Issue 3
The tri-annual newsletter of RED LIGHT NEW MUSIC
Winter/Spring 2009
A Word from the Red Light Directors With an ambitious spring series ahead, we are already in the planning and fundraising stages for our 5th season next fall. With a stronger base of funding and a wonderfully committed group of musicians, we are always trying to strike a balance between the need for growth and the need for sustainability. We proceed with cautious optimism into what we are warned are rough waters for the arts and for non-profits in this economic climate. But, we firmly believe that the arts are necessary, nay vital in any society and in any economic condition. Independent artists and arts organizations embody the spirit of ingenuity, industriousness, conviction, and imagination that have always inspired and guided people, through hard times and good times. Before waxing too philosophical, we’ll speak a piece about our current and fourth season. The season opener, the Beaten Path Percussion Duo, proved a success in more ways than one. Beyond the music itself, this concert laid the groundwork for a model upon which future concerts will be based. This model we are naming New Works/New Duos, and we are currently planning two for the next season. The concept is this: a duo of instrumentalists is formed; and four composers are commissioned to write for it. This type of
Red Light cellist, Jessie Marino leaves for her month-long Mannahatta Concert Tour of Germany and Austria, performing new commissions by Scott Wollschleger and Kyle Hillbrand. We wish her all the best in her travels.
New Paths New Traditions
Feldman and Furrer: Portraits
Feb 4, 2009, 7:30pm April 8, 2009, 7:30pm both concerts at Chelsea Art Museum 556 W. 22nd St Manhattan
Red Light Directors, Vincent Raikhel, Liam Robinson, Christopher Cerrone, and Scott Wollschleger at the Tenri Cultural Center, NYC in November.
concert provides for a fairly hands-off process, in which the concert is essentially worked out between the composers and performers. We provide the situation for them to collaborate, a collaboration which we aim to be mutually beneficial. For those who were able to attend December's Red Light Holiday Gala, we trust you can vouch for the uniqueness and variety of this festive affair. In the spirit of wintertide, we attempted to throw a party that would bring a little joy to the world while keeping the music interesting, and the general good cheer that ensued makes us think that we darn well succeeded. And with bells on! We've never been to a contemporary music concert like that one. Thanks and praise to the many performers, composers, bakers, and volunteers. It comes but once a year...so plan on it! Rehearsals are underway for the Feb. 4th New Paths, New Traditions at the Chelsea Art Museum. The Red Light Ensemble is working hard and sounding great, preparing a brand new movement of Liam Robinson's Chamber Concerto, featuring Yegor Shevtsov on piano, and Vincent Raikhel's Anther in a new version. These pieces, among others, will be repeated on our program at Washington D.C’s Kennedy Center in May, an opportunity we are certainly excited about. We hope to see you at one of our many concerts. Sincerely, The Red Light Directors
An Ambitious Spring Lineup Cage to Feldman, Furrer to Grisey, Red Light rolls out five concerts for our 2009 Spring Series. These five concerts, taking place at various venues from the Chelsea Art Museum and Le Poisson Rouge in New York to the Kennedy Center in Washington DC will explore the wide scope of interests which has become Red Light New Music. Premieres from our composer collective are in the works, as the Red Light musicians prepare an ambitious and exciting season. Please join us! More information in available on our website redlightnewmusic.org.
Performer Spotlight: Kevin Sims
Composer Spotlight: Vincent Raikhel
Q: How did the experience of living in Germany for two years effect you as an artist? When I was weighing the decision to study in Germany, there were many things to consider. The notion had initially surfaced because of an earlier encounter with a particular teacher accompanied by a general desire to live in Europe. When I then discovered that this teacher was in fact still teaching, I sought to find out about the city where he taught, Freiburg im Breisgau. After a bit of research, I learned many interesting things about the place, not least of which was its situation at the edge of the Black Forest. In retrospect, I recognize this geographical fact to be something that led me to fully commit myself to the adventure. It would not only be an opportunity to study music that I was interested in with someone who was in a unique position to teach it, but also an opportunity to live at the doorstep of a vast forest after five years of an uninterrupted urban existence. This concern for the place of my study turned out to be far from superficial, but rather essential to the entire experience. As a result of good fortune and the kindness of friends, I ended up living in an apartment only five minute’s walk from the paths that led to the mountains of the Black Forest. Within the first few weeks I had already begun to make regular pilgrimages into these woods. I could walk to the first summit in less than an hour. From this mountain top you can look down onto the city of Freiburg in its entirety and the dramatically flat Rhine valley that lies beyond. If I had more time, I could keep walking for another hour, onward to a great outcropping of rocks looking out across the Black Forest's dark evergreen slopes. Upon arriving at the summit, the huge rocks, or some appealing place along the way, I would merely sit still long enough for the birds to appear or begin to sing again in earnest, or for the light or wind to subtly change. I made these hikes as often and as regularly as I could, and invested in them a great importance. This regular and intimate encounter with the earth, especially emerging out of such a steadily urban life, had an immediate and lasting influence on my creative activity, and I will surely be feeling and exploring its implications for a while. Kevin Sims is the long-time resident percussionist of the Red Light Ensemble. He recently returned to New York City.
