Kaaterskill Church

Tannersville, NY 5942 Main St.

Click here for google maps link

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Argento presents Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with soprano Sharon Harms, as well as a work in progress of the first and second movements of Mahler's Symphony No. 10 as part of the 23arts Summer Music Festival in Tannersville, located in the beautiful Catskill Mountains region of upstate New York. Symphony No. 10 will be a pre-premiere performance of the complete 5-movement form arranged by Argento's artist director Michel Galante and conducted by Jonathan Yates, director of the classical series at the festival. The final revised version will be premiered on October 4 as part of the Moving Sounds Festival® in New York City.

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Clarinetist Carol McGonnell will open the concert with Tracing Hollow Traces, a solo by Andile Khumalo.

Irish Times critic Michael Dervan once said: "Classical music audiences know what they like and like what they know, whereas contemporary music audiences seek new musical works and experiences."

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As part of Argento’s ongoing effort to bring together these two audience groups, "Honey, I Shrunk The Orchestra" will feature two orchestral works that were re-scored for 13 players: Kimmy Szeto’s version of Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, Rhenish, and the world premiere of a new chamber ensemble version of Fred Lerdahl’s Chords, reductions that reveal a new clarity of orchestration and virtuosity of ensemble performance from works of both past and present.

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Chords is a mosaic of consonant and dissonant chord colors, revolving closely and distantly around a focal sonority. This new chamber ensemble version exploits the virtuoso aspects of the piece that, according to the composer, were never realized in the previous orchestral settings.

The surprisingly opaque orchestration of Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, Rhenish was the composer’s strategy to manage the mediocre Düsseldorf Orchestra through the scoring itself, often with many pages of doublings. In the New York Times review of Kimmy Szeto’s arrangement, James Oesterreich wrote: “Even for a listener not much bothered, as some are, by Schumann’s sometimes thick orchestrations, this reduction made for a fascinating exercise, clarifying myriad details."

Highlighting Schumann’s relevance today, Argento will perform two contemporary chamber works: György Kurtág’s Hommage à R. Sch. for clarinet, viola, and piano references Schumann’s two personae “Eusebius and Floristan,” and Martin Bresnick’s Bird As Prophet for violin and piano is based on Schumann’s late piano work “Vogel als Prophet,” op. 82 no.7.

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PROGRAM

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György Kurtág – Hommage à R. Sch., op. 15d (1990)
for clarinet, viola, and piano
Carol McGonnell, clarinet; Stephanie Griffin, viola; Margaret Kampmeier, piano

Martin Bresnick – Bird As Prophet (1999)
for violin and piano
Doori Na, violin; Margaret Kampmeier, piano

Fred Lerdahl – Chords (1974/1983, arr. 2018)
(world premiere of the chamber ensemble version)

Intermission

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Robert Schumann / Kimmy Szeto – Symphony No. 3, Rhenish (1850) arranged for chamber ensemble (2013)

At the end of his life, Gérard Grisey, an iconic figure in modern music, turned his attention to the dark and mystical songs of Hugo Wolf. Argento’s final concert of 2017 highlights works by composers inspired by previous musical compositions, transforming them into new works that are a reflection of their time, that reveal their own compositional voice. Alongside three exciting works by New York composers Sang Song, Du Yun and Taylor Brook, Argento will be joined by soprano Sharon Harms in Wolf Songs by Gérard Grisey, the iconic spectral French avant-garde composer who found in his penultimate work an unlikely source of inspiration in the 19th-century Austro-Slovene composer Hugo Wolf. Grisey orchestrates four of Hugo Wolf’s expressionistic lieder with forbidding texts of Eduard Mörike, creating four dark meditations on religion, nature, and time.

Two Asian American composers will be featured in this program. Argento will perform the world premiere of Korean American composer Sang Song’s Scars, a work that highlights the effects of post-traumatic stress syndrome that includes the experience of mourning, embodied by tragic musical quotations from Verdi’s Otello. For portions of this work, the audience will have the option of hearing processed sounds through headphones distributed at the performance. In her duet for violin and piano, When a Tiger Meets a Rosa Rugosa, Pulitzer Prize winning Chinese American composer Du Yun transforms the poem “In me, past, present, future meet” by the war-damaged British poet Siegfried into a wordless vocalise.

Early in the 20th century, Hungarian composer Béla Bartók devotedly traveled to remote villages of Transylvania to make the first outdoor field recordings of folk music, which he admired for its robust expressive power. Using seven of these recordings, Bartok composed his Romanian Folk Dances, presenting them to audiences within a classical concert framework that adds many levels of nuance and color to the original songs. Audience will hear the original field recordings before Argento's performance of Bartok’s concert settings of these vernacular discoveries.

The program ends with Taylor Brook’s Arrhythmia, a musical re-imagining of the first movement of Mahler’s 9th Symphony. Brook asked himself what Mahler would have done if he were to write this piece today, and wrote a microtonal string quartet of which James Oestreich of the New York Times calls “gripping from the outset and engrossing throughout.” Argento will give the premiere performance of this quartet in an expanded version scored with percussion.

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PROGRAM

Sang Song – Scars (World Premiere)
for ensemble and electronics

Béla Bartók – Romanian Folk Dances
for ensemble

~ intermission ~

Du Yun – When a Tiger Meets a Rosa Rugosa
for violin and piano
Ken Hamao, violin
Euntaek Kim, piano

Gérard Grisey – Wolf Lieder
for voice and ensemble
Sharon Harms, soprano

Taylor Brook – Arrhythmia (World Premiere)

Concert dates:

October 20, 2017
Saint Peter's Church, 619 Lexington Avenue at 54 St, New York

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November 20, 2017
La Marbrerie, 21 Tue Alexis Lepere, Montreuil, France

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Argento will travel to France to repeat this performance for French audiences on November 20, 2017. 

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Internationally-acclaimed Ensemble Cairn travels from Paris to join forces with Argento in our season opener, on October 20, 2017, 7:30 PM at Saint Peter’s Church in New York City. Under the baton of the Guillaume Bourgogne (1st prize BRAVO! 2012 for "Best classical music recording"), French-American violinist Elissa Cassini will perform the world premiere of Jérôme Combier’s Koussevitsky commission Conditions de Lumière, a concerto for violin and ensemble.

During a pessimistic moment in international relations, Argento and Ensemble Cairn wish to highlight the positive, idealistic, generous, and creative potential of international collaborations.

This concert, the result of an intense transatlantic exchange of music between the two ensembles, will feature both French and American composers. In addition to Jérôme Combier’s coloristic style, Gérard Pesson takes familiar rhythms and vernacular influences and orchestrates them with “noises” from all the instruments. Franck Bedrossian also explores musical “noise,” but for its darker, more dramatic potential. On this side of the Atlantic, we perform American composers Michel Galante and Nina C. Young (Rome Prize in Composition 2015-16). Michel Galante’s Camouflage (world premiere) features a large ensemble flanked on either side by virtuoso marimba players. In contrast to the large ensemble works on the program, flutist Emi Ferguson and violist Ken Hamao will play Nina C. Young’s poetic duet L’heure bleue.

Suggested Donation: $15 General / $10 Students and Seniors

PROGRAM

Jérôme Combier – Conditions de lumière (2017)
WORLD PREMIERE commissioned by the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation
for violin and large ensemble

Michel Galante – Camouflage (2017)
WORLD PREMIERE for large ensemble

Gérard Pesson – Carmagnole (2015)
for large ensemble

Jérôme Combier – Dog eat dog (2013)
for guitar and cello

Nina C. Young – L'heure bleue (2013)
for flute and viola

Franck Bedrossian – Innersonic (2012)
for accordion and electric guitar

Major support for this concert is provided by the French American Cultural Exchange.

Argento proudly announces our 2016 - 2017 season premiere in partnership with Lex54 Concerts at Saint Peter’s Church. This event features two composers that represent the Irish avant-garde, Karen Power and Ann Cleare, with two works that pair soloists with mixed ensembles.

Soloist Carol McGonnell will give the WORLD PREMIERE of composer Ann Cleare’s eyam ii (taking apart your universe), a concerto for contrabass clarinet and ensemble. A commission from Culture Ireland, this is one of the only concertos for the contrabass clarinet. Ann Cleare's eyam ii is the result of six years of work and a close collaboration between the soloist and composer, as many of the techniques of the contrabass clarinet have never before been explored in a concerto context. In it, a varied ensemble of strings, winds, brass, percussion, and electric guitar deconstruct the “universe” of the contrabass clarinet.

In contrast to Ann Cleare’s rigorously controlled timbral concerto, Karen Power’s work armed only with nuts relies on improvisation to create a theatrical experience that mixes vocal with instrumental textures. The work is entirely different each time it is performed. Soprano Sharon Harms joins Argento in this unpredictable adventure.

The program also includes Salvatore Sciarrino’s Introduzione all’oscuro for string quintet, woodwind quintet, trumpet, and trombone. Michel Galante’s Megalomania for solo piano will be postponed until Argento's November 21st concert on the Lex54 Series.

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PROGRAM

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Salvatore Sciarrino – Introduzione all'oscuro (1981)

Karen Power – armed only with nuts (2012)

Ann Cleare – eyam ii (taking apart your universe) (2012)

for contrabass clarinet and ensemble 
world premiere - Carol McGonnell, contrabass clarinet

Argento New Music Project – Michel Galante, conductor

Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St SE, Washington, DC [map]
Pre-concert conversation at 6:30 in Whittall Pavilion (no tickets required)
Free tickets available online beginning at 10am on September 14

PROGRAM

Salvatore Sciarrino – Introduzione all'Oscuro (1981)

Ann Cleare – eyam i (it takes an ocean not to) (2013)

for solo clarinet 
Ann Cleare – eyam ii (taking apart your universe) (2012)

for contrabass clarinet and ensemble 
Carol McGonnell, clarinet and contrabass clarinet

Michel Galante – Flicker

for clarinet and piano

Gustav Mahler – Andante-Adagio and Scherzo from Symphony No. 10
arranged for chamber ensemble by Michel Galante

Argento New Music Project — Michel Galante, conductor

Saint Peter's Church, 619 Lexington Avenue at 54 St, New York [map]
Suggested Donation: $15

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Sang Song explores isolation through modern means of microamplification: headphones. Proximity and intimacy is magnified – every whisper of the instruments is directly channeled into the listener's ears.

