Karen Tanaka is acclaimed as one of the leading living composers from Japan. She has been invited as a composer in residence at many important festivals, and her music, for both instrumental and electronics media, has been widely performed throughout the world by major orchestras and ensembles. As described in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Tanaka's "music is delicate and emotive, beautifully crafted, showing a refined ear for both detail and large organic shapes." Her three movement harpsichord piece Jardin des Herbes (1989) is representative of her writing style: well crafted with attention to detail and attention to the transformation of timbres similar to the effect of light refracting through crystals and prisms. The second movement, entitled Sweet Violet: Early Spring Flowers with Seductive Scent is set in a freely ternary structure providing an attractive melody accompanied by consonant, yet not quite tonal harmonies. Watch a performance of Karen Tanaka's Sweet Violet by harpsichordist Antonio Oyarzabal  . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Blow (2007) is an experimental film made with an 8mm camera, using the music of Estonian composer Mirjam Tally. It follows the different rhythms of urban society. Old abandoned greenhouses from the Soviet Era and quick changes to modern Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia, are used to show how a country transforms from post-socialism to capitalism. Estonian film maker Ülo Pikkov graduated from the Turku Arts Academy in Finland in 1998 and from the Institute of Law at University of Tartu in Estonia in 2005. He has published numerous caricatures, comics and illustrations, as well as written and illustrated books for children. At the moment he works as an Associate Professor in Animation at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Watch Ülo Pikkov's film Blow (2007) . . . it's our PYTHEAS SIGHTING for the week.

Oleg Ledeniov (MusicWeb International), in reviewing the CD Montage Music Society - Starry Night Project writes, "The work that ends the disc - or, I better say, crowns it - is Andrew List's Noa Noa: A Gauguin Tableau for violin, clarinet and piano. The three eternal questions of Gauguin's picture - 'Where do we come from?', 'What are we?', 'Where are we going?' - are interpreted by the composer 'as representing three facets of human consciousness.' I hope the Mahlerites won't kill me if I describe the parts as 'What the body tells me' (aggressive, determined, forceful - our Past), 'What the mind tells me' (ever-changing, fluent, searching - our Present), and 'What the soul tells me' (spiritual, peaceful, and blissfully beautiful - hopefully, our Future). This last movement is sublime. It also serves as an answer to the unsettling questions of the first track, the Starry Night by Gauguin's friend van Gogh. If you know these moments, when the music ends and you stay in silent awe and then exhale 'Aaah!...' - you'll know this is one of them." Listen to the first movement of Andrew List's Noa Noa, A Gauguin Tableau (2008) performed by members of Montage Music Society . . . it's one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS for the week.

Claude Debussy's Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp (1915) is at once evocative and emotionally ambiguous, a languid oasis from the harmonically adventuresome Cello Sonata (1915) and Violin Sonata (1917) which were written by Debussy in the final years of his life. He once remarked that he didn't know whether it "should move us to laughter or to tears. Perhaps both?" The sonata is in three free flowing movements: Pastorale, Interlude - Tempo di minuetto, and Allegro moderato ma risoluto. Listening to such an abstract, non-representational movements, it is easy to understand why Debussy was moved on one occasion to refer to anyone who described such music as "impressionistic" as an "imbecile" [from the All Music Guide]. Watch a performance of Debussy's gorgeous Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp played by members of The New York Harp Trio . . . 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.

Composer David Felder has long been recognized as a leader in his generation of American composers. His works have been featured at many of the leading international new music festivals, and earn continuing recognition through performance and commissioning programs. Felder’s work has been broadly characterized by its highly energetic profile, through its frequent employment of technological extension and elaboration of musical materials (including his Crossfire video series), and its lyrical qualities. Felder has received numerous grants and commissions including many awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, two New York State Council commissions, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, Guggenheim, two Koussevitzky commissions, two Fromm Foundation Fellowships, two awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, Meet the Composer "New Residencies" (1993-1996), and many more. In May 2010, he received the Music Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a career recognition award. Watch a performance of David Felder's Inner Sky (1994) with flute soloist Mario Caroli . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Judd Greenstein has attracted attention through his close collaboration with many of the best young solo musicians in New York and beyond, including violist Nadia Sirota, soprano Anne-Carolyn Bird, percussionist Samuel Solomon, violinist Colin Jacobsen, pianists Michael Mizrahi and Blair McMillan, and flutist Alex Sopp. He has also received performances by and commissions from a wide array of ensembles around the country, including Present Music, the Seattle Chamber Players, as well as many prominent ensembles in New York, including Carnegie Hall, the Kaufman Center, Newspeak, the Da Capo Chamber Players, the New Millennium Ensemble. Central to his output is his work for NOW Ensemble, the composer/performer collective that has quickly established itself as one of the most prominent and promising sounds in 21st century chamber music. Butterfly Dream (2010) is a dance collaboration between Greenstein and choreographer Xiao-xiong Zhang. Based on a story by Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi, the story deals with a man who dreams he is a butterfly and then upon waking questions the nature of existence; it explores the ideas of self-invention and re-creation. Watch an excerpt from Butterfly Dream performed by Nimbus Dance Works . . . it's our DANSES PYTHEUSES for the week.

