Steven E. Ritter (Fanfare Magazine) writes about American composer Margaret Brouwer's Violin Concerto (2007): "Brouwer is one of our best composers, and certainly near the top. Her Violin Concerto is simply a marvel to hear, combining phenomenally difficult solo passages with some of the most ingratiating melodies I have heard in a recent composition. For those of us who, years ago, were wondering where music might turn after the challenges of the atonalists, this is it. She is not afraid of the modern idiom, and uses whatever techniques are called for at the moment, but at the same time never loses sense of that fundamental and essential musical ingredient called melody." Watch a performance of Margaret Brouwer's Violin Concerto played by Kyung Sun Lee, violin, and the University of Houston Symphony Orchestra with Franz Krager, conductor . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

And don't miss the double review by Hubert Culot (MusicWeb International) of two recordings of music by Margaret Brouwer - selections of her orchestral music on the Naxos label, and a CD of her chamber music on New World Records . . . our current FEATURED RECORDINGS.

Maine based composer Beth Wiemann was raised in Burlington, Vermont, studied composition and clarinet at Oberlin College and received her PhD in theory and composition from Princeton University. Her works have been performed in New York, Boston, Houston, San Francisco, Washington DC, the Dartington Festival (UK), the "Spring in Havana" 2000 Festival (Cuba), and elsewhere by the ensembles Continuum, Parnassus, Earplay, ALEA III, singers Paul Hillier, Susan Narucki, DiAnna Fortunato and others. Wiemann's compositions have won awards from the Opera Vista Chamber Opera Competition, the Orvis Foundation, Copland House, the Colorado New Music Festival, American Women Composers, and Marimolin as well as various arts councils. A founding member of Griffin Music Ensemble, a contemporary music group in Boston, she premiered many clarinet works and conducted "composer in the schools" workshops in the Boston and Worcester public schools. Watch a video of Beth Wiemann talking about her work at the University of Maine, Orono . . . it's our COMPOSER PORTRAIT for the week.

For sixteen summers, the Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival has brought the exciting world of contemporary concert music to the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont every summer in mid-July to ever increasing audiences. Based on a 450 acre working dairy farm, Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival showcases the modern, cutting edge world of new music within the traditional, rural backdrop of Northern Vermont. Established in 1990, the festival's purpose is to increase the knowledge of and appreciation for contemporary music; provide performance opportunities for musicians; encourage the composition of new works; and to enrich this area of Vermont culturally. WCMF informs the public through integrating lectures by prominent American composers with first-rate performances of their works; and presenting the stylistic diversity of this century's music through well-balanced and exciting concert programming. Works by established composers are heard next to emerging composers just embarking on their careers; three to five world premieres are presented every summer, carefully rehearsed and performed by New England's top interpreters of contemporary music. WCMF presents its eighteenth season July 11-16, 2011 in conjunction with its exciting new educational program, the Warebrook Institute for the Advancement of Modern Music . . . it's our FEATURED NEW MUSIC FESTIVALS for the week.

To call Dmitri Tymoczko a multi-dimensional composer would be both an irony and an understatement. For one thing, he has made a name for himself both as a composer and as a theorist. Second, he prides himself on being conversant with all available genres of new music and on understanding each from a multiplicity of viewpoints: "Musicians tend to make too much out of genres", he writes. "I like to think of myself as participating in a culture that includes not just contemporary music, but also popular music, jazz, folk music, classical music, and pretty much everything else. I hope to make a concerted effort to try to think about what I am doing, not just from the vantage of contemporary academic art, but from a more general perspective that (hopefully) encompasses fundamental human values". And finally, he has gained international recognition for his innovative ideas about the non-Euclidean "geometry" of harmony: by mapping the notes of chords within a space of three or more dimensions, he has made it possible to visualize and to understand some of the most elusive harmonic progressions and the hidden connections that unite disparate genres or styles of music production (from notes for the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players). Listen to a performance of Dmitri Tymoczko's string quartet work Echo Code (2003) . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.