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Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble
The Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble (PNME) is an American ensemble dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music. Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the group was established by composer David Stock in 1976. It has premiered over 200 works and is a major regional cultural attractio Emphasis is placed on pieces by modern composers and recent past seasons have featured works by György Ligeti, Frederic Rzewski, George Crumb, John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ..., David Lang, Robert Black and others. In 2001, conductor Kevin Noe took over from the group's founder, becoming the new Artistic Director. The troupe quickly made radical changes and struck out in a new direction using an entirely new team of musicians and artists. Since that time, PNM ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contemporary Classical Music
Contemporary classical music is classical music composed close to the present day. At the beginning of the 21st century, it commonly referred to the post-1945 modern forms of post-tonal music after the death of Anton Webern, and included serial music, electronic music, experimental music, and minimalist music. Newer forms of music include spectral music, and post-minimalism. History Background At the beginning of the twentieth century, composers of classical music were experimenting with an increasingly dissonant pitch language, which sometimes yielded atonal pieces. Following World War I, as a backlash against what they saw as the increasingly exaggerated gestures and formlessness of late Romanticism, certain composers adopted a neoclassic style, which sought to recapture the balanced forms and clearly perceptible thematic processes of earlier styles (see also New Objectivity and Social Realism). After World War II, modernist composers sought to achieve greater levels ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania behind Philadelphia, and the List of United States cities by population, 68th-largest city in the U.S. with a population of 302,971 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The city anchors the Pittsburgh metropolitan area of Western Pennsylvania; its population of 2.37 million is the largest in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the Pennsylvania metropolitan areas, second-largest in Pennsylvania, and the List of metropolitan statistical areas, 27th-largest in the U.S. It is the principal city of the greater Pittsburgh–New Castle–Weirton combined statistical area that extends into Ohio and West Virginia. Pitts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Maryland to its south, West Virginia to its southwest, Ohio to its west, Lake Erie and the Canadian province of Ontario to its northwest, New York to its north, and the Delaware River and New Jersey to its east. Pennsylvania is the fifth-most populous state in the nation with over 13 million residents as of 2020. It is the 33rd-largest state by area and ranks ninth among all states in population density. The southeastern Delaware Valley metropolitan area comprises and surrounds Philadelphia, the state's largest and nation's sixth most populous city. Another 2.37 million reside in Greater Pittsburgh in the southwest, centered around Pittsburgh, the state's second-largest and Western Pennsylvania's largest city. The state's su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Stock
David Frederick Stock (June 3, 1939 – November 2, 2015) was an American composer and conductor. Stock was a longtime resident of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he served as a professor of composition and as the conductor of the Contemporary Ensemble at Duquesne University. In 1976, he founded the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, and was the music director for 23 years until his retirement in 1999. He was the composer in residence for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra during the 1987–88 season, and for the Seattle Symphony Orchestra for the 1996–97 season. Among his many compositions are Kickoff, premiered by the New York Philharmonic under Kurt Masur during the Orchestra's 150th Anniversary; Violin Concerto, premiered by Andres Cardenes and the Pittsburgh Symphony under Lorin Maazel for that Orchestra's 100th Anniversary; and Second Symphony, premiered by the Seattle Symphony under Gerard Schwarz Gerard Schwarz (born August 19, 1947), also known as Gerry Schwarz or Jerry ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti (; ; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde composers in the latter half of the twentieth century" and "one of the most innovative and influential among progressive figures of his time". Born in Transylvania, Romania, he lived in the Hungarian People's Republic before emigrating to Austria in 1956. He became an Austrian citizen in 1968. In 1973 he became professor of composition at the Hamburg Hochschule für Musik und Theater, where he worked until retiring in 1989. He died in Vienna in 2006. Restricted in his musical style by the authorities of Communist Hungary, only when he reached the West in 1956 could Ligeti fully realise his passion for avant-garde music and develop new compositional techniques. After experimenting with electronic music in Cologne, Germany, his breakthrough came with orchestral works such as ''Atmosphères'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederic Rzewski
Frederic Anthony Rzewski ( ; April 13, 1938 – June 26, 2021) was an American composer and pianist, considered to be one of the most important American composer-pianists of his time. His major compositions, which often incorporate social and political themes, include the minimalist ''Coming Together'' and the variation set '' The People United Will Never Be Defeated!'', which has been called "a modern classic". Early life and education Rzewski was born on April 13, 1938, in Westfield, Massachusetts, to parents of Polish and Jewish descent, and raised Catholic. He began playing piano at age 5 and attended Phillips Academy, Harvard, and Princeton, where his teachers included Randall Thompson, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston, and Milton Babbitt. In 1960, he went to Italy on a Fulbright grant, a trip which was formative in his future musical development. In addition to studying with Luigi Dallapiccola in Florence on a Fulbright scholarship he began a career as a performer of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Crumb