I recently attended a performance of Andrew List's new work From The Temple of Dendera: 12 Etudes for Piano, featuring the work's dedicatee, pianist George Lopez. It was a wonderful experience - gorgeous music presented by a consummate artist in the beautiful Studzinski Recital Hall on the campus of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. The work is a fascinating and evocative exploration of Egyptian mythology through the sumptuous sound world of Andrew List. Read what the composer has to say about his new piano work . . . it's this week's PYTHEAS THOUGHT & IDEA.

Creative expression has always been a matter of course for Estonian composer Mirjam Tally. She has tried almost every medium, from writing to painting – even radio. But the one she eventually plumped for was also the one she finds the most difficult: composing music. Explore Tally's sound world through her gorgeous choral work Call Love to Mind (2009) . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

... and find out more about Mirjam Tally, her life and her music, at her Pytheas Composer Page.

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music

Celebrated American composer Melinda Wagner has amassed a wide-ranging catalog of chamber and orchestral music, but she is perhaps best known for works featuring soloists with orchestra, including her Trombone Concerto commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for principal trombonist Joseph Alessi, Extremity of Sky commissioned by the Chicago Symphony for pianist Emmanuel Ax, and the Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion, commissioned for Paul Dunkel and the Westchester Philharmonic. The Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion was also the winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Music. Melinda Wagner's Four Songs (2004) are inspired by the poetry of Robert Desnos, Denise Levertov and Emily Dickinson. Watch soprano Haleh Abghari and the Monadnock Music ensemble perform the fourth song in Wagner's in set, Safe in Their Alabaster Chambers . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Light is Calling (2004) is a short film by film maker Bill Morrison, "constructed" on the music of Michael Gordon. Gordon is one of the founding members of the Bang on a Can ensemble, who, for over a decade, have concerned themselves with injecting the vitality and relevance of popular forms into the world of modern art music. And if you have heard of Bill Morrison it is probably in relation to his feature film Decasia: The State of Decay (2002), and his process of taking pre-existing footage from films which have been largely lost to the natural process of nitrate deterioration, and reconstituting them as artifacts for a new artistic product. Light is Calling continues that concept, using images from the 1926 film The Bells set to the music of Michael Gordon. Here's how IMDb describes it: "A scene from The Bells (1926) is optically reprinted and edited to Michael Gordon's seven minute composition. It is a meditation on the fleeting nature of life and love, as seen through the roiling emulsion of an film". Watch Light is Calling (2004) . . . it's our PYTHEAS SIGHTING.

Gyorgy Ligeti began his development as a composer using serial techniques. By 1961, Ligeti began using textural (sound, sonority or color) techniques, often resulting in music which is completely divisi, i.e. one part for each performer. His most famous work in this style is Atmospheres, an orchestral composition written on 87 staves.  Ligeti's Lux Aeterna (1966) is a study in vocal clusters and choral color - an expansion of the techniques he first used in a much earlier work Apparitions. In Lux Aeterna the text is divided into four sections which correspond to the four thoughts comprising the traditional Latin Requiem text: (1) Light Eternal shine on them, Lord; (2) Together with your Saints in Eternity; (3) Grant them rest eternal, for you are holy, Lord; and (4) Let light perpetual shine on them. The work is scored for a 16-part vocal ensemble. Both Lux Aeterna and Atmospheres were used in the soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick’s epochal film 2001: A Space Odyssey (Robert L. Edwards). Listen to a performance of Ligeti's  Lux Aeterna . . . one of this week's PYTHEAS EARFULS.

Boston based composer Andrew List is a graduate of New England Conservatory of Music, and he received his doctorate in music composition from Boston University. He has enjoyed numerous commissions and performances from ensembles and solists in the United States and Europe, including The Boston Classical Orchestra, Zodiac Trio, Alea III, The Esterhazy Quartet, Interensemble (Padova Italy), The Kalistos Chamber Orchestra, North-South Consonance, The Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, Duo Diorama, Winston Choi (pianist), Emmanuel Feldman (cellist) and soprano Lisa Saffer. List was the first prize winner of the Renegade Ensemble’s composition competition and a finalist in the Alea III International Composition Competition and the 2008 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship. He has had residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, The Atlantic Center for the Arts, The Aspen Music Festival, La Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris and The Visby Centre for Composers in Sweden. In 2001 he was awarded a distinguished artist-in-residence grant, sponsored by Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, and the city of Amsterdam. During his eight-month residency in Amsterdam he presented four concerts of his music and that of other American composers. He was also invited to present a concert at the American Embassy in The Hague, and gave lectures and workshops at major music conservatories in the area. He is the first American and the first composer to be awarded this prestigious residency. Watch a performance of Andrew List's Mystical Journey (2000) by pianists Manon Hutton-DeWys and Evi Jundt . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.