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  • CONDUCTOR/PIANIST THOMAS ADÈS LEADS LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC NEW MUSIC GROUP IN GREEN UMBRELLA PROGRAM FEATURING ADÈS/ROSNER U.S. PREMIERE
  • May. 27, 2008
  • Final LA PHIL Green Umbrella Series Concert of the 2007/08 Season Also Features Performances by Acclaimed Pianist Nicolas Hodges, Video Artist Tal Rosner and the Calder Quartet

    TUESDAY, May 27, 2008, at 8 PM

    The Concert is Generously Supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

    Conductor/composer Thomas Adès returns to Walt Disney Concert Hall to lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group in a concert dedicated to his own music, Tuesday, May 27, at 8 p.m. The program includes the U.S. premiere of In Seven Days – a collaboration with video artist Tal Rosner, co-commissioned by the LA PHIL and London’s Southbank Centre. Also on the program are Adès’ Arcadiana, performed by the Calder Quartet, and Living Toys. Rosner is on hand for the concert, which also features pianist Nicolas Hodges in the final Green Umbrella series concert of the 2007/08 season.

    The program begins with Adès’ Arcadiana, which was commissioned by the Endellion Quartet and received its premiere at the Cambridge Elgar Festival in 1994. The water and land theme breaks down so that all the even-numbered movements relate to land or lands and all of the odd ones relate to water in various forms.

    Adès’ Living Toys, commissioned by the Arts Council of Great Britain for the London Sinfonietta, premiered in February of 1994 at Barbican Hall with Oliver Knussen conducting. Of the piece, the composer has referenced an anonymous quote describing how the dreams of a child are analogous to toys and can dwarf all else in comparison.

    The Adès/Rosner collaboration, In Seven Days – Piano Concerto with Moving Image, is a new 30-minute work for 52 instruments, piano solo and video. The work received its world premiere at London’s Royal Festival Hall last month and features an installation by Rosner juxtaposing images of Walt Disney Concert Hall with Royal Festival Hall. The creators describe the piece as a video-ballet in seven movements played continuously and following the story of the Creation – Chaos-Light-Darkness; Separation of the waters into sea and sky; Land-Grass-Trees; Stars, Sun, Moon; Creatures of the Sea and Sky; Creatures of the Land; and Contemplation.

    Thomas Adès, a star among young composers, is known for being open to inspiration and confrontation from a wide range of classical and vernacular music. He has become a popular fixture at Walt Disney Concert Hall, including appearing in the LA PHIL’s On Location residency program last season and appearing as recently as a week prior to this Green Umbrella series concert in the final 2007/08 LA PHIL Baroque Variations series performance.

    Tal Rosner’s approach to interpreting music is informed by his love of the early 20th-century practice of intersections between art and design. He works solely in digital formats, beginning with a combination of digital video and photographs. The material is then treated with various computer-based image interpolation techniques to create an abstract world where shapes and compositions, all coming from real-world materials, are used to sculpt with the time-line of the music.

    Nicolas Hodges is considered one of the most exciting performers of his generation. He premiered In Seven Days in London, and following the U.S. premiere, performs it with the Netherlands Radio Symphony – all under Adès’ direction.

    Inspired by the innovative American visual artist Alexander Calder, the Calder Quartet continues to expand the boundaries of chamber music by performing both traditional quartet repertoire as well as partnering with innovative modern composers and performing chamber works by emerging young musicians. The juxtaposition of old and new serves to foster a broad understanding of chamber music. The group’s upcoming CD includes its recording of Arcadiana.

    An Upbeat Live pre-concert event takes place in Walt Disney Concert Hall’s BP Hall one hour prior to the concert, and is free to all ticket holders. Steven Stucky, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and Consulting Composer for New Music for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, hosts, with special guests Veronika Krausas and Tal Rosner.

