Composer Sean Hickey and pianist Vladimir Rumyantsev present Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind in demonstration and performance as part of the Mannes Sounds Festival in New York.

The brilliant Vladimir Rumyantsev gives the Midwest premiere of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, for the piano. This marks the first festival performance of Access Contemporary Music’s new venue on Chicago’s North Side.

West Coast premiere of the solo clarinet work, B-flat. San Francisco’s Forte House is the setting.

Violist Michael Hall and piano Kathleen Supove give the New York premiere of my Viola Sonata “Jefferson Chalmers”

New York’s Century Club is the location for the premiere of The Doves of Ma’agan, for baritone and piano, with text by poet Owen Lewis

Violist Matt Cohen and pianist Zhenni Li-Cohen give the Midwest premiere of Let Every Dawn, commissioned by the duo in 2023

https://cedarhurst.org/events/li-cohen-duo/

Pianist Carolyn Enger continues her tour of her celebrated release, Resonating Earth, at Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton, NY. The Birds of Barclay Street, with a newly-created video by Elliot Forrest, will be played.

Pianist Carolyn Enger continues her tour of her celebrated release, Resonating Earth, at New York’s Klavierhaus. The Birds of Barclay Street, with a newly-created video by Elliot Forrest, will be played.

https://carolynenger.com/resonating-earth/

Sean Hickey appears again at the SFCM, this time speaking in a class entitled, Entertainment Law and Music Contracts, and reviewing his daily work with contract negotiation at PENTATONE.

Peabody Award-winning producer Elliott Forrest (WQXR) has created a stunning new video for Sean Hickey's “The Birds of Barclay Street” as part of Carolyn Enger's Resonating Earth program, project, and recording. Learn more about the project at https://carolynenger.com/resonatingearth Order the recording on Métier at https://listn.fm/resonatingearth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6fP3BlLs90&t=1s

Address to the students of the 2024 Philadelphia Young Pianists’ Festival on the subject of new media and entrepreneurship.

Pianist Vladimir Rumyantsev performs Cursive, the work commissioned by and premiered by Xiayin Wang. Philip Edward Fisher recorded it for Delos in 2014, on the eponymous album along with other of the composer’s piano and chamber works. The work sits alongside a program of Beethoven, Ravel and Prokofiev.

Pianist Vladimir Rumyantsev gives a special exclusive preview of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, in advance of its recording for Sono Luminus, a world premiere of the complete work. Special thanks to the folks at Klavierhaus for hosting and broadcasting the premiere.

Violist Matthew Cohen and pianist Zhenni Li-Cohen premiere their newly-commissioned work, Let Every Dawn, as part of their Opus 71 concert series. After the New York premiere, the group heads out to perform the piece in Philadelphia, Newark, Washington DC and Vancouver. The piece is inspired by a poem by Amanda Gorman.

https://www.zhennili.com/opus71concerts

The classical music “industry” is an intriguing one.  It is a complex of professionals from many different disciplines working together.  Of course, it’s the musicians who perform it and the instrument makers who manufacture and maintain the instruments those musicians perform it on.  But don’t overlook the publishers of the printed music “compositions” that make up the concert programs musicians offer, as well as the recorded music publishers whose sounds influence the performance decisions musicians make as they read the printed music notes placed on music stands in front of them.  The classical music industry is at once extremely conservative –  indeed, musicians are trained at conservatories – and daringly innovative – it was Octavio Petrucci’s reverence for yesterday’s hits that led him publish music notes printed from movable type.  So how is the classical music industry currently situated?  We hear a lot of concerns coming from professionals working inside it; about the “graying” of classical music audiences generally and, specifically, how mp3 files and music streaming have decimated recorded music profitability, on the one hand, and the Pandemic taking an unprecedented toll on live music profitability, on the other.  But we also hear about the unforeseen opportunities these “gales of creative destruction” – as the economist Joseph Schumpeter calls them – offer all those with an interest in classical music.  Waves of consolidation have created new industry models, like the one Pentatone, a classical music recording label, now operates as a part of.  Pentatone recently forged a unique partnership with two of the largest classical music management companies in the world, all three partners of which are owned by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.  Sean Hickey, Managing Director of Pentatone, is at the center of the action and he’s coming on our show to discuss all of what’s happening today and what that means for the classical music of tomorrow.  Whither, then, are you speeding, O classical music?” 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WlKiDYVlWY

In the summer of 2020, while the pandemic raged across the world, my family and I were
fortunate to spend time in the magical landscape of southern Utah, something we were able to repeat
the following year. During those times, we were able to explore some of our nation’s most notable parks
free of crowds. It was while camping deep in the red dirt wilderness of Bear’s Ears National Monument –
the only National Park lands to have decreased – that the first sketches of what would become Arroyo
Seco were birthed. The piece was completed by the end of 2021 in Interlochen, Michigan, when several
feet of snow crept up our door in a very cold winter.

I have long been fascinated how the defining feature of the Great Basin and the Southwest is
water, despite its almost complete absence. Water has shaped every feature of a vast and inscrutable
landscape, yet hardly any of it flows except during brief rains, and – in the case of the Basin – almost
none of it leaves. I was and am moved by the fact that some of the most extensive civilizations on the
continent, prior to the arrival of Europeans, flourished in these regions, at least during times when
water was slightly more plentiful. Many still do.

Not long after I got to know that man who would later edit the piece, guide me through it, and
premiere it here. That man is Matthew Cochran, our daughter’s guitar teacher and advisor, and a dear
and trusted friend to our family, not to mention an incredible guitarist. It is my honor to have him
premiere my most significant work for solo guitar here in Michigan.

Violist Dimitry Murrath premieres the Viola Sonata "Jefferson Chalmers", a work that he commissioned, at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Commissioned in 2016 and inspired by the neighborhood of the composer’s birth, this marked the premiere of the three-movement work for viola and piano.