63 Results for : carlson's

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    Border Crossings
    Border Crossings Performed by members of Pacific Serenades Mark Carlson, flute Gary Gray, clarinet Clayton Haslop, violin (Concierto barroco) Connie Kupka, violin (2nd, Three Folksongs & Pacific Serenade) Miwako Watanabe, violin (1st, Pacific Serenade) Roger Wilkie, violin (1st, Three Folksongs) Roland Kato, viola (Three Folksongs) Simon Oswell, viola (Pacific Serenade) David Speltz, cello Patricia Mabee, harpsichord Joanne Pearce Martin, piano The Music All of these works were commissioned and premiered by Pacific Serenades. Concierto barroco for flute, violin, cello, and harpsichord (2002) Commissioned by Jack & Florence Irving for Pacific Serenades. A few years ago I had the opportunity to read the novel Concierto barroco, written in 1974 by the brilliant Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980). The novel mentions a chance encounter in the city of Venice at the beginning of the 18th Century between three great musicians of the time: Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757), George Frideric Handel (1685-1759), and Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741). In an amusing passage, it tells how they get together and play their favorite instruments, Scarlatti at the harpsichord, Handel at the organ, and Vivaldi at the violin, and perform an exceptional jam session. I did borrow the novel's title for my quartet but, in spite of my great admiration for the music of Scarlatti, Handel, and Vivaldi, my intention in Concierto barroco was not to imitate these or other great composers of the 18th century, but rather, to create an original baroque musical style of my own. My objective was not unlike that of the Mexican composer Manuel M. Ponce (1882-1948) in his baroque compositions for guitar, or the Brazilian Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) in his Bachianas Brasileiras cycle. The compositional process that I undertook involved combining traditional forms of the baroque period, of the Spanish baroque, and modern Latin American dances. -Enrique González-Medina Three Folksongs for clarinet and string quartet (1992) Commissioned by Elizabeth H. Henderson for Pacific Serenades Three Folksongs was composed in 1992, a commission from Mark Carlson and Pacific Serenades. Each of the three movements is centered on a vernacular-styled melody, which is placed in a traditional Western classical form. In the first movement, a Scotch/Irish ballad is contained by sonata form, the second is a theme and variations on an African-American-styled spiritual, the third movement is a Brazilian samba, realized as a rondo. At the time, I was interested to see whether these different 'ethnic' themes could co-exist in a piece without it sounding like a hodgepodge. But if Bach used French, Italian, and German styles incorporated into the distinct movements of a suite, then, I thought, I should be able to do so with Irish, African, and Brazilian music! In the years since composing this piece, my interest in incorporating the vernacular with the classical styles has only deepened and continues to grow. It is how I hear music. My thanks to Mark Carlson for his terrific support and for the unique work that he does in bringing new work into the world. Thanks also to the performers for their artistry and for their passion. -Robert Livingston Aldridge Sonata for cello and piano (1998) Commissioned by Virgil & Lynn Roth for Pacific Serenades As is almost always true with my music, this piece is rather eclectic, various styles being blended and juxtaposed, reflecting my varied musical roots and interests. The opening and closing movements are both rather busy, the first one often agitated and the last an upbeat dance. The middle movement begins and ends in relative calm, though in it's middle section a high singing melody in the cello evolves into a sort of subdued anguish. The third movement deserves special note here, as it is based on a kind of dance and song peculiar to Venezuela, the merengue, which is in 5/8 time. My fascination with this kind of music stems from three trips to Venezuela, during which I began to explore the folk and popular music of this uniquely multi-cultural country. My piece here is not meant to be a replica of the merengue so much as a kind of synthesis of it's rhythms and overall form and my own language. I guess I am sort of a stylistic sponge: music that I hear and am attracted to often gets absorbed into my personal vocabulary. This movement is a further manifestation of my long-standing attraction to South American popular music, and I have a hunch that it will be one of a number of pieces influenced by Venezuelan music. I wrote the piece especially for David Speltz and Joanne Pearce Martin, and they premiered it on a Pacific Serenades concert in 1998. -Mark Carlson Pacific Serenade for clarinet and string quartet (1998) Commissioned by Dr. Eberhardt & Deedee Rechtin for Pacific Serenades Written in 1998, Pacific Serenade is a "peaceful serenade"-a serenade as in: romantic, quasi-improvised music which should be sung at night under the stars. The main "singer" here is the clarinet. In general, the music is extremely quiet, delicate, sensuous, and sentimental. The sensuousness is created by Latin song elements, especially the nostalgic Brazilian folk song, which is at times combined with blues-style melody and harmony. The string quartet has a technically and expressively challenging part, which is not merely the accompaniment to the clarinet, but rather it is responsible for setting the mood in which the clarinet sings. This is my opus 59, and it was commissioned and premiered by Pacific Serenades in Los Angeles in 1998. Of course, the ensemble's name inspired the name of this work, as well as it's mood, since Gary Gray is the clarinetist. In an age of boom boxes, media bombardment of information, and pop culture becoming increasingly aggressive, boisterous, and violent, I felt the need to write just the opposite, to show once more that less is more. Pacific Serenade is published by Peermusic/Theodore Presser. Later, I wrote versions for optional saxophone and piano. -Miguel del Aguila The Composers Composer Robert Aldridge's music, for