Author Archives: Jeff von der Schmidt

2015 Los Angeles International New Music Festival Starts July 7 at REDCAT!

01 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by in Composers, Contemporary Music, Elliott Carter, Gabriela Ortiz, Hong Kong, LA International New Music Festival, Latin Grammy Awards, Laura Mercado-Wright, Los Angeles, Mexico, Music, REDCAT, Southwest Chamber Music, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, Toshio Hosokawa, Travel, Vietnam, Walt Disney Concert Hall

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REDCAT in Walt Disney Concert Hall is the new home of the LA International New Music Festival.

REDCAT in Walt Disney Concert Hall is the new home of the LA International New Music Festival.

I love studying scores early in the morning. Maybe it’s because I was born around 8:20 A.M. – some say that’s a good indication of a morning person. Those early hours are undistracted and quiet for learning chords, orchestration, voicings, tempi, interpretation, making all the new details familiar like old friends.

My rule of thumb is to go to sleep each night truly putting the day’s work away. If I can remember everything clearly when I wake up the next morning, I’ve learned just a bit more for the coming performances and then know what to repeat and when to move forward. That makes the next early morning so important for my work habit. And I knew today I’m ready for our LA International New Music Festival starting at REDCAT next week on Tuesday July 7 at 8:30 P.M., with a pre-concert talk at 8 P.M.

Because this morning I got a visitor telling me that just the right energy is coming out of my study!

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From 100 to 103: The Wisdom of Elliott Carter

18 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by in Composers, Contemporary Music, Elliott Carter, Evan Hughes, LA International New Music Festival, Los Angeles, Music, New York City, REDCAT, Southwest Chamber Music, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, Walt Disney Concert Hall

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Elliott Carter at work in his Greenwich Village apartment on W. 12th.

Elliott Carter at work in his Greenwich Village apartment on W. 12th Street.

Around 2:30 P.M. on the afternoon of June 7th, 2012 my wife Jan and I arrived at Elliott Carter’s apartment for what was to be our last meeting together.  With Jan’s family in Brooklyn and New Jersey, we’d drop in on Elliott every opportunity we could and have luckily lost count just how many times we’d visited.  As Elliott entered his late 90s, each meeting became a special occasion. He was 103 that final late spring day.

The days of lunches prepared by his wife Helen were long gone by that point, but we still remember her simple New England tomato soup, and often quietly wear the scarf she gave Jan or the tie she gave me. And Carter was not far, about a block down and over, from the apartment of Charles Ives, which we’d sometimes go and see after visiting with Carter.

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YOUNG RICE from Việt Nam arrives in Los Angeles July 9!

11 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by in Composers, Contemporary Music, LA International New Music Festival, Los Angeles, Music, REDCAT, Southwest Chamber Music, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, Vietnam, Walt Disney Concert Hall

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The Water Puppet Theater in Hanoi, Vietnam

The Water Puppet Theater in Hà Nội, Việt Nnam.

The music and instruments of Việt Nam are captivating. As rich a tradition as any other country in Asia, Vietnamese is also a prestissimo language perfectly suited to the sounds of their evocative culture.

Our Los Angeles International New Music Festival program on July 9 at REDCAT will focus on old enemies and rivals being transformed through music. Cuba, Việt Nam, México and Japan. As Americans we have had complicated relations with all of them, and it often can seem like some of the problems are ongoing.

As Ricardo Gallardo and I kept discussing ideas for this festival, we agreed that music can often succeed where business and politics stumble, and hit upon this concert to open new friendship between old adversaries.

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Toshio Hosokawa’s THE RAVEN receives West Coast Premiere July 9 with Laura Mercado-Wright

04 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by in Contemporary Music, Japan, LA International New Music Festival, Latin Grammy Awards, Laura Mercado-Wright, Los Angeles, REDCAT, Southwest Chamber Music, Toshio Hosokawa, Walt Disney Concert Hall

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Laura Mercad0-Wright is The Raven on July 9.

Laura Mercado-Wright is The Raven on July 9.

Sometimes ideas are obvious, a favorite theme of mine. On first glance the idea of a Japanese composer setting the iconic poem The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe seemed to approach hubris. Really, a Japanese composer taking on one of the most famous American poems? But I was curious about Toshio Hosokawa, an important Japanese composer I’d been hearing about from friends Kent Nagano, Momo Kodama and Ichiro and Tami Nodaira, and asked for a perusal score from his publisher, Yuki Yokota at Schott Japan.

Fortunately Hosokawa’s score appeared in a timely way in my mailbox from Tokyo a few months ago. I started reading the piece and rereading the poem. I got hooked, very hooked, in a matter of hours, and started to grasp the obvious. And I heard the voice of my good friend Laura Mercado-Wright after the first few bars.

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Complete Programs for the July 2015 LA International New Music Festival at REDCAT in Walt Disney Concert Hall

21 Thursday May 2015

Posted by in Composers, Contemporary Music, Elliott Carter, Gabriela Ortiz, Japan, LA International New Music Festival, Los Angeles, Mexico, Music, REDCAT, Southwest Chamber Music, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, Travel, Vietnam, Walt Disney Concert Hall

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REDCAT in Walt Disney Concert Hall is the new home of the LA International New Music Festival.

REDCAT in Walt Disney Concert Hall is the new home of the LA International New Music Festival.

Time to order your tickets for the 2015 LA International New Music Festival at REDCAT Theater in Walt Disney Concert Hall!

