Why not make it your New Year’s resolution to listen to more new music? This week is packed with innovative contemporary music performances to start your year off right!
Universal Language 21st Century Music Project’s “Inception”
It’s a new year and a new music organization is taking root in Seattle. This year marks the inaugural season of the Universal Language 21st Century Music Project, which is pushing the boundaries of contemporary music in Seattle and beyond. For the first concert of their 2015 season, they are premiering new works by composers Wayne Horvitz and Sean Osborn.
Horvitz is a composer who has performed throughout the world as an improviser on both piano and electronics, while Osborn is a critically acclaimed clarinetist whose music uses extended clarinet techniques to create a unique new genre-bending sound.
The performance is this Friday, Jan. 9 at 7:30 p.m. at Velocity Dance Center on Capitol Hill.
Seattle Composers’ Salon’s New Music Holiday Office Party
Celebrate the city’s bustling contemporary music scene in style this weekend at the Seattle Composers’ Salon’s New Music Holiday Office Party.
Seattle Composers’ Salon is dedicated to supporting new music by regional composers and performers. At informal gatherings twice a month, the Salon features new works and works in progress by local composers and performers. This weekend’s gathering will feature music by Neil Welch, Cole Bratcher, Ivan Arteaga, and Matthew James Briggs.
The performance is this Friday, Jan. 9 at 8 p.m. at the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford. The concert will be preceded by a New Music Holiday Office Party from 6:30 to 8 p.m., where composers, performers, and audience members are invited to visit, share CDs, enjoy snacks, and listen to live music performed by cellist Carson Farley.
Town Music Presents Third Coast Percussion
Third Coast Percussion is a Chicago-based group that marches to the beat of its own drum. The ensemble is dedicated to exploring all of the far-reaching possibilities of percussion through unique instrumentation and the integration of new media in performances. This weekend, the quartet is coming to Seattle to perform a colorful program of percussion works by David T. Little, Tan Dun, and John Cage. (Yes, John Cage.)
Third Coast Percussion will perform Little’s “Haunt of Last Nightfall,” a piece which laces together pre-recorded heavy metal sounds with live percussion. Also on the program is Cage’s “Credo in Us,” a wartime piece written after the attacks on Pearl Harbor. The quartet will also be joined by guest cellist Joshua Roman to perform Dun’s “Elegy: Snow in June,” a piece which was written to commemorate the 1989 massacre in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
The performance is this Monday, Jan. 12 at 7:30 p.m. at Town Hall Seattle. If you can’t make it to the concert, don’t fret: we’ll be live broadcasting this performance on Second Inversion!