orchestra, opera, music-theater, dance, solo and chamber ensembles, has been performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan. He has received fellowships and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Fund, Meet the Composer, and the American Symphony Orchestra League. He was commissioned by Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra for a clarinet concerto, which was premiered in 2005. His tone poem, Leda and the Swan, a four-orchestra consortium commission, was premiered in 2003. His opera, Elmer Gantry, was given it's full stage world premiere by Nashville Opera in 2007. He holds a Doctorate in Composition from the Yale School of Music, and is Director of the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University, where he is also an Associate Professor of Music Composition/Theory. Composer Mark Carlson's lyrical, emotionally powerful, and stylistically unique music has earned him the admiration of audiences and musicians throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Europe. A versatile composer, his works include art songs, chamber music, choral music, concertos and other large ensemble works, and songs for musical theater. He has been commissioned by the National Shrine in Washington, DC, and the New West Symphony, among other organizations, as well as by many individual performers. One of his CDs, The Hall of Mirrors, was a winner of the Chamber Music America/WQXR Records Awards for 2001. He has taught music theory and composition at both UCLA and Santa Monica College for many years. The Founder and Artistic Director of Pacific Serenades, he is also active as a flutist. Carlson attended the University of Redlands, graduated from CSU Fresno, and received MA and PhD
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    Evolution Into the Conscious Revolution
    It is torch...the taste of bittersweet. That sassy, smoky blues which compliments Lesa's original sound and unique phrasing. Combine her sultry looks and undeniable sensuality, and she embodies the purity of a young woman who people have described as 'haunting' and 'mesmerizing.' Whether she's accompanied by piano, a standard quartet, or her band (Lesa Carlson's OFF BLUE, with upright bass, flute or sax, drums, and a turtablist), her throughline is jazz, with a heavy blues influence, and just a dash of slow funk to make the body move. Lesa brings a new perspective to a range of music, from standards like 'Summertime,' 'Night and Day,' and 'God Bless the Child,' to old Robert Johnson tunes, such as 'Come on in My Kitchen,' through originals like 'Mystery,' 'Lazy Days,' and 'Love's Voodoo Band.' 'Lesa is someone you can't help but be drawn to...' -Vera Anderson, Cinepremiere Magazine As an ingenue, Lesa is just starting on her journey, but there is an obvious wealth of knowledge that she draws from that comes out in her vocal delivery. Some of Lesa's vocal accomplishments include: * Studied and performed Opera for three years * Performed Jazz in Turkey for one year * Performed with members of the Turkey National Symphony * Won vocal awards in New York City and Los Angeles * Performed original song for 'Arranged Marriage,' a feature film * Headlined Mid-West Jazz Tour * Crowned America's Miss Idaho * Performed with Blues legend Linda Hopkins Most Recently: Lesa has been the house band at Three of Clubs, in Hollywood, CA, and performed at Woody Harrelson's new restaurant, O2, in Los Angeles, CA. She also performed for the premiere party of Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy's feature film, Bowfinger, an Imagine Entertainment/Universal Pictures production. She has also performed at The House of Blues, and at a special concert at the Hotel Niko for the LA art scene. Currently Lesa has a monthly residency with her jazz ensemble, OFF BLUE, at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood, CA. ---------------- Lesa Carlson Off Blue, Evolution into the Conscious Revolution (Strange Fruit) If you're gonna do a fully improvised jazz album, you'd better have one hell of a rhythm section or it's all gonna fall apart faster than a house of cards in a wind tunnel. Fortunately for Lesa Carlson, she does. Bassist Miles Mosley and drummer Robert Perkins jam almost telepathically throughout Evolution into the Conscious Revolution, anchoring down a record that easily could have lapsed into self-indulgent, abstract noodling, but instead bristles with hypnotic grooves and jazzy incantations that recall the post-psychedelic experiments of Sun Ra and Miles Davis. Carlson belts over this like the love child of Jim Morrison and Grace Slick, a chanteuse-turned-shaman, twisting familiar standards like 'Brother Can You Spare a Dime' into weird, beat-poet meditations and crooning hypnotic originals like 'Lessons of the Leaves' like she's summoning up some old pagan earth god for a little jam session. Add some wacky turntablist effects featuring Martin Luther King samples, a trumpet, and a flute, and you've got an album that sounds like nothing else out there. As you'd expect of an album recorded 'unrehearsed in one take with no charts or nets', not all of it works -- slow jams like 'Evolution' and 'Serenade the Sea' lurch along in search of a groove, and Carlson's vocals sometimes lurch a little too far into Morrison's bad poetry intonations for comfort -- but a surprising amount of this material is really in the pocket. Especially good are 'Nature Boy' and 'Your Face', on which Mosley and Perkins lock into taut rhythms that give Carlson and trumpeter Bryan Lipps something sweet on which to hang their expressive interplay.
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    Anna Karenina
    Soloists - Stewart Robertson (Dir) // Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is a masterwork of nineteenth-century literature, a parable on the struggle for personal freedom against the conventions of a hostile society, played out in a tragic love-story. With a libretto by the distinguished director Colin Graham after the novel by Leo Tolstoy, David Carlson's opera vividly captures the drama and message of the original work.
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    • Price: 17.38 EUR excl. shipping

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