Study Medieval Music This Summer in Besalú! Registration for the International Course on Medieval Music Performance at Besalú is still open! This year’s course will be July 8–23. Registration is per individual course, so please contact MMB directly to check availability for the specific program in which you’re interested. Medieval Music Besalú is of the Foundation for Iberian Music’s many early music partners. They offer a variety of intensive courses in medieval music performance, in the beautiful medieval town of Besalú, Spain (Catalonia). At the festival, students may take classes in all aspects of medieval music, from medieval Latin and Pythagorean tuning to reading music manuscripts, with of course, many opportunities for coaching in vocal and instrumental performance. Highlights of the upcoming course will include workshops in the Carmina Burana and liturgical drama. Classes are taught in English, and instruments are available for loan (subject to availability), so one does not need to travel to Europe with their own personal portative/citole/harp (etc) in order to participate. Don’t miss this wonderful opportunity! (click image for full size)
Recent Benet Casablancas and Granados Celebration Press In addition to his recent appearances at CUNY’s Graduate Center, on the radio, and around NYC, composer Benet Casablancas has had many recent press mentions concerning his contribution to the Granados Celebration, the new work Romanza sin palabras: Homage to Granados. A brief summary: Upcoming Premieres of Benet Casablancas (Ritmo Online) Benet Casablancas Premieres Two Works in NY Benet Casablancas News, including a playlist of recommended works by Spanish composers (Music Sales Classical) Commemoration of the Composer Enrique Granados (Vice Versa Magazine) New York welcomes the world premiere of new work by Benet Casablancas in homage to Enrique Granados (Barcelona Clásica) and the below print articles, from Diari Sabadell and La Vanguardia (click images to enlarge)
New Granados Features with Pizà, Casablancas on Ràdio Catalunya The Ràdio Catalunya program Notes de Clàssica recently had a feature (click for full audio) on our ongoing Granados Celebration. The broadcast included interviews with the Foundation for Iberian Music’s director (and festival co-organizer) Antoni Pizà and committee member and renowned music journalist Mònica Pagès. Frequent Foundation collaborator Benet Casablancas, who most recently premiered a new work in homage to Granados, also appeared on Notes de Clàssica on March 9th to discuss his recent and upcoming work. (Full audio here.)
Electroacoustic Artists at the GC Instituto Cervantes has an ongoing installation by four sound artists, Miguel Álvarez-Fernández, Ferrer-Molina, Richard Garet, and María Chávez, through Saturday, April 9th. The exhibit, entitled Sound vs Sense: Intersection, explores the many facets of the relationship between sound and language and engages questions of how we hear/listen and form meaning. Álvarez-Fernández and Ferrer-Molina were guests at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Composers Forum on March 22, to discuss their work, which inhabits the margins between experimental music and sound art. It explores conceptual art, performance, experimental video and other possibilities for developing our relationship with sound. They engage with these questions of intersections through concert pieces, sound installations, sculptures, curatorial projects and many other manifestations. The artists have given a series of related talks while in town, including a discussion at NYU’s Waverly Labs on Spanish electroacoustic artists and a live performance at Instituto Cervantes of material related to the installation. (Click here to download the pamphlet for the Composers Forum.) About the artists: Miguel Álvarez-Fernández is a sound artist, musicologist, and theorist. He is a professor of music at European University of Madrid (UEM) and hosts the weekly program dedicated to experimental music Ars Sonora, on Radio Clásica/Radio Nacional de España. Ferrer-Molina is a Spanish sound artist and musicologist and the author of the upcoming book Heterodoxy of the Guitar: Taxonomy of New Artistic Practices. Richard Garet is a NYC-based sound artist whose work has been featured at MoMA and many international museums. Maria Chávez is a Peruvian sound artist and turntablist. She is currently a research fellow for the Sound Practice Research department at Goldsmith’s University of London and regularly presents workshops in the UK, Spain, the US, and beyond.
