Portland Chamber Music Festival will kick off its 2011 season with a program entitled "Leclair, Vaughan Williams and Mendelssohn", and Maine Public Radio will be providing its listeners with a front row seat to the start of this critically-acclaimed series. Held at the Abromson Center at the University of Southern Maine, the Portland Chamber Music Festival program will feature Jean-Marie Leclair's Sonata in C major, Op. 3 No. 3, Ralph Vaughan Williams' On Wenlock Edge and Felix Mendelssohn's Octet in E flat major, Op. 20, This program will feature famed tenor John McVeigh. A Maine resident, Mr. McVeigh has performed with the Metropolitan Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago. The PCMF has garnered nationwide attention since its inception in 1994. The festival's five-concert series has been broadcast on National Public Radio and WGBH in Boston and has been awarded two grants from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music. Join in the excitement Thursday, August 11th at 8pm - either live (at Abromson Center at the University of Southern Maine in Portland) or over the airwaves and online at MPBN Radio or online at MPBN.net. Check it all out at the Portland Chamber Music Festival's website.

Discussing the genesis of Peter Maxwell Davies' guitar piece "Hill Runes", Julian Bream, who commisioned the work in 1981 has said, ". . . somehow I never felt his musical language would fit naturally onto the guitar. Composers of astringent yet complex textures, like Max Davies, often find the colour of the instrument too personal, too exotic, and not abstract enough for their musical language. But having heard some of Max’s more recent works, I felt he was in a musical period in his life when he was writing music that might be suitable and indeed even work well on the guitar." Known to his friends simply as Max, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies is one of the most prolific and frequently performed of British composers. His several hundred compositions draw from an eclectic array of influences, from Indian music to serialism to Renaissance polyphony. Davies has also worked tirelessly in the area of music education and as an environmental activist. Watch a performance of Peter Maxwell Davies' "Hill Runes" (1981) played by guitarist Giacomo Fiore . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Karl Korte is a scrupulous composer of music that’s of high quality and not easily categorized. These three works are the fruit of his ongoing recent collaboration with Duo46 (Matt Gould, guitar, and Beth-Ilana Schneider-Gould, violin). Korte has a gift for writing music that’s fluid (it always has an idea and knows how to develop it), focused on clear and memorable motives, and harmonically rich but neither chromatically clotted nor too tonally predictable. He has a naturally sophisticated rhythmic sense. Check out Duo46's recording "The Guitar Music Of Karl Korte" (Centaur 3059) . . . it's our FEATURED RECORDING for the week.

Elliott Jungyoung Bark's works have been performed/read by many orchestras, ensembles and musicians, including the New York Youth Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra musicians, Indiana University Orchestra & New Music Ensemble, Juventas New Music Ensemble, Zzyzx Saxophone Quartet, Indiana University Saxophone Ensemble, Kuttner String Quartet, Luna Nova Chamber Ensemble, duo parnas, conductor Kevin Noe, violinists Liana Gourdgia and Michelle Lie, countertenor Daniel Bubeck and saxophonist Zach Shemon. His works have also been presented at the Bowdoin International Music Festival, the Festival of New Music at Florida State University, Midwest Composers Symposiums at Universities of Indiana (‘07), Iowa (‘08) and Michigan (‘09), North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial Conference, Belvedere Chamber Music Festival, United States Navy Band International Saxophone Symposium and 2010 GAMMA at University of Texas at Austin. Here a performance of Elliott Bark's "Neutral Tones" (2008) . . . it's one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS for the week.

Francis Poulenc loved Paris, poetry, and the human voice. He fused those three loves into his melodies, crafting those French art songs into works for which he is best known. Poulenc was born and raised near the city of his heart and his earliest memories center on the popular tunes he heard in cultural institutions such as the cabaret, music hall, and circus. It is not surprising, then, that the composer infused his music with that popular flavour. In doing so, Poulenc paid homage to his Parisian musical roots, intentionally keeping his music "French." In addition, by utilizing the popular elements he heard all around him when he was young, Poulenc lends a nostalgic air to his music (Karen Jee-Hae McCann). Hear a performance of Poulenc's Les Chemins de l’Amour (1940) . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

