"A Tribute to Lucky Mosko"
The Los Angeles Wholesale Orchestra
December 5, 2008, 8pm
Murphy Recital Hall
Loyola Marymount University
1 LMU Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90045
$7-10 donation
Contact: Trevor Berens - lawholesaleorchestra@earthlink.net 310-963-3106
with compositions by Stephen "Lucky" Mosko and his [former] students
For Morton Feldman -- Stephen "Lucky" Mosko
Sirius (World Premiere) -- Running Bear Bunch
Labyrinth 2: Kesaputta (World Premiere) -- Trevor Berens
Considering Light (World Premiere) -- Nicholas Chase
featuring
Trevor Berens
Running Bear Bunch
Ellen Burr
Danny Holt
Frances Moore
Mike Robbins
Derek Stein
Jessica Tunick
Sarah Wass
With Nicholas Chase facilitating an open discussion of Lucky Mosko's life and work.
This concert is funded in part through Meet The Composer's MetLife Creative Connections program.
Your donations help us continue to produce our concerts.
October 12, 2008
Four Songs from the Dhammapada
Inspired by the recent world festival of sacred music, I recently composed a set of four songs for mezzo-soprano and piano based on selections from the Buddhist sacred text, the Dhammapada. The world premiere will happen tomorrow, October 13, at a private house concert in Palos Verdes, with Ann Grennan (mezzo-soprano) and myself on piano.
Stockhausen Tribute Concert
Local trumpet player Bruce Friedman is putting on a Karlheinz Stockhausen Tribute Concert, including samples of music from all times and styles of Stockhausen's life (including his piano works, his operas, electronic music, and structured improvisation scores). I will be performing Klavierstucke 7. The concert, produced by Harbor College and LIRA Productions, is on October 18 at Harbor College. $10 admission.
Other news.....
As for my four summer projects:
1. The method book has turned into a much larger project...a book based on how to redefine the importance of practice for all musicians. The book includes different exercises and examples to prepare the body and mind for a practice session and how to make the session as productive, efficient, and fun as possible. The second draft of the introduction is completed and the outline is mostly completed.
2. The editing of Sui:Yu is completed. The final step for the CD (before mastering) is one final edit and bounce with Eric Gillingham, my engineer. I have all the pieces put onto a CD already, it's very exciting and I'm very happy with it. It's about a 55 minute CD. Just need to clean everything up a bit more, then off to be mastered....slowly but surely!
3. The engraving of 20 years has been completed. Perhaps a performance in Spring 2009?
4. No solo piano concert has happened yet. Still working slowly on the music...but it's not here yet...
5. I'm now an amateur accordionist! (No Myron Floren yet, but I'm working!)
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June 9, 2008
The busy summer has begun...
After having a great spring semester teaching at Loyola Marymount and even getting my Fundamentals students to rehearse and perform several pages of Cardew's "Treatise", summer is upon me.
I have four major personal projects I'm dedicated to making major headway on this month, with the bit of extra time I have: a method book for young pianist (using my own very specialized technique), editing Sui:Yu for my upcoming CD release, finishing the engraving of 20 Years (soprano, piano, marimba), and working up a solo piano concert (works by Donald Martino, Mel Powell, Lucky Mosko, Nick Chase, Bunita Marcus, Rand Steiger, Art Jarvinen, Steve Hoey). So far...all going well, I plan on the editing and engraving projects being completed at the end of June.
I'm also teaching myself accordion this summer!! So far so good!
LA Wholesale Orchestra
The LA Wholesale Orchestra's final concert of our opening season was a great time...a very unusual performance of "Treatise" with a group of 12 professional musicians, two beautiful solo pieces by L.A. composer Cat Lamb, and a hauntingly meditative performance of Cardew's The Great Learning, Paragraph 7, featuring many members of the audience (a group of about 20 singers).
The Orchestra is kicking off its second season with two tribute concerts to Lucky Mosko on September 26 and on September 28. We will be performing works by the late composer, including Indigenous Music 2, String Quartet, Psychotropes, and Bow-Vine Song, along with works by students and friends of Lucky, including Nick Chase and Art Jarvinen. If you knew Lucky and would like to be involved in the production, please contact me!
Upcoming Concerts
September 20...Jessica Tunick and myself will be performing a song cycle, with dance, in a concert featuring L.A. composer/ethnomusicologist Paul Humphreys in a World Festival of Sacred Music concert. The show will be at Loyola Marymount University in the Sacred Heart Chapel. More info to follow....
