Many thanks to Kari and the Irritable Hedgehog family for all of the work that they put into this recording. It sounds simply amazing!

Four Songs from The Caucasian Chalk Circle (mezzo-soprano and electronics)

WSU Festival of Contemporary Art Music – Faculty Composers Concert
Thursday, February 2, 8pm
Bryan Hall Theatre at Washington State University, Pullman, WA
Sheila Converse, mezzo-soprano; Scott Blasco, electronics

Free

More information: http://libarts.wsu.edu/artmusic/ (not yet updated)

Queen of Heaven (piano and electronics)

WSU Festival of Contemporary Art Music – Electroacoustic Music Concert
Friday, February 3, 3:00pm
Kimbrough Concert Hall at Washington State University, Pullman, WA
Kari Johnson, piano; Scott Blasco, electronics

Free

Press release HERE
More information: http://libarts.wsu.edu/artmusic/

Queen of Heaven (piano and electronics)

Montana State University – Guest Artist Recital
Sunday, February 5, 7:30pm
Reynolds Recital Hall at Montana State University, Bozeman, MT
Kari Johnson, piano; TBA, electronics

$10 general / $5 students

Press release HERE
More information: http://www.montana.edu/wwwmusic/concerts/

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RECENT PERFORMANCES

DECEMBER 2011

Queen of Heaven (piano and electronics)

Kari Johnson Doctoral Piano Recital
Sunday, December 4, 2:30pm
James White Recital Hall at University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO
Kari Johnson, piano; Richard Johnson, electronics

Free

More information: UMKC Conservatory Performances

Kari is, of course, the pianist who both commissioned and premiered the work, so it is fantastic that she will be able to make the first recording of it as well. She has a recording of the premiere performance posted (at least for the moment) on her SoundCloud page here, if you’d like to hear more than the two movements I’ve posted on my own. It was a very demanding piece to write, and very rewarding as it came together, and Kari has been completely wonderful to work with throughout the whole process.

Details forthcoming, but you can watch Irritable Hedgehog’s Twitter and Facebook pages for updates on this and other great projects. Seems they always have something interesting up their prickly sleeves…

$10, students $5

More information:
http://www.kcema.net/

Location:
Unity Temple on the Plaza
707 West 47th Street
Kansas City, Missouri
http://www.unitytemple.com

Program note:
The Blessed Virgin Mary has been an object of devotion and a source of comfort and inspiration to Christians from the earliest years of their history. Throughout this time, many artists and musicians have dedicated their efforts to her reverence, adding their voices to the generations who have ever called her “blessed.”

Each of the five movements of Queen of Heaven is in a sense conceived as an icon: each concerns itself with a single idea, turning it over and over, meditating on it from different angles. The first movement, “Hail, Holy Queen,” imagines the greeting of the Virgin by the hosts of angels, in enormous, sonorous and terrifying voices like immense chimes. The second and fourth movements each take their inspiration from titles for Mary: “Full-of-Grace” from kecharitomene, the Greek word of greeting spoken by the Archangel Gabriel in Luke 1:28; and “The-One-Who-Gives-Birth-To-God” from Theotokos, an ancient Mariological title used in liturgical contexts. These two are divided by “The Unburnt Bush,” based on an icon of the same title that connects the Virgin and the burning bush of Exodus, as expressed in the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom: “Let us honor the Pure Theotokos! She accepted the Fire of Divinity in her womb but was not consumed!” The fifth and final movement returns to the heavenly setting of the first, now drawing its imagery from Revelation 12: “And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.”

More information:
EMCC website and KCMETROPOLIS

Location:
UMKC Student Union
5100 Cherry Street
Kansas City, Missouri 64110
816.235.1411

Program note:
“Yard Pears is a collaboratively composed structured improvisation for bass clarinet, electronics, and amplified pears from the backyard of a friend’s former neighbor. Brad and Scott have both been offered these pears in the past, which Scott ate and Brad gave away. Given that yard’s inaccessibility, the grocery store has provided our fruit instruments for tonight’s performance. The work itself explores gestural and timbral transformations at the nexus of live bass clarinet, live processing and sampling, and the amplification and abuse of fruit.”

More information:
http://locrian.org

Location:
490 Riverside Drive
New York, New York 10027
212-870-6700