A classical composer and orchestral conductor based in Santa Monica, David Avshalomov is also an accomplished solo bass vocalist. As a composer, he writes in an accessible modern neo-tonal style that balances a lyric gift with a characteristic rhythmic vitality. His influences include the great 20th-century European and American tonal composers (plus his father and paternal grandfather, Aaron Avshalomoff). He has composed music for a wide variety of forces from solo instruments to full orchestra, band, and choir, in forms ranging in scale from songs and incidental pieces to full-length oratorio. Recently he has been writing much vocal music, with an increasing number of regional commissions, and serving as resident composer with several Los Angeles area choruses. Avshalomov's music has been performed professionally across the US and in Europe and Russia, and has been recorded on the Albany and Naxos labels. Has sung professionally as a chorister and soloist for 45 years. He earned his B.A in Music at Harvard and a D.M.A. in conducting and composition from the University of Washington, studied at Aspen and Tanglewood, has been music director of a number of US orchestras and choruses including several in the LA area, has guest conducted widely here and toured in Europe and the Far East, and recorded orchestral music by his grandfather Aaron Avshalomoff in Moscow. His conducting work garnered listings in Who's Who in Music and Who's Who in the West. David Avshalomov  Diversion ("Terwilliger") (1966) . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Patricia Sonego made her operatic debut in New York City in the world premiere of American composer Jack Beeson's Sorry, Wrong Number with the Center for Contemporary Opera under the baton of Richard Marshall, for which she received an enthusiastic review from Robert Prag of Opera News. A champion of contemporary, avant garde, improvisational, and electroacoustic music, Sonego is in demand to premier new works, many of which have been composed for her. In a new arrangement dedicated to her by the composer, she recently gave the world premier of Prologue & Messages for Raoul Wallenberg by award winning American composer Terry Winter Owens at Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall, with the Alaria Chamber Ensemble. Sonego is co-founder and Artistic Director of Reizen Ensemble, a new music group dedicated to the performance of new compositions, particularly for voice with instruments or electronics. Patricia Sonego - coloratura soprano . . . it's our FEATURED PERFORMER/ENSEMBLE for the week.

“Inscape,” a word that throws off rich and mysterious resonances, is the lovely coinage of the nineteenth-century English poet and priest Gerard Manley Hopkins. In a brief preface to the score, Copland writes that Hopkins invented the word “to suggest ‘a quasi-mystical illumination, a sudden perception of that deeper pattern, order, and unity which gives meaning to external forms.’ This description, it seems to me, applies more truly to the creation of music than to any of the other arts.” For Hopkins, the opposite of “inscape” was “instress,” which refers to perception as opposed to intrinsic, essential quality. Discussing Inscape, Copland’s biographer Howard Pollock writes that “the composer uses sounds as an ‘instress’ that communicates a deeper inner essence, an ‘inscape.’” Copland’s idea was to write music that “seemed to be moving inward upon itself.” (Michael Steinberg/Los Angeles Philharmonic). Aaron Copland  Inscape (1967) . . . it's one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS for the week.

Edward Wright was born in Buckinghamshire, England 1980. He is currently studying for a PhD in music with Andrew Lewis at Bangor University, where he has been a Parry Williams scholar and teaches music technology. His work is mainly focused toward the electro-acoustic end of the musical spectrum, although he writes for and plays real instruments as well. He performs on violin, viola and voice, as well as laptop: and works with a number of school/student groups promoting performance of both older and more modern music. Recent highlights include a mention in the 2008 Prix Bourges for his piece Con-chords, a number of commissions, a London premiere with his piece Polarities, a two day sound installation piece in Conwy castle, airplay on BBC Radio 1 and S4C television, and signing to a record label. Wright lives in North Wales (U.K.) with Emma, their daughter Alena (18 months old and the time of writing) Ben the dog and Bess the cat. Edward Wright  Twr (2009) . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

While on a weekend excursion, composer Benjamin Britten read poems by the nineteenth century Frenchman Arthur Rimbaud, and stated, "I must put them to music." Whereas many others - even the notoriously nationalistic French - had passed over Rimbaud's works, considering them too thorny for lyrical settings, Britten was deeply affected by them and felt a strong affinity with the author; especially familiar to Britten was Rimbaud's sense of cynicism, and a longing for the innocence of childhood. In writing "Les Illuminations" (1939) - a song cycle written for high voice and string orchestra - he not only embraced the French language, but also distinctly French elements of style; this marks the beginnings of his move away from certain identifiable "Britishisms", and toward a more cosmopolitan and personal style (All Music Guide). Watch a performance of Britten's "Les Illuminations" with soprano Laura Aikin and The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sir Neville Marriner conducting . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Michael Daugherty is one of the most commissioned, performed, and recorded composers on the American concert music scene today. His music is rich with cultural allusions and bears the stamp of classic modernism, with colliding tonalities and blocks of sound; at the same time, his melodies can be eloquent and stirring. Daugherty has been hailed by The Times (London) as "a master icon maker" with a "maverick imagination, fearless structural sense and meticulous ear." Daugherty first came to international attention when the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Zinman, performed his "Metropolis Symphony" at Carnegie Hall in 1994. Since that time, Daugherty’s music has entered the orchestral, band and chamber music repertory and made him, according to the League of American Orchestras, one of the ten most performed living American composers. Listen to and watch Michael Daugherty in conversation with Frank J. Oteri of NewMusicBox . . . it's our COMPOSER PORTRAIT for the week.

