Posts in chamber music
Sound Off: Music for Bail Opens Its 2023-2024 Season at People's Forum

The program features music by notable Black, Brown, and Asian historical and living composers performed by violinists Aurora Mendez and Celina Farmer, violist Jay Julio, and cellist Angelique Montes. Featured speaker Tatiana Hill will offer a history of her work with the NYC Office of the Community Liaison in the wake of Judge Shira Scheindlin’s 2013 ruling that “stop-and-frisk” policies are unconstitutional, and the path forward ten years later. General admission tickets are $15. Proceeds from these concerts directly support musicians and speakers. Free tickets are available at request to remove financial barriers to attendance.

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Groupmuse's Beyond Borders Offers a Multifaceted Virtuosic Evening in NYC

On September 15, violinist Vijay Gupta, cellist Joel Noyes, and Kuchipudi dancer Yamini Kalluri had intended to present “Beyond Borders”, a multidisciplinary Groupmuse event combining poetry, classical music, and dance. The lingering existence of COVID-19 unfortunately necessitated a change in the programming. With Kalluri having tested positive the morning of, the remaining performers regrouped on this evening in Brooklyn, NY at Christ Church Cobble Hill that celebrated the eclectic and the intentional. 

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Filipino American Violinist Adrian Nicholas Ong Debuts at Carnegie Hall

Ong is the first recipient of FilAm Music Foundation’s New York City Recital Debut Award. He is a member of the young artists roster of the FilAm Music Foundation. Victor Santiago Asuncion, internationally acclaimed pianist and founder and artistic director of the FilAm Music Foundation, will accompany Ong on piano.

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Symphony of Secrets: Brendan Slocumb's Newest Novel Challenges Classical Music History

The fearless approach that Slocumb continues to take in his follow-up book Symphony of Secrets envisions histories of Black composers and performers of diverse experiences pushing against oppressive systems, fighting for their lives and their art, and indeed winning. It offers hope as historical contributions by musicians of color continue to be excavated, and diverse modern-day masters continue to get increased recognition. 

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REVIEWS: Two Shows On the Edge of Now: Palaver Strings + American Composers Orchestra

Brooklyn new music institution National Sawdust played host to Wednesday’s March 15 show titled joy. The name was apt; from the moment Palaver Strings and double bass soloist Kebra Seyoun-Charles began filing on stage in their appropriately diverse and festive attire, the packed audience received them with a roar of applause.

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Sound Off, Planetary Music Project, PROTESTRA & VOCAL-NY Collab For Concert of Chamber and Orchestral Works at Robert Moss Theater  

In collaboration with Groupmuse’s Planetary Music Movement and PROTESTRA, Sound Off: Music for Bail presents a hybrid program of chamber and orchestral music by leading contemporary and historical Black American composers alongside "Yet Unheard" a cantata dedicated to the life and memory of Sandra Bland by Rome Prize-winning composer Dr. Courtney Bryan at Playwrights Horizons Downtown.

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Strike at The New School Ends: Tentative Agreement Reached

The action was the longest strike by adjunct college faculty in U.S. history and part of an increasing trend in worker uprisings at U.S. colleges and universities this year.

According to a post on the union's strike update website "You Are The New School", the agreement represents what part-time faculty are calling "significant achievements" for the teachers who make up about 87% of the school's faculty.

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2023 Grammy Nominations Announced

This year BIPOC classical composers' works have been Grammy nominated in several award categories and BIPOC classical musicians perform on a number of Grammy nominated recordings in the Classical Music category, as well as the Americana category.

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EVENTS: Women in Classical Music Symposium

The 3-day event is sponsored by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and is now in its fourth year. The symposium's organizers say despite the fact that more women graduate from prominent conservatories and schools of music than their male counterparts, they are "severely underrepresented in titled conducting positions, in programming by major orchestras, on stage as soloists, and in management leadership positions."

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FilAm Summer Music Festival Returns To Chicago
Quinteto Latino's Seminario Returns for 2022

Quinteto Latino's mission is to disrupt racial and economic disparities within the classical music field by championing past, present, and future contributions by Latino composers and musicians. The organization promotes classical music by Latino and Latin American composers through performances, commissions, mentoring, and child and adult education.

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India at 75: Carnegie Hall Concert Series Celebrates Indian Independence

The Indo-American Arts Council, a New York City based non-profit that promotes Indian theater, performing arts, media, fashion, and literature in the United States, will celebrate 75 years of Indian independence this month with three concerts August 13 to 15 at Carnegie Hall featuring top Indian classical and contemporary musicians.

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When Gun Violence Erupts Again, Will The Concert Hall Be Spared? Not Unless We Act Now

While this story may seem inappropriate, exaggerated, and even far-fetched for many classical concert goers, the reality of gun violence is becoming more widespread and normalized across American society. As of mid-July, 2022, over 300 mass shootings had been reported in the United States, with associated deaths stacking up to over 60. Orchestral and opera venues have long been considered “safe spaces” where issues of systemic racism, patriarchal norms, and class division (among others) have been pushed to the proverbial nosebleeds, but as the issue of gun violence continues to grow, so should the attention that arts institutions are paying this issue. 

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This Juneteenth, Consider The Evolution and Future of Liberated Black Culture

With the ever-growing awareness and celebration of Juneteenth, let it shine as an example of what’s possible through our collective diversity. Let Juneteenth, and the evolutions of music and culture that it has inspired, be something we all celebrate.

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BMOP, Odyssey Opera to Perform and Record Davis’ “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X”

The opera, written by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis, debuted in 1986. This new performance will be staged just a short distance from the house in the Roxbury neighborhood where Malcolm X (1925-1965), born Malcolm Little, lived during his formative adolescence.

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Season 2 Episode 1 of CONVERSATIONS Out Now: Nnenna Ogwo on A Musician's Responsibility

Each episode of Represent Classical's “Conversations” series features in depth interviews with industry leaders, notable musicians, movers, shakers, and innovators.

Featured in this episode: Nnenna Ogwo – pianist and Founder and Artistic Director of JuneteenthLP

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Silkroad Ensemble to Tour "Phoenix Rising" with Rhiannon Giddens This Summer

A musical rebirth and celebration, Phoenix Rising takes a cross-section of Silkroad’s award-winning compositions and arrangements and re-imagines them for today. With this in mind, members of the Silkroad Ensemble and Giddens collaborated on new works that coalesce Giddens unique worldview with the Ensemble’s collective experience during the pandemic.

Phoenix Rising will unveil three new commissions by Silkroad artists Sandeep Das, Maeve Gilchrist, and Kaoru Watanabe. The program also includes new arrangements by Rhiannon Giddens, Colin Jacobsen, Edward Pérez, and Mazz Swift.

Giddens and 13 Silkroad artists will visit venues in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia.

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4th Annual Women Composers Fest to Feature Grammy Winning Headliners

The Women Composers Festival will highlight performances by dozens of women composers on May 27 at The Church of the Epiphany in Washington and May 28 at AMP by Strathmore in North Bethesda, Md.

The two-day event is hosted by Boulanger Initiative, a nonprofit whose mission is to promote music composed by women through performance, education, research, consulting and commissions. Boulanger Initiative advocates for women and all gender marginalized composers.

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