This week, we are proud to have news for not one, not two, but three of our past Composer’s Commission recipients!

Benet Casablancas (2012) has the New York premiere of his work Six Glosses on Texts by Cees Nooteboom upcoming March 24. The work will be performed by Ear Heart Music Ensemble at Brooklyn’s fabulous new music space, the Roulette Theater. (Tickets: $20 adult/$15 student.)

While he is in town for this auspicious occasion, Casablancas will be giving talks at the Manhattan School of Music and at the CUNY Graduate Center. The lecture at the Manhattan School of Music will be held on March 23 (time and location TBD); he will speak at the Graduate Center as a guest of the school’s Composer’s Forum on March 25 at 10 am (room 3491).

Second, we would like to congratulate Composers Now, which is founded and directed by 2011 Commission recipient  Tania León, on receiving major grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. This “transformative” grant will allow Composers Now to expand its current programs, which include a NYC-based music festival and composer residencies, and allows for the possibility of creating new initiatives. You can read the full press release here. (The 2015 festival is already underway and has daily events through the end of February. so if you’re in the NYC area, don’t forget to check their calendar!)

Finally, Miguel Ángel Roig-Francolí (2010) just premiered his newest symphony, Three Astral Poems, on January 15th. The work consists of three movements, each a symphonic poem that explores a constellation named for a figure in classical mythology. It was performed by the Symphony Orchestra of the Balearic Islands, with Sergio Alapont, at the Auditorium de Palma Mallorca (Spain). Watch the whole premiere on YouTube!  Diaro de Mallorca reviewed the concert, giving it 3.5 stars. (Non-subscribers can read the review at Roig-Francolí’s Facebook page.)