After a dry fall I have two big performances coming up within a week of each other. Steve Bodner, dynamic young conductor who gave the American premiere of my Sunken City, has his annual I/O Festival coming up Jan. 6-8 at Williams College in northwestern Massachusetts. The Saturday afternoon concert of Steve’s Opus Zero ensemble, 1:00 on Jan. 8, is an all-astrology concert – Stockhausen’s Tierkreis, “Neptune” and “Venus” from my suite The Planets, and three pieces by Sun Ra, including Saturn (1958) and Space Is the Place (1974). I think I heard Sun Ra’s group do that second one live in Chicago way back when. Me, Stockhausen, and Sun Ra – there’s the historical niche I’ve been waiting all my life for. I will definitely have to wear my pyramid hat.
Space Is the Place
And on Friday, Jan. 14, at 8:30 PM, my string quartet The Light Summer Land will be premiered in the Pusey Room at the Memorial Church at Harvard, no less, along with premieres by Thomas L. Read and Arnold Rosner. The performers, Ethan Wood, Megumi Stohs, Sarah Darling, and Josh Packard, aren’t an established quartet, but are all members of the Arcturus Ensemble, and have performed together often. Composer extraordinaire Carson Cooman arranged the whole thing, and the piece is dedicated to him. It’s my first string quartet performance ever. Rosner’s blog at Sequenza 21 is entertaining.Â