New World Records in 2006, all releases are now available from them."
Sublabel: American Masters
Parent Label: New World Records
- Discogs.
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Andrew Imbrie:
- "Born in New York City on 6 April 1921, Andrew Imbrie studied with Leo Ornstein, Nadia Boulanger, and Roger Sessions, with whom he studied from 1937 to 1948. He has taught at the University of California at Berkeley since 1949, and at the San Francisco Conservatory since 1970. Imbrie has composed works for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensemble, and stage, and his music has been praised for its profound integrity, ardent expression, and an intense drive and conviction. Imbrie's list of prestigious commissions and honors begins from his earliest days as a composition student. The first of his five string quartets, written while at Princeton, won the New York Music Critics' Circle Award in 1944. Other commissions include works for the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Halle Orchestra, San Francisco Opera, the Naumburg Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the Pro Arte Quartet. His awards include the Prix de Rome, two Guggenheim Fellowships, The Walter M. Naumburg Recording Award, and membership in the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Andrew Imbrie passed away on Dec. 5, 2007 at his home in Berkeley, CA."
-
- And maybe there are others who are in the same situation around here. If there is, feel free to chip in.
*******************************************************************************************************************************************************
RE:
Composers Recordings Inc. (CRI)
Profile:
"Non-profit label founded in 1954 in New York City by Otto Luening, Douglas Moore, and Oliver Daniel. The label released over 600 recordings, mainly of contemporary classical music by American composers.
It went out of business in 2003 due to financial pressures, and the rights to CRI's recordings were transferred to New World Records in 2006, all releases are now available from them."
Sublabel: American Masters
Parent Label: New World Records
- Discogs.
*******************************************************************************************************************************************************
Andrew Imbrie:
- "Born in New York City on 6 April 1921, Andrew Imbrie studied with Leo Ornstein, Nadia Boulanger, and Roger Sessions, with whom he studied from 1937 to 1948. He has taught at the University of California at Berkeley since 1949, and at the San Francisco Conservatory since 1970. Imbrie has composed works for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensemble, and stage, and his music has been praised for its profound integrity, ardent expression, and an intense drive and conviction. Imbrie's list of prestigious commissions and honors begins from his earliest days as a composition student. The first of his five string quartets, written while at Princeton, won the New York Music Critics' Circle Award in 1944. Other commissions include works for the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Halle Orchestra, San Francisco Opera, the Naumburg Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the Pro Arte Quartet. His awards include the Prix de Rome, two Guggenheim Fellowships, The Walter M. Naumburg Recording Award, and membership in the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Andrew Imbrie passed away on Dec. 5, 2007 at his home in Berkeley, CA."
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Comments
Chamber Works of Cindy Cox
Alexander Quartet; Earplay Ensemble; Paul Dresher Ensemble; George Thomson, conductor; Karen Bentley, violin; Karen Rosenak, piano; Peter Joseff, clarinet
Paul Lansky
- "(b New York City, 18 June 1944) composes works for computer that tend to be focused not on the invention of new sounds, but on the ways in which this technology can be used to expand and deepen our sense of the sounds of the world around us. To this end, his pieces have involved the sounds of speech, of people going about their business, of machines and musical instrumentswith the computer serving as an aural camera that transforms and repositions our perceptions of these sounds. It is his contention that the meaning of a sound lies not only in its musical context, but also in the ways in which we understand its physical origin."
- From the Linernotes.
- "The Aquarium is Beckleys on-going series of musical
compositions, texts, performances, sculptures, and paperworks.
The musical composition was first conceived in a version for
solo voice and electronics, as presented on this CD. An
expanded performance version, which includes six other
musicians, was presented in a preliminary form at the opening of
the Steirischer Herbst Festival in Graz, Austria, in September
1995. Sculptures and paperworks from The Aquarium were
presented at the Nicholas Davies Gallery in New York City in
1995 and 1997. The complete performance version, with newly
developed visuals, will be presented at the 1997 Lincoln Center
Festival."