** Please bring photo identification to procure headphones necessary to experience this exciting world premiere.

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PROGRAM

Sang Song – Last Winter (2016)
world premiere, headphones powered by Quiet Event

Beat Furrer - aer (1991)

Morton Feldman – Bass Clarinet and Percussion (1981)
Carol McGonnell, bass clarinet

Beat Furrer – voicelessness (1986)
Joanna Chao, piano

Michel Galante – Megalomania (2012)
Stephen Gosling, piano

Thursday, April 6, 2017, 7:00 PM
Fine Arts Center Concert Hall, 855 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston [map]

Monday, April 10, 2017, 12:30 PM
Saint Peter's Church, 619 Lexington Avenue at 54 St, New York [map]
Suggested Donation: $15

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The concert features the world premiere of Hochzeitsmarsch, an ambitious work by leading Austrian composer Georg Friedrich Haas. Haas wrote this work to celebrate his much publicized wedding to Molina Haas-Williams. Rather than referring to the institutional or traditional trappings of wedding, the work is one single enormous accelerando that goes through numerous transformations before settling on a cumulative arrival of all its instrumental forces. While Hochzeitsmarsch celebrates the more heated side of love, das Ende der Sehnsuch, also written for the Williams/Haas marriage, which celebrates the deeper, more sublime connections of their bond.

Violist Stephanie Griffin will perform Tristan Murail's C'est un jardin secret, ma soeur, ma fiancée, une source scellée, une fontaine close…, written as a wedding present for two of the composer’s friends. This solo work summarizes many characteristics of the composer’s music into a work for a single instrument. A short sequence of processes, featuring sliding tempi and subtle fluctuations of finger and bowing pressure, is neatly concluded by a mysterious ascending figure. To complement this work, Argento programs two other Murail miniatures: flutist Emi Ferguson will perform Unanswered Questions; violinist Doori Na and clarinetist Carol McGonnell will perform Les ruines circulaires.

Argento will perform the US premiere of Ryan Beppel’s Sterbetourismus, a string octet with two conductors dedicated to the marriage of Ken and Alana Bergman who married in 2013. Two conductors are required to realize the overlapping acceleration structures that have become a hallmark of Beppel’s work.

Finally, the program will include Siegfried Idyll, a birthday gift that Richard Wagner wrote for Cosima Wagner celebrating the birth of their son Siegfried.

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PROGRAM

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Tristan Murail – C'est un jardin secret, ma sœur, ma fiancée, une source scellée, une fontaine close... (1976)

for viola
Stephanie Griffin, viola 

Tristan Murail – Les ruines circulaires (1998)

for clarinet and violin
Doori Na, violin, Carol McGonnell, clarinet

Tristan Murail – Unanswered Questions (1995)

for flute
Emi Ferguson, flute

Georg Friedrich Haas – das Ende der Sehnsucht (2015)
World premiere (Boston), New York premiere (Lex54)

Ryan Beppel - Sterbetourismus (2013)

for string octet
U.S. premiere (Lex54)

Georg Friedrich Haas - Hochzeitsmarsch (2015)
World premiere

Richard Wagner – Siegfried Idyll (1870)

symphonic poem for chamber orchestra

Argento New Music Project — Michel Galante, conductor

School of Music Recital Hall (Room 206), University of South Carolina
813 Assembly Street, Columbia
Pre-concert conversation at 6:00 ; educational concert at Dreher High School on Aug 27 ; masterclasses at USC on Aug 27

The concert program features ABRAXAS by rising star Jesse Jones and the world premiere of Symphony No. 10 in Two Movements, Michel Galante's chamber ensemble version of Gustav Mahler's heart-wrenching last symphony.

Michel Galante writes on Jesse Jones's ABRAXAS –– “A lot of what he explores instrumental timbre. What you’ll hear is a lot of dramatic gestures, but you’ll also hear a lot of timbres that are combinations that make a rich harmonic language.” On the Mahler — “Mahler's Tenth Symphony contains Mahler’s most advanced and modern musical innovations, but more importantly to the modern ear, musically communicates complex emotions such as guilt, regret, ambivalence and jealousy. This arrangement for chamber ensemble explores the more intimate aspects of these fragments. For the newcomer to Mahler’s music, it will communicate directly to their emotions. For those familiar with Mahler’s orchestral idiom, the chamber arrangement will give the learned ear a chance to listen to its intimate orchestration and compare it to the Mahlerian sound orchestra in their heads, giving them a chance to speculate for themselves about how Mahler might have orchestrated the piece himself.”

Program Highlights

Jesse Jones – ABRAXAS (2013)

Gustav Mahler – Symphony No. 10 (1910) 
arranged in two movements for chamber ensemble by Michel Galante (2015)

world premiere

Tristan Murail – Feuilles à travers les cloches (1998)

Argento New Music Project – Michel Galante, conductor

Bohemian National Hall, 321 East 73 Street, New York
Subway: 6 to 77 St
Admission free, reservation required (click here)

In this 7th year of artistic collaboration with the Austrian Cultural Forum, Argento takes part in curating a festival celebration at the crossroads of classical and electronic sounds. From September 11 to 18, Moving Sounds 2015 delves into creativity, experimentation and critical thought in performances, interactive sound installations, film and video, and panel discussions. 

Argento performs in the culminating concert of the festival on September 18 with violinist Hanna Hurwitz illuminating Giacinto Scelsi's Anahit coupled with spatialized responses by Tristan Murail and the U.S. premiere of Georg Friedrich Haas's Introduktion und Transsonation.

PROGRAM

Tristan Murail – C'est un jardin secret, ma sœur, ma fiancée, une source scellée, une fontaine close... (1976)

for viola
Stephanie Griffin, viola 

Tristan Murail – Les Ruines circulaires (1998)

for clarinet and violin
Doori Na, violin, Carol McGonnell, clarinet

Tristan Murail – Feuilles à travers les cloches (1998)

for flute, violin, cello and piano

Giacinto Scelsi – Tre pezzi (1965)

for E-flat clarinet
Carol McGonnell, clarinet

Georg Friedrich Haas – Introduktion und Transsonation (2012)

for 17 instruments and tape
U.S. premiere

Giacinto Scelsi – Anahit (1965)

for violin and chamber orchestra
Hanna Hurwitz, violin

Argento New Music Project — Michel Galante, conductor

Dweck Center, 10 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn [map]
Subway: 2/3 to Grand Army Plaza ; Q to 7 Av
Admission free (ticket required)

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At the peak of his artistic creativity from 1997 to 2010, Tristan Murail lived and worked in the center of American musical culture, New York City. As one of the most prominent living French composers, his legacy resulted in a cross pollination with young emerging American artists yielding a unique hybrid of new music subculture. (Argento was formed as a result of close collaboration between Murail and a group of ambitious young virtuosi.) 

Since his departure, Murail’s New York following has been eager to hear spectral music performed in a chamber ensemble setting, and, in particular, for Argento to perform this repertoire. The most common request Argento receives is, “When will we hear you play Murail again?” 

In conjunction with the French American Cultural Exchange and the Brooklyn Public Library, this first concert of a two-part series features the music of Tristan Murail alongside works of three of his American students who have built on and extended his work in powerful new directions. 

PROGRAM

Tristan Murail – The Bronze Age (2012)

for flute, clarinet, trombone, violin, cello and piano
New York premiere ; world premiere performed by Argento in 2012

Huck Hodge – Phantasie (2006)

for amplified cello

Oliver Schneller – Alice Blue (2013)

for flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, cello, piano and vibraphone

World premiere

Bert Van Herck – Inflections (2009)

for solo viola

Bert Van Herck – Reconnected (2009)

for alto flute and clarinet

Bert Van Herck – Just a note (2009)

for solo piano

Oliver Schneller – Refractions 

for alto flute, clarinet, violin, viola and cello
World premiere

Argento New Music Project — Andrea Vitello, conductor

Saturday, April 16, 2016, 8:00 PM
Fine Arts Center Concert Hall at Boston University
855 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston

Monday, April 25, 2016, 7:00 PM
Zankel Hall, 881 7th Avenue, New York -- Purchase Tickets Online --
Subway: N/R/Q to 57 St, F to 57 St
 

In the announcement for the winner of the 2014 Great Austrian State Prize (Großer Österreichischer Staatspreis), the Austrian Arts Senate describes Beat Furrer's music possesses a “distinctive style, characterized by the human voice and the interrelation of sound, language and visual effects, using sophisticated texts. His original musical language, characterized by a wealth of sensitive and subtle differentiation matching his sensitivity, but in no way compromising on the original power of the message and its expression, has aroused interest in the music world from right the outset.” Argento, his long-term artistic collaborator in America, brings together three of his most celebrated works in this evening's program.

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PROGRAM - April 16 in Boston

Beat Furrer – linea dell’orizzonte (2012)

for 10 musicians

Beat Furrer – Voicelessness: The Snow Has No Voice (1986)

for piano
Joanna Chao, piano

Beat Furrer – Lied (1993)

for violin and piano

Beat Furrer – Aer (1991)

for clarinet, cello and piano

Morton Feldman – Bass Clarinet and Percussion (1981)

Argento New Music Project — Michel Galante, conductor 

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PROGRAM - April 25 in New York

Beat Furrer – Xenos III (2010)

for strings and percussion
U.S. premiere; with narration by the composer

Beat Furrer – Still (1998)

for ensemble

Beat Furrer – Spazio immergente (2015)

for soprano and trombone
World premiere

Tony Arnold, soprano, Tim Albright, trombone

Beat Furrer – linea dell’orizzonte (2012)

for 10 musicians
New York premiere

Argento New Music Project — Michel Galante, conductor 

Hosted by French Institute: Alliance Française
Thursday, May 19, 2016, 7:30 PM
Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59 Street [map]
Subway: 4/5/6/N/R/Q to 59th St - Lexington Av ; N/R to 5 Av

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At the peak of his artistic creativity from 1997 to 2010, Tristan Murail lived and worked in the center of American musical culture, New York City. As one of the most prominent living French composers, his legacy resulted in a cross pollination with young emerging American artists yielding a unique hybrid of new music subculture. (Argento was formed as a result of close collaboration between Murail and a group of ambitious young virtuosi.)

Since his departure, Murail’s New York following has been eager to hear spectral music performed in a chamber ensemble setting, and, in particular, for Argento to perform this repertoire. The most common request Argento receives is, “When will we hear you play Murail again?” 

In conjunction with the French American Cultural Exchange and FIAF, this second concert of a two-part series features the music of Tristan Murail alongside works of three of his American students who have built on and extended his work in powerful new directions. 

