a wakeup call for the new york season*

sonic boom six

november 2 - 20, 1997 sponsor information

sunday, november 2, 4 pm

opening boom

admission free!

Celebrate the opening of the New York's sixth annual Sonic Boom Festival. Sample the best in recent music played by the Consortium's member groups, five of the country's leading ensembles -- free! Meet the artists for refreshments afterwards.

• continuum
• da capo chamber players
• modernworks!
• new york new music ensemble
• speculum musicae

• Jon Deak: Lady Chatteleys Dream
• Carl Vine: Café Concertino
• George Aperghis: Recitations for Solo Voice
• George Edwards: And the Isle Was Full of Noise
• Charles Wuorinen: Arabia Felix

thursday, november 6, 8 pm
modernworks!
Americans in Italy
 

In its debut, the newly-created ensemble ModernWorks! (Madeleine Shapiro, director) serves up a delectable antipasto of music by Rome Prize and Pulitzer Prize winners with connections to things Italian. Savor the New York Premiere of Barnard Rand's Memo 4; Lee Hyla's evocation of a lost language, We Speak Etruscan; Le Quattro Stagioni della Cucine Futurismo, Aaron Kernis' witty interpretation of a 1930's Italian Futurist Manifesto; and a work by Elliott Carter, longtime visiting composer of the American Academy in Rome -- plus Martin Breznick's *** for clarinet, viola and piano.

We wrestle with the best! The NYNME Nimrods encounter major composers in four premiere engagements. Champions: Milton Babbitt and Mel Powell; Contenders: Edmund Campion and Leo Wadada Smith. The NYNME Nimrods -- heavyweight new music interpreters. For your personal buddy / trainer or more information call 212-633-6260.

Three epochal chamber music theater pieces offered by the dauntless Da Capo Chamber Players explore powerful, spiritual themes. Frederic Rzewski, De Profundis, for speaking pianist; Karlheinz Stockhausen, Kathinkas Gasang als Luzifers Requiem, staged solo flute scene; Peter Maxwell Davies, Versalii Icones, for dancer, solo cello and instrumental ensemble. (note: this program contains nudity)

da capo chamber players home page

Continuum celebrates the monumental musical life of the wizard of the player piano in his dazzling, little-heard music for live performers! Continuum plays Nancarrow's complete solo and chamber music, spanning 60 years. Toccata for Violin and Player Piano; Trio for Clarinet, Bassoon and Piano; Sarabande and Scherzo for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano; Septet; Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano, Two String Quartets; pieces for piano solo and piano duet.

Music by leaders of the '90's and one of the century's great masterworks. First a tribute to the late Jacob Druckman -- Glint, for clarinet, violin and piano. Then the world premiere of Pulitzer Prize winner Wayne Peterson's Peregrinations for solo clarinet. A Speculum Musicae commission, Mario Davidovsky's Festino, closes the first half. Then hear Ross Bauer's Stone Soup, winner of Speculum Musicae's annual competition for new works. The concert concludes with Schoenberg's magnificent String Trio.

A brave, new, and beautiful world of fusion. With six stunning electronic and electro-acoustic works, Ensemble 21 invites listeners to explore today's extraordinary musical landscape: the unique hybrid realm where live performance meets virtual reality. Experience the sacred and surreal, the voluptuous and visceral, the familiar and fantastic, with the Ensemble's "splendid performers" (NY Times) as your guides. Featuring works by Paul Lansky, Roger Reynolds, Eric Chasalow, James Primosch, Jean-Claude Risset, and Jonathon Harvey.

Ensemble 21's homepage

Celebrate the stylistic diversity of our time with five contrasting compositions of the 1980's and 90's. Join New Millennium for Bun-Ching Lam's evocative Another Spring (1988), David Lang's unabashed Cheating, Lying, Stealing (1995) and Ed Harsh's darkly incisive not a single night's sky (1995). Hear the New York premiere of Mexican Arturo Salinas' Munamukami (1980) and hit the jackpot with the New York premiere of C. Bryan Rulon's "...I'm Yolanda Vega!..." (1997) a brand new Chamber Music America commission.

new millennium ensemble's home page.

For more information on the series, call the Sonic Boom hotline at 212 - 674 - 5142.

Admission to the November 2 opening boom is free. Single tickets to all other concerts are $10 (students / seniors $5). Tickets are available at the Miller Theatre box office. All programs subject to change.

Miller Theatre is conveniently located right at the 116th street stop on the Broadway #1 and 9 subways, at the #104 bus stop, and a short distance from the #4 and 5 buses.

co-presented by the New York Consrtium for New Music
and Miller Theatre of Columbia University

sonic boom six is funded in part by the Greenwall Foundation

*The Village Voice

**Guest Artist Ensemble