- From the liner notes. - http://conniebeckley.net/
Martin Bresnick (b 1946):
- Studied composition with György Ligeti and computer music with John Chowning at Stanford University (where he received his doctorate). His compositions have been widely performed and he has received numerous awards, including the Rome Prize, a Fulbright Fellowship, NEA grants, and First Prize in the Premio Ancona, Sinfonia Musicale, and Composers Inc. competitions. He has been commissioned by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, the Fromm Foundation, Chamber Music America, and the Lila Wallace Readers Digest/Meet the Composer Commissioning Program, among other societies and ensembles. He has been a highly influential teacher at the Yale School of Music where he is currently professor of composition and coordinator of the composition department.
- From the liner notes - http://www.martinbresnick.com/
- ""I think of my music as simple; easy for listeners though not so easy for the performers. Auroras is expressive music-music of feeling. For me its meanings are non-verbal and non-visual-musical. Nevertheless they are as precise, definite and rich in detail as visual and verbal meanings, and for me deeper too, close to ultimate things."
- Robert Erickson.
Born in Michigan but for most of his life a true Californian, Robert Erickson (1917 -1997) had a reputation as a maverick. His musical path was never a straight line, nor, really, a line at all but a landscape, with ranges of features rather than mere points of interest. Composing was the central activity of his life. He was a profound and original musical thinker who embraced the expressive possibilities of all music, from the Western classics and moderns of his own early education to Indian and Balinese traditions and all manner of contemporary experimentation, as long as it served a musical purpose. When encountering his work, one doesn't need to know more than one hears: what's important are the sounds one encounters and the expressive journey they suggest for each listener. These four works- Night Music (1978), Fantasy for Cello and Orchestra (1954), East of the Beach (1980), Auroras (1982, rev. 1985)-all (except Night Music) world-premiere recordings, represent the best of his orchestral output, including the piece considered its apex, Auroras."
- New World Records
Mendelssohn String Quartet; Anthony Orlando, marimba; Carol Brown, flute and piccolo; Charles Abramovic, piano; Charles Holdeman, bassoon; Don Liuzzi, vibraphone; Ida Levin, violin; Katherine Murdock, viola; Kathleen Carroll, viola; Lloyd Shorter, English horn; Lori Barnet, cello; Marcy Rosen, cello; Marshall Taylor, saxophone; Nicholas Mann, violin.
- New World Records (with Liner notes)
- "Tina Davidson, a highly regarded American composer, creates music that stands out for its emotional depth and lyrical dignity. She has been acclaimed for her authentic voice, her "vivid ear for harmony and colors" (New York Times) and her works of "transfigured beauty" (OperaNews). She writes "real music, with structure, mood, novelty and harmonic sophistication - with haunting melodies that grow out of complex, repetitive rhythms" (Philadelphia Inquirer) that is both "intellectually rigorous and deeply moving" (Star-Tribune).
Over her twenty-five year career, Davidson has been commissioned by well known ensembles such as National Symphony Orchestra, OperaDelaware, Roanoke Symphony, Womens Philharmonic, Orchestra Society of Philadelphia, VocalEssence, Concertante, Kronos Quartet, Mendelssohn String Quartet, Cassatt Quartet, and public television (WHYY-TV).Her music has been widely performed by many orchestras and ensembles, including The Philadelphia Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Florida Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Harrisburg Symphony, Relâche Ensemble, and Orchestra 2001.
Long-term residencies play a major role in Ms Davidsons career. As composer-in-residence with the Fleisher Art Memorial (1998-2001), she was commissioned to write for the Cassatt Quartet, Voces Novae et Antiquae, and members of the Philadelphia Orchestra. She also created the city-wide Young Composers program to teach inner city children how to write music through instrument building, improvisation, and graphic notation. She was composer-in-residence as part of the innovative Meet The Composer "New Residencies" with OperaDelaware, the Newark Symphony and the YWCA in Delaware (1994-97). During this residency, she wrote the critically acclaimed full-length opera, Billy and Zelda, as well as created community partner programs for homeless women, and with students at a local elementary school.