Music in 21st-Century Society Receives Mention in NY Review In the April 7, 2016 issue of the New York Review of Books, musicologist Robert Winter writes on the performance legacy of Charles Rosen in a review of The Complete Columbia and Epic Album Collection (new on Sony Classical). We were pleased to see that Music in 21st-Century Society (curated by Antoni Pizà) receives passing mention, in a paragraph on the sparse record of Rosen’s public appearances. To our great honor, Charles Rosen was the inaugural guest of the Lloyd Old and Constance Old lecture series. This lecture, on April 18, 2012, was his final public appearance, before his passing in December of that year. Winter notes Rosen’s sharpness of mind, even to the end. Though his review concerns Rosen’s work and reception as a pianist, he writes, “A mind of insatiable curiosity produced one of the greatest writers about music from any era.” It was in this capacity that he was invited to speak with Music in 21st-Century Society, and we are grateful that we were able to contribute one small piece to the archive of his impressive career. Watch Rosen’s final lecture at Music in 21st-Century Society below:
José Menor Performs Granados, International Tour Acclaimed pianist José Menor will perform the works of Granados at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall on March 24th, as a part of the Foundation for Iberian Music’s Granados Celebration. Tickets are $25 (student and senior discounts available). This concert kicks off an international tour, so readers and Granados fans throughout the world will have many opportunities to hear Menor in the coming months. Dates include: May 7 – Beijing Arts Festival. This concert begins a tour of China and South Korea, through May 20th. June 8 – Festival Martha Argerich in Lugano, Switzerland November, 2016 – London, UK, performing Goyescas. (Date TBA; part of a Granados festival.) He also has a residency at Auditori Enric Granados in Lleida, Spain, Granados’s birthplace, and will be performing there regularly throughout 2016 and 2017. He began his residency in January of this year, with a performance of Goyescas. His next concert in Lleida will be May 29, with La Orquestra Simfònica Julià Carbonell. The program includes the first movement of the piano concerto, the suite Elisenda, and some Spanish dances. See the auditorium’s site for the full calendar.
Antoni Pizà on Catalunya Radio The Foundation For Iberian Music’s director, Antoni Pizà, is collaborating once again with “Who’s Afraid of the 20th Century?” (Qui té por del segle XX?) on Catalunya Radio, this time for a series on composer Romà Alís (1931–2006). He provided research consultation for the entire series, and episode 1 features an extended interview on Alís. At the time of writing, episodes 1 through 3 are available to stream online; the final episode will air this Sunday, February 28. Alís is a Catalan composer who spent much of his life composing in Seville. He began his career as a pianist and director of big bands and went on to composer a large and diverse catalog. He wrote many works for solo piano and chamber ensemble, in addition to orchestral and choral works, oratorios, ballets, and music for film and television. In 2006, he was the recipient of the Foundation’s composer commission. Tune in to the program to hear music and learn more about this under-appreciated Spanish composer! Qui té por del segle XX? features 20th century composers/compositions and airs Sunday nights, but its archives are available 24/7 online. Pizà last collaborated with the show for another month-long composer spotlight, on Carlos Suriñach.
Beyond Sorrow: Rethinking Flamenco for the 21st Century (Round table) NYU’s King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center (KJCC) will be hosting a round table discussion on flamenco on March 9th at 6:30 pm. The panel will include K. Meira Goldberg, a flamenco dancer and scholar who is a visiting scholar for the 2015-16 academic year at the Foundation for Iberian Music. Other participants include Marina Heredia (Flamenco Festival New York), Paloma McGregor (Angela’s Pulse, Dancing While Black), Josefina Saldaña-Portillo (NYU Department of Social and Cultural Analysis), and Sebastian Calderón Bentin (NYU Tisch School of the Arts). Description of the panel’s focus, from the KJCC’s website: Historically, flamenco artistry was generated as a dazzling, resistant response to the discrimination and poverty endured by the Roma of Spain and other marginalized communities in Andalusia. Today, flamenco is marked not only by its inheritance of loss and art but by the multiple forces of culture, diaspora, identity, politics, and market. This panel asks questions to reframe the life and futures of flamenco. We will consider how contemporary flamenco artists negotiate the fine line between embracing an artistic inheritance and breaking free of stereotype. Can flamenco survive in the fullness of its profound and deep expression without being boxed in by obligatory sorrow and suffering? What will the new sources of inspiration be for the generations of artists who have not known the suffering of their ancestors? How does flamenco’s evolution in the context of globalized 21st century culture reflect changing ideas about gender and race? How do today’s artists beat a path to the future, finding new and authentic creative impetus? This panel discussion is a part of Flamenco Festival NY. A reception will follow. 6:30 pm, March 9 King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center 53 Washington Square South New York, NY. USA 10012 Tel: (212) 998-3650
Seminar with composer Benet Casablancas, March 8 Composer and long-time collaborator with the Foundation for Iberian Music, Benet Casablancas, will be holding a guest seminar at the CUNY Graduate Center on March 8th at 10 am, in room 3492. In this seminar, he will discuss his own compositions, focusing on the works that he has written for New York City: for the Miller Theater, for the Morgan Library and Museum, and for the Foundation for Iberian Music. Graduate Center composition students and faculty have been invited to attend this special seminar, but the public is welcome. Both composers and Spanish music scholars and enthusiasts alike should not miss this opportunity to discuss composition with one of Spain’s most celebrated living composers! (Non CUNY guests must sign in at the front desk, so please be sure to bring a government-issued ID.) This seminar is in advance of Casablancas’ upcoming world premiere on March 10, his latest commission for the Foundation for Iberian Music, Romanza sin palabras: Homage to Granados. The concert will be at 7 pm in the Elebash Recital Hall at the Graduate Center. Admission is free, but reservations are recommended. See post for full program and details. 10 am, March 8 The Graduate Center 365 Fifth Ave Room 3492 NY, NY 10016