NEXMAP and the Center for New Music presents
HOCKET: Alpha++ — new commissions from London and New York.
November 06, 2015 @ 8PM
Tickets at the door only: $15 General, $10 Members
Join HOCKET at The Center for New Music for an evening featuring new commissions for piano four-hands and two toy pianos! The program includes works from NYC based composers Alex Weiser and Emily Cooley of Kettle Corn New Music, a 40-minute tour-de-force from London based composer Aaron Holloway-Nahum, and masterworks by Tristan Perich and David Lang.
Find out more about HOCKET
ABOUT THE COMPOSERS
Tristan Perich’s work is inspired by the aesthetic simplicity of math, physics and code. The WIRE Magazine describes his compositions as "an austere meeting of electronic and organic." 1-Bit Music, his 2004 release, was the first album ever released as a microchip, programmed to synthesize his electronic composition live. His latest circuit album, 1-Bit Symphony (Cantaloupe, 2010) has received critical acclaim, called "sublime" (New York Press), and the Wall Street Journal said "its oscillations have an intense, hypnotic force and a surprising emotional depth." His award winning work coupling 1-bit electronics with traditional forms in both music (Active Field, Observations) and visual art (Machine Drawings, Microtonal Wall) has been presented around the world, from Sonar and Ars Electronica to the Whitney Museum and bitforms gallery.
Passionate, prolific, and complicated, composer David Lang embodies the restless spirit of invention. Lang is at the same time deeply versed in the classical tradition and committed to music that resists categorization, constantly creating new forms. In the words of The New Yorker, "With his winning of the Pulitzer Prize for the little match girl passion (one of the most original and moving scores of recent years), Lang, once a postminimalist enfant terrible, has solidified his standing as an American master.” His catalogue is extensive, and his opera, orchestra, chamber, and solo works are by turns ominous, ethereal, urgent, hypnotic, unsettling, and very emotionally direct.
Works by Aaron Holloway-Nahum (b. 1983) have been performed in the UK, across Europe and in the United States by ensembles and musicians including The BBC Symphony Orchestra’s Total Immersion Days, the Philharmonia Orchestra’s Music of Today, the Royal Academy Soloists, the Isobel Griffiths Session Orchestra, the BBC Singers, Ensemble Amorpha, Ensemble Konvergence, the Cappa Ensemble, Painting Music, Paul Silverthorne, Peter Gregson, Naoko Miyamoto, Dave Worswick and Sasha Calin, and has featured on BBC Radio 3’s “Hear and Now” programme.
Aaron is currently the Artistic Director of The Riot Ensemble. In 2012, Aaron was selected as a pilot participant on the London Symphony Orchestra ‘Soundhub’ scheme.
Broad gestures, rich textures, and narrative sweep are hallmarks of the “compelling” (New York Times) music of composer Alex Weiser. Born and raised in New York City, Weiser creates acutely cosmopolitan music combining a keen ear and deeply felt historical perspective with a vibrant forward looking creativity. Running the gamut from dramatic visceral power to thoughtful introspection, Weiser's compositions often employ a colorful tonal language and repetition to create a discourse which is at once rich and abstract, and yet lucid and grounded.
An energetic advocate for contemporary classical music and for the work of his peers, Weiser co-founded Kettle Corn New Music, a series acclaimed for capturing "all of the prestige" that contemporary classical music has to offer, with "none of the pomp," (Feast of Music) and is currently a director of the MATA Festival, the "the city's leading showcase for vital new music by emerging composers." (The New Yorker)
Emily Cooley is a composer of orchestral, chamber, and vocal music that ranges from delicate intensity to a pulsing, energetic sound described as "dramatic, forceful and filled with reverberation" (Sioux City Journal). In 2015, Emily was awarded a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her music has received additional awards and recognition from the National Federation of Music Clubs, Tribeca New Music, ASCAP, the Renée B. Fisher Foundation, and others.
A native of Milwaukee, WI, Emily is a recent graduate of the USC Thornton School of Music and Yale University. Past teachers include Stephen Hartke, Donald Crockett, Andrew Norman, Kathryn Alexander, and John K. Boyle. Emily currently holds the Milton L. Rock Composition Fellowship at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studies with David Ludwig.
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