The recipient of numerous prestigious grants and fellowships, Davidson was the first classical composer to receive a $50,000 Pew Fellowship, the largest such grant in the country for which an artist can apply. She has been awarded four Artists Fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, CAP grants from the American Music Center and numerous Meet the Composer grants. Her work, Transparent Victims was selected by the American Public Radio as part of the International Rostrum of Composers, held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.
Ms. Davidsons music can be heard on Albany Records, CRI, Mikrokosmik, Callisto, and Opus One recording labels. Her second solo compact disc, "It is My Heart Singing," was released on Albany Records and features three works for strings performed by the Cassatt Quartet. "I Hear the Mermaids Singing" was released on CRI's Emergency Music label and includes six of her chamber works. The Cassatt Quartet recorded her string quartet, Cassandra Sings for CRI. In June 2002, WHYY-TV released her piano trio, Bodies in Motion on CD and DVD formats as apart of their documentary, "Thomas Eakins: Scenes from Modern Life." Her work, Antiphon for the Virgin, recorded by VocalEssence Ensemble Singers, was released by St. Patrick Guild on compact disc.
Tina Davidson was born in Stockholm, Sweden and grew up in Oneonta, NY and Pittsburgh, PA. She received her BA in piano and composition from Bennington College in 1976 where she studied with Henry Brant, Louis Calabro, Vivian Fine and Lionel Nowak. She founded the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Composers Forum and served as its director from 1999-2001. She was president of the New Music Alliance, a national organization, which has been responsible for the New Music America Festivals. She organized a nation-wide festival entitled "New Music Across America," which ran in 18 cities in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. In 1992 she wrote a widely-circulated article on women in music for Ms Magazine. She lives in central Pennsylvania in the historic town of Marietta with her husband, designer, Scott A. Stultz, and their children, and is currently working on a new opera called Pearl, based on a novel by acclaimed author, Mary Gordon."
- http://www.tinadavidson.com/
New World Records - 2004
James Tenney - ((August 10, 1934 August 24, 2006)
- "A link between American mavericks such as Varèse, Partch, Ruggles, and Cage (with whom he worked and studied) and todays downtown experimentalists, Tenney was a pioneer in electronic and computer music, though later in his career he turned to composing almost exclusively for acoustic instruments. He also wrote widely on aspects of musical acoustics, form, and perception. He had held the Roy E. Disney Family Chair in Musical Composition at CalArts since 2000.
Critic Kyle Gann, who has published a memorial for Tenney, is widely quoted for noting that when John Cage, who studied with Schoenberg, was asked in 1989 whom he would study with if he were young today, he replied, James Tenney.
New Music Box
The Barton Workshop:
Jos Zwaanenburg, flutes; Alex Geller, cello; Nina Hitz, cello; Marieke Keser, violin; Jacob Plooij, violin; Judith van Swaaij, cello; Elisabeth Smalt, viola; John Anderson, clarinets; Gertjan Loot, trumpet; Krijn van Arnhem, bassoon, contrabassoon; Frank Denyer, melodica; Charles van Tassel, baritone; Theo van Arnhem, contrabass; Jos Tieman, contrabass; James Fulkerson, conductor.
- May he rest in peace.
Marty Walker, bass clarinet; Vicki Ray, piano
Composers:
Wadada Leo Smith, Jon Fink, Bernardo Feldman, Barney Childs, Arthur Jarvinen, Shaun Naidoo, Jim Fox
- "Has devoted himself to new music and improvisation for over two decades, concentrating on collaborating with composers to inspire new works, and earning a reputation as one of the finer new music clarinetists in the country. Premiering over 80 pieces written especially for him, many of which highlight his bass clarinet playing, he has performed as a soloist at venues throughout the United States and Mexico. These include the New Music America, Miami, and Houston Festivals, the International Festival of New Music at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Mexico Citys New Music International Festival, Bostons Berklee College of Music, Chicagos Links Hall, Berkeleys Maybeck Recital Hall and Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut. In Los Angeles, he has performed in concerts presented by the Monday Evening Concerts, FaultLines, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Wires, the Alligator Lounges New Music Mondays, and more. Walker has also broadcast live performances for Pacifica and National Public Radio.
