Pulitzer Prize Winner and 2011 Composers’ Commission Recipient Reviewed in The NY Times Pianist Adam Kent has just issued a new album entirely dedicated to Pulitzer Prize winner and CUNY colleague Tania León. “Teclas de Mi Piano” features eleven piano works that were composed across a span of almost fifty years. The album opens with the eight-minute long HOMENATGE, the Foundation for Iberian Music’s 2011 Composers’ Commission. This vigorous piece is dedicated to Catalan composer Xavier Monstsalvatge in a kind of a counter colonial wink. The piece was premiered in 2012 by Adam Kent at Carnegie Hall, then dashingly choreographed by Pedro Ruiz for DANCE THEATER OF HARLEM, and subsequently performed at the Burgos International Music Festival. It has since been performed uninterruptedly by many pianists and in inumerable venues. The New York Times states that Adam Kent (see full review) “brings a virtuoso’s zest to the dance rhythms and bluesy clusters that cavort in the composition’s opening minutes. But he also offers a patient, less showy sensibility during the ruminative airs of the final minutes.”
The Invention of Race in Medieval Spain Our distinguished colleague Dr. K. Meira Goldberg has delivered a lecture entitled “Genética y historia: negritud y alteridad” (“Genetics and history: blackness and otherness”) as part of the University of Granada’s recent Flamenco MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). Dr. Goldberg’s lecture can be viewed here (in Spanish only). A text version is also available here. Dr. Goldberg, “La Meira,” is a flamenco dancer, choreographer, teacher and scholar. She has co-edited many scholarly volumes with Antoini Pizà, is the author of several seminal books on race and the transatlantic circulation of music and dance, especially as it pertains to the Iberian world. The Flamenco MOOC is presented “on the occasion of the Centenary of the Cante Jondo Contest held in Granada in 1922” and “intends to analyze the artistic and cultural phenomenon of flamenco in its entire field of action and production, from a transversal, critical and at the same time informative, accessible perspective. to anyone interested in approaching and learning about this transnational art with deep and multiple roots.”
Rediscovery and New Publication: Bretón’s Piano Quintet in G Major Antoni Pizà and María Luisa Martínez of the Foundation for Iberian Music have just published their edition of the Piano Quintet in G Major by Tomás Bretón (1850–1923). This ambitious chamber piece had been lost for almost a century. Its existence was actually known because the composer based his Symphony No. 3 in G Major on the original chamber piece. After its composition it was performed only once, almost a century ago, and then the original autograph manuscript resurfaced in our team’s researches. In 2018, it was performed with great success at Fundación Juan March in Madrid and now a beautiful critical edition has just been published by Instituto Complutense de Ciencias Musicales . It is the hope of the editors that a new second life will start for this superb chamber work. Discover more about Tomás Bretón by exploring our other posts about the composer here.
Responses in Music to Climate Change International conference to be held via Zoom, 4-8 October 2021 Registration now open Conference schedule Full program Selected bibliography, discography, and webography about music and climate change The deleterious effects of anthropogenic climate change continue to shape music making in a post-industrial, global society. Indigenous communities—those typically least responsible for the carbon emissions that have contributed to global warming—face the elimination or depletion of natural resources necessary for their musical practices and traditions. Composers of art music, many compelled to bear witness to our current times and bring awareness to threatened ecosystems, draw sound material from endangered environmental sources. Popular music, too, continues to respond through concerts, songs that thematize the environment, and celebrity endorsements for protection measures. Across all forms of music making, discourses of preservation, sustainability, visibility, and action are pervasive. This conference collects and shares research on music’s place within the Anthropocene from a wide range of perspectives. Originally scheduled for April 2020, the current reimagining of this event is itself an environmental response and testament to human perseverance in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. The arrival of COVID-19 presents an important context within which to confront climate change issues, and this context will be directly addressed here, in Responses in Music to Climate Change. We are excited to feature the following: Photo by Steven Feld A keynote address by ethnomusicologist Steven Feld A pre-recorded presentation by composer John Luther Adams Photo by Molly Sheridan Photo by Gabriel Majou A live interview with composer Christopher Tin Adaptations: Confronting Climate Change Amid COVID-19 A roundtable discussion with scholars Aaron Allen (University of North Carolina at Greensboro), Mark Pedelty (University of Minnesota), Alexander Rehding (Harvard University), Jeff Todd Titon (Brown University), Denise von Glahn (Florida State University), and Holly Watkins (University of Rochester)
