Sunday, December 28, 2008

Basso Moderno Duo Holiday Concert

The Basso Moderno Duo gave their Annual Holiday Concert with special guests The Capitol Pride Singers and Native American musicians Eric Marczak and Dawn Standing Woman at the WAMC 'The Linda' in Albany, NY.

The concert began with a one hour Basso Moderno Duo Recital which featured composers from all over the world including the US Premiere of YOU by Radiohead/O'Riley/BMD. In attendance at the concert was famed composer Pauline Oliveros for whom BMD commissioned 'Blue Heron' in 2007.

BMD were joined on stage by Native American flute player Eric Marczak and storyteller Dawn Standing Woman. The collaboration aims to bring audiences in contact with contemporary Native American artists. This was the second opportunity that BMD has had to work with these fantastic performers and it was a very memorable experience. Eric is also a talented instrument maker and co-owner of Mohawk Valley Guitars.

The Finale of the concert came with the performance of the Capitol Pride Singers who presented a joyful holiday program. The lighthearted music touched on all celebrations of the season including Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. The music was fun they brought about an exciting finale.

The Basso Moderno Duo would like to thank Graeme McKenna and Staff for the opportunity to performe once again at WAMC 'The Linda'.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Basso Moderno Duo in Romania

BMD at the George Enescu Museum in Bucharest, Romania

The Basso Moderno Duo recently returned from giving two concerts in Romania. BMD made their Bucharest debut at the famed George Enescu Museum as part of the Meridian Contemporary Music Festival. Several leading composers were present at the concert including Liana Alexandra, Fred Popovici, Ulpiu Vlad amongst others. The program featured mostly new works composed in 2007-2008 as well as other works commissioned by the Basso Moderno Duo. Watch a clip of the performance HERE.

BMD returned for their second recital in the once capital of Transylvania, Cluj-Napoca, performing at the Music Academy alongside composer Iulia Cibicescu-Duran and her notable husband Eugen Cibicescu-Duran, a well known violinist/violist. Afterwards, Eugen demonstrated Romanian fiddle styles by playing music from various regions. BMD discussed future collaborations with Iulia including the composer’s possible first US visit. In addition to the concert, BMD met with composer Ionica Pop and reviewed a recently composed sacred work.

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Basso Moderno Duo Interviews Morten Skovgaard Danielsen

Morten Skovgaard Danielsen, 1967, Denmark, holds a diploma in composition from the Royal Academy of Music, Copenhagen. In 1999, Danielsen achieved the nomination and final selection as a official Danish Composer for three years, thus earning him financial independence and several Composer in Residencies all over Europe.

In 2001, Danielsen was awarded the Haakon Boerresen Prize for “outstanding efforts in the field of contemporary composition”. Alongside other grants, he has successfully headlined international Festivals, given a huge number of interviews on television, radio and in Magazines. In 2002, he announced his 'exit' as a composer and took up writing. His poems have been published in a number of Underground Text-books. In 2004, Danielsen returned to composition. He is currently a constant traveler, receiving commissions from all over the world. After the release of his debut album ROADMOVIE ACCESSORIES 2000/01, he was baptized both 'The enfant terrible' and ' Emblematic for a whole generation' by the press.

BMD: Could you begin by telling us about your current project?

MSD: I am composing an opera which is built up by commissions from ensembles in Europe and the USA. The main goal of this work is an attempt to build a musical symbiosis between Baroque Music and Punk Rock, especially the Grunge movement. I am a huge fan of slap sticks and spent time learning about “Mickey Mouse” techniques as well as my passion of “fairytale-like” or “Magic-Music” is installed in my music. This allows for very sudden change of mood and style such as slap sticks. A lot of cameos are entering the libretto, amongst them Francesco Petrarcha, the Montgolfier Brothers, Che Guevara and Paris Hilton.

BMD: Please tell us about your early works and the various periods you went through.

MSD: I began composing and gave my first concert at age five while attending the Musical Kindergarden in Odense, Denmark. During my time at the academy, I studied every kind of modern composition techniques and I studied hard. I went through three periods of creating music including the “Academic Style”, which offered my knowledge of musical composition mixed up with a manic flirtation with all kinds of Renaissance and Baroque era styles. I easily wasted weeks on writing Palestrina or Bach style movements, especially the fugue. It made me two faced in that by day I would investigate d minor conflicts and at night I was a regular head banger, introducing recordings of early Grunge. The Academy did not approve and considered me a mess.