Walker is a member of both the California E.A.R. Unit, recognized as one of todays premiere contemporary chamber ensembles, and Ghost Duo, an improvisation duo with composer/electric guitarist Michael Jon Fink. He performs and records regularly with Art Jarvinens Some Over History and the Gong Farmers. Walkers playing can be heard on several labels, including Advance Recordings, O. O. Discs, Cold Blue Records, Raptoria Caam, Grenadilla Records, Bare Bones Records, Tzadik, and Rastascan Records."
- From the linernotes @ New World Records
- "As the world collapses into a global village, and technology offers composers and listeners an ever-expanding menu of diverse musical traditions, the idea of world musicwith its promises of broken stylistic barriers and leveled hierarchiesbegins to take on an air of delicious inevitability. Evan Ziporyns music testifies to the artistic richness of that prospect.
Born in Evanston, Illinois, in 1959, Ziporyn has the credentials of a more conventional composer: he studied music at Eastman, Yale, and the University of California at Berkeley, and now teaches composition at M.I.T. As a clarinetist and saxophonist, he has been an important advocate for new music, most notably through his involvement with New York's Bang on a Can Festival and through his commissioning of new works. His education has also included extended stays in Bali and South Africa, several years as a performing member of the Oakland-based Gamelan Sekar Jaya, and stints in jazz and rock bands. Elements from those disparate musical strands jostle beguilingly against each other in his music, which draws from an eclectic range of styles and languages.
Yet Ziporyns music offers no easy one-world homilyit says as much about the powerful differences between musical traditions as about their common bonds. When elements from Balinese gamelan or African pop show up in Western art music, they inevitably sound deracinated and out of kilterwithout the context that provides those gestures their original meanings, the gestures metamorphose into something different, usually unintended. By the same token, familiar rhythms and tonal formulas from close to home can become strangers when dressed up in foreign garb."
- From the linernotes @ New World Records.
Composers:
Dan Becker, Ed Harsh, Carolyn Yarnell, John Halle, Marc Mellits, Melissa Hui, Belinda Reynolds, Randall Woolf
The Common Sense Ensemble:
Patti Monson,flutes ; Jennifer Yeaton-Mellits, flutes ; Libby Van Cleve, oboe ; Matthew Sullivan, oboe damore ; Michael Lowenster, clarinets ; Neil Mueller,trumpet, flugelhorn ; Julie Josephson, trombone ; David Spies, tuba ; Sara Laimon, piano, keyboards ; Gregor Kitzis, violin ; Danny Tunick, percussion ; Bradley Lubamn, conductor ; Jeannine Wagar, conductor.
The Common Sense Composers Collective is characterized
by an optimistic, energetic American pragmatism. Arriving
after the great ideological debates of the late twentieth century
have receded into mere historical curiosities (modernism/-
minimalism versus post-modernism, etc.), the composers of
the collective remind us again that new music survives simply
because people need to make it and to listen to it.
The composers of the collective, trained in the academies and
the streets of urban America, ask the obvious question, so
hard to grasp because so close at handhow shall we engage
ourselves and our listeners with the best new music we can
make?
Leaving the metaphysics to the metaphysicians, they
concentrate on the processes of creationfrom the composer
to the performer and back again in a self-regulating feedback
loop. If the music works it will play and be played. If not, fix
it and try again. These composers aesthetic choices are not
(as with so many other new groups) their manifesto. What
music delights and intrigues the composer, performer, and
listener is itself their statement, their credo.
Instead of an end of the century malaise, a cynical and
fatigued sigh of weary despair, hear here a joyous, witty,
necessary musica music that celebrates the notion that,
among all of its proud refinements, our musical sensibility is
also a common sense."