Sound Art, COVID, and the First Mediterranean Conference on Music and Science With COVID raging on both sides of the Atlantic, scholars and musicians are finding ways to continue their activities. ZOOM has become an indispensable tool for our work, whether in the classroom, the e-concert hall, or its use in professional conferences. Ferrer-Molina At the end of November 2020, organized by Fundació Assemblea de Ciutadans i Ciutadanes del Mediterrani (FACM), a group of scholars and artists in both music and the sciences gathered via Zoom to present their work under the aegis of the I Congrès Mediterrani Música I Ciència. One of the highlights of the conference was the intervention of Ferrer-Molina with a sound installation titled CONCIERTO PARA TRENES DE METRO Y BANDA, which includes an intervention in the Alameda train station in Valencia (Spain) for fifty-two players within the “natural” environment of train sounds. Ferrer-Molina has participated in many events at the Foundation for Iberian Music, including the 2017 Sound Art Festival with Miguel Álvarez-Fernández, Isaac Diego García and others. Miguel Álvarez-Fernández Álvarez-Fernández and Ferrer-Molina were also guests at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Composers Forum, to discuss their music. As described by Antoni Pizà, the curator of the event, their creative work inhabits the margins between experimental music and sound art. It explores conceptual art, performance, experimental video, and other possibilities for developing the audience’s relationship with sound. They engage with these questions involving intersections through concert pieces, sound installations, sculptures, curatorial projects and many other manifestations. Moving forward a different kind of musical experience, of special interest was the intervention of guitarist Mirza Redžepagić, which explored some similarities between Bosnian traditional music and flamenco. The two-day event is on two different posts on YouTube corresponding to the first and second sessions. Also, check out the web of the Fundació Assemblea de Ciutadans i Ciutadanes del Mediterrani (FACM). About the conference they state: “The Mediterranean Congress “Music and Science” aims to be an annual event that brings together different personalities of music and science in the Mediterranean area in order to share aspects that year after year have affected the interrelation between music and music. science. In its first edition, on November 27 and 28, 2020, in online format, the central theme of the Mediterranean Congress “Music and Science” is the use of ICT in the Covid scenario, while the pandemic situation has forced the science and music, disciplines that require intense teamwork, to transfer a large part from its work to the internet. Organized by the ACM Foundation in collaboration with Mostra Viva del Mediterrani and the ACM circle of Sarajevo.” In the end, nowadays it all seems to be circling back to COVID and its consequences.
“Ushaq:” Love Efflorescent. NY Andalus Ensemble Fall Concert The New York Andalus Ensemble‘s seasonal concert with the full ensemble is rapidly approaching! The theme of this year’s fall concert is Ushaq, Love Efflorescent. It will be held at La Nacional, December 11 at 7:30 pm. Tickets ($22 / $16 student & senior) are available through the NYAE website. Join us for a celebration of unity through music and song from al-Andalus and North Africa. A smaller ensemble will also be making a rare west coast appearance in January! Director Samuel Torjman Thomas (oud/vocals/saxophone/nay), Salah Rhani (violin), and Dror Sinai (percussion) will perform at Kuumba’s in Santa Cruz, CA on January 9, 2020, in a special event sponsored by the Humanities Institute at UCSC. Tickets ($26.25 advance) are available directly from Kuumba’s. New York Andalus Ensemble 7:30 pm 11 December 2019 La Nacional 239 W. 14th St NY, NY Asefa Trio 7:00 pm 9 January 2020 Kuumba’s Jazz 320-2 Cedar St. Santa Cruz, CA
