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Caramoor Presents Two Premieres by Anna Clyne Via Livestream, Plus Sound Art Installation
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Katy Salomon | Morahan Arts and Media
katy@morahanartsandmedia.com | 863.660.2214
Caramoor Presents Two Premieres by
Composer Anna Clyne Via Livestream
Calidore Quartet Performs NY Premiere of Breathing Statues
Thursday, July 16, 2020 at 7:00pm
The Knights Perform World Premiere of Shorthand
Thursday, July 23, 2020 at 7:00pm
Plus A Work for “C,” Caramoor’s Annual Sound Art Installation
On Display Starting July 16
“A composer of uncommon gifts and unusual methods.” – The New York Times
www.annaclyne.com
Katonah, NY (June 16, 2020) — This summer, Caramoor presents two live-streamed premieres by Grammy-nominated composer Anna Clyne as part of its Summer 20/2.0. Both works are inspired by Beethoven’s music in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. On Thursday, July 16, 2020 at 7:00pm, the Calidore String Quartet performs the New York premiere of Clyne’s Breathing Statues and on Thursday, July 23, 2020 at 7:00pm, members of The Knights give the world premiere of her Shorthand for solo cello and string quintet.
The Calidore String Quartet’s Thursday, July 16, 2020 concert pairs the New York premiere of Anna Clyne’s 15-minute quartet Breathing Statues with selections from Bach’s The Art of the Fugue, BWV. 1080 and Beethoven’s Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130 and Grosse Fuge in B-flat Major, Op. 133. Breathing Statues is inspired by Beethoven’s three final string quartets – Op. 130, 135, and Op. 133 – and received its world premiere at Princeton University followed by performances at the Celebrity Series of Boston and Penn State University. Clyne was moved by a specific moment in the Grosse Fuge, where the music drives forward relentlessly to an E-flat Major chord, followed by a long silence, then pivots to a C Major chord. She explains, “I was struck by its intensity. It made me feel like the music is really breathing.” Clyne found several other moments of breathing, sighing, and stuttering in the last three quartets, then wove in references throughout Breathing Statues. At times, Clyne has the four players pause together as a unit for the duration of a deep breath – which reminded Clyne of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “On Music,” whose line “the breathing of statues” inspired the work’s title.
Clyne’s Shorthand for cello and string quintet receives its world premiere by The Knights with member cellist Karen Ouzounian as soloist on Thursday, July 23, 2020 alongside a performance of Brahms’s String Sextet No. 2 in G, Op. 36. Shorthand takes its title from Leo Tolstoy’s novella, The Kreutzer Sonata, which itself was inspired by Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata for violin and piano, in which he writes, “Music is the shorthand of emotion. Emotions, which let themselves be described in words with such difficulty, are directly conveyed to man in music, and in that is its power and significance.” Shorthand references two themes from Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata: the opening theme, as well as a second theme that Janácek also incorporated in his own String Quartet No. 1, "Kreutzer Sonata.”
Clyne’s work will also be on display in Caramoor’s rotating annual sound art installation “C,” a newly commissioned site-specific sound-sculpture from MacArthur Fellow Trimpin. Comprising a 16-foot-high, double C-shaped frame supporting two octaves of chimes, this interactive installation will play works especially composed for the range and acoustics of the chimes composed by Clyne as well as Christopher Cerrone, Missy Mazzoli, and Nico Muhly. The installation, curated by Chicago-based sound artist and former Merce Cunningham sound engineer Stephan Moore, is tentatively scheduled to begin on July 16.
A world premiere recording of Anna Clyne’s cello concerto DANCE, recorded by cellist Inbal Segev with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Marin Alsop, was recently released on the Avie Records label. DANCE is inspired by a poem by the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi, imploring the reader to dance in the times of pain, anguish, struggle and freedom. Listen to the album.
