Ballarat, California, 2010.
I first stumbled across the music of Timothy Andres when his teen-age Tango appeared as the closing selection of a 2003 edition of the NPR show From the Top. I wrote about him in 2004 and again at the end of a recent column on Louis Andriessen. This quietly awesome young composer has a major week ahead of him in NYC: on Monday night at Poisson Rouge, he and David Kaplan will give a live performance of Shy and Mighty (now out on Nonesuch), and on Thursday night, at a concert by the Metropolis Ensemble, he will introduce his Paraphrase on Themes of Brian Eno, in addition to playing a new version of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 26.
The Metropolis program also includes a performance of Anna Clyne's intensely wistful string-ensemble piece Within Her Arms, which the Los Angeles Philharmonic premiered during Esa-Pekka Salonen's final season. Clyne, a London-born New Yorker, first caught my attention at the 2006 edition of the American Composers Orchestra's Underwood New Music Readings (whose 2010 edition arrives on Friday and Saturday); I was happy to hear that the Chicago Symphony had chosen her as Composer in Residence, alongside Mason Bates. Incidentally, the Metropolis blog is well worth reading.
The following night (May 21), the darkly witty composer-vocalist Corey Dargel will appear at a New Amsterdam record-release event at Galapagos. He'll sing selections from his new double album Someone Will Take Care of Me, which draws on the theater projects Thirteen Near-Death Experiences and Removable Parts. Kathleen Supové and ICE will back him. ACME will also be on hand to perform with Craig Wedren.
