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

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

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

NOVA’s 40th anniversary season to open with Fry Street String Quartet in unique UMFA art gallery setting

NOVA Chamber Music Series’ 40th anniversary is filled with every distinctive element that has made its programming brand unique in the Intermountain West region. There will be numerous soloists from Utah’s deep bench of outstanding musicians, six commissions of new music and performances of music that should be heard more frequently than is the usual … Read more

Courageous artistic expression underscores memorable moments of Utah Enlightenment in 2015

There was a lot to celebrate in 2015 with the Utah Enlightenment, a creative movement where courage defines some of the state’s most interesting and independent artists. Indeed, the Enlightenment disturbs and disrupts the peculiar Utah penchant to be civil and docile or to be content with platitudes and pleasantries. Artists are reclaiming Utah’s unique … Read more

NOVA Chamber Music Series’ New Paths concert to celebrate imaginative youthful masterpieces of Andrew Norman, Johannes Brahms

For its 2015-2016 season, NOVA Chamber Music Series once again is carving out several new ambitious paths in programming. Each of this year’s six subscription concerts is ingenious in approach and repertoire, with works from the existing chamber music literature that are paired specifically with new compositions and Utah premieres of music by local and … Read more

Plan-B Theatre’s The Kreutzer Sonata with NOVA Chamber Music is a blockbuster opener for 25th season

At one point in The Kreutzer Sonata, the obsessively mad Pozdnyshev breaches the taboo of chamber music etiquette by invading the space of the violinist and pianist who are in the midst of communicating a rare serene moment in this famous Beethoven work. His stance is almost menacing and he walks away resuming his blistering … Read more

Watch, Learn, Listen: Plan-B Theatre, NOVA Chamber Music Series join forces on Eric Samuelsen’s The Kreutzer Sonata

NOTE: This is the second part of the preview of Plan-B Theatre’s 25th season. See Part I here. But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. (Matthew 5:28). His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man … Read more

NOVA Chamber Music Series’ opening concert to set joyful, lyrical mood in music from Leipzig to Provo

nova bach hicks mendelssohn

The 5,300 miles which separates Leipzig from Provo will evaporate immediately when the NOVA Chamber Music Series opens its season Oct. 26 with a program featuring works by two of Leipzig’s greatest music figures, Bach and Mendelssohn, and two pieces by composer Michael Hicks who is on the music faculty at Brigham Young University. A … Read more