David Conte - world premieres of American Death Ballads
june 2017 premieres
Fellow composers and clarinetists Jörg Widmann and Kinan Azmeh will lead audiences on a musical journey of discovery through three centuries, in a program that will include works from three continents by Mozart, Stravinsky, Poulenc, Elliot Carter, Steve Reich, Solhi al-Wadi, and Kareem Roustom, as well as Widmann and Azmeh.
Kareem Roustom's A Muffled Scream for solo clarinet and electronics will be receiving its European premiere.
Oriental Landscapes is a five-city contemporary oriental music festival. The artistic vision of Oriental Landscapes reflects on the history of oriental music and searches for a common ground for the future of shared musical heritage. On the 17th of June Oriental Landscapes travels to Utrecht, and presents a mini festival in Hertz and the K.F. Hein Foyer.
The Oriental Landscapes festival presents new ensemble formations and new connections between Eastern and Western musicians. Oriental Landscapes will also introduce young artists and performers who have not appeared in the Netherlands before and premiere new compositions.
As part of the concert series, the New European Ensemble and Oriental Soloists will give the Dutch premiere of Kareem Roustom's
World premiere by Duo YUMENO of the newly-commissioned work "Misterioso" in the "Song of Heike" cycle of duos.
Internationally acclaimed Duo YUMENO premiered Daron Hagen's third work in the multi-year, four-part Songs of Helke cycle of duos for koto and violoncello commissioned from the composer.
Performances include:
April 1, 2017 (Washington D.C.)
April 30, 2017 (Chicago, IL)
May 2, 2017 (Champaign-Urbana,
Kevin Siegfried (b. 1969) is a composer with an emerging international voice. His music was recently described as "hypnotic and beautifully written" by The Boston Musical Intelligencer, and is known for its direct expression, lyricism, and accessibility. Acclaimed by the UK magazine Choir & Organ as writing music of "austere beauty" that exhibits the "pressure and presence of personal conviction."
June 4: No More My Lord (Premiere) - Portsmouth High School Concert Choir, directed by Olin Johannessen, Portsmouth, NH 
Schola Cantorum on Hudson (Schola), an independent non-profit organization, was founded in 1995 by Dr. Deborah Simpkin King, and performs its full concert season in both Montclair, NJ, and Manhattan.
Its members have been drawn together by a shared love of great choral music and by dedication to the highest standard of performance of that repertoire. Schola Cantorum (literally “school of singers”) has a three-part mission of:
- Musical performance,
- New music advocacy, and
- Choral music education/engagement.
Now entering its third decade, Schola boasts an internationally recognized new music advocacy initiative (ProjectEncore.org), multiple ongoing education and engagement programs, an impressive history of premiere performances, and an annual tradition of artistic collaboration with young artists.
Aleppo Songs for solo piano by Kareem Roustom is a reflection on a number of urban folk songs from Aleppo, known as qudud, as well as original material. All profits from sheet music sales as well as royalties generated from 2016 – 2018 performances will be donated to Doctors Without Borders to support their work in the Middle East. Other aid organizations will also be considered as this is an ongoing project. The work will be available for ordering from the composer here.
June 3, 2017
Dr. Joanne Chang, Queensborough Community College, will be giving the Chinese premiere of Aleppo Songs (excerpts) in
Soprano Adelaide Muir Trombetta, violinist Domenico Luca Trombetta, & piano premiered three new setting by Daron Hagen of texts from Dante Alleghieri's Divine Comedy to benefit the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. June 4, 2017.
Commissioned for the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Salon, the Dante Fragments for soprano, violin, and piano are dedicated to Sheila and Craig Pleasants, longtime staff members of the famed artist retreat. The Dante Alleghieri Society of Virginia and Lynchburg Friends of VCCA together present soprano Adelaide Muir Trombetta
On June 3 & 4, the Capitol Hill Chorale's 2016-2017 season ended with a celestial-themed program featuring the premiere of Music of the Spheres by Kevin Siegfried. Also on the program are works of Vincenzo Galilei (father of Galileo Galilei), William Herschel, Samuel Barber, and Gustav Holst.
Music of the Spheres is a five-movement work for SATB chorus and glass armonica, featuring texts by Johannes Kepler, John Donne, and the Psalms. The piece is dedicated to Swiss astrophysicist (and Siegfried's relative) Arnold Benz, whose book "
In a concert of new American works inspired poetry and folk song, the New Amsterdam Singers performed the New York premiere of Ronald Perera's When Music Sounds. New Amsterdam Singers is an amateur chorus of 70+ skilled singers whose performances in New York City and abroad have won critical acclaim.
Ronald Perera (b. Boston 1941) was born in Boston on Christmas Day, 1941. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in music from Harvard, where his principal composition teacher was Leon Kirchner. He also worked independently with Randall Thompson. Subsequently he spent a year on a John Knowles Paine Traveling Fellowship studying electronic music at the University of Utrecht. His more than seventy compositions include three operas, song cycles, chamber, choral and orchestral works and—in the early part of his career—several