At age 28, I realized, that the “perfect” piece can never be written. I revised the same piano piece (INSTALLATION, piano solo/electronics, 1994) eleven times in a row. All I learned, was that the “Masterpiece” is outgunned in terms of “over-individualism”. I am not pointing out, that “serious” music - as some people call it to somehow draw a line between music for the classic concert hall and whatever appears to be “not serious”. I am certainly no fan of “work in progress”. Attempting to finish other commissions in this period also failed. I got to a point of “positive depression”. Each OPUS became impossible. Indulging in a high speed life style, I began to provoke without any intension of being provocative at all while just being plain honest about my opinions and attitude. At age 32, I trashed all my home made “systems”, writing the piece TripInVainwithStarsbutSUGARfeelOkay in one single afternoon during a severe hangover in South Italy. In Paris, during the fall of 2000, I gave up any attempt of writing what I felt would at least somehow resemble a “finished” piece, re-writing D-TOX for violin solo (originally written in Rome 1999 for a small ensemble). My perfectionism was at last installed in the tempo in which I from then on enjoyed to compose. My Dogma opera was composed in 21 hours, in which I was locked up in a hotel rom. I wrote both the libretto and the music, using note sheets marked by the Danish Radio Broadcast Company. It began as a show off and ended up performed 12 times in a row during 2005.

BMD: What aspects of your earlier works is still present in your work today?

MSD: Farthest from your mind is the thought of falling back. In fact, it isn´t here at all, so you dig your hole carefully and you wait.

BMD: Who is influencing you now?

MSD: People! People like the Basso Moderno Duo. Contradictions! I love contradictions as much as I hate boarders between nations. I look upon every single life as a type of installation. Existence is art in itself and every second is a performance. Someone once said: “A sculpture is something you stumble upon in a museum, moving backwards to get a better glance of a painting.” That is my point. I constantly “stumble” over people and I install them in my memory as sculptures. Modigliani saw people the same way. That would explain his obsession with portraits, eyes without pupils, and open spaces of never-seen landscapes. Every individual is a piece of art and vice-versa, which puts the definition of “art for art’s stake” as well as being mere existence. All of that influences me.

BMD: Is your music in a single style or do your compositions differ from work to work?

MSD: I tend to write very energetic music with lots of grace notes. This has been my style over the past thirteen years. Both the music of Bach and Cobain was equally important to me. It was my goal to create a symbiosis between baroque music and Punk-Rock. I am a mixture of Stockhausen, Cobain, myself and hard core punk.

BMD: From the interviewers’ perspective, your music challenges the traditional classical music listener. Which one of your pieces/projects do you feel pushes your own boundaries?

MSD: That would be the CD project SHOTGUN DIARY (2001-02) and my first opera ABSENSE.

BMD: Do you prefer to compose music that will ultimately be performed live or music which is meant solely for recording?

MSD: Both. Live performances are still limited to festivals, concert halls, underground scenes, or whatever. The recording is much more powerful. It is the way people absorb art these days.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Basso Moderno Duo Mentioned in Chamber Music ‘Rorem at 85’

The Basso Moderno Duo would like to thank Ned Rorem and Frank J. Oteri for mentioning us in the recent Chamber Music cover story ‘Rorem at 85’. Chamber Music is a journal published by Chamber Music America.

“At the other extreme of the string resister is Nocturne, for double bass and piano (2007), a three-minute work in which the bassist plays a soaring melody from its lowest to highest registers, as the pianist maintains a steady flow of eighth notes.

Nocturne was premiered last year at the Smithsonian by the Basso Moderno Duo”.

December 2008 by Frank J. Oteri



Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Sonia Megias Lopez interview with BMD


Sonia Megias Lopez recently completed a residency at the Basically Modern Arts Sanctuary where she composed ‘White Doll’ for the Basso Moderno Duo. During her stay here she was interviewed by Kristen Williams.


Tell me about the work you completed at the Basically Modern Arts Sanctuary.

I just completed a new work for the Basso Moderno Duo. The work's title, "White Doll" comes from a very beautiful choral habanera, "Black Doll". I've sung this habanera with the "Entredós" choir in Madrid. The work is an intimate wink to my friend Patricia, a woman whose presence has encouraged and helped me a lot. "White Doll" is organized in more of a process than a structure. This process begins with unpitched (non-harmonic) sounds, continues with pitched (harmonic) notes in central section, and returns to unpitched sounds to finish the work. Theatrically, this process is represented by a white cloth doll's actions: she starts sleeping (inside the piano, over highest strings, then stopping their sound), wakes up (noise lightly becomes sound), goes out from her bed and remains out for a while (beautiful melodies and harmonies) to finish returning to her bed (unpitched sounds). This work has been easy to write for Basso Moderno Duo because they are always opened to theatricality and high beautiful melodies in the double bass, both qualities not easy to find in a music group.

What inspires you?