October 25...Stockhausen Tribute Concert at L.A. Harbor College. I will be performing Klavierstucke 7, other pieces include Halt, Tierkreis, and an excerpt from the opera Freitag Aus Licht, featuring soprano Jessica Tunick.
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February 12, 2008
Confirmed upcoming concerts:
Feb 23--performance of Mozart's Oboe Concerto (Heather Killmeyer, oboe)...contact me for details
Feb 26--UCLA's Popper Theater...premiere of Brendan McMullin's Concerto for Marimba (and piano)
Mar 1--Los Angeles Wholesale Orchestra FUNDRAISER at private residence in Mount Washington (see "LINKS" for more info)
May 16--LAWO Spring Concert, featuring Treatise by Cornelius Cardew
May 22--performance of Ravel's Violin and Piano Sonata, at UCSD (Orin Hildestad, violin)
September ??--performance of Stockhausen's Klavierstucke VII at Stockhausen Memorial Concert (place TBD)
February 5, 2008
The Los Angeles Wholesale Orchestra website is up and running at www.wholesaleorchestra.org We have had two concerts this season and are gearing up for our last one in May, featuring Treatise by Cornelius Cardew. Additionally, we are having a very exciting fundraising concert at an amazing house in Mount Washington with donated wine from Napa and Sonoma, featuring the music of Cage, Skempton, Feldman, Mosko, and others. Proceeds will go toward the Lucky Mosko Festival (RESCHEDULED to next September 26 and 28) and to the general operating costs of the group.
I'm back teaching Fundamentals of Music at LMU for the fourth time and trying new things every time.
My piano studio is up to 28-30 students and my first Certificate of Merit evaluation is coming up in early March, so I'm gearing up for that.
In personal news, I am putting together 3 solo piano concerts -- one featuring music by Feldman and Marcus (For Bunita Marcus, and But to Fashion you a Lullaby), one featuring music by Wolff, Cardew, and Rzewski (all anti-war inspired), and a third featuring music by Mosko and friends and colleagues of him. The plan is to prepare one concert a year, and on the third year, have a three day festival with a reprise of the first to concerts.
To keep me sane, with a new influx of performance gigs and a good size studios, not to mention college students to contend with, I'm now camping and backpacking one weekend every month. Good times.
October 23, 2007
The Los Angeles Wholesale Orchestra will have its official debut concert on November 2, 2007 at Murphy Recital Hall at Loyola Marymount University.
The program will feature: Coming Together by Frederic Rzewski, I Like to Think of Harriet Tubman by Christian Wolff, the West Coast premiere of Clarinet and String Quartet by Morton Feldman, and the World Premiere of Midway by Tashi Wada.
Free admission, free parking! Come hear something you haven't heard before....
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July 28, 2007
I spent an amazing week and a half on a cruise ship in Alaska's Inside Passage with my family, enjoying humpback whales, glaciers, and bald eagles. The most gorgeous place I've ever been, incredible vacation!
During the last month, I've been very busy...I've had four goals in terms of music that I set for myself in 2002 in grad school, and the fourth is now happening! That's right, a new music group!
We have a full string quartet, double bass, full woodwinds, french horn, percussion, piano, soprano, tenor, and bass! It's a hell of a group, everybody is very commited to exploring music that is not well known and is experimental, and every single musician is an incredible player! This is so exciting for me!
Our FIRST concert as the LOS ANGELES WHOLESALE ORCHESTRA is:
AUGUST 11--We will be doing music by Rzewski, Wolff, Cardew, and Feldman!
In the end of October/early November:
music by Rzewski, Wolff, Cardew, Feldman (a different Feldman this piece), and a world premiere
especially written for us!
late January:
a tribute to Stephen Lucky Mosko and James Tenney (both of which were composition teachers of mine at
CalArts and passed away very recently...will also feature tributes to both composers, specifically written for the group)
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September 7, 2006
The summer flew by as usual, with me getting a lot done but not as much as I would have liked. My CD is about 3/4 of the way through the editing process. I got a lot of work done in the summer, but I had to put it on hold in the middle of August once again. I'm teaching Music Theory at Loyola Marymount University this fall and spring so I had to get lesson plans and handouts ready for the first half of the fall semester. I've been working on some Chopin and Beethoven pieces lately, along with the ongoing "Golberg Variations" project. I just picked up Antheil's "Airplane Sonata" a couple weeks ago, so that's what I'm currently working up to be performance ready. Faculty recital September 30th.
I just got word that James Tenney passed away about a week and a half ago. He was my first composition teacher at my grad school (last December, my last composition teacher there--Lucky Mosko--passed away). If anybody reading this is not familiar with these great composers and teachers, do yourselves a favor and get a CD. They will sorely be missed.