PROGRAM

Tristan Murail – La Mandragore (1993)

for piano
Melody Fader, piano
Featuring a world premiere choreography by Miro Magloire performed by New Chamber Ballet

Michel Galante – Watercolors (2003)

for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and percussion

Huck Hodge – Phantasie (2006)

for amplified cello
Alex Wasserman, cello

Michel Galante – Leaves of Absence (2005)

for flute, clarinet, trombone, violin, viola, cello and bass

Joshua Fineberg – Objets trouvés (2009)

for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion
U.S. premiere performed by Argento in 2011

Tristan Murail – Ethers (1978)

for flute with clarinet, trombone, violin, cello and piano
Erin Lesser, flute
U.S. premiere performed by Argento in 2004
Recorded by Argento on award-winning album Winter Fragments

Argento New Music Project — Michel Galante, conductor

Music Mondays Concert Series, Advent Lutheran Church, 2504 Broadway at 93rd Street, New York
Subway: 1/2/3 to 96th Street
Admission: free

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The legendary Austrian composer Gustav Mahler spent some of his later years in New York City and served as the director of the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic. His forward-looking musical style and language continue to resonate in contemporary music today. This concert series—three concerts spanning the 2014-15 season—situates Mahler as a New York new music contemporary. Each concert features one of Mahler's monumental works composed during his New York period in chamber arrangement, which provides the context for a showcase of the finest works of today's emerging composers. Discussion with composers and performers follows each program. 
 

PROGRAM

Taylor Brook – Arrythmia (2012)

for string quartet
JACK Quartet

Matthew Ricketts – After Nine: Fantasia on Mahler (2014)

for chamber ensemble
New York premiere

Gustav Mahler – Symphony No. 9 (1899-1901/1902-10) 
arranged for chamber ensemble by Klaus Simon (2007)

Argento New Music Project — Michel Galante, conductor

Instituto Cervantes
211 East 49th Street, New York

Argento presents a cutting-edge program at the Play Loud! Chamber Music Festival.

PROGRAM

Kurt Rohde – …misterioso…maestoso… (2011/12)

for amplified violin, viola and assorted items

Michel Galante – Sonataspielen (2014)

for violin and piano

Michel Galante – Divorce Bard (2014)

for voice and piano

Aaron Helgeson – A long while (2014)

for soprano and piano
With text adapted from the 576 words spoken by Hermione in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale

Gordon Beeferman – Burnt Sienna (2006)

for solo clarinet

Gordon Beeferman – there are people (2013)

for voice and piano

Gordon Beeferman – The Quiet (world premiere)

for voice and piano

Argento New Music Project –– Michel Galante, conductor, with Sharon Harms, soprano

Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue (between 66 and 67 St)
Admission free / Ticket required

PROGRAM

Oliver Schneller – Clair/Obscur (2005-06)

for 7 instruments and live electronics
U.S. premiere 

Jesse Jones – Threshold 

for tenor and ensemble
New York premiere 

Gustav Mahler – Das Lied von der Erde (1908-09)

arranged for mezzo-soprano, tenor and chamber ensemble by Arnold Schoenberg (1921), completed by Rainer Riehn (1983)
Jennifer Beattie, alto; James Benjamin Rodgers, tenor

This concert is made possible with the generous support of The Reed Foundation.

Cary Hall, DiMenna Center, 450 West 37th Street, New York
Suggested donation $15/$10 students / No tickets necessary 

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PROGRAM

György Ligeti – Cello Concerto
Sæunn Thorsteinsdottir, cello

Matthias Spahlinger – Furioso 

for chamber ensemble

Giacinto Scelsi – Kya 

for clarinet and chamber ensemble
Carol McGonnell, clarinet

Gustav Mahler – Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer)

arranged for voice and ensemble by Arnold Schoenberg
Sharon Harms, soprano

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Argento New Music Project –– Michel Galante, conductor

Green Music Center, Sonoma State University
1801 E Cotati Ave, Rohnert Park, CA 94928

Preview Concert selected from the Sonoma Tour Program on Thursday, March 26, 2015, 7:30 PM
 

Sonoma Tour Program

György Ligeti – Cello Concerto
Sæunn Thorsteinsdottir, cello

Giacinto Scelsi – Kya 

for clarinet and chamber ensemble
Carol McGonnell, clarinet

Robert Schumann – Konzertsatz

fragment in D minor arranged for piano and chamber ensemble by Kimmy Szeto
Elizabeth Roe, piano

Aldo Clementi – Concerto

for piano and ensemble
Elizabeth Roe, piano

Gustav Mahler – Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer)

arranged for voice and ensemble by Arnold Schoenberg
Federica von Stade, soprano

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Argento New Music Project –– Michel Galante, conductor

Zipper Hall at the Colburn School
200 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90012
 

PROGRAM

György Ligeti – Cello Concerto
Sæunn Thorsteinsdottir, cello

Matthias Spahlinger – Furioso 

for chamber ensemble

Giacinto Scelsi – Kya 

for clarinet and chamber ensemble
Carol McGonnell, clarinet

Robert Schumann – Konzertsatz

fragment in D minor arranged for piano and chamber ensemble by Kimmy Szeto
Elizabeth Roe, piano

Aldo Clementi – Concerto 

for piano and ensemble
Elizabeth Roe, piano

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Argento's 2014-15 season programming has been made possible by the Fritz Reiner Fund, the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, New Music USA's Cary New Music Performance Fund, and the Aaron Copland Fund for Music. Public support is provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Bohemian National Hall (site)
321 E 73rd Street, New York, NY 10021 (map)

PROGRAM

Georg Friedrich Haas – Phantasien 

for viola and clarinet

Michel Galante – Megalomania 

for solo piano

And much more...

Austrian Cultural Forum
11 East 52nd Street, New York
Subway: B/D/F trains to Rockefeller Center; 6 train to 51st Street; E/M trains to 5 Avenue
Admission free, donation appreciated

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July 1, 2013 marks Georg Friedrich Haas’s first day as a resident of the United States, where he will join the composition faculty at Columbia University, a professorship following the lineage of prestigious composers including Edward MacDowell, Otto Luening, Mario Davidovsky, and, most recently, Tristan Murail. This move puts him squarely in the historical tradition of European composers such as Gustav Mahler, Arnold Schoenberg, and Igor Stravinsky, all of whom moved to the United States and became part of the musical life of America. 

To celebrate the occasion, Argento presents salient expressionist works of the Second Viennese School alongside the U.S. premiere of the vocal-instrumental version of Atthis, a dramatic and vocally virtuosic work for soprano and ensemble. (Argento gave the U.S. premiere of the instrumental version of Atthis in 2009 at the Moving Sounds Festival.) In this 45-minute work, Haas sets Sappho’s erotic love poetry against the background of the instrumental combination of Franz Schubert’s Octet: string quintet, horn, clarinet, and bassoon. Whereas Haas’s focus on the lyric impulse harkens back to the Austrian tradition of the Schubertian lieder, his focus on musical innovation follows the tradition of modernist composers of the Second Viennese School.

PROGRAM

Alban Berg – Adagio from Kammerkonzert
new arrangement for chamber ensemble by Michel Galante
World premiere - Aaron Boyd, violin

Anton Webern – Drei Stücke, Op. 11 

for cello and piano

Arnold Schoenberg – Sechs kleine Klavierstücke, Op. 19 

for piano

Georg Friedrich Haas – Atthis
version for soprano, clarinet, bassoon, horn, and string quintet
World premiere - Sharon Harms, soprano

Thursday-Sunday, September 19-22, 2013
Austrian Cultural Forum
11 East 52nd Street, New York

Argento co-curates with the Austrian Cultura Forum a festival of music, visual media, and aesthetic dialogue.

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Thursday, September 19

The Prosodic Body

7:30 PM: Austrian Cultural Forum New York, 11 East 52nd Street, New York

Prosodic body is a new field of research founded by Daria Fain and Robert Kocik that explores language as sound, embodiment, and utmost expression. Tone, intention, rhythm, gesture, the tacit, hesitation, interaction, evocation and even cosmogenesis are all acts of "prosody" which describes the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech.

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Duo Improvisations

9:00 PM: Austrian Cultural Forum New York, 11 East 52nd Street, New York

This concert is the first duo performance by Mario Diaz de Leon and Mahir Cetiz. Using analog synthesizer, Ciat-Lonbarde Tetrazzi, 36-string zither, electric guitar and piano, their expansive improvisations evoke influences ranging from Xenakis to Scriabin.

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Friday, September 20

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Film Screening

6:30 PM: Bohemian National Hall, Czech Center, 321 East 73rd Street, New York 
Admission free; reservation required

A high definition, 5.1 surround sound sneak preview of the monumental film of Argento's performance of Georg Friedrich Haas' in vain at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center in Troy, New York. 
58 minutes

An Evening of New Music and Chamber Dance

7:30 PM: Bohemian National Hall, Czech Center, 321 East 73rd Street, New York 
Admission free; reservation required

Argento Chamber Ensemble teams up with the New Chamber Ballet performing quiet, delicate miniatures alternating with fast, raucous movement and boldly dramatic gestures, with new choreography by Miro Magloire.

Echoes / Anton Webern – Four Pieces, Op. 7 for violin and piano
Broken Chains / Georg Friedrich Haas – Phantasien for clarinet and viola
Between Us the Night / Beat Furrer – Aria for soprano, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, piano, and percussion
Come Closer / Nina C. Young – Tethered Within for flute, clarinet, 2 violins, viola, cello, and piano
Fiesta / Arthur Kampela – Bridges for viola
Synch / Michel Galante – World Premiere for violin and piano
 

Mokré Ruce / Wet Hands

9:00 PM: Bohemian National Hall, Czech Center, 321 East 73rd Street, New York 

Dancer and choreographer Veronika Kolečkářová (contemporary dance), saxophonist Radim Hanousek and percussionist Martin Kleibl (jazz improvisation), and Florian Tilzer ("water musician") merge alterations of the sounds of water—water dripping, water splashing, water being poured, and water being stirred—with dance and the dynamic sounds of percussion and saxophone.

Saturday, September 21

Work/Rest

2:00-6:00 PM: Littlefield, 622 Degraw Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Work/Rest, created by Michelle Nagai, explores the rhythms and ethos of rural farm life in Japan. Touching on the mysteries of enlightenment, agricultural routine, seasonal change, and the wisdom of elders, the piece offers a glimpse of an alternative sense of sounding, listening, and knowing. Percussionists Michael Evans and Andrew Drury collect and categorize sound objects throughout the day, a work-in-process open to the public. The piece culminates with a live show in which Evans and Drury perform, accompanied by a series of comic mistranslations that describe and comment on photographic images of mid-20th-century rural Japan.

Quartet Collective

8:00 PM: Littlefield, 622 Degraw Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Quartet Collective brings together four artists in the shared endeavor of experimenting through movement and sound in performance. The search for transdisciplinary understanding of spontaneous action, relationship, and intention takes this group to music venues, galleries and onto dance stages alike.

