Second Annual Composition Competition

The New York Composers Circle, the largest New York area composers' cooperative, is pleased to announce its second annual composition competition, open to composers of all ages who live in the New York metropolitan area, other than NYCC members. The winning composition will be performed at one of the NYCC's concerts during the 2008-2009 season, and the winner will also receive one year's free membership in the NYCC. Please submit no more than one score, together with a CD (or tape), of a solo or chamber ensemble work preferably 6-12 minutes in length, but in any case not more than 15 minutes, and scored for not more than six performers. The work should not have been previously performed. Include in your covering letter a brief bio, a brief program note for your work, and contact information (phone, and e-mail and postal addresses). All submissions must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope, or they will be discarded after the winner is announced. The deadline for receipt is Monday, Sept. 8th.
Send your submission to:
New York Composers Circle
c/o Jacob E. Goodman
310 West 72nd St., 16A
New York, NY 10023
Phone: (212) 787-8309
E-Mail: jgoodman@ccny.cuny.edu
Submissions may also be left with the doorman at that address.

Elliott Carter to be Next Honorary Member

A LETTER FROM OUR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR:
Dear Members,

It is with a sense of pleasure and deep satisfaction that I want to share with you who our newest Honorary Member is, and at the same time I want express my appreciation for all of you who have in various ways contributed so much to making the New York Composers Circle what it has now become and will become in the new music community now and in years to come.

By your contribution of efforts, talents and works, you have made it possible to create a new home for new music that can welcome the world-class reputations of our current honored roster of Honorary Members: Tania León, Ezra Laderman, John Eaton, Paul Moravec, Dinu Ghezzo, and now, perhaps this country's most celebrated and esteemed creator and steadfast champion of new music, Elliott Carter.

This year, on December 11th, Mr. Carter, and many of us here and around the world, will be celebrating his centennial anniversary as the most senior and singular artistic and productive force in new music still with us today. In an amazingly productive career spanning most of the 20th century and the beginning of this 21st century, his extraordinary output of marvelously opulent and complex landmark works has expanded the boundaries of what new music can successfully express and deliver in our most complicated and challenging times.

In his honor and in special recognition of this "landmark" year in his creative life, the NYCC will be featuring one of Mr. Carter's chamber works at our first inaugural concert of the 2008-2009 concert season that will also take place in early December.

I'm confident that I speak for all of us at the NYCC in extending our most heartfelt welcome to Elliott Carter as our newest Honorary Member.

John de Clef Piñeiro
NYCC Executive Director

In The Loop | Jun 6, 2008

The NYCC 2007-08 Season comes to a close tomorrow evening, Saturday, as we present our annual year-end concert at Saint Peters Church at the Citigroup Center, 619 Lexington Avenue at 54th Street.  We'll be hearing the musical talents of over 15 different performers, playing the works of ROGER BLANC, TAMARA CASHOUR, MARGARET FAIRLIE-KENNEDY, JACOB E. GOODMAN, KEVIN MCCARTER, NATALIYA MEDVEDOVSKAYA, GAYTHER MYERS, and CESAR VUKSIC. Looks like there will be something for everyone! The concert starts at 8pm and the suggested donation is $15; A reception will follow! 

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RICHARD BROOKS writes that his Third String Quartet was presented yesterday at the Symphony Space Thalia during the Annual American Composers Alliance Festival. Also, next week will afford six chances to see the Golden Fleece Ltd. production of his new opera, "Robert and Hal." This is being presented of the Composers Chamber Theatre under the auspices of the 16th Annual Commissioned operas. In addition to Richard's opera, the opening scene of "Antigone" by Lou Rodgers will be staged. Musical Direction is by Thomas Carlo Bo, Stage Direction by Lou Rodgers. The dates are June 12 & 13 at 8 pm, June 14 at 4 pm and 8 pm, and June 15 at  3 pm and 7 pm. General admission: $20; Students & Seniors: $15. The venue is the Sanford Meisner Theatre, 164 11th Avenue, (between 22nd and 23rd Streets). Reservations and more information available at (212) 691-6105.

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Apologies for CESAR VUKSIC for getting this out so late, but he writes: My piece "Queens Rhapsody" is being perform one more time. This time at the same place it was premiered 2 years ago: the "Kew Gardens Community Center" at 80-02 Kew Gardens Road, Suite 202. Friday, June 6th at 1pm. This is a few steps from the intersection of Queens Boulevard and Union Turnpike and also a few steps from the F and E Express at the Union Turnpike Station." Cesar also notes that the Community Center received a Grant for a Series of Concerts, and happily have invited Cesar and his performers again. Performers include NYCC's Performer Members STEPHEN SOLOOK (percussion) and HAIM AVITSUR (trombone), with Cesar on piano.

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Soprano PATRICIA SONEGO will give the world premiere of "In Darkness" for soprano and computer. Composed for the singer by award-winning composer John Melby, this beautiful and complex 18 minute "symphony" is "a setting in one uninterrupted movement for soprano and computer-synthesized sounds of three poems by the American "imagist" poet Amy Lawrence Lowell (1874-1925): At Night, New York at Night, and In Darkness, which all deal with very different images of night. The work was composed in 2007 for Patricia. Presented by the ACA Festival of American Music 2008 at the Thalia Theater, Symphony Space, 95th St. & Broadway. Tickets are $15 General Admission, $5 Students, and there is also a $50 Festival Pass (5 Events). See http://www.symphonyspace.org/series/126  or call: (212) 864-5400. For more information visit http://www.PatriciaSonego.com.

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EUGENE MARLOW, NYCC's Director, Media Relations Membership Coordinator, wishes to announce the recent launch of a new service out of his company MEII Enterprises. It's called Bio-Write. The purpose of Bio-Write is provide people specifically in the fine and performing arts (whether in the early part of their career or well-established professionals) with strategically effective biographies for a variety of purposes, among them web sites, concert and exhibit programs, CD tray cards, and teaching grant applications. To find out more about this service go to www.bio-write.info.