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Journal Archives for Louis Andriessen

  • Steve Reich, Louis Andriessen, Philip Glass
    Wednesday, June 8, 2011
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    Steve Reich, Louis Andriessen, Philip Glass Featured in BBC Radio 3's "50 Years of Minimalism in Music"

    Composers Steve Reich, Louis Andriessen, and Philip Glass, and Nonesuch Records President Robert Hurwitz have all contributed to the BBC Radio 3 documentary 50 Years of Minimalism in Music, which aired this past Saturday night. They and a number of other music pioneers spoke with American conductor Richard Bernas in this look back at five decades of Minimalism, "the musical language of our time." The program is available online at bbc.co.uk.

  • Louis Andriessen
    Thursday, March 24, 2011
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    Louis Andriessen's "Anaïs Nin" to Receive UK Premiere in London Sinfonietta Concert Also Featuring His Classic "De Staat"

    Louis Andriessen's Anaïs Nin will receive its UK premiere at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London on April 14 in a staging by the London Sinfonietta, with Cristina Zavalloni in the title role. The London Sinfonietta co-commissioned the work, which explores Nin's erotic memories of 1930s Paris, and will perform it in an all-Andriessen program alongside his minimalist classic from the 1970s, De Staat, featuring Synergy Vocals. The composer will be in attendance for the performance.

  • Louis Andriessen
    Monday, December 6, 2010
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    Louis Andriessen Featured in Week-Long Immersive Composer Spotlight from Q2 Radio

    Louis Andriessen is the focus of a week-long Immersive Composer Spotlight from Q2, the online new-music station of New York's Classical WQXR, including broadcasts of De materie, De staat, De tijd, Rosa: The Death of a Composer, and Writing to Vermeer. "Descriptions of Andriessen's style abound with the same complex energy as his ecstatic, rhythmic experimentations," says Q2. "So sit back from the computer for a moment; his music rewards full attention and doesn't take background listening lightly."

  • Louis Andriessen
    Monday, November 29, 2010
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    Louis Andriessen Wins 2011 Grawemeyer Award

    Louis Andriessen has won the 2011 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for his opera La Commedia, premiered in 2008. "I was born in a sidestreet by a small canal in the medieval centre of Utrecht," says the composer. "Believe me, 71 years later, getting the world-famous Grawemeyer Award for La Commedia seems to be completely unreal ... I am very grateful for the prize." At the Amsterdam premiere of La Commedia, the Sunday Times described the work as "the distillation of a lifetime’s creativity.” You can watch a short video preview of the Netherlands Opera premiere here.

  • John Adams, Louis Andriessen
    Wednesday, May 12, 2010
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    NY Times: John Adams "An Inspired Advocate" for Louis Andriessen in Carnegie Hall Performance of "De Staat"

    John Adams led a rare performance of Louis Andriessen's De Staat in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall on Monday. The New York Times says "it was a thrill to hear the adventurous players of Ensemble ACJW perform" the piece, calling Adams "an inspired advocate" for Andriessen. The Philadelphia Inquirer writes, after the previous day's performance in Philadelphia, that what is "so astonishing" about De Staat after almost 35 years, "is that it seems ... so completely up to date."

  • Timothy Andres: "Shy and Mighty" [cover]
    Monday, April 26, 2010
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    The New Yorker: Timothy Andres's "Shy and Mighty" "Achieves an Unhurried Grandeur" Rarely Felt Since John Adams

    The recent Louis Andriessen-curated concerts at Carnegie Hall show the composer to have "an undiminished capacity for making mischief," says The New Yorker's Alex Ross. Ross looks at other contemporary composers creating outside "a stylistic party line," and calls Timothy Andres’s forthcoming Nonesuch debut, Shy and Mighty, "the kind of sprawling, brazen work that a young composer should write," achieving "an unhurried grandeur that has rarely been felt in American music since John Adams came on the scene."

  • Louis Andriessen
    Monday, April 5, 2010
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    Louis Andriessen-Curated Concerts Set to Take Place at Carnegie Hall

    Louis Andriessen is set to preside over several concerts he has curated as holder of Carnegie Hall's Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair, starting Friday. The New York Times recognizes Andriessen's "gift for embracing conflicting values, musical and otherwise, and making it seem as if they fit together naturally." Among the participants in these events are John Adams, Dawn Upshaw, Iva Bittová, Alan Pierson, and Nonesuch President Robert Hurwitz.

  • Louis Andriessen
    Friday, March 12, 2010
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    Louis Andriessen to Be Featured Composer at Birmingham Conservatoire Festival, Receive Honorary Doctorate

    Louis Andriessen will be the featured composer of the 2010 Frontiers+ festival at the Birmingham Conservatoire in Birmingham, England, which runs all next week, March 15 through 19. Performances for Frontiers+Andriessen come from an array of musicians and student performers. The composer will be in residence as well, attending performances, working with student performers, giving master classes to composition students, and receiving an Honorary Doctorate from Birmingham City University.