Two worthy Utah Enlightenment examples: Dan Higgins’ In. Memory. Of, NOVA Chamber Music Series’ Micro-Concerto program

Two recent Salt Lake City performances once again highlight the creative entrepreneurial impact of the Utah Enlightenment. DAN HIGGINS: IN. MEMORY. OF., AN EVENING OF STORYTELLING AND DANCE Talkbacks after a performance or a screening of a new film can be risky, frustrating and deflating. There are plenty of justifications why many creative professionals hesitate … Read more

Salt Lake Electric Ensemble’s recording of Philip Glass masterpiece Music with Changing Parts released on composer’s famous recording label

Nearly 50 years ago, Philip Glass (now 81) composed some of the most brilliant pieces of early minimalism. They were the seeds of a new complex music practice that only in the 21st century has been clarified for its utmost significance. Alex Ross, the eminent music critic for The New Yorker magazine, has written about … Read more

NOVA Chamber Music’s Series Micro-Concerto program features muscular slate including new 40th anniversary commission by Utah composer

Muscular is the apt adjective to describe NOVA Chamber Music Series’ next concert which pairs two of Beethoven’s most compact chamber ensemble works with a dazzling micro-concerto for percussionist and the premiere of a new piece by Utah composer Morris Rosenzweig, made possible by the Chamber Music America classical commissioning program. The four works comprise … Read more

Three worthy February performances: NOVA Chamber Music Series’ On the Threshold of Winter, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company’s Strata, PYGmalion Productions’ I And You

NOVA CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES: ON THE THRESHOLD OF WINTER, CHAMBER OPERA, MICHAEL HERSCH Michael Hersch is an extraordinary composer. His chamber opera titled On the Threshold of Winter, which recently was presented in an astonishing production by the NOVA Chamber Music Series, makes as huge demands on audience members as it does on the soprano … Read more

NOVA Chamber Music Series presents an extraordinary festival this week dedicated to music of Michael Hersch

I hereby recall the water from your cells, The sea sends me word Via an emissary. “I have a need for fuel (On the threshold of winter). Now I understand why for some time Dark clouds have hovered above me: Within them there’s a large part of myself Waving good-bye. The Emissary of the Blue … Read more

The rededication of spirit: Top 10 moments of the Utah Enlightenment in 2017

It is not an artifice that the mind has added to human nature. The mind has added nothing to human nature. It is a violence from within that protects us from a violence without. It is the imagination pressing back against the pressure of reality. It seems, in the last analysis, to have something to … Read more

Henry Wolking’s orchestral jazz works featured in outstanding new Parma Recordings release Powell Canyons

Letting midnight out on bail pop- a- da having been detained in jail oop- pop- a- da for sprinkling salt on a dreamer’s tail pop- a -da — Langston Hughes, Jam Session, 1951 Henry Wolking’s orchestral jazz music consistently has that generous, resounding and veritable feel. One of Utah’s most important composers, he once described … Read more

NOVA Chamber Music Series sets outstanding Utah Symphony soloists for works by CPE Bach, Messiaen

The premiere of one of the two works in the upcoming NOVA Chamber Music Series subscription concert, the second of its 40th anniversary season, took place in the unheated barracks of a Stalag prisoner-of-war camp in Görlitz, Germany during World War II. The other, composed in the 1750s, was premiered by Bohemian cellist Ignaz Mara … Read more

The virtuoso as new music advocate: Carlton Vickers on redefining flute music in 21st century

In 1991, a very young Carlton Vickers was one of the featured musicians on a Salt Lake City performance of Composition for Four Instruments, a prescient work American composer Milton Babbitt (1916-2011) wrote in 1948 that foreshadowed the New Complexity School, one of the most significant developments in music over the last half century. Babbitt, … Read more

Works by father and son composers with Utah roots, chamber music gems of French composers mark NOVA Chamber Music Series concert

A newly commissioned short piece for brass quintet by a young composer, along with a short composition for flute and piano by his father and works by two of the greatest French composers will mark the first subscription concert of NOVA Chamber Music Series’ 40th anniversary season. Black Wind by Nicolas Chuaqui is a short … Read more