My inspiration in fact comes from a lot of things and feelings. Inspiration depends each time on what I have around me. In some of my works I focus my whole attention on the commission characteristics: what kind of music are the performers used to playing (what are their limits). Where is the piece going to be performed (acoustic, room), how long does the work need to be, what kind of audience ... etc. In some other works I feel really free and I ask myself: "what do I need to hear?" What do I need to feel from a stage?” I leave my mind work from my deepest feelings and my childhood. In some works, I combine both aspects: commission + myself.

How do you get your ideas?

My ideas depend on what mood I have. When I am inspired and full of energy, ideas come in a very fluid manner. My friend Joaquín Martínez Oña, a magnificent music teacher, posed to me the possibility that composers are simply mediums that sends the ideas to us as a superior being. He continues by saying that our mission in life is to give the ideas a development and shape and then to transmitting them to the listener.

What guides your work?

My work is guided by creative impulses. As a good Gemini, one of my two personalities is impulsive, obstinate and very demanding. It is concerned with "pulling the wagon" in my projects. What gives shape to those starting ideas are reflected in the kind of performers and audience that I imagine the work will have in most of its performances and specifically the premiere.

What do you hope for the future?

Who knows! Life brings so many choices. I would like to continue composing and teaching, and I'd also like to live in contact with the nature.

You love to travel, where will you go next?

At the moment, I'm returning to Spain in order to rehears my next premiere and to see my family and friends whom I miss a lot.

Thank you for sharing this with us.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Julie Mandel composes ‘Solitude In The City’ for Basso Moderno Duo

Julie Mandel has just composed ‘Solitude In The City’ for the Basso Moderno Duo to be part of our New York Women Composers program. Mandel was a student of Ernst Krenek and is an active composer of musical theater and chamber music.

“My intention was to write music that would make good use of both instruments, piano and bass, giving each a part that best utilized their abilities. The unusual high range of the solo bass was particularly interesting, offering opportunities not usually associated with the bass.

In writing ‘Solitude In The City’ I thought of the piano, with its ability to play chords of several notes and colors and provide almost continual movement, as representing the City; while the bass is set alone against that busy background to experience loneliness in the midst of a crowd, perhaps lost in the anonymity of the city”.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Basso Moderno Duo Wins Montpelier Concert Series Competition

The Basso Moderno Duo was selected as the winner of the Montpelier Concert Series Competition. In addition to an honorarium, they will be giving a recital on October 11, 2009. The concert will featured newly composed works written especially for the Basso Moderno Duo by member composers of the New York Women Composers, Inc.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Lawrence Kramer composes 'At the Crossroads' for Basso Moderno Duo


USA composer Lawrence Kramer has just completed 'At the Crossroads' for the Basso Moderno Duo. Kramer is a professor at Fordham University, co-editor of the journal 19th-Century Music and has authored many books on music including: Why Classical Music Still Matters (2007).

Of the work Kramer writes:
"The crossroads is the traditional site for fateful encounters and fateful decisions, from the Oedipus of Sophocles to the speaker of Robert Frost’s 'The Road Not Taken.' My piece 'At the Crossroads' seeks to evoke the drama of the crossroads in compressed musical form. (What happens at the crossroads happens quickly.) The music begins with the double bass and piano in very different frames of mind, but the two instruments gradually unite, part again, and reconcile—a process made possible here by the expanded expressive range of the double bass in high solo tuning".

The premiere will take place on October 22, 2008 at Fordham University.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Basso Moderno Duo Awarded New York Women Composers Seed Money Grant

The Basso Moderno Duo was granted the 2008 New York Women Composers Seed Money Grant.

The purpose of this grant is to bring attention to composer members of the NYWC and the BMD plans to do so through a series of concerts, a radio broadcast, and recordings. To learn more about the NYWC visit: www.newyorkwomencomposers.org

Friday, July 11, 2008

Maral Yakshieva Residency at Basically Modern Arts Sanctuary

Maral Yakshieva of Turkmenistan and Russia has joined us at the Basically Modern Arts Sanctuary to compose a new work for the Basso Moderno Duo. The Duo will share the stage with the composer and pianist on Sunday July 13 at the WAMC Performing Arts Center 'The Linda' in Albany, NY at 4:00.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Marie Incontrera composes 'Liszten' for Basso Moderno Duo

Marie Incontrera recently composed a new work for the Basso Moderno Duo entitled ‘Liszten’. This work will be included within a larger program the duo are organizing which focuses on members of the New York Women Composers, inc.

Of the new work, the composer says Liszten was inspired by a fusion of the intricacies of dance, classical techniques and rhythmic rock. My intention in writing this piece was to have the subtleties of each style interact the way dancers or musicians interact with each other and with their audience in each of the aforementioned artistic media”.