    THOMAS ADÈS studied piano at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and read music at King’s College, Cambridge. Between 1993 and 1995, he was Composer in Association with the Hallé Orchestra, which resulted in The Origin of the Harp (1994), and These Premises Are Alarmed for the opening of the Bridgewater Hall in 1996. Asyla (1997) was a Feeney Trust commission for Sir Simon Rattle and the CBSO, who toured it together, and repeated it at Symphony Hall in August 1998 in Rattle’s last concert as Music Director. Adès’ first opera, Powder Her Face (commissioned by Almeida Opera for the Cheltenham Festival in 1995), has been performed around the world, was televised by Channel Four, and is available on a DVD as well as an EMI CD. Most of the composer’s music has been recorded by EMI. Adès’ second opera, The Tempest, was commissioned by London’s Royal Opera House and premiered under his baton to great critical acclaim in February 2004. It was revived in 2007 – again to a sold-out house – and has since been seen in Copenhagen, Strasbourg and Santa Fe. In September 2005, his Violin Concerto for Anthony Marwood was premiered at the Berliner Festspiele and the BBC Proms, with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under his baton. His second orchestral work for Simon Rattle, Tevot, (2007) was commissioned by the Berliner Philharmoniker and Carnegie Hall. Helsinki’s Musica Nova (1999), Salzburg Easter Festival (2004), Radio France’s Prèsences (2007) and the Barbican’s ‘Traced Overhead’ (2007) are among the international festivals that have featured his music; in addition Carnegie Hall appointed him to the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer Chair and featured him as composer, conductor and pianist throughout the 2007/8 season. Adès is also a renowned interpreter of other composers including Kurtág, Nancarrow, Schumann, Schubert, Ruders, Tchaikovsky, Barry and Beethoven. He has conducted the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Philharmonia, Orchestre National de Radio France, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra, the BBC, Finnish and Danish Radio Symphony Orchestras, and ensembles such as Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (as Artistic Director), the London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Modern and the Athelas Ensemble. Adès’ music has attracted numerous awards and prizes, including the prestigious Grawemeyer Award (2000) of which he is the youngest ever recipient. He has been Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival since 1999.

    TAL ROSNER, born in Jerusalem in 1978, is a filmmaker and graphic designer who has made his name with radical interpretations of musical compositions. Since receiving an MA from Central Saint Martins in 2005, he has completed a variety of commissioned work, including a visual exploration of Stravinsky and Debussy’s two-piano music, in collaboration with Katia and Marielle Labèque, released on DVD (KML Recordings, 2006), and a two-screen interpretation of Conlon Nancarrow’s Player Piano Study No.7 (Barbican Centre, 2007). His film for Stravinsky’s Concerto for Two Pianos was screened at the 2006 L’alternativa festival of independent cinema, in Barcelona, and featured at the Victory Media Network Digital Art Plaza in Dallas, Texas. A second extract (5 Easy Pieces) was selected to be featured in Terrain_07, a programme of short films, curated by onedotzero for international touring. In 2007 his title sequence for the Channel 4 television series Skins was nominated for a Royal Television Society Crafts and Design award for Best Title Design and recently won a BAFTA Television craft award. He has also participated in the Future of Sound Lectures series, hosted by Martyn Ware, in London’s Kinetica Museum and the British Library. Future projects include Without you, a new animation film inspired by a Josef Albers poem for Channel 4’s Animate! Commission, supported by Arts Council England.

    NICOLAS HODGES, born in London in 1970, has successfully carried forward a career encompassing interpretations of classical, romantic, twentieth century and contemporary repertoire, leading the London Guardian to comment "Hodges's recitals always boldly go where few other pianists dare […] with an energy that sometimes defies belief." Hodges’ concerto engagements have included performances with the Chicago Symphony, MET Orchestra, St Louis Symphony, BBC Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, Philharmonia, City of Birmingham Symphony, Lucerne Symphony, Bamberger Symphoniker, WDR Symphony, SWR Symphony Freiburg/Baden-Baden, Helsinki Philharmonic, Stockholm Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, Basel Sinfonietta and ASKO Schoenberg Ensemble, under conductors such as Barenboim, Brabbins, Graf, Knussen, Levine, Masson, Nott, Robertson, Rophé, Rundel, Saraste, Slatkin, Otaka, Valade and Zender. He has been featured in many European festivals such as Witten, Darmstadt, Berlin, Luzern, Paris (Festival d’Automne), Innsbruck (Klangspuren), Brussels (Ars Musica), Zurich (Tage für Neue Musik) and Vienna (Wien Modern); at all the major UK festivals, including the BBC Proms; in Scandinavia, Japan (Suntory Hall) and the U.S., including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Orchestra Hall, Chicago. Hodges is as equally committed to contemporary music as to the standard repertoire. Elliott Carter recently wrote his BBC-commissioned concerto Dialogues for Hodges. The premiere took place in January 2004, with the London Sinfonietta under Oliver Knussen, and was immediately followed by a recording of the work with the same artists for Bridge Records. Hodges subsequently gave the U.S. premiere with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Barenboim and returned to give the New York premiere with the MET Chamber Ensemble under James Levine. His many other performances of the work, with numerous orchestras and conductors, have included the French, Japan, Spanish, Portuguese and Netherlands premieres. Other composers who have composed works for him include Wolfgang Rihm, Salvatore Sciarrino and Beat Furrer, and he also has close working relationships with Adams, Birtwistle, Ferneyhough, Harvey, Kagel, Knussen, Lachenmann, Neuwirth, Nørgård and the late Karlheinz Stockhausen. A committed teacher, he educates young pianists particularly in the relationship between the performance of standard repertoire and contemporary works. An energetic recording artist, he has released more than 20 CDs, including Adams on Nonesuch, Carter on Bridge, and Birtwistle and Sciarrino on Metronome. Many of his discs showcase contemporary composers and his commitment in this field has been rewarded by critical acclaim. He gives recitals at the Salzburger Festspiele, Wien Modern, Wigmore Hall London, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Acanthes Festival France, Settembre Musica in Turin and Milan and at the BBC Proms, and is currently Professor of Piano at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart.