I am happy to announce the complete programs for all five concerts between July 7 and July 15. All concerts begin at 8:30 PM with a pre-concert talk at 8 PM.  My ensemble, Southwest Chamber Music, will be joined by our old friends from Mexico, the Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, new friends here in Los Angeles, the Eclipse String Quartet, and vocal soloists Ayana Haviv, Laura Mercado-Wright, Elissa Johnston, Jon Lee Keenan and Abdiel Gonzalez. Have a good look at the concerts, and you’ll find the ticket information easily!

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Sound Ideas and Food Dreams from Mexico City

06 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by in Food, Gabriela Ortiz, LA International New Music Festival, Mexico, Southwest Chamber Music, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble

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Chicharron in the Mercado Medillin in Mexico City.

Chicharron in the Mercado Medellin in Mexico City.

If you are what you eat then Mexico is probably already in your system. At least UNESCO agrees, inscribing Mexican cuisine in 2010 as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. It’s a long overdue recognition, but at least from here on there is no argument about the prestige of one of the great cuisines on Planet Earth.

A little comparison is in order. Were Mexico superimposed against the map of Europe, it would span from Greece to the United Kingdom, absorbing the Balkans, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, a good part of Northern Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, eventually reaching a good bottle of Scotch in the UK.

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2015 Los Angeles International New Music Festival at REDCAT in Walt Disney Concert Hall, July 7-15

02 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by in Composers, Contemporary Music, Elliott Carter, Gabriela Ortiz, Japan, LA International New Music Festival, Latin Grammy Awards, Los Angeles, Mexico, Music, REDCAT, Southwest Chamber Music, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, Travel, Vietnam, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Woman in Gold

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REDCAT in Walt Disney Concert Hall is the new home of the LA International New Music Festival.

REDCAT in Walt Disney Concert Hall is the new home of the Los Angeles International New Music Festival.

I am happy to announce the 2015 Los Angeles International New Music Festival will take place at the REDCAT Theater in Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. Make your plans now to attend!

Between July 7th and 15th we’re offering five programs contributing to the hard to deny fact that Los Angeles is a leading force moving the classical music world forward in the 21st century, and doing it at top speed. And here’s hoping that many of the 8,000 devoted readers of my blog in over 115 countries might use our festival as a catalyst to visit southern California!

Read on for my July 2015 LA International New Music overview!

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Sound Dreams of Mexico City

24 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by in Carlos Chavez, Composers, Contemporary Music, LA International New Music Festival, Latin Grammy Awards, Los Angeles, Mexico, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized

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The alebrijes workshop of Jacopo Angeles in Oaxaca.

The magical alebrijes workshop of Jacopo Angeles in Oaxaca.

“Jeff, have you read this book The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross that everyone says is so important? Do you know my reaction being from Mexico? Not ONE single composer from all of Latin America is even mentioned. Not one. So I guess we just don’t even EXIST for this powerful gringo critic?”

My friend composer Gabriela Ortiz wasn’t making a point, she was issuing an indictment about a blind and ruthless expression of cultural superiority, her declaration worthy of the El Grito of Padre Hidalgo. But my answer would throw another log on the fire. I delivered my response nonchalantly as we ordered another drink. “That’s not all – no composer from Asia has a defining role in that book either. It’s all about Europe and America, and it’s all about men leading the charge.”

“Exactamente, amigo,” lamented Gabriela into her tequila. Ouch, Mr. Ross.

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Orchard St. Memories, Katz’s Deli, Russ & Daughters & a Visit to The Russian Tea Room

17 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by in Elliott Carter, Food, Hollywood, LA International New Music Festival, Music, New York City, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized

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Central Park in the snow.

Central Park in the snow.

Woody Allen might be right, that cities look best in a rainstorm. But for me, a fresh blanket of snow frames the layers of memory New York City contains for my wife Jan’s family better than an umbrella. Leaving the Ukraine because of the deadly pogroms of Tsarist Russia (what else is new?) they arrived, liked so many other immigrants, at Ellis Island and eventually settled in New York City in the 1890s.

Fast forward to 2015. Today, almost at the very spot where Jan shopped as a young girl for new clothes before the Jewish High Holidays, is a great museum of the American Story. You can hear many old voices there and learn about immigration in real terms on the Lower Eastside of New York City. Adding Jan’s family’s history and her own memories of Orchard Street to the Tenement Museum story stitches one more seam into the American quilt.

And as for dealing with cold, icebox temperatures, let’s just admit that it’s somewhere in Jan’s Russian Jewish DNA.

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San Sebastián, Pintxos & Parsifal

20 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by in Contemporary Music, Food, LA International New Music Festival, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel

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The magical streets of San Sebastian.

The magical streets of San Sebastián in the Basque Country.

I’ve been encouraged by a tremendous response to my last blog (about Biarritz, France) that another Basque Country story might be interesting and enjoyed around the globe. From Angola, India, Ireland, Algeria, France, Canada, Brazil, Venezuela, Japan, China, Costa Rica, Cambodia, Germany and the U.S. my following in the Biarritz  footsteps of Igor Stravinsky and Ho Chi Minh made that post my third most popular. So I thought I’d go in a different direction, locating the tracks of legends, mythical or gastronomic, from our base for Biarritz, which was in San Sebastián. Or was it Donostia?

Parsifal?  San Sebastián? Gipzukoa?

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