Commissioning Rushes
by Dana Jessen

http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/commissioning-rushes/

As musicians, we frequently talk about the process of composing music. Most often we discuss the various methods a composer goes through to realize his or her work. Yet there is another facet of such an undertaking that often isn’t discussed—the performer’s side of commissioning a large-scale work. On September 15th, six colleagues and I gave the world premiere of Rushes, a new 60-minute composition for seven bassoons by Michael Gordon…

The fortieth annual Kilkenny Festival in Ireland presents the newest work by Michael Gordon, called Dry, written for and premiered by the Crash Ensemble.

Over the last 16 years, Crash Ensemble has established itself as a “a powerhouse of new music” (The Irish Times) renowned for commissioning, producing and performing the most adventurous and exciting works both from established international composers like Steve Reich and Kevin Volans and up-and-coming fresh talent…

“Art songs have been moving out of classical music in the last many years,” writes composer David Lang. “Indie rock seems to be the place where Schubert’s sensibilities now lie, a better match for direct story telling and intimate emotionality.”

Lang’s death speaks, along with his work depart, is released on Cantaloupe music on April 30.

Click to purchase the recording

In death speaks — co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall and Stanford Lively Arts, and written for Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, Owen Pallett and Shara Worden — Lang explores art song with the help of a group of classically trained artists who made their careers in the indie rock world…

A Haunting Tale, Perfect for Christmas
The Crossing in ‘The Little Match Girl Passion,’ at the Met

Tina Fineberg for The New York Times

Members of the Crossing, a choir of 24, at the Metropolitan Museum.

By ANTHONY TOMMASINI Published: December 24, 2012

At holiday time, the Metropolitan Museum of Art draws countless visitors to its Medieval Sculpture Garden to see the splendidChristmas tree and 18th-century Neapolitan crèche…

In April, the Bang on a Can All-Stars travel to Europe for a blockbuster set of concerts, including the European premiere of Julia Wolfe’s Anthracite Fields and the Dutch premiere of her Steel Hammer.

On Saturday April 16, Wolfe’s Pulitzer prize-winning, Anthracite Fields, a concert-length work for chorus and instruments, receives its European premiere with the Bang on a Can All-Stars and the Danish Radio Vocal Ensemble at The Royal Library of Denmark, Copenhagen

The recording of Anthracite Fields on Cantaloupe Music was nominated for a 2016 Grammy award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition…

Read LA Times review of
West Coast premiere at Disney Hall
The Los Angeles Master Chorale and
the Bang on a Can All-Stars

April 16, 2016
The Royal Library of Denmark, Copenhagen

click here to stream the music
click here for the full album

“[Anthracite Fields] captures not only the sadness of hard lives lost…but also of the sweetness and passion of a way of daily life now also lost…

This season Julia Wolfe’s large works for string orchestra, Fuel and Cruel Sister, are performed at Carnegie Hall by two of the country’s leading interpretors of contemporary works.

On October 25, Robert Spano leads the American Composers Orchestra in their Carnegie performance of Julia Wolfe’s full-throttled work for strings, Fuel, on a concert dubbed “Orchestra Underground: Adding Fuel to the Fire”…