- Martin Bresnick - from the linernotes @ New World Records - http://commonsensecomposers.org/home.htm
Arizona State University Symphonic Band; Richard E. Strange, conductor; Judy May Sellheim, mezzo-soprano; Contemporary Chamber Ensemble; Arthur Weisberg, conductor; Susan Lee Pounders Ung, viola; Barbara Martin, soprano; Joan Heller, soprano;
New World Records
- "Composer Chinary Ung emerged from relative obscurity in 1989 when he was given the highly coveted Grawemeyer Award for his 1986 choral work, Inner Voices. A meteoric ascent followed, bedecked with prestigious commissions and frequent performances of his works. It seemed an unlikely reception for an immigrant composer whose expressive language was progressive and often challenging for the listener, not least because of its occasional blending of Western and Far Eastern sonorities. But Ung's music has attracted a wide following over the years: even at its most intractable, it is colorful and full of invention, rife with a sense of individuality. Ung's vocal writing often calls for vibrato-like and other effects; his instrumental works sometimes feature exotic (i.e., Cambodian or Far Eastern) instruments, and his orchestral and chamber music often exhibits layering techniques. Yet, works such as Grand Spiral (1990), for symphonic band, are Impressionistic in character and relatively accessible. Ung's works are available on a variety of labels, including Bridge, Composers Recordings, Albany Records, and New World Records.
Chinary Ung was born in Takeo, Cambodia, on November 24, 1942. His first advanced musical studies were at the Ecole de Musique Phnom Penh. After immigrating to the U.S. in 1964, he enrolled at the Manhattan School of Music for clarinet studies, but transferred to Columbia University to study composition with Chinese-American composer Chou Wen-Chung.
Ung achieved success with his first significant compositions, Mohori (1970) and Tall Wind (1974), both for vocalist and chamber ensemble. But between 1974, the year of his Columbia graduation, and 1985 he virtually abandoned composition, producing but a single work, Khse Buon (1980), for solo cello or viola. Ung used the decade-long hiatus to aid relatives and artists escape the murderous and oppressive Khmer Rouge regime, then in control of Cambodia.
After winning the Grawemeyer Award in 1989, Ung enjoyed a string of successes, including Spiral VI (1992), for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano; Antiphonal Spirals (1995), for orchestra; and Seven Mirrors (1997), for solo piano. In 2002 Ung returned to his native country for the first time since 1964. There he performed in several concerts of his music. Ung has remained active as a composer in the new century, producing such pieces as the 2008 choral work Spiral XII: Space Between Heaven and Earth. He also teaches at the University of California at San Diego, where he has been professor of composition since 1995."
- Allmusic
ICIYL - 5 questions to Chinary Ung
http://www.newworldrecords.org/album.cgi?rm=view&album_id=17438
Brief Biography:
- "The conceptual and multifaceted composer/conductor Tan Dun has made an indelible mark on the world's music scene with a creative repertoire that spans the boundaries of classical, multimedia, Eastern and Western musical systems. Central to his body of work, Tan Dun has composed distinct series of works which reflect his individual compositional concepts and personal ideas among them a series which brings his childhood memories of shamanistic ritual into symphonic performances; works which incorporate elements from the natural world; and multimedia concerti. Opera has a significant role in Tan Dun's creative output of the past decade, mostly recently with the premiere of The First Emperor by the Metropolitan Opera in December 2006 with a title role created for Plácido Domingo. In 2008, Tan composed Internet Symphony No. 1: "Eroica" commissioned by Google/YouTube as the focal point for the worlds first collaborative online orchestra. Recent works include Piano Concerto: The Fire for Lang Lang and the New York Philharmonic; Violin Concerto: The Love, for soloist Cho-Liang Lin, and Earth Concerto for Ceramic Percussion and Orchestra. Of his many works for film, Tan Duns score for Ang Lee's film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, received an Oscar Award for best original score."