Giorgio Koukl is a pianist/harpsichordist and composer who resides in the beautiful town of Lugano, located in the Italian speaking canton of Ticino in southern Switzerland. He was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) and studied there at the State Music School and Conservatoire. In 1968 he moved to Switzerland, continuing his studies at both the Conservatories of Zurich and Milan. Koukl is the prizewinner of many international music competitions including those of Ciudad Ibague (Colombia), Tolosa (Spain), Viotti (Italy), the H.Rahn competition (Switzerland) and the Alienor Competition (Washington DC). A truly international performer and composer, Koukl has given many recitals and concerto performances, and his compositions have received first performances in many major European cities, in Asia, and in the United States. Frequently broadcast both as soloist and a composer, Koukl has collaborated in all his capacities with such organizations as the BBC London, RTSI Lugano, SRG Zurich, SSR Geneve, SFB Berlin, SWF Baden-Baden, WDR Köln, RTHK Hong-Kong, CR Prague, Radio Malta, Radio Vatican, ORF Vienna, NRC Oslo and SF Stuttgart. Listen to a performance of Giorgio Koukl's "Five Miniatures" (1976) . . . it's one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS for the week.

French director Georges Franju's "Les Yeux sans visage" (Eyes Without a Face) (1960) is an unsettling, sometimes poetic, horror film. Pierre Brasseur plays a brilliant plastic surgeon (Prof. Genessier), who has vowed to restore the face of his daughter, Christiane (Edith Scob), who was mutilated in an automobile accident. With the help of his assistant (Alida Valli), he kidnaps young women, surgically removes their facial features, and attempts to graft their beauty onto his daughter's hideous countenance. Franju's haunting, muted handling of basic horror material is what lifts "Les Yeux sans visage" out of the ordinary and into the realm of near-classic. Often cited as one of the most poetic horror films ever committed to celluloid, "Les Yeux sans visage" has a lingering effect that conjures more melancholy malaise than outright fright. Franju opts for a deliberate pacing that perfectly compliments the somber tone of his dark tale, and cinematographer Eugen Schufftan's moody nighttime photography provides the ideal visual representation of the inner turmoil experienced by both the father who longs to make up for past indiscretions (regardless of the pain he inflicts to achieve his goal) and the daughter whose horrendous appearance serves as a constant reminder of the mistake that will haunt him to the grave. French composer Maurice Jarre created an equally haunting score for the film (AMG Review). Watch an excerpt from Les Yeux sans visage . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Bruce Morley (New Zealand Music Magazine) writes about "View From Olympus" (2001), the double concerto for piano, percussion and orchestra by New Zealand composer John Psathas: "Our composer du jour has really done it this time. Psathas is a composer who seems to have listened to everyone from Ketelbey to Keith Jarrett, and is totally confident of his ability to create a new orchestral music. His compositions . . . are diverse, unclassifiable and fragmented, yet utterly organic. Engaged by the kinetic drive of Psathas' rhythms, classical listeners have taken to the results with enthusiasm". "View from Olympus" won for Psathas the 2002 SOUNZ Contemporary Award, as well as being chosen as one of the orchestral works presented in 2009 for the International Association of Music Information Centres' "IAMIC sounds of the Year". Watch a performance of John Psathas' "View From Olympus", with pianist Michael Houstoun, percussionist Leonard Sakofsky and the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Marc Taddei . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

During most of his years as a composer, Charles Knox has been employed as a performer or teacher. He was an instructor of contemporary, traditional, baroque and renaissance musical styles; director of student ensembles at small and large colleges and universities; and performer in symphonic and  jazz ensembles. This is often reflected in the choice and style of his creative work. Having held the position of Professor of Music at Georgia State University from 1965 to 1995, Knox now lives in academic - but not compositional - retirement in Atlanta, the city where he has spent most of his life. He has been called "the dean of Atlanta composers", and in 2001 he received the Mayor's Fellowship in the Arts (Award in Music) from the City of Atlanta. Listen to a performance of his 1998 chamber work "2002: Semordnilap No. 2" . . . it's one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS for the week.

