21C Artists to Watch news: Joshua Roman, Dan Visconti & Edwin Outwater

This spring, Joshua Roman gives world premiere performances of his own solo cello composition and of a new concerto by Pulitzer Prize-winner Aaron Jay Kernis, besides making his New World Symphony debut. Composer Dan Visconti, whose first full-length CD was just named “Album of the Week” by WQXR’s Q2, looks forward to the world premiere of an important new commission at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Edwin Outwater, music director of Canada’s Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, champions two contemporary works, leading the orchestra in Cameron Carpenter’s organ concerto, Scandal, and reprising Sarah Kirkland Snider’s hit song cycle, Penelope, with the Indianapolis Symphony.
 
Cellist Joshua Roman: two world premieres and an important debut
On March 11, Joshua Roman – recognized as “a cellist of extraordinary technical and musical gifts” by the San Francisco Chronicle – gives the first performance of a new work commissioned from him by San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral as the centerpiece of a solo cello program on which he also plays works by J.S. Bach and Gabriela Lena Frank. With an accompanying installation by renowned visual artist Anne Patterson, the program – titled “Seeing the Voice: A Synthesis of Light, Color, and Music” – turns to good use the concert’s unique physical and acoustical cathedral setting.
 
Roman’s next collaboration is with the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra of Columbus, Ohio, where he gives the world premiere of Dream Songs, a new cello concerto by Aaron Jay Kernis, the youngest composer to win the Pulitzer Prize (1988) and moreover the youngest to win the Grawemeyer Award (2002). The April 20 concert also presents the cellist’s acclaimed rendition of Tchaikovsky’s “Rococo Variations.”
 
For his eagerly anticipated debut with Miami’s New World Symphony on March 30, Roman plays Matthias Pintscher’s cello concerto, Reflections on Narcissus (2005), with the composer on the podium. Roman has previously performed the concerto with both the BBC Scottish Symphony and Mariinsky Orchestra.
 
For more information, visit JoshuaRoman.com
 
Composer Dan Visconti: Q2’s “Album of Week” and world premiere at Carnegie Hall
Composer Dan Visconti’s first full-length CD, Lonesome Roads, has just been named “Album of the Week” by Q2, WQXR’s dedicated new-music stream. In its accompanying review, Q2 calls the recording “deeply enjoyable,” observing of the title track:
 
“Lonesome Roads gives the oft-separated styles of modernism and folk-form a reason to hang together – as though they’re on something of a cross-country road-trip. In Visconti’s telling, the two get along famously. And it’s easy to want to join up for the ride.”
 
The new disc is available from Bridge Records, with performances by the Horszowski Trio and the Scharoun Ensemble Berlin. Composed entirely of members of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Scharoun Ensemble is directed by Michael Hasel.
 
April 5 brings the world premiere of an important new Visconti commission at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall. A multimedia work created in collaboration with experimental video artist Simon Tarr, Glitchscape (2013) juxtaposes live orchestral sounds with those of obsolete analog technology. As the composer explains, “This new work will create a unique texture through reimaging familiar, nearly-forgotten sounds: an exploration of the expressive power of obsolescence.”
 
For more information, visit DanVisconti.com.
 
Conductor Edwin Outwater pioneers Scandal (2011) and Penelope (2010)
Now in his sixth season as music director of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Edwin Outwater “guides dexterous performances by musicians who play the music like they own it” (NPR). Following their 2013-14 season announcement, Outwater looks forward to leading the orchestra in collaboration with Cameron Carpenter, at home (April 5 & 6) and in Toronto (April 7). Carpenter, the organist whose “flamboyant presentation goes hand in hand with unquestioned virtuosity” (New York Times), will join the orchestra as soloist in his own concerto, Scandal.
 
On March 9, Outwater guest conducts the Indianapolis Symphony in a program built around Sarah Kirkland Snider’s seminal song cycle, Penelope, starring vocalist Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond. Inspired by Homer’s epic Odyssey, Penelope blends art song, indie rock, and folk. When Outwater led an account of the cycle with Worden and the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, the Ontario Arts Review pronounced the results “mesmerizing from beginning to end.” His Indianapolis concert will also present music by post-rock artist and composer Son Lux.
 
