Andalus Ensemble Fall Concert The New York Andalus Ensemble, a resident ensemble at the Foundation for Iberian Music, has a confirmed fall concert date! Please join us November 10th at Elebash Recital Hall at 7:15 pm. Tickets are $15.50 ($12 students/seniors). Click here to purchase advance tickets. November 10, 2015, 7:15 pm Elebash Recital Hall The Graduate Center, CUNY 365 Fifth Ave NY, NY 10016
Roger Scruton, “Walking Among Noise” Video This year’s lecture with Roger Scruton was a wonderful success. We were turning away people at the door! Please check back with us next week for a full write up of the event and news of what is to come for Music in 21st-Century Society. In the mean time, for those who were unable to attend, video of the lecture is now available (click the banner below). Watch in good health.
Violin Masterclass with Raymond Erickson: “Rethinking Bach’s Violin Ciaccona” Extending our lineup of early music workshops this October, Professor Raymond Erickson (Queens College,The Graduate Center) will present a violin masterclass on Bach’s ciaconnas. The presentation will include a video of the ciaccona with baroque dance. Violinists wishing to participate in the master class should contact raymond.erickson@qc.cuny.edu before October 10. This lecture/masterclass is free and open to the public. Masterclass participation is open only to violinists but all Baroque music scholars and enthusiasts are invited to attend. The lecture will be held in Elebash Recital Hall on October 13th, 1–3 pm, following the morning workshop with La Fontegara. Presented in partnership with the Bildner Center and the New York Early Music Celebration.
Perspectives Ensemble Joining Upcoming Roger Scruton Lecture The program for the upcoming Lloyd Old and Constance Old lecture, with Roger Scruton and Greil Marcus, now has a featured musical guest! Members of Perspectives Ensemble, a resident ensemble at the Foundation for Iberian Music, will perform selections from string quartets by Rochberg, Tippett, and Webern. The works have been chosen to represent a spectrum in 20th century classical music, from populist to high modernist. Please join us for this stimulating lecture and concert on October 16th. (Reservations for free tickets are now open.)
Early Music Performances and Workshops in October This year’s New York Early Music Celebration, “El Nuevo Mundo,” which runs October 9–18, is bringing a wealth of opportunities to hear and practice Spanish early music! Below is a master list of the lecture-performances being co-sponsored by the Foundation for Iberian Music and their related festival concerts. Check back for additional information as it becomes available. Detailed information about all New York Early Music Celebration (NYEMC) events can be found on the NYEMC website. October 10, 2015 Early Music New York Opening keynote concert. Chamber Orchestra, with Frederick Renz Guest singers will join the orchestra in a featured tonadilla [theatrical form related to the zarzuela] along with Boccherini’s “Night Music from the Streets of Madrid,” an opera overture and dance suite by the Guadeloupian-born composer, Chevalier de Saint- Georges and works by Spain’s enlightened symphonists. 8 pm Cathedral Church of St John the Divine 1047 Amsterdam Ave (112th Street) October 13, 2015 La Fontegara From Mexico City, La Fontegara presents a lecture and workshop on instrumental works from Spanish American colonies (especially Mexico). The Graduate Center, Elebash Recital Hall 10 am – 1 pm NYEMC Concert: presented by the Mexican Cultural Institute 6 pm Mexican Consulate, Galeria Octavio Paz 27 E. 39th St, 3rd Floor New York, NY 10016 Raymond Erickson Professor Erickson, of Queens College, will present a lecture and violin master class, “Rethinking Bach’s Violin Ciaccona.” The presentation will include a video of the Ciaccona with baroque dance. Violinists wishing to participate in the master class should contact raymond.erickson@qc.cuny.edu before October 10. Elebash Recital Hall 1 pm – 3 pm October 14, 2015 Tembembe Ensamble Continuo Temembe will present a performance workshop on the relationship between instruments and performance practices of the 17th century Hispanic fandango and its contemporary counterpart. The Graduate Center, room C197 10 am – 1 pm NYEMC Concert: 7 pm The Americas Society 680 Park Avenue, at 68th St New York, NY 10065 October 16, 2015 Musica Temprana In their US debut, Dutch group Musica Temprana presents this performance and workshop on the research and application of historical performance practices in bailes, cachucas, and tonadas. The Graduate Center, Segal Theater 10 am – 1 pm October 18, 2015 Musica Temprana NYEMC Concert: Corpus Christi Church 529 W. 121st Street New York, NY 10027
Workshop in Baroque Mexican Music with La Fontegara Another early music workshop has been added to our list of offerings coming up in October, in partnership with the New York Early Music Celebration. October 13, don’t miss the opportunity to learn more about early Colonial Mexican music with La Fontegara. 10 am to 1 pm, in Elebash Recital Hall. La Fontegara is a Mexican ensemble dedicated to Renaissance, Baroque, and Gallant music of Colonial Mexico. They have performed extensively both in Mexico and internationally, as staples of the early music festival circuit. Click the photo below to watch their delightful performance of Baroque composer Dario Castello’s second sonata:
Welcome Greil Marcus to the 2015 Lloyd Old lecture! We are thrilled that the program for the upcoming annual Lloyd Old and Constance Old lecture, for Music in 21st Century Society, is growing quickly. Please welcome Greil Marcus to the program as the official respondent. Marcus is a noted music critic and journalist whose work focuses on American popular music and its place in society. He is the author of Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century and The Old, Weird America: The World of Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes, and he has written for Rolling Stone, Creem, and The Village Voice. For the fall 2015 semester, he will be a visiting professor at the Graduate Center. The program will feature, as previously announced, a lecture by philosopher Roger Scruton on the legacies of tonality and atonality and their places among modern audiences. This lecture will be followed by a conversation with Greil Marcus, and the debate is sure to be a lively one. The program will also include a short musical interlude, by performers yet to be determined.
Date and Program of Music in 21st Century Society Lecture As previously announced, the speaker at this fall’s Lloyd Old and Constance Old Lecture—an annual series in which we invite speakers to discuss the evolving place of music in contemporary society—is notable philosopher Roger Scruton. We now have a confirmed date and a tentative program for this lecture. “No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice” Ash Wednesday T. S. Eliot Walking Among Noise Tonality, Atonality, and Where We Go From Here Friday, October 16, 2015, 7:30pm Elebash Recital Hall The Graduate Center, CUNY 365 Fifth Ave, New York NY 10016 Taking a cue from Eliot’s famous line, Walking among Noise: Tonality, Atonality, and Where We Go from Here will discuss the exceptional role of beauty, art and music in our everyday experience. The talk will address what tonality is and why it was declared a dead language. It asks, what are the lessons learned from the avant-garde, how can composers of “serious” music reconnect to the concert-going audience, why are symphony audiences declining, and finally, how can composers today connect with popular culture and the music that appeals to the young? The program will feature a musical interlude with members of the Perspectives Ensemble, who will be performing selections from works by Rochberg, Webern, and Tippett. Admission is free, but reservations are required. We will send out a community notice when reservations are open, about a month before the lecture. Please be sure to check back with us for updates.
Roger Scruton will speak at the 2015 Music in 21st-Century Society Lecture Music in 21st-Century Society, curated by Antoni Pizà of the Foundation for Iberian Music, is delighted to announce that the speaker for this year’s Lloyd Old and Constance Old lecture will be distinguished British philosopher, Roger Scruton. Prof. Scruton is a writer, philosopher and public commentator. He has specialized in aesthetics with particular attention to music and architecture. He engages in contemporary political and cultural debates from the standpoint of a conservative thinker and is well known as a powerful polemicist. He has written widely in the press on political and cultural issues. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a fellow of the British Academy. Scruton graduated from Cambridge University in 1965, spent two years abroad and then pursued an academic career in philosophy, first in Cambridge, and then in London, until 1990 when he took a year’s leave of absence to work for an educational charity in Czechoslovakia. (This charity grew from the ‘underground university’ which colleagues and Scruton had established in the last decade of communism. His contacts with the countries of the old Eastern Bloc remain strong.) Scruton then taught part-time at Boston University Massachusetts until the end of 1994, while simultaneously building a public affairs consultancy in Eastern Europe. Since then Scruton has been a free-lance writer and consultant. He is currently senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., where he is pursuing projects related to the need for a new urbanism and the cultural impact of neuroscience. In 1996, Scruton married his wife, Sophie, and they have two children, Sam, age 17, and Lucy, age 15. “There are few more valuable thinkers in Britain – or indeed, the world – today. His vilification and rejection by the academic establishment is disgraceful. In comparison with him, most of his critics are intellectual pygmies. Both left and right should be grateful to have such a man to sharpen and define the issues. And philosophers should be grateful that he has placed their subject at the very centre of current affairs. Perhaps Scruton’s greatest contribution is his living demonstration of the truth that without philosophy we are nothing.” Bryan Appleyard, The Sunday Times