    The CALDER QUARTET, praised for its "splendor and substance," (Alan Rich, LA Weekly) entered the 2007/08 season "fully prepared for the world stage" (Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times). A major highlight of the group’s 2007-08 season is as the first quartet-in-residence and newest faculty members at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles. Other highlights include a world premiere recording of Christopher Rouse's String Quartet No. 1, String Quartet No. 2, and Compline to be released on the Koch label and a self-released album featuring the music of Thomas Adès, Mozart and Ravel. In addition, the Calder Quartet continues its relationship with the Carlsbad Music Festival, an alternative classical music festival in southern California that the group co-founded with composer Matt McBane. The festival expanded to Los Angeles and San Diego in 2007 and featured the Calder performing the world premiere of a work for string quartet and boticello (a robotic instrument) called Honey Flyers by Christine Southworth, founder of Ensemble Robot and winner of the Calder's commissioning competition. This season's performance schedule includes performing the world premiere of Anton Batagav's quartet.ru at Wolf Trap in Virginia, and appearing with artists Gloria Cheng and Evan Ziporyn. The group is also slated to take part in a residency at Purdue University in addition to performing at Chamber Music Sedona, The Artist Series in Tallahassee, Florida; and Merkin Hall in New York. Recent milestones for the quartet include receiving their Artist Diplomas from the Juilliard School after serving for two years as Graduate Resident Quartet, debuting at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, and performing the music of Terry Riley at the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Minimalist Jukebox festival in 2006. They continue to study with Riley during this season. The Calder has enjoyed debuts with the Washington Performing Arts Society's Kreeger String Series at the Kennedy Center, the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, UCLA Live, San Francisco Performances, the Aspen Music Festival and La Jolla Music Society's SummerFest. Formed at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the group also studied at the Colburn Conservatory of Music and was a part of the institution's first graduating class. The Calder Quartet has appeared with guest artists such as pianists Claude Frank, Menachem Pressler, and Anne-Marie McDermott, cellist and mentor Ronald Leonard, double-Grammy Award winning guitarist Sharon Isbin, flutist Ransom Wilson, harpist Nancy Allen, violinist Robert McDuffie, and mandolinist Mike Marshall.

    The Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, under Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, presents the finest in orchestral and chamber music, recitals, new music, jazz, world music and holiday concerts at two of the most remarkable places anywhere to experience music - Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl. In addition to a 30-week winter subscription season at Walt Disney Concert Hall, the LA Phil presents a 12-week summer festival at the legendary Hollywood Bowl, summer home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and home of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. In fulfilling its commitment to the community, the Association's involvement with Los Angeles extends to educational programs, community concerts and children's programming, ever seeking to provide inspiration and delight to the broadest possible audience.

    EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:

    Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 8 PM


    WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL, 111 S. Grand Avenue, Los Angeles



    Green Umbrella



    LOS ANGELES NEW MUSIC GROUP

    THOMAS ADÈS, conductor

    NICOLAS HODGES, piano

    TAL ROSNER, video artist

    CALDER QUARTET



    ADÈS Arcadiana

    ADÈS Living Toys

    ADÈS/ROSNER In Seven Days (LA PHIL commission; U.S. premiere)

    The concert is generously supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

    An Upbeat Live pre-concert event takes place in Walt Disney Concert Hall’s BP Hall one hour prior to the concert, and is free to all ticket holders. Steven Stucky, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and Consulting Composer for New Music for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, hosts, and is joined by Veronika Krausas and Tal Rosner.

    Tickets ($22-47) are on sale now online at LAPhil.com, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Box Office, or via credit card phone order at 323.850.2000. A limited number of $10 rush tickets for seniors and full-time students may be available at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Box Office two hours prior to the performance. Valid identification is required; one ticket per person; cash only. Groups of 10 or more may be eligible for special discounts for selected concerts and seating areas. For information, please call 323.850.2000.

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  • Contact:

    Adam Crane, 213.972.3422, acrane@laphil.org; Photos, 213.972.3034