Q: What or who has influenced your compositional process a n d to what end? Composing for me is the act of discovering a piece. Rather than the content of individual parameters, I am interested in their relationships. The parameters of my music are not abstract constructs, but are the elements of music which are both perceivable and functional in the context which the piece creates. I feel it is very important for me to impose great limits on myself during the compositional process. The most common critique I have of new works which I hear is that they are wasteful of musical materials. This is also linked to large interest I have in repetition and the act of memory while listening to music. By its very nature music exists in time, which is constantly fleeting. As a result, music for the most part occurs in our memory- either after we've heard a piece, or even during the listening process. Once a musical event has passed we remember it, relating it to the next event- this continues throughout the piece. Playing with the memory of past musical objects, and questioning the concept of identity in music has been a great source of interest for me. While I could list any number of established composers who have influenced my work, I have been even more profoundly shaped by collaborations and conversations with emerging composers and performers who are still discovering their own voices and modes of creation. It is because of this that working with Red Light has had such a profound effect on both myself and my music. I believe that it is very important for composers to engage actively with the new music scene not only by composing, but by organizing and performing. Often I find the institutional avenues of achievement in new music to be divorced, or far removed from the priorities which are extremely important to me; namely that music should be worked on, discussed and most importantly performed regularly. What has been so rewarding in working with this group has been the community of like minded artists which have emerged from this collective. Working regularly with a community is the most effective way we can engage in a dialogue which both expands and enriches our conception of music. Vincent Raikhel is a founding Red Light CoDirector and composer. He is currently pursuing a graduate degree at UC-San Diego.
Christopher Cerrone’s Opera, Invisible Cities Christopher Cerrone's opera, Invisible Cities, will receive several exciting performances this coming spring. On May 1, New York City Opera will perform the first act of Invisible Cities as part of their annual VOX Festival. The festival is dedicated to showcasing up-and-coming composers of opera. At 24, Christopher is the youngest composer to receive this honor. On May 29, the Virginia Arts Festival will also perform portions of Invisible Cities, the culmination of a fellowship
Christopher received to attend the John Duffy Composers' Institute. At the institute he will work with noted composers John Duffy, Steve Reich, Charles Wuorinen, and Libby Larsen. Invisible Cities is based on the novel of the same name by the late Italian author Italo Calvino. It explores imagination and the imaginable through the descriptions of cities by the narrator, Marco Polo as he relays them to the aging and busy emperor Kublai Khan, who looks to Polo to save his falling empire.
Fall 2008- New Concerts in NYC The Beaten Path Percussion Duo Red Light commissioned composers Vincent Raikhel, Nils Vigeland (both at left), Scott Wollschleger, and Kyle Hillbrand (both at right) to compose works for the Beaten Path Percussion Duo, comprised of Al Cerullo and Joe Bergen (at center ). The success of this concert has created a model for the 2009-2010 season called New Works/New Duos with the premise of two performers and four new commissions.
Thank you to our generous donors Directors’ Circle ($2,500-$4,999) Aaron Copland Fund for Music
Commissioners’ Circle ($1,000-$2,499) Argosy Foundation Foundation for the Contemporary Arts Meet the Composer/JP Morgan Chase
Benefactors’ Circle ($500-$999) Jason Dickinson The Italian Academy for Advanced Study at Columbia University The Fannie and Stephen Kahn Foundation The Puffin Foundation Natasha Raikhel Ruskin Moscou Faltischek, P.C
Sponsors’ Circle ($250-$499) Dominick and Rita Cavouto Michael and Rose M. Emanuele Alexander Raikhel Jane Blameuser and Brock Robinson Joanne Chory & Steven Worland
Patrons’ Circle ($100-$249)
The Red Light Holiday Gala This past December, Red Light presented the Holiday Gala, our first fundraising event, featuring a special concert of new holiday arrangements. These creatively re-imagined holiday tunes included Jingle Bell Rock, Feliz Navidad, Jingle Bells, and Silver Bells, many of which featured the solo stylings of soprano, Christiana Little. Substituting traditional temporal orderings, Liam Robinson's Silent Night was a deconstruction of the original melody, which was then reconfigured into a game-like performance to a very effective end. Christopher Cerrone's two -piano arrangement of Lo! How a Rose E’er Blooming utilized sophisticated electronic manipulations to create a wall of sound. Scott Wollschleger’s Brontal no.2 “Holiday” was a subjective reflection upon the inner sonority of the holiday season. Angelic voices (and a trombone!) were heard in Kevin Sims's It Came Upon a Midnight Clear/Away in A Manger. Notable arrangements of the evening were David Broome's rendition of Dr.Suess's The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, which was soulfully narrated by Mr. Broome, and Kyle Hillbrand's and
Vincent Raikhel's 20 minute epic coarrangement, Santa's Overstuffed Gift Bag. Indeed, the piece lived up to its title, compressing and weaving tunes from Charlie Brown's Christmas, the Nutcracker Suite, Sleigh Ride, and many more! So great was the response we had for this concert, Red Light is already planning for next year's Holiday Gala . We hope to see you there…
Leslie & Erik Andresen Burt Building Materials Corporation Rosalie Bulger Buzzi Phil & Diana Caparotta Lisa & Michael Ceriello Barbara & Ben Cerrone Reiko Fueting Peggy & David Little Mary Marino Gerard and Geraldine Melato Dax de la Monta Grant and Meredith Robinson Florence & Steven Roffman Bill Sims Richard and Norine Sims Shelly Cryer & Michael Stern Janet Struckley Nils Vigeland Ann & Dave Wollschleger
Friends’ Circle ($10-$99)
Members of the Red Light Ensemble volunteered their time at the Red Light Holiday Gala. Thank you all!
Josephine Arduini Joan Asher Joseph Carvelli Chuck & Valerie Hashim Carol B. Levin Denise Melato Mary Jo Melato Olga Palermo Robert and Rosemary Sieffert Cathy Testani Ilia Tsinadze