A native of Washington, D.C., composer Elizabeth Vercoe has been called "one of the most inventive composers working in America today" by her hometown newspaper (The Washington Post). She has worked as a composer in the U.S. and abroad: at the Civitella Ranieri Center in Italy, the St. Petersburg Spring Music Festival in Russia, the Cite International des Arts in Paris, and the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire. She has written works on commission for Wellesley College, Austin Peay State University, the Pro Arte Orchestra, and the First National Congress on Women in Music. Her awards include grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, the Artists Foundation, and the Massachusetts Arts Council. According to the Vercoe her work "Sonaria" (1980) "is a melodrama for solo cello written in memory of my father, an amateur cellist and violinist. Since the music was written as commentary on an imagined dance/mime either live or filmed, the listener is invited to 'screen' those private visual images sometimes evoked by music instead of hastily suppressing them and trying to 'pay attention.' The mood of the piece is at times tongue-in-cheek, but for the most part is entirely serious". Watch a performance of Vercoe's "Sonaria" played by cellist Jerome Desbordes . . . it's our second FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEO for the week.

According to composer Karl Henning, he "writes and plays music which no one else dare, in and near Boston. His music has been played and sung on three continents (NA, Yurp and Oz), and there is unconfirmed rumor that an Uruguayan zookeeper has papered adobe walls with the Henning organ Toccata. Karl has served at different times as Interim Choir Director and Composer-in-Residence at the Cathedral Church of St Paul in Boston, where he composed a 40-minute unaccompanied choral setting of the St John Passion (2008)". His work for 10 winds, "Out in the Sun" was premiered in 2006 by the New England Conservatory Wind Ensemble. Listen to a performance of Henning's Out in the Sun . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

The Bicentennial Symphony was the 13th and last completed symphony of American composer Roy Harris. The piece was commissioned by Cal State L.A. and debuted by the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., on Abraham Lincoln's birthday in 1976 as part of the country's bicentennial celebration. According to conductor John Malveaux, "in the 33 years since the work's debut in Washington, there is no record of the piece ever being played again by any orchestra." And for Malveaux, it is not only mystifying that the symphony disappeared, it's just plain wrong and inexcusable. Malveaux calls the Bicentennial Symphony "the strongest musical statement on U.S. history, slavery and race relations ever made by an American composer." It is a piece that was intentionally controversial. Through much of it, the chorus excoriates the racism of this country before and during Lincoln's time, accentuated by angry shouts from the singers. [Read more about this here].  Watch a performance of Roy Harris'  Bicentennial Symphony (1976) played by the MusicUntold Orchestra and Chorale, conducted by John Malveaux.  . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Robert Beaser is often classed as a member of the new tonalists, a group whose membership includes Lowell Liebermann, Daniel Asia, Paul Moravec, and other major America composers born at mid-twentieth century. Beaser, like his colleagues, embraces more traditional methods of composition, including tonality and an expressive directness. He possesses a great melodic gift and is unabashed in his use of it. Moreover, he is versatile in writing in a variety of genres, from opera and orchestral works to chamber pieces and songs and solo works for piano and guitar. Beaser is also active as a teacher, having chaired the composition department at Juilliard since 1994, a year after he joined the faculty there. He has also served as artistic director of the Carnegie Hall-based American Composers Orchestra, for whom he was previously composer-in-residence. Hear Robert Beaser talk about his Guitar Concerto and the compositional process . . . it's our COMPOSER PORTRAIT for the week.

Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks' music always directly affirms ethical values and responsibility towards life, toward living things and their beauty, as opposed to the catastrophic world-view. Life's great existential themes are undoubtedly present in all his works - his symphonies and other orchestral works, concertos, string quartets anther chamber works, his music for solo instruments, and also his large-scale dramatic poems and lyrical miniatures for unaccompanied choir. Listen to a performance of Vasks' choral work Mate saule (Mother Sun) (1975) . . . it's one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS for the week.

Composer Andrew List, in speaking of his Six Bagatelles for String Trio (2002), has stressed his desire to create six little pieces with maximum contrast ranging from "in your face" to "other-worldly." The third Bagatelle, Soliloquoy highlights the viola in a keening, mournful melody accompanied by sustained notes, largely in harmonics. Listen to a performance Andrew List's Soliloquoy, from Six Bagatelles for String Trio . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Alban Berg  Altenberg Lieder (1912) . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Elliott Carter  March, from "Eight Pieces for Timpani" (1950) . . . it's our BANG, CLANG and BEAT -  New Music for Percussion for the week.

Gustav Holst  Terzetto (1925) . . . it's one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS for the week.

Elliott Bark  Reminiscence (2006) . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

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.