Ensemble mise-en

8:30 PM: Littlefield, 622 Degraw Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Ensemble mise-en will perform two US premieres of works by Arnold Schoenberg and Mirela Ivičević, world premiere performances of compositions by Moon Young Ha, Friedrich Heinrich Kern, and a commissioned piece for mixed ensemble and electronics by young Austrian composer Matthias Kranebitter.

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Sunday, September 22

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Carol McGonnell

6:30 PM: Littlefield, 622 Degraw Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217 (map)

Argento clarinettist Carol McGonnell performs Monodologie XVIII, Tier XIV, composed for her by Bernhard Lang, and Der kleine Harlekin, No. 42½ by Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Resonance

7:00 PM: Littlefield, 622 Degraw Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Developed by William "Bilwa" Costa, Martín Lanz Landázuri, and Emily Sweeney, Resonance explores figurative, physical, and mechanical phenomena related to resonance. The Resonance score has emerged through the repeated exploration of methods for reverberating mindfully in improvisation. Microphones, chalk lines, paper molecules, words, gestures, maps - all are used to trace expansions and contractions of energy and sound through the bodies and around the space.

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After The Meadow, Before The Forest

8:00 PM: Littlefield, 622 Degraw Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217

After The Meadow, Before The Forest, performed by Rachel Bernsen and friends, is part two of an ongoing exploration of the open spaces between minimalism and maximalism, structure and improvisation, and unison and independence as they relate to sound and movement.

February 6 and 7, 2014, 7:00 PM

Grand Ballroom of the Bohemian National Hall at the Czech Center
321 East 73rd St, New York
Subway: 6 trains to 68th or 77th Street; M72 bus
No reservation necessary. Arrive early!

Swizz composer Michael Jarrell’s Cassandra, a monodrama with a libretto based on the epic monologue of Christa Wolf, follows the Trojan priestess as she straddles past and present events in an internal monologue.

PROGRAM

Michael Jarrell – Cassandra
U.S. premiere of the Nimrod Opera Zurich production/visualization
Performed in English

Anna Clementi, narrator
Argento New Music Project –– Michel Galante, conductor

Sonoma State University

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PROGRAM

Louis Andriessen – Workers Union

Brian Ferneyhough – La chute d'Icare

Matthew Ricketts – After 9

Michel Galante – Kreutzerspiel

Mahler/Schoenberg – Drinking Song of the Misery of the Earth

Mahler/Schoenberg – Songs of the Wayfarer

Concerts: Friday, March 28 and Saturday, March 29, 2014, 8:00 PM
Institute for Advanced Study (web site)
1 Einstein Drive, Princeton, NJ 08540
 

Argento collaborates with composer Sebastian Currier at a meeting of minds.

PROGRAM

Sebastian Currier – Deep-Sky Objects
for soprano, ensemble, and pre-recorded samples

Mahler – Song of the Earth 

arranged for chamber ensemble by Schoenberg
featuring vocalists Sharon Harms and Jennifer Beattie 

Bailey Hall, Cornell University

"A work that transfixes me every time I listen to it." -- Alex Ross

Argento joins the choral forces of Cornell University to perform Georg Friedrich Haas’s Sieben Klangräume (Seven Soundspaces), evocative and haunting episodes of the lost worlds connecting the fragments of Mozart’s unfinished Requiem.

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PROGRAM

Mozart – Requiem

Georg Friedrich Haas – Sieben Klangräume

Judith Kellock, Ivy Walz, Thom Baker, David Neal
Cornell Chorus and Glee Club –– Robert Isaacs, director
Argento New Music Project –– Michel Galante, conductor

Concert Series Fridays at 7:30 PM | Sundays at 4:00 PM, May 2 to 18, 2014

Austrian Cultural Forum 
11 East 52nd Street, New York
Admission free, $10 suggested donation; seating first come, first served, no reservation necessary

Argento showcases American composers in back-to-back-to-back festivities. Concert programs include three world premieres by emerging American composers David Fulmer, Jon Forshee, and Aaron Cassidy, as well as works and installations by Aaron Einbond, Aaron Helgeson, Erin Gee, Hannah Lash, Huck Hodge, Jeff Brown, Jon Forshee, Kimmy Szeto, and Arthur Kampela. An homage to our host and partner, the Austrian Cultural Forum, series programs are anchored by works of Georg Friedrich Haas and Second Viennese School composers.

Discussion with composers and performers follows each concert. Custom ales and lagers provided by the BrewHeister in Weeks 2 and 3.

Week 1: Timbrally rich ensemble works of Austrian composers Georg Friedrich Haas and Anton Webern set the stage for two concerts exploring the potential of the voice, saxophone, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, trumpet, trombone, horn, accordion, harp, strings, and colorful percussion. The concerts feature world premieres by emerging American composers Erin Gee and Aaron Cassidy, as well as Alvin Lucier’s watershed work of processual music, In Memoriam Jon Higgins and harp solo by Guggenheim Prize-winning composer Arthur Kampela.

PROGRAM 1
Friday, May 2, 7:30 PM
Sunday, May 4, 4:00 PM

Arthur Kampela – Phalanges

for solo harp

Erin Gee – Mouthpiece XIXb 

for voice and ensemble
World premiere

Aaron Cassidy – The Green is Where

for solo violin
World premiere

Alvin Lucier – In Memoriam Jon Higgins 

for clarinet and tape

Anton Webern – Two Songs on poems by Rainer Maria Rilke, Op. 8
Sharon Harms, soprano

Anton Webern – Six Songs on poems by Georg Trakl, Op. 14
Sharon Harms, soprano

Georg Friedrich Haas – für Hans Landesmann for large ensemble
U.S. premiere

Discussion with composers follows the concert

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Week 2: Argento presents five fresh compositions by emerging American Composers against the backdrop of the new, intensely distilled chamber arrangement of Arnold Schoenberg’s Five Pieces for Orchestra by Kimmy Szeto. The program features a world premiere by Jon Forshee, a leading composer in the world of electro-acoustic music, and pieces by recent Naumberg Prize winner and Fromm Commission recipient Hannah Lash, Rome Prize winner Huck Hodge, featured resident Argento composer Michael Klingbeil, and an installation work by Jeff Brown, a young American in working in Switzerland. The composers will join the musicians on stage after the performances to discuss their works and various concerns in contemporary music; the BrewHeister will debut his creations on May 9.

PROGRAM 2
Friday, May 9, 7:30 PM
Sunday, May 11, 4:00 PM

Michael Klingbeil – Vers la courbe 

for piano and electronics

Hannah Lash – Friction, Pressure, Impact

for cello and piano

Jonathan Forshee – Supine

for two violins
World premiere

Huck Hodge – Efflux

for violin and clarinet

Arnold Schoenberg – Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16
World premiere arrangement for chamber ensemble by Kimmy Szeto with electronics by Jonathan Forshee

Jeff Brown – Motion Harmony #3

for percussion and three pendulums

Discussion with composers follows the concert; ales/lagers by the BrewHeister

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Week 3: Argento dislocates the boundary of the cutting edge in a program that challenges the medium for which each piece is composed. Aaron Helgeson’s Through glimpses of unknowing questions the sonic identity of the piano in an exploration of the instrument’s resonance; Aaron Einbond’s Beside Oneself molds the sounds of the bass clarinet and the viola into responsorial electronic gestures. The vocalist and pianist do much more than singing and piano playing in David Fulmer’s Mnemosyne’s Beams. Alban Berg condenses highly complex musical materials into miniatures in his Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano. Sebastian Currier also created miniature incipits to precede each song in his cycle Deep-Sky Objects. Yet samples incorporate actual audio of distant space objects, and the subject of Sarah Manguso’s love poetry swells to intergalactic portions.

PROGRAM 3
Friday, May 16, 7:30 PM
Sunday, May 18, 4:00 PM 

Aaron Einbond – Beside Oneself

for viola and electronics
New York premiere

Aaron Helgeson – Through glimpses of unknowing 

for solo piano

David Fulmer – Mnemosyne's Beams 

for voice and piano
World premiere
Sharon Harms, voice

Sebastian Currier – Deep-Sky Objects
New York premiere
Sharon Harms, voice

Alban Berg – Four pieces for Clarinet and Piano, Op.5

Discussion with composers follows the concert; ales/lagers by the BrewHeister

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Argento's 2013-14 season programming has been made possible by the friendly support of the Ernst von Siemens Foundation, the Alice M. Ditson Fund, the Fritz Reiner Fund, New Music USA's Cary New Music Performance Fund, and the Aaron Copland Fund for Music. Public support is provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

September 13-15, 2012
Austrian Cultural Forum
11 East 52nd Street, New York

Argento co-curates with the Austrian Culturam Forum a festival of music, visual media, and aesthetic dialogue in collaboration with the Austrian Cultural Forum. The festival will host Mivos Quartet performing music by Reiko Fueting and Carl Bettendorf; Ensemble Mise-En performing Pasquale Corrado, Moon Young Ha, Elisabeth Harnik, Kurt Rohde, Bent Sørensen, and Wolfram Schurig; and Jack Quartet performing Clemens Gadenstätte and Georg Friedrich Haas. New York composer Annie Gosfield and Austrian composer Bernhard Fleischmann will perform their own compositions. At the Symposium, Director of the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna Christian Myer will

discuss Schoenberg and the avant-garde with jazz trumpeter Franz Hackl.

Argento workshops and performs world premieres by Harvard University composers.

St. Bartholomew's Church (website)
325 Park Avenue at 51st St

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Argento will perform all surviving fragments of Mozart's unfinished Requiem linked together by composer Georg Friedrich Haas's Seven Soundspaces (Sieben Klangräume). Acclaimed flutist Paula Robison will perform Mozart's Andante, K. 315 for flute and orchestra to open the program.

This program is presented by Great Music at St. Bart's with support from The Reed Foundation.

More commentaries on Mozart/Haas:

Matt Mendez, Soundproof Room
Charissa Che, Downtown Magazine

PROGRAM

W.A. Mozart - Andante for flute and orchestra, K. 315
Paula Robison, flute

W.A. Mozart – Requiem, K. 626
Georg Friedrich Haas – Sieben Klangräume

Tharanga Goonetilleke, Silvie Jensen, Steven Wilson, Peter Stewart, soloists
The College of New Jersey Chorale, John Leonard, director

Argento New Music Project – Michel Galante, conductor

November 30, December 1-2, 8-9, and 15-16

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Austrian Cultural Forum
11 East 52nd Street, New York

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Argento celebrates the 100th anniversary of Pierrot Lunaire with performances of the Arnold Schoenberg masterpiece juxtaposed with recent and premiere compositions.

