Philadelphia Music Roundup - February 2021

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A snowy start to February! Tons of streaming content this month- including a couple of programs from us here at ACF Philadelphia - (Feb 2 - Immanuel Wilkins + Jacob Cooper; Feb 11 - Annie Gosfield & Flannery Cunningham). There are also great streaming programs from Opera Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and notable album releases from Philadelphia composer Dan Blacksberg and The Crossing Choir.

Did we miss something? Events coming up in March? Let us know at calendar@acfphiladelphia.org.

February 2021 events

OPERA PHILADELPHIA

Opera Philadelphia has three new on demand operas that are available through May two of which are composed by Tyshawn Sorey.

Save the Boys, composed by Tyshawn Sorey, inspired by “Save the Boys,” an 1887 poem by abolitionist, writer and Black women’s rights activist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. This work is the first of four digital commissions by Opera Philadelphia and will be available February 12th.

Cycles of My Being, also composed by Tyshawn Sorey, is a song cycle that centers on what it means to be a Black man living in America today. The San Francisco Chronicle called it “a work of both anguish and optimism, at once accusatory and stirring...whose traversal feels like a descent into a maelstrom followed by the emergence out the other side.”

Theater, opera, and rock collide in David T. Little's Soldier Song, an exploration of the life of the Soldier. Based on interviews with veterans of five wars, the piece boldly examines the impact of trauma, the exploitation of innocence, and the difficulty of expressing war's painful truths.

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PHILADELPHIA CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY

The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society is presenting three programs online that feature new music by contemporary composers.

First on February 14th, Philadelphia Orchestra Principal Tuba player Carol Jantsch will perform with her newly formed ensemble Tubular featuring Michael Brown and Adam Dotson on euphonium; Scott Devereaux on tuba; Andy Emerich on drums; and Michael Djupstrom on piano.

On February 18th the program will feature music by composers Andrea Casarrubios and Jessie Montgomery among others. The evening spotlights Venezuelan violinist Rubén Rengel and Cuban-American cellist Thomas Mesa both of whom have earned prizes in recent Sphinx Competitions. 

PCMS will feature ECCO, a conductor-less string ensemble made up of a dozen leading soloists and chamber musicians of today’s younger generation. The program includes works by composers Osvaldo Golijov, Jessie Montgomery and the Philadelphia premiere of Hanna Benn’s Where Springs Not Fail.

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MORE STREAMING CONCERTS

  • The Philadelphia Orchestra is performing two concerts featuring new music. The first is on February 4th for the Lunar New Year Celebration. The concert includes Butterfly Lovers, a concerto for violin and orchestra by Chen and He as well as Nu Shu: The Secret Songs of Women, Symphony for Microfilms, Harp, and Orchestra by Tan Dun. The second concert on February 18th features pianist Michelle Cann performing Florence Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement.

  • On February 13th Astral presents harpist Rachel Lee Hall in the next installment of their Astral Nova Series. She will be performing several works including a new arrangement of Quilter's "Shakespeare Songs" created and performed by Rachel and her brother, cellist Justin Hall.

  • Network for New Music continues the series Extraordinary Measures with a program on Valentine’s Day called Love Stories. On February 14th, G-town Radio 92.9 will broadcast a special program curated by Network for New Music including the premiere of five newly commissioned electro-acoustic compositions integrating spoken-word love stories from residents of Germantown.

  • This month, Bowerbird will present two concerts in its Liminal States series. The first on February 14th features multi-instrumentalist and ambient electronic musician Laraaji. The second on February 25th features singer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Laura Baird. Both concerts take place in the late evening.

ALBUM RELEASES

Philadelphia-based musicians Dan Blacksberg and Julius Masri are releasing their new album Superlith II on February 5th. The album is a followup from their 2012 release Superlith - Plasma Clusters and features trombone and circuit modified keyboards. The music as noted by the performers is “A Continued Assault on the Boundaries of Sound, Language, Technique, and Instrument Architecture.”

On February 12th the Crossing Choir is releasing their new album The Tower and the Garden. The project consists of three works: A child said, what is this grass? by Toivo Tulev, The Tower and the Garden by Gregory Spears and I enter the earth by Joel Puckett. 

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AMERICAN COMPOSERS FORUM

The Philadelphia Chapter of the American Composers Forum presents two more Artist to Artist talks in February. These talks feature composers from Philadelphia and beyond discussing their creative process, reflecting on their artistic influences, and sharing recent work. The talk on February 2nd will feature composers Immanuel Wilkins and Jacob Cooper. The second talk will be February 11th and feature composers Annie Gosfield and Flannery Cunningham. 

On February 3rd, the American Composers Forum and the American Composers Orchestra are co-presenting a professional development panel: Finding Your Voice Online. The panelists include composer and performer Anthony R. Green, composer and interdisciplinary artist Mary Prescott and Verismo Communications founder Beth Stewart.

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ONLINE TALKS AND WORKSHOPS

  • On February 7th, Singing City presents Making Music in the LGBTQ Community, with guests composer David Conte, Artistic Director of ANNA Crusis Women’s Choir Miriam Davidson, and Artistic Director of the Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus Joseph J. Buches.

  • On February 24th, the Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia continues its series Dialogues with Dominick. Join composer Andrea Clearfield, librettist Ellen Frankel, and custom instrument builder David Kontak to talk about a new commission, Beyond the Binary (a meditation on humans and machines).

FEBRUARY 2021 at a glance

CHRONOLOGICAL LISTING

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