Ted Hearne's "Law of Mosaics" in Chicago; "The Source" CD Release

by Ted Gordon on Nov. 23, 2015, 9:59 a.m.

Ted Hearne is not a composer to shy away from the real world. From his now-canonical Katrina Ballads, which sets texts related to the 2006 Hurricane of the same name, to his modern-day oratorio project The Source, which sets texts surrounding Chelsea Manning and WikiLeaks, Hearne's music draws from the complexities of politics and recreates similar tensions and complexities within his music.

Hearne's 30-minute work for string orchestra, Law of Mosaics, is no exception to this rule. Hearne borrows the title from a passage in David Shields' Reality Hunger: "The law of mosaics: how to deal with parts in the absence of wholes." Commissioned in 2013 by A Far Cry, and released on CD alongside Andrew Norman's The Companion Guide to Rome in 2014, Law of Mosaics can be read as an essay in five parts. Picking up on Shield's metaphor of weaving a fabric between digital and analog media and culture, Hearne crafts a loosely-knit pattern of musical references and inspirations; if these form the weft of his weaving, then his own compositional voice constitutes its warp. In the end, the "patterns" woven together by Hearne resemble less a tightly-knit pastiche than performative absence of seamlessness, a reminder of the gaps and voids that constitute our everyday lives. 

Law of Mosaics will be performed as a part of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's MusicNOW series, co-curated by Elizabeth Ogonek and Samuel Adams, on November 23rd at Chicago's Harris Theater. 

Hearne's critically-acclaimed project The Source, which premiered at the 2014 Next Wave Festival at BAM, is also newly available as an audio recording on New Amsterdam Records. Writing in Pitchfork, Seth Colter Walls calls it "some of the most expressive socially engaged music in recent memory—from any genre." Check out a video excerpt of its premiere at BAM below. 

Andrew Norman Premieres "Switch" at Utah Symphony

by Ted Gordon on Nov. 9, 2015, 11:57 a.m.

On November 6th, percussionist Colin Currie and the Utah Symphony premiered Andrew Norman's new work for solo percussion and orchestra, Switch. Norman's works for orchestra have been called some of the "best orchestral works that the 21st century has seen thus far", and we couldn't agree more. His landmark 2008 piece, Unstuck, has already become a staple of orchestral repertoire around the country; 2011's Try, for chamber orchestra, was commissioned and premiered by the LA Philharmonic to critical acclaim; and 2013's Play premeired to critical acclaim in both traditional and social media. 

So what has Norman composed this time? Switch, like its sibling works for large groups of musicians, explores the ludic possibilities of play between soloist and ensemble. Quite literally, the music acts like a "switch" between percussion instruments positioned in front of, and behind, the orchestra; these instruments act as "switch[es] that control other instruments in specific ways, making them play louder or softer, higher or lower, freezing them in place and settng them in motion again."

The Salt Lake Tribune, which called the premiere "electrifying" and "hyperkinetic", conducted a video interview with Norman and Toby Tolokan, the Utah Symphony's Vice President of Artistic Planning. Check it out below: 

Christopher Cerrone in Los Angeles, Albany, Charleston, and more...

by Ted Gordon on May 19, 2015, 4:50 p.m.

Just after being awarded this year's prestigious Rome Prize, PSNY composer Christopher Cerrone has a slew of performances and premieres throughout the US before heading off to Italy. Last Friday, May 15th, saw the premiere of Cerrone's Four Naomi Songs at EMPAC, as a part of the composer collective Sleeping Giant's residency. Performed by The Dogs of Desire, the Albany Symphony Orchestra's resident new music ensemble, along with vocalist Theo Bleckmann, Cerrone's songs were accompanied by contributions from the other composers in the collective—which includes Timo Andres, Andrew Norman, Ted Hearne, Jacob Cooper, and Robert Honstein. Check out a preview of the Naomi Songs, with Cerrone, Bleckmann, and Andres, here: 

Coming up next is Cerrone's premiere of The Pieces That Fall to Earth by the LA Philharmonic on May 26th. Commissioned by the LA Philharmonic, the piece is a symphonic setting of poems by Kay Ryan. The premiere takes place as part of the LA Phil's Green Umbrella series and will be conducted by John Adams with soprano Hila Plitmann as soloist. 

Rounding out Cerrone's activities in May, The Living Earth Show will be performing his Double Happiness, along with Timo Andres' You Broke It, You Bought It and Adrian Knight's Family Man at the Spoleto USA Festival on May 28th. Check out the band performing Andres' piece at San Francisco's Mission Science Workshop below.