Program 1: Friday, November 30, 7:30 PM

Preview performance for Argento supporters

Program 2: Saturday, December 1, 7:30 PM

Concert review in The New York Times

As both an active painter and composer, Schoenberg’s visual artwork and compositions grew from the same inner need for expression. With this in mind, Argento offers a program of works by Matthias Pintscher that focuses on the connections between painting and music. Pintscher’s Treatise on a Veil was inspired by painter Cy Twombly’s piece of the same name and contains many associations with visual and acoustic phenomena.

PROGRAM

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(All works by Matthias Pintscher):
Study III for Treatise on the Veil for solo violin
Study II for Treatise on the Veil for violin, viola and cello
On a Clear Day for solo piano
Janusgesicht for viola and cello

Arnold Schoenberg – Pierrot Lunaire

Audience discussion with composer Matthias Pintscher during intermission.
David Fulmer, violin; Conor Hanick and Taka Kigawa, piano; Paula Robison, voice

Program 3: Sunday, December 2, 4:00 PM

A recent first prize winner of Concert Artists Guild competition, cellist Jay Campbell offers a recital of the old and new, with an emphasis on New York composers. In particular, the pairing of An Orbicle of Jasp with Pierrot Lunaire emphasizes Schoenberg’s influence on living composers and underlines continuity. Wuorinen, exceptionally among his generation, has developed implications of Schoenberg’s 12-tone as a vehicle for his own musical ends.

PROGRAM

Charles Wuorinen – An Orbicle of Jasp
Toru Takemitsu – Orion
Claude Debussy – Sonata in D minor
Arnold Schoenberg – Pierrot Lunaire

Audience discussion with the artists during intermission.
Jay Campbell, cello; Taka Kigawa, piano; Paula Robison, voice

Program 4: Saturday, December 8, 7:30 pm

In Pierrot Lunaire, Schoenberg originally instructed his violinist to double on viola. Today, performances typically use two separate players to cover the part, effectively minimizing the violist’s role. Considering this, Argento presents a program featuring the viola, the “forgotten” member of the Pierrot ensemble. Included is Feldman’s seminal “viola-plus-Pierrot” composition, The Viola in My Life 2, along with a solo work for the instrument by Jason Eckardt.

PROGRAM

Lei Liang – Garden Eight for solo piano
Jason Eckardt – To be held... for voice, viola, and electronics
Morton Feldman – The Viola in My Life 2 for viola and ensemble 
Arnold Schoenberg – Pierrot Lunaire

Audience discussion with the artists during intermission.
Stephanie Griffin, viola; Joanna Chao, piano; Paula Robison, voice

Program 5: Sunday, December 9, 4:00 PM

Musically encapsulating modernity’s cultural and social dislocations, the heterogeneous timbres of Schoenberg’s Pierrot ensemble have served as an endless source of fascination and inspiration for living composers. Featured are works by Feldman and Sciarrino that explore the various potentials of this most quintessential of twentieth-century instrumental contingents, along with contrasting solo compositions by Elliott Carter and Max Grafe.

Max Grafe – Parthenogenesis for piano and electronics
Salvatore Sciarrino – Lo spazio inverso for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and celeste
Elliott Carter – Gra for solo clarinet
Morton Feldman – I met Heine on the rue Fürstenberg for soprano, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion
Arnold Schoenberg – Pierrot Lunaire

Audience discussion with the artists during intermission
Sharon Harms, soprano; Joanna Chao, piano; Carol McGonnell, clarinet; Paula Robison, voice

Program 6: Saturday, December 15, 4:00 pm (note special time)

Rarely employing full ensemble tuttis, the restraint with which Schoenberg marshals his instrumental forces in Pierrot Lunaire has long been recognized as one of the work's most noteworthy qualities. Indeed, many important moments in the score are actually reserved for the reciter and a single monophonic instrument. Highlighting the delicate, chamber-like scoring of Pierrot, Argento presents mold-breaking solo and duo works by Lillios and Zorn, exploring the unique string and wind timbres that Schoenberg had at his disposal.

Elainie Lillios – Among Fireflies for alto flute and live electronics
John Zorn – Apophthegms for two violins
Arnold Schoenberg – Pierrot Lunaire

Audience discussion with the artists during intermission
Erin Lesser, flute; David Fulmer and Christopher Otto, violins; Paula Robison, voice

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Program 7, Sunday, December 16, 4:00 PM

Argento presents a pair of virtuosic duos by Carter and Galante for subsets of the “expanded Pierrot” line-up, followed by a new work for the full ensemble by Fulmer. The Lunar Movements concert series is capped with a final performance of Schoenberg’s century-old masterpiece, the work Igor Stravinsky famously dubbed the “solar plexus” of twentieth-century composition.

Elainie Lillios and Bonnie Mitchell – 2BTextures for video and electronics
Elainie Lillios and Bonnie Mitchell – Sweeping Memories (world premiere)
Elliott Carter – Esprit Rude / Esprit Doux for flute and clarinet
David Fulmer – New Work for soprano and ensemble (world premiere)
Michel Galante – Duos and Trios for flute and marimba
Arnold Schoenberg – Pierrot Lunaire

Audience discussion with the artists during intermission.
Sharon Harms, soprano; Erin Lesser, flute; Carol McGonnell, clarinet; Matt Ward, marimba; Paula Robison, voice

Remembering a ardent supporter of new music, this program will feature some of the works Ralph admired, performed by new music groups he tirelessly advocated for—Argento, Alarm Will Sound, Either/Or, ICE, JACK Quartet, and Talea.

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PROGRAM

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Gérard Grisey – Périodes

(and more)

Sweeney Concert Hall

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Argento performs Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and works by Elliott Carter, Morton Feldman, and Michel Galante.

DiMenna Center 
450 West 37th Street, New York

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Argento brings a taste of the Salzburg Biennale to New York City. This preview program features …wie stille brannte das Licht by the 2013 State of Salzburg International Composition Prize winner Georg Friedrich Haas, and Canto by runner-up Aureliano Cattaneo, along with a continuation of Argento’s tribute to Robert Schumann with the first performance of Kimmy Szeto’s intimate ensemble arrangement of his Symphony No. 3, "Rhenish" for 11 instruments.

Although Robert Schumann completed his third symphony years after his famous settings of Liederkreis and Frauenliebe und -leben, the same ruminative and lyrical lines and the private, intimate modes of expression of his song cycles remain in his symphonic work. Over 150 years later, Georg Friedrich Haas’s cycle for soprano and ensemble, …wie stille brannte das Licht (…how still burns the light) and Aurelius Cattaneo’s Canto follow Schumann’s lyric impulse and vocalize complex textures. Kimmy Szeto’s re-scoring brings out the shining lyricism, stirring drama, sweeping force, and noble solemnity of the "Rhenish" while retaining the intimacy of Schumann’s song cycles.

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PROGRAM

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Georg Friedrich Haas – ...wie stille brannte das Licht for soprano and ensemble
Sharon Harms, soprano
U.S. premiere

Aureliano Cattaneo – Canto for chamber ensemble
U.S. premiere

Michel Galante – Megalomania for solo piano
Stephen Gosling, piano
U.S. premiere

Robert Schumann – Symphony No. 3, "Rhenish"
arranged for chamber ensemble by Kimmy Szeto
World premiere

For the third year, Argento curates a festival of music, visual media, and aesthetic dialogue in collaboration with the Austrian Cultural Forum. The festival will host Austrian early music specialist Eva Reiter in two expectation-defying performances. Meanwhile, Argento will team up with fourbythree to perform new takes on Austrian and Czech classical music in the Czechsplorations concerts. At the Symposium, electronic and throat music specialist Helge Hinteregger discusses Soundart, spatialization, and internet compositions with a panel of scholars in the fields of music, literature, and philosophy, including George Lewis of Columbia University.

La Maison Française
16 Washington Mews, New York
Tickets: $20; $10 students/Fontainebleau alumni

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Concert features composers from 25 years of Le Conservatoire Américain de Fontainebleau.

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PROGRAM

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Joshua Fineberg – Objets Trouvés for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion – U.S. premiere
Fabien Lévy – Rouge Burri for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano
Fabien Lévy – Rajeunir, Par Penone for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano
Richard Carrick – la scène miniature for piano quartet
Amit Gilutz – Improvisation for clarinet and piano
Michel Galante – third etude in speeds for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, keyboard, and marimba – world premiere
Tristan Murail – Feuilles a Travers les Cloches

Wednesday, October 19, 2011, 10:00 PM; Thursday-Friday October 20-21, 2011, 7:30 PM
Joyce SoHo, 155 Mercer Street (between Houston and Prince)

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As a result of our evening of composer/choreographer collaboration, Argento Chamber Ensemble teams up with Joyce SoHo and SONiC in three performances of brand new music and brand new choreography.

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PROGRAM

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All performances are world premieres

Michael Klingbeil / Darcy Naganuma – New York
Michel Galante / Miro Magloire – New York
David Fulmer / Deborah Lohse – New York
Konrad Kaczmarek / Rebecca Stenn – New York

Sundays, November 13 through December 18, 4:00 PM
Saturdays December 3 and December 17, 7:00 PM

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Austrian Cultural Forum
11 East 52nd Street, New York

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Following the success of last year's Lunar Movements series, Argento once again hosts a concert series this fall, now renamed the Argento Performers Series. Each week, Argento highlights one of its world-class musicians in an intimate recital of chamber works. After the concert, audience members are invited to engage the performers and composers in post-concert discussions.

Thursday, November 10, 2011; Wednesday, February 28, 2012

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Argento workshops and performs new works by Yale University composers.

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PROGRAM

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All performances are world premieres
Ryan Carter – Impaired contact with reality
Friedrich Heinrich Kern – Von Taufendern und Sternen
Clara Latham – Devil in Blue-Blue Sea
Adam Mirza – Partial Knowledge (Situational Ethics)
Kurt Nelson – Ingenium
Yoni Niv – Formaldehyde

Baisley Powell Elebash Recital Hall, 365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street
Admission free

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Argento teams up with the Second Instrumental Unit in workshops and performances of new works by QC composers.

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PROGRAM

All performances are world premieres
Manuel Ciordia – Dreamed Memories
Sean Havrilla – Guts and Glory
Howie Kenty – Clattering in the Wind
Gregory Menillo – Epitaph
Roy Vanegas – Jeisyn
William Wheeler – City Variations

220 Silver Center, 24 Waverly Place, New York, NY 10003
Admission free

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Argento workshops and performances of new works by New York University composers.

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PROGRAM

All performances are world premieres of new works by the following composers:
Anderson Alden
Emily Cooley
Baldwin Giang
Nathan Prillaman
Alex Vourtsanis
Gabriel Zucker
Kathryn Alexander
Prof. Michael Klingbeil

Bohemian National Hall
321 E 73rd Street, New York, NY 10021
Admission free; donation suggested

Argento previews its 2012 Irish tour highlights.