G. Schirmer Inc.
http://www.tandunonline.com - http://www.talujon.com/
Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble;
Scott Wheeler, conductor; Andrew Mark, cello; Christine Fish, flute; Clayton Hoener, violin; Cyrus Stevens, violin; Donald Berman, piano; Ian Greitzer, clarinet; Marti Epstein, piano; Sandra Herbert, piano; Scott Woolweaver, viola; Susan Robinson, harp
More breathtaking solo saxophone is hard to find.
It seems to be free on Amazon UK, but I doubt that.
New World Records
- And there's also an excellent track from Jason Kao Hwang (among others)
- Those weeks back in 2009 where the albums was literally pouring in (and most of them for free), have had a massive impact on my listening patterns ever since.
(more James Tenney upthread.) <div><a href="http://www.emusic.com/album/eclipse-quartet/parkins-rzewski-tenney-music-for-string-quartet-percussion/14065303/"><img src="http://cf-images.emusic.com/music/images/album/140/653/14065303/600x600.jpg" alt="Parkins, Rzewski & Tenney: Music for String Quartet & Percussion album cover"> </a><br></div><div>Eclipse Quartet: Sara Parkins, violin; Sarah Thornblade, violin;
Alma Lisa Fernandez, viola; Maggie Parkins, cello;
with William Winant, percussion]
- "The evolution of the string quartet repertory has accelerated during the last half of the twentieth-century and beyond as composers from both the mainstream and the avant-garde have mined its seemingly inexhaustible creative resources. This CD features the virtually unprecedented combination of string quartet and percussion. It contains three works by prominent American experimentalist composers from several generations exploring the ensembles unique sonic resources in diverse stylistic settings, each with its own original approach to musical form.
A whim-wham is a fanciful or fantastic notion or object. In Frederic Rzewskis Whimwhams (1993) the fanciful occurs within a pre-conceived formal design. The formal structure in Whimwhams provides time units, empty containers for the free play of the composers imagination, which yield striking successions of musical moments, each with its own distinctive identity. An attentive listener will encounter musical ideas, which return in altered form, giving the work a certain sense of coherence, a magical quality absent from more rational, thought-out composed music.
In James Tenneys Cognate Canons (1993) the canons occur between the percussion and the string quartet. The durations of the two canonic voices are related by a series of proportions, creating the effect of simultaneous tempi, which Nancarrow used in his player piano music. Each of the works thirteen canons uses its own proportion. The repetitions both within and between the two parts (which include statements of individual musical gestures within each voice in retrograde) create a static, timeless atmosphere.
Zeena Parkins describes s:c:a:t:t:e:r:i:n:g (2012) thusly: Flickering sound and shifting colors subvert the linear. s:c:a:t:t:e:r:i:n:g is composed of ten movements, evolving things, and objets sonores that acquire a modulated presence through accumulation. Resonance piles up and is dispersed by the scatterers as they journey within conditions of motion and stasis. The title refers to these acts of collection, disruption, and dispersal that occur over and over again throughout the work creating a landscape of diversion.
New World Records 2012</div>
- "Through more than one hundred and fifty works composed for a wide range of performance genres, Orlando Jacinto Garcia has established himself as an important figure in the new music world. The distinctive character of his music has been described as time suspended- haunting sonic explorations qualities he developed from his studies with Morton Feldman among others.
Born in Havana, Cuba in 1954, Garcia migrated to the United States in 1961. In demand as a guest composer, he is the recipient of numerous honors and awards from a variety of organizations and cultural institutions including the Rockefeller, Fulbright, Dutka, Civitella Ranieri, and Cintas Foundations, the State of Florida, the MacDowell and Millay Colony, and the Ariel, Noise International, Matiz Rangel, Nuevas Resonancias, Salvatore Martirano, and Bloch International Competitions. Most recently he has been the recipient of 3 Latin Grammy nominations in the best Contemporary Classical Composition Category (2009-11). With performances around the world, his works are recorded on New Albion, O.O. Discs, CRI /New World, Albany, North/South, CRS, Rugginenti, VDM, Capstone, Innova, CNMAS, and Opus One Records and available from Kallisti Music Press.