George Henry Crumb Jr. (24 October 1929 – 6 February 2022) was an American composer of avant-garde contemporary classical music. Early in his life he rejected the widespread modernist usage of serialism, developing a highly personal musical language which "range in mood from peaceful to nightmarish". Crumb's compositions are known for pushing the limits of technical prowess by way of frequent use of extended techniques. The unusual timbres he employs evoke a surrealist atmosphere which portray emotions of considerable intensity with vast and sometimes haunting soundscapes. His few large-scale works include '' Echoes of Time and the River'' (1967), which won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for Music, and ''Star-Child'' (1977), which won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition; however, his output consists of mostly music for chamber ensembles or solo instrumentalists. Among his best known compositions are '' Black Angels'' (1970), a striking commentary on the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives. Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition ''4′33″'', which is performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who present the work do nothing aside from being present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is not "four minutes and 33 seconds of silence," as is often assumed, but rather the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance. The work's challenge t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Lang (composer)
David Lang (born January 8, 1957) is an American composer living in New York City. Co-founder of the musical collective Bang on a Can, he was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music for ''The Little Match Girl Passion'', which went on to win a 2010 Grammy Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance by Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices. Lang was nominated for an Academy Award for " Simple Song #3" from the film ''Youth''. Early life and education Lang was born in Los Angeles, California. Lang is of Jewish descent. In his youth he played trombone. After completing his undergraduate degree at Stanford University, he went to the University of Iowa; he says, "There was a teacher in composition at the University of Iowa named Martin Jenni, and he had come to Stanford as a leave replacement to teach for a semester. And I just thought he was amazing. He knew a lot of stuff that I'd never heard of before. So when I thought about grad school, I went to Iowa. I was happy I did. It was rea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Black (conductor)
Robert Carlisle Black (April 28, 1950 – November 14, 1993) was an American conductor, pianist and composer. He was most particularly associated with the promotion, performance and recording of contemporary classical music, but he also played and conducted the standard repertoire. Life Robert Black was born in Dallas, Texas in 1950. The pianist William Black (1952–2003) was his brother. He started his piano studies at age 5, presenting his first public recital at 13. He studied at Oberlin College and the Juilliard School in New York, where his teachers included Beveridge Webster, Roger Sessions and David Diamond. He taught at Oberlin, Stanford University, Long Island University (C. W. Post Campus), Princeton University and the University of California, Santa Barbara. His early recording of works by Franz Liszt was nominated by the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest for a Grand Prix du Disque. He founded the New York New Music Ensemble in 1975, was a me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kevin Noe
Kevin Patrick Noe (born January 7, 1969 in Dallas, Texas) is an American conductor, stage director, writer, and trumpeter. He is currently the executive artistic director of the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, and a regular guest conductor of orchestra, opera, and ballet at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music Growing up Noe began music lessons at the age of 5. He moved frequently during his youth, eventually settling in Frankfort, Kentucky, in 1984 where he attended high school. He became increasingly serious about his musical studies, and also began competing in various musical competitions. He experimented with composition, and soon found a new passion for conducting as a result of programs in his school and his contact in 1987 with Larry Rachleff. During this time, in addition to performing in orchestras, bands, jazz bands, and choirs, he began performing as an actor in numerous productions in the Frankfort Youth Theatre and other youth theatre programs, and in school ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contemporary Classical Music Ensembles
Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from approximately 1945 to the present. Contemporary history is either a subset of the late modern period, or it is one of the three major subsets of modern history, alongside the early modern period and the late modern period. In the social sciences, contemporary history is also continuous with, and related to, the rise of postmodernity. Contemporary history is politically dominated by the Cold War (1947–1991) between the Western Bloc, led by the United States, and the Eastern Bloc, led by the Soviet Union. The confrontation spurred fears of a nuclear war. An all-out "hot" war was avoided, but both sides intervened in the internal politics of smaller nations in their bid for global influence and via proxy wars. The Cold War ultimately ended with the Revolutions of 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The latter stages and after ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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