Two Bard students, violinist/pianist Erica Ball and flutist Kylie Collins, have taken it upon themselves to commission four young composers to write pieces for them, and will perform the premieres twice this weekend. The composers are Caroline Mallonée, Jim Altieri (both of whom worked with me at the Atlantic Center for the Arts), Alex Ness, and Sam Pluta. Plus, the duo will be playing a couple of pieces by Joan Tower and myself (“Saintly” from Private Dances). The first concert is at Bard College on Friday, 7 pm at Olin Hall. The second is at Roulette Sunday night, April 26, at 8 pm, 20 Greene St. in New York City. Erica is a very talented composer herself, and it’s quite a program the two of them have put together. We haven’t had anything like it before at Bard since I’ve been there.
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Another Bard student, Eva Sun, is playing “Sexy” from Private Dances on a program Saturday at 7:30 at Bard Hall on campus. (Piano teacher Blair McMillan has apparently been pushing my music on the students.)
Also Sunday, April 26, at 5 pm at Chicago Cultural Center (77 Randolph Street in Chicago), pianist Sarah Cahill is recapping her anti-war concert A Sweeter Music, which I’ve written about here before, with videos by her husband John Sanborn and including my piece War Is Just a Racket. The program includes music by Peter Garland, Phil Kline, Jerome Kitzke, Frederic Rzewski, and Terry Riley. The phone number is 312-744-6630. That’s four performances of my music in three days, though three of them through Bard.