I've started my children's piano suite, about one and half pieces into the fifteen piece (roughly) suite.
Lastly, I've started a blog, which I write in every once in a while, which is about green living and my effort to do my part, and ideas for others to do their part. It also includes some of my adventures in gardening...enjoy!
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January 4, 2006
I bought a new Mac about six months ago and had to change from geocities (not mac compatible), so that's my excuse for the long time in between posts. Hopefully it will be at least monthly now.
I have completed my first semester as part-time professor at Loyola Marymount University and will be beginning my second semester in just a few days. It went really well, it was as near-perfect as I could have wished for.
I have also finished recording my first solo piano CD. The tracks are as follows--"Sui:Yu" by Trevor Berens, "Woad for Indigo" (for Trevor Berens) by Nicholas Chase, "Obsessions" by Severin Behnen, and "Artifact 1" by Steve Hoey. All incredible pieces. I will be starting the painstaking editing process January 16 and hopefully will have the rough edit done (pre-mastering) by the end of March). I'd like the CD to be ready to buy (through this website and other places) by summer solstice.
Not much other news...I plan on giving the first performance of Behnen's "Obsessions" on May 9 at Schoenberg Hall at UCLA. I also plan on finishing my triptych "Ningishzida in the Garden" by the end of winter.
I found a marvelous, marvelous book in San Francisco at City Lights Bookstore between Christmas and New Years called "The Art of Practicing" by Madeline Bruser. This book is the closest to my own performing/practicing/teaching philosophy that I have found. Check it out!
Continue to check back at least every month to find new essays, and new updates on performances and such. Please email me if you have any comments on pieces or philosophies or whatever!
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February 20, 2005
It's been awhile since I've updated my page, been very busy, so here's what's new...
Wednesday, March 9 at 8 pm -- Playing in Matt Montgomery's (violin, composition) graduation recital at CalArts. Playing Alex Shapiro's piece "Slide" for harpsichord and violin. Free.
Saturday, March 12 at 7 pm -- An evening of American and French art song, featuring coloratura soprano Jessica Tunick. Music by Debussy, Poulenc, Barber, and Berens. Email me for directions.
Sunday, March 13 at 4 pm -- American Composer's Forum concert, playing Nick Chase's "Woad for Indigo". Email for directions.
I'm also in the process of getting ready for my first solo CD recording, which will include pieces by Severin Behnen (new commission), Nick Chase, Steve Hoey, and myself. More details to come...!
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November 6, 2004
Okay, there is now a new date for the concert at Brand Library in Pasadena...
Friday, December 10 at 8 pm -- An evening of modern American and French art song--featuring coloratura soprano Jessica Tunick at the Brand Library in Glendale. Program includes premieres by Trevor Berens and L.A. composer Mark Saya. Also music by Debussy, Satie, Milhaud, Poulenc, Britten, and Barber.
Friday, December 17 at 8 pm -- A repeat performance of the above concert at the Skirball Cultural Center at Mulholland and the 405 freeway.
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August 2, 2004
Saturday, February 5 at 8pm--An evening of music by L.A. composer Mark Saya at the Murphy Recital Hall at Loyola Marymount University. Including Creeley Songs, performed by Jessica Tunick and Trevor Berens, and the world premiere of Hex performed by Trevor Berens
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June 2, 2004
I recently completed the third movement of my three-movement work, Ningishzida in the Garden. I premiered the first movement, Sui:Yu, which is for solo piano, in October of last year at Loyola Marymount University. The premiere of the third movement, Mirfak at Midnight, which is for clarinet, violin, piano, and percussion, will take place at the California E.A.R. Unit Residency for Young Composers at Arcosanti, Arizona this coming August. The second movement is in progress: Poor Tom's Acold for violin and piano. The total work will total approximately 30 minutes.
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May 13, 2004
Sunday, June 6--Participation in recital in Pasadena at Pasadena Presbyterian Church--International Alliance for Women in Music recital...music by Terry Winter Owens, Jean Milew, Jae Eun Park
Sunday, June 20--Guest artist at Orange Coast Unitarian Universalist Church, both services, including Dream by John Cage, from A Summerfield Set by Lou Harrison, Luciano Berio
Tuesday, September 14--Recital at Los Angeles City College, 11:15, free to all
Proposed repertoire:
Sunflower Sutra (West Coast premiere)--Jerome Kitzke
Sui:Yu--Trevor Berens
Joshu's Piano Book (world premiere)--Mark Saya
Other performances currently being scheduled |