PROGRAM

Enno Poppe – Holz (2000) for solo clarinet with flute, violin, viola, cello, percussion and keyboard 
Philippe Hurel – Figures libres (2000) for flute, oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, piano, and percussion
Heinz Holliger – Trema for solo viola
Gustav Mahler – Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (The Wayfarer's Songs), arranged for chamber ensemble by Arnold Schoenberg; Tharanga Goonetilleke, soprano
David Fulmer – Verlöschend for soprano saxophone (world premiere); Eliot Gattegno, saxophone

Tuesday, February 15, 2012, 8:00 PM
The National Concert Hall, Dublin directions
 

PROGRAM

Heinz Holliger – Trema for solo viola
Michel Galante – Kreutzerspiel for violin and piano
Enno Poppe – Holz (2000) for clarinet and ensemble
Siobhan Cleary – Psychopomp (world premiere) for flute, clarinet, saxophone, violin, viola, cello, piano, and percussion 
Philippe Hurel – Figures libres (2000) for flute, oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, piano, and percussion 
Anton Webern – Quartet, op. 22 for clarinet, saxophone, violin and piano

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The following programs will include pieces from the following selection:

George Aperghis – 280 measures for solo clarinet
Alban Berg – Adagio from the Chamber Concerto, arranged for piano trio by Michel Galante
Elliott Carter – Rhapsodic Musings for solo violin
Elliott Carter – Figment I for solo cello
Elliott Carter – Con Leggerezza Pensosa for clarinet, violin, and cello
Michel Galante – Kreutzerspiel for violin and piano
Michel Galante – Flickr for clarinet and piano
Matthais Pintscher – Figura V for solo cello

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Sunday, February 12, 2012
Galway, Private Performance

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Tuesday, February 14, 2012, 1:15 PM
Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at University of Limerick Lunchtime Concert Series
Tower Theatre
Admission Free

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Tuesday, February 16, 2012, 1:00 PM
Harty Room, School of Music and Sonic Arts, Queen's Univeristy Belfast 
Belfast, Northern Ireland
 

Tuesday, February 17, 2012
Music in Kilkenny
Kilkenny, Ireland

Mayo Concert Hall, The College of New Jersey (map)
Admission free

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Educational workshops, readings, and Argento classics, conducted by Michel Galante and David Fulmer.

PROGRAM

Leoš Janáček – Preludeto From House of the Dead, for solo violin and ensemble arranged by Kimmy Szeto; David Fulmer, violin – NJ premiere
Michel Galante – Kreutzerspiel for violin and piano – NJ premiere
Michel Galante – Flicker for clarinet and piano
Alban Berg – Adagio from Kammerkonzert for violin, clarinet, cello and piano arranged by Michel Galante – NJ premiere
Mahir Cetiz – Enfilade – world premiere
Paul Clift – Infinite Regress – world premiere
Christopher Trapani – Past All Deceiving – world premiere; with Margot Rood, soprano

Mayo Concert Hall, The College of New Jersey (map)
Admission free

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Educational workshops, readings, and Argento classics, conducted by Michel Galante and David Fulmer.

PROGRAM

Leoš Janáček – Preludeto From House of the Dead, for solo violin and ensemble arranged by Kimmy Szeto; David Fulmer, violin – NJ premiere
Michel Galante – Kreutzerspiel for violin and piano – NJ premiere
Michel Galante – Flicker for clarinet and piano
Alban Berg – Adagio from Kammerkonzert for violin, clarinet, cello and piano arranged by Michel Galante – NJ premiere
Mahir Cetiz – Enfilade – world premiere
Paul Clift – Infinite Regress – world premiere
Christopher Trapani – Past All Deceiving – world premiere; with Margot Rood, soprano

Barnes Hall, Cornell University
 

Argento workshops and performs new works by Cornell University composers at Music: Cognition, Technology, Society, an Interdisciplinary Conference.

PROGRAM

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All performances are world premieres
Sean Friar – Scale 9
Bryan Christian – Walk
Christopher Chandler – the resonance after...
Eric Lindsay – Town's Gonna Talk
Amit Gilutz – Miscellaneous. Romance
Juraj Kojs – Re-route

Thursday, May 17, 2012, 7:30 PM
Friday, May 18, 2012, 5:30 PM

Austrian Cultural Forum
11 East 52nd Street, New York
Admission free, donation appreciated
 

Argento will present the world premiere of Austrian composer Bernhard Lang’s new piece Monadologie XVIII: Moving Architecture. The piece, which was commissioned by the Austrian Cultural Forum to commemorate its 10-year anniversary, traces the building’s architecture in 22 layers with the architecture’s original proportions referenced in time-structures. In a choreographic layer, Austrian performance artist Silke Grabinger transposed the underlying rhythmic structures to movement patterns, for which she developed a new form of "dance-writing", which Lang integrated directly into the score.

Program

Bernhard Lang – Monadologie XVIII: Moving Architecture
featuring Daisy Press, soprano

Great Stair Hall, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 26nd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19130

PROGRAM

Tristan Murail – L'Attente
Gustav Mahler – Adagietto from Symphony No. 5, arr. by Michel Galante - world premiere

Rodin Museum

Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 22nd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19130
 

Tristan Murail is the leading exponent of French spectral music, a compositional approach that focuses on musical color, electronic sound, and impressionist aesthetics. After a 12-year tenure as head of Music Composition at Columbia, Murail was recently appointed composer-in-residence at the Salzburg Mozarteum. Argento has championed Murail since he arrived in the United States, and has won the Recordo Geijutsu 2010 Record Academy Award for Winter Fragments, a recording that showcases Murail’s compositions.

This concert includes the world premiere of a Philadelphia Museum of Art commission, The Bronze Age, and will also be Murail’s first portrait presentation in Philadelphia. For this event, the museum has created a unique outdoor concert setting, complete with a state-of-the-art surround sound system. The program also includes virtuoso solo performances by violist Stephanie Griffin and pianists Joanna Chao and Stephen Gosling. Works for ensemble with electronics will be conducted by Michel Galante.

The museum’s Spectral Impressions series continues on July 28 with another performance in the elegant Rodin Museum Garden showcasing the works of Philippe Hurel.

PROGRAM

All compositions by Tristan Murail
The Bronze Age (2012) for flute, clarinet, trombone, violin, cello and piano; commissioned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art (world premiere)
Bois flotté (1997) for trombone, violin, viola, cello, piano, and electronics
C'est un jardin secret, ma soeur, ma fiancée, une source scellée, une fontaine close… (1976) for solo viola
Feuilles à travers les cloches (1998) for flute, violin, cello and piano
Winter Fragments (2000) for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, percussion and electronics
Cloches d'adieu, et un sourire...in memoriam Olivier Messiaen for solo piano
La Mandragore (1993) for solo piano

Rodin Museum

Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 22nd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19130

Philippe Hurel is one of the most compelling contemporary French composers, achieving lyricism and intensity by calibrating algorithms to transform musical materials. Argento has been actively promoting Hurel's music to North American audiences since hosting his first French-American Cultural Exchange tour in 2005. In this second of two composer portraits at Philadelphia’s Rodin Museum, the Argento New Music Project will perform three works by Hurel, as well as the world premiere of a Philadelphia Museum of Art commission, Phasis, featuring clarinet soloist Carol McGonnell. This program, including commissioning and presentation, has been generously supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through the Philadelphia Music Project.

PROGRAM

All compositions by Philippe Hurel
Phasis (2007/2012) for solo clarinet and large ensemble; commissioned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art (world premiere); Carol McGonnell, clarinet
Figures libres (2001) for flute, oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, vibraphone and piano
…à mesure (1996) for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and vibraphone
Loops II (2002) for solo vibraphone

The Curtis R. Priem Experiemental Media and Performing Arts Center
110 8th Street, EMPAC Building, Troy, NY 12180 (map and directions)
Tickets: $15
 

A contrast of light and dark, harmony and dissonance, in vain startles and captivates the senses. Performed by a 24-member chamber orchestra, much of this intense 75-minute composition takes place in total darkness. In this state, the musicians must perform from memory, communicating with each other and the audience only through sound. The cycles between light and darkness are accompanied by dramatic microtonal deviations in the musical plane, which underscore a desire for perfect harmony, while understanding the futility of achieving a perfect harmonic co-existence, both musically and in the world.

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New York Times review of Argento's February 6, 2009, U.S. premiere at Miller Theatre

Review in the New York Times

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PROGRAM

Georg Friedrich Haas – in vain for 24 musicians

Miller Theatre
2960 Broadway, New York [Subway: 1 train to 116th Street]
Tickets: $25, $15 students/under 25/seniors, $7 Columbia University students
 

Fred Lerdahl characterizes his music as "both tonal and highly organized in a fresh rather than retrospective way. He composes with "the mind of a Classicist and the heart of a Romantic."

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Argento performs the world premiere of Lerdahl's new chamber concerto Arches with cellist Anssi Karttunen, and his Pulitzer finalist composition Time after Time, in which "the bright sound of the ensemble refracts in constantly shifting colors." On the same program is the New York premiere of another Pulitzer finalist, the Third String Quartet, "a remarkable work that displays impeccable technical facility and palpable emotion" commissioned and performed by the Daedalus Quartet.