For more information, visit EdwinOutwater.com
 
Joshua Roman, Dan Visconti, and Edwin Outwater: upcoming engagements
March 1: Dan Visconti
Carbondale, CO
Performing Arts Center at Third (PAC3)
Visconti: Black Bend
Sybarite5
 
March 1-3: Dan Visconti
Berkeley, CA
David Brower Center
Visconti: Wear Flowers in Your Hair
Volti
 
March 1 & 2: Edwin Outwater
Miami Beach, FL
New World Center
Gershwin: An American in Paris
Ravel: Piano Concerto in G (with Simone Dinnerstein)
Bernstein: Prelude, Fugue and Riffs
New World Symphony
 
March 2: Dan Visconti
Lakewood, CO
Lakewood Cultural Center
Visconti: Black Bend
Sybarite5
 
March 4: Dan Visconti
Salt Lake City, UT
Salt Lake Community College
Visconti: Black Bend
Sybarite5
 
March 9: Edwin Outwater
Indianapolis, IN
Symphony Centre
Son Lux: Songs; Excerpts from Like Lazarus Did (with Son Lux)
Sarah Kirkland Snider: Penelope (with Shara Worden)
Indianapolis Symphony
 
March 11: Joshua Roman
San Francisco, CA
Grace Cathedral
Gabriela Lena Frank: Suite Peruana
Joshua Roman: TBA (world premiere of Grace Cathedral commission)
J. S. Bach: Cello Suite No. 4 in E-flat, BWV 1010
 
March 18: Joshua Roman
Washington, D.C.
Gaston Hall, Georgetown University
On Grace (with Anna Deavere Smith)
 
March 19: Joshua Roman
New York, NY
The Stone
Gabriela Lena Frank: Suite Peruana
George Crumb: Sonata for Solo Cello
Joshua Roman: TBA (NY premiere of Grace Cathedral commission)
György Ligeti: Sonata for Solo Cello
 
March 20: Joshua Roman
New York, NY
Park Avenue Christian Church
J.S. Bach: Suites for Unaccompanied Cello
   Nos. 1 in G (BWV 1007), 2 in D minor (BWV 1008), and 4 in E-flat (BWV 1010)
 
March 23: Joshua Ronan
Frankfort, IL
Lincoln-Way North Performing Arts Center
Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat (Op. 107)
Illinois Philharmonic / David Danzmayr
 
March 26: Joshua Roman
New York, NY
The Stone
“Chamber Rock”
Charles Krenner: String Quartet
Evan Hause: Tiki alla Turca
Jeff Myers: Prelude and Mutation
Matt Marks: High Fructose
Stefan Freund: RockBand
With Yuki Numata, violin; Bill Kalinkos, clarinet, and Dennis Sullivan, drum kit/percussion
 
March 29 & 30: Edwin Outwater
Kitchener, ON Canada
Intersections series
“Barely Naked”: An Evening with the Brothers Creeggan
Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony
 
March 30: Joshua Roman
Miami Beach, FL
New World Center
Pintscher: Reflections on Narcissus
New World Symphony / Matthias Pintscher
 
April 5: Dan Visconti
New York, NY
Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall
Visconti: Glitchscape (world premiere)
American Composers Orchestra / George Manahan
 
April 5 & 6: Joshua Roman
Birmingham, AL
Alys Robinson Stephens Performing Arts Center
Dvorák: Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104
Alabama Symphony / Alasdair Neale
 
April 5, 6 & 7: Edwin Outwater
Kitchener, ON Canada
J.S. Bach/Webern: Ricercar
J.S. Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D minor
Copland: Music for the Theatre
Cameron Carpenter: The Scandal
With Cameron Carpenter, organ
Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony
 
April 14: Dan Visconti
East Meadow, NY
East Meadow Public Library
Visconti: Black Bend
Sybarite5
 
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© 21C Media Group, March 2013