Pop Music Before The Pop Era: Spanish Music in the US Recording Industry (1896-1914) Kiko Mora (University of Alicante), a previous scholar in residence at the Foundation for Iberian Music, recently published the findings of a research project on the foundations of the Latin music recording industry in the US. (This project was supported by grants from CIOFF/INAEM [International Council of Folklore and Traditional Arts Organizations / Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escénicas /Ministerio de Cultura].) For the early music industry, New York City was the center of the world. On March 26, Mora will be at the Graduate Center to present this research. Due to travel restrictions caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, this event has been canceled. The book is called De Cera y goma-laca: La producción de música española en la industria fonográfica estadounidense (1896-1914) (Spain: INAEM, 2018). (Wax and shellac: The Production of Spanish music in the United States phonograph industry [1896-1914].) De cera y goma-laca is a quantitative and historiographic study of Spanish music produced during the early years of two record companies, the Columbia Phonograph Company and Thomas Edison’s National Phonograph Company. Mora writes, “The year of 1896 marked a turning point, closing a cycle in the production of recorded music at a commercial scale, and opening another where, after the conquest of public space, the phonograph and its music cylinders begun to colonize more and more homes in a wide spectrum of music consumers.” In De cera y goma-laca, Mora analyzes the NPC and CPC’s recording production, mainly with regards to the Spanish music titles, performers and composers. This production covers a period of time where music of European origin had a remarkable presence in the companies’ catalogs, under the sections called “Foreign records,” “Ethnic Records” and “Opera records”—a presence which was severely diminished with the outbreak of the First World War. In comparative terms, Spanish immigrants living in the US hardly exceeded 22,000 during this period, but their music was widely represented in recording industry repertory. What was the ratio of production of music related to Spain? What was the status of the Spanish music in the US and Latin-American markets? What was the perception of this music for the US audience ? What were the most prolific years and cities of production? What genres were most recorded and sold? How can these ratios be explained? Who were the most recurring composers and performers? Why? This lecture aims to answer these questions. (You can read a full review of the book here; it is available for purchase from Deflamenco.) 7:00 pm 26 March 2020 Room C198 The Graduate Center Mora is a longtime collaborator with the Foundation for Iberian Music and he has published numerous articles and books on Spanish and Latin American popular music and film music. He is among the speakers invited to give papers at our conference Flamenco in the United States on the day after his book presentation, March 27. Registration for the conference is free; please join us in the Graduate Center’s Skylight room! (Visit the conference page linked above for full details.)
Piano Masterclass with Josep Prohens: Time and Location As previously announced, we are holding a masterclass in conjunction with our upcoming Josep Prohens retrospective concert, with the composer himself and pianist Andreu Riera, who is one of the foremost interpreters of Prohens’ piano works. The masterclass will be held the day before the concert, November 11, at 12:30, at City College’s Shepard Hall. This class is free and open to the public; no registration is required to observe. Until then, enjoy the album whose launch we’re celebrating with this concert and masterclass: [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_k93SpxfcYUMGDcsNQhS0eWfm2qjHLkgvc[/youtube]
Josep Prohens’ Piano Music: A Retrospective Concert On November 12, the Graduate Center’s Segal Theater will host a retrospective concert of Josep Prohens’ piano works, as well as a masterclass with Prohens himself and pianist Andreu Riera. Prohens was the first recipient of the Foundation for Iberian Music’s Composer’s Commission in 2005, for which he wrote Dreams/Somnis for solo piano. (Click on the above link to listen!) Prohens has been composing since 1978 and is the author of Ensenyament de la música a Felanitx (The Teaching of Music in Felanitx), about music education in his hometown. He has lectured at Conservatori Professional de Música de Felanitx since 1972 and has served on the composition faculty at conservatories throughout the Balearic Islands. He is also president of Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Sebastián of the Balearic Islands. Prohens and Riera both teach currently at the Conservatori Superior de Música de les Illes Balears. Riera recently released an album of Prohens piano works, Ficció, and he also appeared on the 2017 album Impressions. Riera has won numerous piano prizes, including the Infanta Cristina (Madrid), Caja Postal in Madrid, Alonso Competition in the city of Valencia, Frederic Mompou (Barcelona), Jacinto Guerrero and the Mozart Competition, Salzburg Mozarteum. He has performed throughout Europe and North America, including right here in NYC, with our own Perspectives Ensemble. Riera and Prohens will host a master class on November 11 at 12:30 at City College’s beautiful Shepard Hall. A concert of Prohens’ piano works will be held on November 12 at 6:30. The concert will include Prohens’ commission, Somnis, “La Llum” from Ombres, and his new work Ficció, among many more. Attendance is free. Co-organized by the Foundation for Iberian Music and Institut Ramon Llull.