PROGRAM

All works by Fred Lerdahl

Arches (2010)

for cello and chamber ensemble
World premiere
Anssi Karttunen, cello; Argento Chamber Ensemble, Michel Galante, conductor

Time after Time (2000)
for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion and piano
Argento Chamber Ensemble, Michel Galante, conductor

Third String Quartet (2008)
New York premiere
Daedalus Quartet

Zipper Hall at the Colburn School
200 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, 90012 (directions)
Admission: $25; $10 students

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PROGRAM

Brian Ferneyhough – La chute d'Icare
for clarinet with flute, oboe, violin, cello, bass, piano and percussion

Gérard Pesson – La lumière n'a pas de bras pour nous porter (1994)
[The light has not the arms to carry us] 
for amplified piano

Gérard Pesson – La vita è come l'albero di natale (1992) 
[Life is like the tree of birth]
for violin and piano

Gérard Pesson – Non sapremo mai di questo mi (1991)
[We will never know of this me]
for flute, violin and piano

Salvatore Sciarrino – Let Me Die Before I Wake

for solo clarinet
Carol McGonnell, clarinet

Romitelli – Professor Bad Trip: Lessons I, II, III
for flute, clarinet, electric guitar, keyboard, percussion, violin, viola, cello and electronics

Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue (at 66th St), New York
Subway: 6 train to 68th Street; F train to 63rd St
Free with admission to installation
 

New York Times review of Argento's February 6, 2009, U.S. premiere of in vain at Miller Theatre

PROGRAM

Georg Friedrich Haas – in vain
Argento New Music Project – Michel Galante, conductor

Steve Reich – Music for 18 Musicians
eighth blackbird, red fish blue fish, and Newspeak

Additional works to be announced

Friday-Sunday, March 4-6, 2011
Cornell University 

Workshop Syllabus

Premieres of student compositions

Roberto Sierra – Cancionero Sefardi
for mezzo-soprano, flute, clarinet, piano, violin, and cello

Arnold Schoenberg – Pierrot Lunaire
for mezzo-soprano, flute, clarinet, piano, violin, and cello

Leonard Nimoy Thalia at the Peter Norton Symphony Space 
2537 Broadway (at 95th Street)
Subway: 1 train to 96th Street
Admission: $15; $10 for seniors and students

PROGRAM

Jeffrey Mumford – through a stillness brightening for violin and ensemble
World premiere commissioned by the Argento New Music Project
Miranda Cuckson, violin

Brian Ferneyhough – La Chute d'Icare for clarinet and ensemble
Carol McGonnell, clarinet

Program also includes Exiles by Harold Meltzer and the NY premiere of Instruments of Revelation by Victoria Bond, performed by the Da Capo Ensemble

St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University 
Amsterdam Avenue at 118th Street
Subway: 1 train to 116th Street
Admission free

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Argento hosts the College of New Jersey Orchestra and Chorale, performing the U.S. premiere of Georg Friedrich Haas’s Sieben Klangraume (Seven Soundscapes), which serve to link together the fragments of Mozart’s unfinished Requiem, K.626.

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PROGRAM

Georg Friedrich Haas – Sieben Klangraume
New York premiere

Joyce Theater SoHo
155 Mercer Street (between Houston and Prince)
Admission free

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To foster creative interdisciplinary dialogue, the Moving Sounds Festival®, the Argento New Music Project, and the Joyce Theater will jointly host an event bringing together composers and choreographers. The evening will offer composers and choreographers the opportunity to meet one another, discuss ideas, and gain contacts for future collaborations. We invite all involved to bring their laptops, videos, music, business cards, and an open mind!

We envision the event as a free exchange of ideas in which creators from the dance and music worlds can introduce their work to one another and discuss whatever they wish, and hope the composers and choreographers will keep in touch with Moving Sounds and the Joyce Theater ready to be involved with whatever plans materialize in the next 3 to 5 years.

We are especially grateful to the Ditson Fund and the American Composers Orchestra for facilitating what will be the first of many composer/choreographer collaborations.

Tuesday, June 7, 7:30 PM
Thursday, June 8, 8 PM
Saturday, June 11, 8PM

Joyce Theater

175 8th Avenue at 19th Street
Subway: A/C/E to 14th Street; L to 8th Avenue; 1 to 18th Street

Argento Artistic Director Michel Galante collaborates with the Kate Weare Dance Company in the revival of his 2009 work Lean-To, described by Deborah Jowitt of The Village Voice as "eroticism in its primal, devouring purity--challenging, at times ambiguous, and infinitely complex."

Phillips Collection 
1600 21st Street, NW, Washington, DC
 

Argento performs the stunning, subtle, and often unpredictable musical creations of Tristan Murail, the leading spectralist composer in America. The composer and Argento musicians speak about his work and spectralism as a modern art.

PROGRAM
All works by Tristan Murail
 

Unanswered Questions
for solo flute

Feuilles à travers les cloches
for flute, violin, cello and piano

Cloches d'adieu, et un sourire... in memoriam Olivier Messiaen
for solo piano

The Blue-Footed Booby
for flute and piano

Les Ruines circulaires
for clarinet and violin

La Barque mystique
for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano

Miller Theatre
2960 Broadway (at 116th Street), New York
Subway: 1 train to 116th Street/Columbia University
Admission: $25; $15 students; $7 Columbia University students
 

Argento violinist Miranda Cuckson leads the Argento New Music Project, New York Woodwind Quintet, and the Talujon Percussion Quartet in this showcase of the unique American voice of Ralph Shapey.

PROGRAM

All works by Ralph Shapey

Five (1960)
for violin and piano

Interchange (1996)
for percussion quartet

Movements (1960)
for woodwind quintet

Etchings (1945)
for solo violin

Concerto for Clarinet and Chamber Group (1954)
Charles Neidich, clarinet

Three for Six (1979)
for flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin/viola and cello

Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queen's Univeristy Belfast
Belfast, Northern Ireland
 

Argento duo Erin Lesser and Carol McGonnell performs with Alex Lipowski.

Kevin Barry Room, National Concert Hall 
Dublin, Ireland
 

An exciting and eclectic concert featuring Carol McGonnell and Erin Lesser of the Argento New Music Project. Program includes the world premiere of Anne Cleare's Eyam, along with works by Nono, Meltzer, Gaussin, Furrer, Scelsi and Lunsqui.

Click here for a concert review

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PROGRAM

Allain Gaussin – Satori for solo clarinet
Harold Meltzer – Trapset for solo alto flute
Harold Meltzer – Focus Group for solo piccolo
Luigi Nono – À Pierre for contrabass flute, contrabass clarinet and live electronics
Ann Cleare – Eyam for contrabass clarinet and electronics (world premiere)
Alexandre Lunsqui – Topografia for solo bass flute
Beat Furrer – Fama for contrabass flute and actor
Giacinto Scelsi – Piccola Suite for flute and clarinet

Skinner Hall of Music, Vassar College 
Poughkeepsie, NY
 

Program includes works by Milton Babbitt, Harold Meltzer, and Jonathan Chenette.

Miller Theatre
2960 Broadway (at 116th Street), New York
Admission: $25; $15 students; $7 Columbia University students
 

Grawemeyer-award winning composer Sebastian Currier (b. 1959) creates music that is “lyrical, colorful, firmly rooted in tradition, but absolutely new,” says The Washington Post. His ability to evoke an array of emotions and instrumental colors are his stylistic trademarks. This concert includes a world premiere for chamber orchestra, along with an encore performance the 2006 piano concerto performed by the brilliant pianist Christopher Taylor.

PROGRAM

All works by Sebastian Currier

Night Time (1998)
Bodymusic (2010) (world premiere)
Piano Concerto (2006)

Prince Music Theater
1412 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia
 

Argento premieres six works by Philadelphia composers, topping off the concert with a rarely performed Davidovsky gem Festino Notturno.
 

This event is made possible by the American Composers Forum’s New Voices program. New Voices, designed by the American Composers Forum, Philadelphia Chapter, funded by the William Penn Foundation and The Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia, enables emerging composers to work closely with professional ensembles in the production of original musical works for concert performance.

Le Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker Street (between Thompson and Sullivan), New York
Admission Free

Argento showcases young American composers at the 12th annual MATA Festival, performing Michelle Lou, world premieres of Alexander Sigman and Filippo Perocco, and the New York premiere of Argento's own Ryan Beppel.

PROGRAM

Michelle Lou – Weeds, Grass, Rock, Slopes (2008/2009) for flute, clarinet, oboe, trombone, violin, cello and double bass
Alexander Sigman – Mi(e)s(e)-En-abÓMe (world premiere)
Filippo Perocco – Veglia for soprano, bass clarinet, saxophone, trombone, piano, accordion, guitar, violin, and cello (world premiere)
performed in collaboration with ensemble l'arsenale
Ryan Beppel – Receptive Aphasia – winner of the American Composers Forum Philadelphia Chapter New Voices Project (New York premiere)

Miller Theatre 
2960 Broadway (at 116th Street), New York
Admission free

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Argento premieres works by Michel Galante, Daniel Iglesia and Victor Adán. Concert also includes Igor Stravinsky’s masterwork Les Noces with the Princeton Chamber Choir and Columbia Classical Performers.
 

PROGRAM

Michel Galante – World premiere of new work for flute and percussion
Daniel Iglesia – American Engineer for live ensemble, recorded sounds, electronics, percussion, and 3D projection (world premiere)
Victor Adán – fonoptera for 8 custom-made instruments and prepared piano (world premiere)
Igor Stravinsky – Les Noces with the Columbia Classical Performers and the Princeton Chamber Choir

This concert is made possible with the support of the Fritz Reiner Fund, the Columbia University Music Performance Program, and The Harriman Institute for Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies at Columbia University.

Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
566 LaGuardia Place (at Washington Square South), New York
Admission free

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Argento workshops and performs new works by New York University graduate composers.

PROGRAM

All world premieres

Ryan Carter – Impaired contact with reality
Friedrich Heinrich Kern – Von Taufendern und Sternen
Clara Latham – Devil in Blue-Blue Sea
Adam Mirza – Partial Knowledge (Situational Ethics)
Kurt Nelson – Ingenium
Yoni Niv – Formaldehyde

Open rehearsal WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 2010, 6:00 PM

Park Avenue Armory

643 Park Avenue (at 66th St), New York
Free with admission to installation
 

Lexington Avenue, a door opens… Daylight breaks into the Armory. Outside, a bell rings. The choir enters silently before singing a hymn that has no nation. A voice rises, as if it were a reply from above. The choir disappears, the door closes… Around the mountain, musicians along the balconies call one another. The bell rings again...

A unique musical event composed by long-time collaborator Franck Krawczyk, Dawn will be performed to accompany Christian Boltanski's monumental installation No Man’s Land. Argento will perform this one-time-only event from within the installation--moving through the drill hall and balconies.

PROGRAM

Franck Krawczyk - Dawn for woodwind quintet, guitar, keyboard, percussion, and choir (world premiere)

Austrian Cultural Forum
11 East 52nd Street, New York
Admission free, ticket required
 

Argento showcases compositions by Columbia University Professor Fabien Lévy, accompanied by a conversation and discussion of his music. Argento rounds up the concert with Gérard Grisey's Spectral classic, Talea.

PROGRAM

Fabien Lévy – à propos for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano
Fabien Lévy – Risâla fî-l-hob wa fî'lm al-handasa (Small Treatise on Love and Geometry) for flute, clarinet, trombone, violin and cello
Fabien Lévy - à peu près de for two trumpets (American premiere)
Gérard Grisey – Talea for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano 

Chelsea Art Museum

160 11th Avenue (at 22nd St), New York
Tickets: please contact Chelsea Art Museum
 

Argento inaugurates its Birthday Series with three perspectives on Robert Schumann at his 200th. Argento pianist Joanna Chao will perform Liszt's stunning arrangements of two Schumann songs. In György Kurtág's Homage a R. Sch., music emerges from silence to a powerful climax as the imaginary Robert Schumann brings a small pantheon of characters in his circle back to life. Argento completes the concert with the premiere of Schumann's Second Symphony in an 11-player chamber arrangement by Kimmy Szeto.