Garcia is the founder and director of the NODUS Ensemble and the Miami Chapter of the International Society for Contemporary Music as well as several international festivals including the New Music Miami ISCM Festival. A dedicated educator, he is Professor of Composition for the School of Music and Composer in Residence for the CARTA Miami Beach Urban Studios at Florida International University in Miami."</div>
New World Records
- "Henri Lazarof was born in Sofia, Bulgaria and began his musical studies at the age of six. He emigrated to America in 1957 and studied at Brandeis University with composers Arthur Berger and Harold Shapero. In 1958, during his Brandeis residency, his string quartet was awarded first prize in a competition sponsored by the Boston areas Brookline Public Library, and his Cantata was commissioned by Brandeis for its 1959 arts festival. He received his M.F.A. in 1959.
In 1959 Lazarof relocated to Los Angeles, where he began his association with the University of California (UCLA), teaching French language and literature. He joined its music department faculty in 1962, and a year later he organized a festival of contemporary music, featuring works by Luciano Berio, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Leonard Stein, the renowned Schoenberg scholar. During that same season, Lazarofs new work, Concerto for Piano and Twenty Instruments received its premiere, after which the New York Times reviewer characterized it as theatrical and colorful.
In 1966 Lazarofs international reputation was boosted by his award of the first International Prize of Milan for his Structures Sonores. Between 1970 and 1971 he completed seven additional works, and during that period he was an artist in residence in what was then West Berlin. Upon his return from Berlin, he was appointed artistic director of the 1973 Contemporary Music Festival at UCLA. In that capacity he commissioned works from four fellow composers, and they were premiered during the festivals 197475 season. Also in 1974, pianist Arthur Weisberg performed Lazarofs Third Chamber Concerto at Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Hall) in New York as well as his Duo-1973, which became one of his most frequently played pieces.
Lazarofs catholic views on contemporary music and its appreciation and promotion are summed up in his statement in the brochure for the 197374 season of the Contemporary Arts Festival. He observed that the concert series was dedicated to the presentation of the entire broad range of this historically evolving art without adopting a single ideology, but one of continuityaccepting tradition and altering it in terms of contemporary experimentation, which in turn is to become our legacy for the next generation to alter.
Lazarof was known for his open-minded and ongoing experimentation with evolving contemporary trends and styles. His works have been performed by such major orchestras as the Seattle Symphony and the Berlin Philharmonic, and his dance scores have been presented by such prestigious companies as the San Francisco Ballet. He prided himself in continually searching not only for new means of expression but for fresh instrumental combinations as well. I believe you should not repeat yourself, he was quoted as saying. I try always to write for new instrumental forcesto search out the limits of the performer and ones own limits as a composer.
Lazarof passed away on December 29, 2013 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 81."</div>
The computer referred to by the composer is a 1974 IBM 360 series mainframe which was installed at Princeton University in February of that year. The composer goes on to specify the 12-tone set from which pitches are derived: F F# C B A D# E G G# D C# A#. He states the properties of these eventuate in tritone-related structures and long-term associations of pitch-class tetrachords, trichords, and dyads. The title of the work is from the lexicon of the United States Senate Watergate hearings, which were in progress at the time of composition."
The effect and general sound of the work approximates sets of cowbells with both subtle and moderate dynamic and intensity variation. It performs out at just over seven minutes"
- Allmusic.
These three works are drawn from the CRI LP back catalog and will be making their first appearance on CD. Virtually none of Hiller's music is currently available on disc and this reissue restores some of his most representative works to circulation."
New World Records 2008
- "Lejaren Hiller (23.02.1924 in New York City - 26.01.1994 in Buffalo/New York) is an American composer, founder of University Of Illinois Experimental Music Studios in 1958. Hiller's notable pupils included composers James Fulkerson, Larry Lake, Ilza Nogueira, David Rosenboom, Bernadette Speach and James Tenney."
NWCRI - 2007
- Schott Music
- Alice Shields, from the Liner Notes at New World Recordings
- A really amazing album !
- Mode Records - New World Records
- From the linernotes at New World Records