Performance Information
Calidore String Quartet
Thursday, July 16, 2020 at 7:00pm
Livestream
Link: https://www.caramoor.org/
Artists:
Calidore String Quartet
Program:
Bach – Selections from The Art of the Fugue, BWV. 1080
Anna Clyne – Breathing Statues (New York Premiere)
— Intermission —
Beethoven – Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130
Beethoven – Grosse Fuge in B-flat Major, Op. 133
Musicians from The Knights
Thursday, July 23, 2020 at 7:00pm
Livestream
Link: https://www.caramoor.org/
Artists:
The Knights
Program:
Anna Clyne – Shorthand (World Premiere)
Karen Ouzounian, cello
Brahms – String Sextet No. 2 in G, Op. 36
About Anna Clyne
London-born Anna Clyne is a Grammy-nominated composer of acoustic and electro-acoustic music. Described as a “composer of uncommon gifts and unusual methods” in a New York Times profile and as “dazzlingly inventive” by Time Out New York, Clyne’s work often includes collaborations with cutting-edge choreographers, visual artists, filmmakers, and musicians.
Clyne has been commissioned by a wide range of ensembles and institutions, including BBC Radio 3, BBC Scottish Symphony, Britten Sinfonia, Carnegie Hall, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Houston Ballet, London Sinfonietta, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, and the Southbank Centre. Her work has been championed by such world-renowned conductors as Marin Alsop, Pablo Heras-Casado, Riccardo Muti, Leonard Slatkin, Andre´ de Ridder, Esa- Pekka Salonen, and Osmo Va¨nska¨.
From 2010–2015, Clyne served as a Mead Composer-in-Residence for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Music Director Riccardo Muti lauded Clyne as “an artist who writes from the heart, who defies categorization, and who reaches across all barriers and boundaries. Her compositions are meant to be played by great musicians and listened to by enthusiastic audiences no matter what their background.” She has also been in residence with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, L’Orchestre national d’I^le-de-France, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Berkeley Symphony, and National Sawdust. Clyne serves as the mentor composer for the Orchestra of St Luke's DeGaetano Composer Institute. Clyne is currently serving a three-year residency as Associate Composer with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, through the 2020-2021 season. The residency includes plans for a series of new works commissioned over three years.
This season features multiple premieres of new works, including Sound and Fury and Overflow with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Breathing Statues with the Calidore String Quartet. The spring 2020 world premiere of Clyne’s COLOR FIELD, an orchestral work inspired by Mark Rothko’s paintings, by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra led by Marin Alsop was postponed.
Other recent premieres include her Rumi-inspired cello concerto, DANCE, premiered by Inbal Segev at the 2019 Cabrillo Festival, conducted by Cristian Macelaru; Three Sisters, her mandolin concerto for Avi Avital and the Kremerata Baltica; Restless Oceans with the Taki Concordia Orchestra and Marin Alsop at the World Economic Forum; and Beltane with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Thomas Dausgaard. In July 2019, Clyne wrote and arranged music from Nico’s Marble Index for The Nico Project, a theatrical work presented by the Manchester International Festival.
Clyne is the recipient of the 2016 Hindemith Prize; a Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; awards from Meet the Composer, the American Music Center, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and the Jerome Foundation; and prizes from ASCAP and SEAMUS. She was nominated for the 2014 Times Breakthrough Award (UK).
Clyne’s music is represented on Cantaloupe Music, Cedille, Avie, MajorWho Media, New Amsterdam, Resound, Tzadik, and VIA labels. Recent releases include Blue Moth, an album of her instrumental music for ensemble and tape; Night Ferry with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Riccardo Muti; and Prince of Clouds featuring Jennifer Koh and Jaime Laredo with the Curtis Chamber Orchestra on Cedille Records. Both Night Ferry and Prince of Clouds were nominated for 2015 Grammy Awards.
Clyne’s music is published exclusively by Boosey & Hawkes. www.boosey.com/clyne. Learn more at www.annaclyne.com.
*Photo at the top of release by Christina Kernohan
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