I’m rather astonished by the convergence of major performances I suddenly have in the next several weeks, some of which I only just now learned of:
Tonight, January 30: The lovely Sarah Cahill plays my War Is Just a Racket as part of her political music project “A Sweeter Music.” The concert’s at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak Street in that city at 8 PM.
February 2: The Mark Morris Dance Group will perform Looky, Mark’s dance to five of my Disklavier pieces, at the Fine Arts Center concert hall at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, 7:30 PM.
February 20: Relache gives the official world premiere of The Planets, the ten-movement suite I wrote for them over a 15-year period. It’s at the Trinity Center for Urban Life in Philadelphia, 22nd & Spruce Streets, 8 PM. The concert coincides with the release of the new CD, which now has its own very nice web site, where you can listen to excerpts of each of the planets.
February 23, 25, 26, 27: As noted before, the Mark Morris Dance Group performs Looky at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, each night at 7:30 at the Howard Gilman Opera House. The only other music on the program is Erik Satie’s ethereal Socrate.
March 6: The Dessoff Choirs will give my Transcendental Sonnets its New York premiere (version with two pianos, not orchestra), with my friend and colleague James Bagwell conducting, along with works by Harold Farberman and Lukas Foss. The concert’s at 8 PM at Merkin Hall in New York.
April 16: My orchestra piece The Disappearance of All Holy Things from this Once So Promising World is getting a rare performance by the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble at my alma mater Oberlin, conducted by my old friend John Kennedy. Clearly, if you don’t have some old friends who’re conductors, you’re screwed.
April 15-17: I am the featured composer of Sam Houston State University’s 49th annual Contemporary Music Festival, in Huntsville, Texas, just north of Houston (NoHo, I’ve started calling it). They’re apparently performing an unprecedented slew of my works, including my brand new Snake Dance No. 3 I’ve written for them. These will be the first performances of my music in my native state since January of 1976.
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