PROGRAM

Robert Schumann – Widmung
arr. Franz Liszt for solo piano
Joanna Chao, piano

Robert Schumann – Frühlingsnacht
arr. Franz Liszt for solo piano
Joanna Chao, piano

György Kurtág – Hommage à R. Sch., op. 15d
for clarinet, viola and piano

Robert Schumann – Symphony No. 2 in C Major
arr. Kimmy Szeto for chamber ensemble
world premiere (1st/4th mvts); U.S. premiere (2nd/3rd mvts.)

Austrian Cultural Forum
11 East 52nd Street, New York
Admission free, ticket required
 

Performing in the intimate theater of the Austrian Cultural Forum, flutist Erin Lesser joins Italian choreographer Luca Veggetti, lighting designer Roderick Murray, and dancers Frances Chiaverini and Brittany Fridenstinein in a unique collaboration which explores the particular nature of feminine energy in relation to sound, space, light, and movement.

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PROGRAM

Franco Donatoni – Nidi for piccolo
Toshio Hosokawa – Vertical Song I for flute
Georg Friedrich Haas – …aus freier Lust…verbunden for bass flute
Norbert Sterk – land der wachen spiegel for flute
Paolo Aralla – Káros for alto flute and tape (world premiere)

Flutes: Erin Lesser
Dance: Frances Chiaverini, Brittany Fridenstine
Concept, choreography and costumes: Luca Veggetti
Lighting design: Roderick Murray

Leonard Nimoy Thalia
Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway (at 95th Street)
Admission: $15; $10 for seniors and students

In collaboration with the Austrian Cultural Forum, Argento presents a preview of the Moving Sounds Festival, 2009. Concert includes music by Austria’s leading composers: Beat Furrer's Gaspra, Georg Friedrich Haas' de terra fine, and two of Bernhard Lang's famous variation/repetition studies (Differenz/Wiederholung): DW 1 and DW 5.2 in a world premiere arrangement by Michel Galante for spatialized ensemble.

PROGRAM

Georg Friedrich Haas – De Terrae Fine
Beat Furrer – Gaspra
Bernhard Lang – Differenz/Wiederholung 1
Bernhard Lang/Michel Galante – Differenz/Wiederholung 5.2 (world premiere)

Merkin Concert Hall
129 West 67th Street, New York
Admission free; ticket required
 

In collaboration with the Berlin Hochschule, the Paris Conservatoire, and Columbia University, Argento showcases the next generation of composers active in Berlin, Paris, and New York.

PROGRAM

Filip Caranica (Berlin) – world premiere for septet
Iñigo Giner Miranda (Berlin) – world premiere for mezzo-soprano and sextet
Wang Lu (New York) – world premiere for septet
Adrian Borreda (Paris) – world premiere for septet
Laurent Durupt (Paris) – world premiere for sextet and electronics

Tuesday, November 18

Wednesday, November 19
Komunitas Salihara
Jakarta, Indonesia

Argento celebrates the opening of the state-of-the-art concert hall with its first two performances in Southeast Asia. Concerts feature two world premieres by Indonesia's leading composer Tony Prabowo, as well as work by Beat Furrer, Bernhard Lang, Brian Ferneyhough, Tristan Murail, Gerard Grisey, Georges Aperghis, and Pierre Boulez.

Nov 18 Program

Tristan Murail – Garrigue (Asian premiere)
Georges Aperghis – Le Corps Á Corps
Gérard Grisey – Periodes
Kee Yong Chong – One Thousand Ripples of a Lonely Bell
Michel Galante – Flicker
Elliott Carter – Esprit Rude/Esprit Doux
Tony Prabowo – Music for Seven Musicians (world premiere)

Nov 19 Program

Bernhard Lang – Differenz/Wiedeholung 5.2 (Asian premiere)
Tony Prabowo – Quartet (world premiere)
Brian Ferneyhough – La Chute d’Icare
Michel Galante – Melodies (world premiere)
Pierre Boulez – Improvisé pour le Dr. K.
Beat Furrer – Gaspra

Miller Theatre
2960 Broadway (at 116th Street), New York
Admission: $25; $15 students; $7 Columbia University students
 

The long-awaited U.S. premiere of Georg Friedrich Haas's in vain , a shocking, opulent, 24-member chamber orchestra work performed largely from memory in complete darkness. Fellow Austrian composer Bernhard Lang declared, "in vain sounds like no piece you've ever heard before, it is a complete enhancement of the senses."

PROGRAM

Georg Friedrich Haas – in vain
U.S. premiere

Austrian Cultural Forum
3524 International Court, N.W., Washington, D.C.
Admission free, ticket required

Argento premieres Kimmy Szeto's chamber transcription of Schumann's ultra-compact musical journey from the exuberant to the sublime, paving the way for an encore performance of Haas's in vain.

PROGRAM

Robert Schumann, arr. Kimmy Szeto – Scherzo and Adagio from Symphony No. 2 (world premiere)
Georg Friedrich Haas – in vain

Austrian Cultural Forum
11 East 52nd Street, New York
Admission free, ticket required

Argento performs the U.S. premiere of Trio ex Uno by Georg Friedrich Haas, a sextet based on fragments of Josquin Deprez, and solo works for violin and bass flute. Haas’s work is contextualized with a performance of Périodes, for septet, by his fellow spectral composer Gérard Grisey.

PROGRAM

Georg Friedrich Haas – Trio ex uno for sextet
Georg Friedrich Haas – de terrae fine for solo violin
Georg Friedrich Haas – aus freier Lust..verbunden for solo bass flute
Gérard Grisey – Charme for solo clarinet
Gérard Grisey – Périodes for septet

Zipper Hall at the Colburn School
200 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, 90012
Admission: $25; $10 students

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By magnifying the physical sounds of the instruments and gradually transforming them through time and space, Gérard Grisey proposes a radical alternative to established musical norms in the first 3 movements of his groundbreaking cycle Les Espaces Acoustiques : Prologue for solo viola, Périodes for septet, and Partiels for chamber orchestra. Program also to include renowned percussion ensemble Red Fish, Blue Fish performing Grisey's surround sound percussion sextet, Tempus ex machina.

PROGRAM

Grisey – Tempus ex machina for percussion sextet

Grisey – Les Espaces Acoustiques, Part I:
I. Prologue, solo viola
II. Périodes, for chamber ensemble
III. Partiels, for chamber orchestra

Wednesday, February 18
Tuesday, March 3, 5:00 PM
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

121 Wall Street, New Haven, CT
Admission free

Argento premieres new chamber ensemble works by Yale composers.

Friday, April 3, 7:30 PM
Saturday, April 4, 8:00 PM
Sunday, April 5, 3:00 PM 
Alexander Kasser Theater
1 Normal Avenue, Montclair, NJ
Admission: $15

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The most vilified romantic character in literary history stands trial amidst a classical chamber orchestra, live-electronics, video screens, and modern choreography. Vladimir Nabokov's Humbert Humbert, as reconditioned by JOJI (Wooster Group choreographer Johanne Saunier and director Jim Clayburgh), by actor François Beukelaers, and by American composer Joshua Fineberg, presents himself as an amalgam of horrifying and seductive personalities no more in conflict than Hannibal Lecter and Cyrano deBergerac.

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Video preview

Pre-concert discussion with composers and performers at 6:30 PM
Leonard Nimoy Thalia at the Peter Norton Symphony Space
2537 Broadway (at 95th Street)
Admission: $15; $10 for seniors and students

Argento presents music by Fred Lerdahl and world premieres of Victoria Bond and Michel Galante.

PROGRAM

Fred Lerdahl – Duo for violin and piano
Fred Lerdahl – Chasing Golberg for solo piano
Victoria Bond – Bridges for pipa, erhu and clarinet, with video
Michel Galante/Luke DuBois – Modern Prometheus for mezzo-soprano and chamber ensemble, with video (world premiere)
Steven Takasugi – Iridescent Uncertainty for sampled kotos, shamisen, Hardanger fiddle and cello (New York premiere)

Guowei Wang, erhu; Zhou Yi, pipa; Miranda Cuckson, violin;
Bo Chang, mezzo-soprano; Joanna Chao, piano
Argento New Music Project – Michel Galante, conductor

Le Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker St (between Thompson and Sullivan St), New York
Admission: $10

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Argento performs music by American composers Fred Lerdahl, Michel Galante and Steven Takasugi. Concert also showcases music by spectralist Philippe Hurel, avant-garde composer Vinko Globokar, and his disciple Magnus Lindberg.

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PROGRAM

Fred Lerdahl – Duo for violin and piano
Fred Lerdahl – Chasing Golberg for solo piano
Vinko Globokar – Corporel for solo, shirtless percussionist
Michel Galante – Flicker for clarinet and piano
Magnus Lindberg – Ablauf for clarinet and percussion
Steven Takasugi – Iridescent Uncertainty for sampled kotos, shamisen, Hardanger fiddle and cello
Philippe Hurel – Loops for solo flute

Wednesday, April 14

Thursday, April 15 
Rudi E Scheidt School of Music 
Music Building, 3775 Central Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee

Argento workshops new chamber ensemble works by University of Memphis composers.

Merkin Concert Hall
129 W67th Street, New York
Admission: $25; students half price
 

Three ensembles team up to celebrate the 100th year of Messiaen in a concert featuring U.S. premieres of four of his leading protégés, including Pierre Boulez and Allain Gaussin. Highlights include:

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PROGRAM

Olivier Messiaen – Oiseaux Exotiques
Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players
Eduardo Leandro, conductor
Gil Kalish, piano
 

Tristan Murail – Les Courants de l'Espaces 
for ondes martenot and 28 musicians 
U.S. premiere
Argento New Music Project and the Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players
Tristan Murail, ondes martenot
Michel Galante, conductor

Pierre Boulez – Improvisé pour le Dr. K
U.S. premiere

Allain Gaussin – Jardin Zen
U.S. premiere
Argento New Music Project
Michel Galante, conductor

Gérard Grisey – Manifestations
U.S. premiere
Face the Music and Argento New Music Project
Jennifer Undercofler, conductor

Austrian Cultural Forum
11 East 52nd Street, New York
Admission free, ticket required

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Argento teams up with Austrian DJ Christopher Just in a program juxtaposing the work of emerging American composers, DJs and turntable artists. The program includes the world premiere of Michael Klingbeil’s Subterrain for clarinet, ensemble and live electronics.

Thursday-Saturday, June 25-27, 8:30 PM
Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street, New York
Admission $18, $12 members

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Argento teams up with choreographer Kate Weare, lighting designer Brian Jones, and visual designer Kurt Perschke to explore a dynamic transversality of disparate art forms.