To learn more about Marie Incontrera and her music please visit her website www.lamentbassmusic.com

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Mikhail Kokzhayev Residency at Basically Modern Arts Sanctuary

The Basically Modern Arts Sanctuary opened its doors to famed Armenian composer Mikhail Kokzhayev in June. The Basso Moderno Duo hosted Kokzhayev for his first visit to the USA. During his stay he composed two pieces for the Basso Moderno Duo including ‘Birds and Bell’ and ‘Unrepeatable in Repetition’. In addition to time spent composing, Kokzhayev accompanied us to our recital in Washington DC at the Harman Center for the Arts and a day trip to Woodstock, NY.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Frank Corcoran composes ‘Quasi Una Perla’ for Basso Moderno Duo

Irish composer Frank Corcoran has just completed a short duet for bass and piano. The new work ‘Quasi Una Perla’ is the second work he has written for Allan Von Schenkel and Kristen Williams, with the first being a two movement piece for unaccompanied bass entitled ‘Quasi Un Basso’. ‘Quasi Una Perla’ gives the duo the opportunity to share Corcoran’s music with a wider audience and to bring attention to this talented composer.

Of the new work Corcoran says “Since my cycle of ‘Mad Sweeney’ - inspired works of the nineties, (beginning with ‘Suibhne Gealt / Mad Sweeney’ for Speaker and Chamber Orchestra, text from the Old Irish by Séamus Heaney) I have composed a whole series of " Quasi" works. I as a composer at this place in time I am no longer musically innocent - I know too much world-music and composed music of the past; so I´ve written ‘Quasi Un Concerto’, ‘Quasi Una Missa’ or ‘Quasi Un Preludio’ and so on - I am filtering musical forms of the past and of my past. This miniature piece for the higher tuned bass and piano of Basso Moderno is a mini-novel, a mini short-story for the new colouristic and expressive possibilities of this unique instrumental combination. Everything flows, however, - as in so many composing masters of the past- from the opening little idea, a simple re-iterated open fifth for the piano and its loud bisection by the bass. In the space of less than three minutes my piece opens up a kaleidoscope of tonal thought and play with this idea. The miniature becomes a pearl of great price - Quasi Una Perla".

The Basso Moderno Duo plan to premiere ‘Quasi Una Perla’ at the Meridian Festival in Bucharest, Romania in December 2008.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Basso Moderno Duo Interview on Pens Eye View

The Basso Moderno Duo have been interviewed on Pens Eye View.

Read the Interview Here!

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Mary Ann Joyce-Walter composes ‘Scherzatina’ for Basso Moderno Duo

At the request of Basso Moderno, Mary Ann Joyce-Walter has just presented us with a new piece entitled ‘Scherzatina’. When asked to comment on the work she says: “I wanted to compose a short piece that would be, first and foremost, a dialogue between solo bass and piano. I tried to work out this interplay between the two instruments through melodic fragments (based mainly on minor 2nds) that could, through quick twists and turns, expand and be transformed through textural changes in electrically-charged rhythms in the various registers of both instruments.”


Mary Ann Joyce-Walter was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and received her M.A. and Ph.D. in theory and composition from Washington University, St. Louis, after which she moved to the New York City area where she has remained. She is an active composer and a Professor of Music at Manhattanville College. Her works have been performed at international festivals throughout Europe and Russia as well as many parts of the United States.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Semih Korucu composes ‘Emphaty 4’ for Basso Moderno Duo

Turkish composer Semih Korucu has just completed his new work ‘Empathy 4’ for the Basso Moderno Duo. It is the forth part of a series entitled ‘Emphaty’, with each work being for a different duo combination. Korucu says of the work “This piece is established on one chord and mode – C major triad and the mode B#,C#,D#,E,F#,G,A,Bb (minor 2nd followed by a major 2nd or mMmMmMm), which was Messian’s favorite. In this piece, we hear two melodic lines trying to emphasize around one mode. In this context, empathy is something to reach by deep listening, dialog and emotional bond”.

Semih Korucu (b.1965) studied at MSU Fine Arts University in Istanbul with Usmanbas, Firat, Tarcan and Bayraktar. Korucu is currently the coordinator of the Composition Department at the Conservatory of Mersin University in Turkey where he teaches composition, fugue, harmony, score reading and analysis.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Basso Moderno Duo at United Nations

The Basso Moderno presented a program of recently composed works at the United Nations in New York City alongside the Izabel Gozkowsky Dance Company at the ‘Women in Crises’ Conference.

The performance took place in the Dam Hammarskjold Auditorium with a very nice Steinway Grand, which has the United Nations seal carved on the side.

Izabel Gotzkowsky choreographed a dance solo for herself to ‘Nocturne’ by Ned Rorem, a work we commissioned in 2007 and premiered at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Program
Larry Bell - Pop Set
Sonia Megias Lopez - Tango No. 2
Felix Yanov-Yanovsky - Dialogue
Liana Alexandra - Melody
Betty Beath
- From a Lake of Honey
Ned Rorem - Nocturne