2013 LA INTERNATIONAL NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL January 26, February 2, February 23, March 2
4 Saturday Evenings at The Colburn School 5 commissions / 15 compositions 3 world premieres / 3 US premieres / and 4 West Coast Premieres Southwest Chamber Music continues LA International Festival with composers and music from Japan, China, South Korea, Germany, Great Britain Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela and the United States World Premieres from Roger Reynolds, Anne LeBaron, Lei Liang West Coast Premieres by Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage Members of the Nieuw Ensemble, Amsterdam, perform in premieres of Unsuk Chin, Elliott Carter and Adina Izarra  Los Angeles - Two-time Grammy® Award-winning Southwest Chamber Music announces the 2013 Los Angeles International New Music Festival (LAINMF) taking place January 26, February 2, February 23, and March 2, 2013 at 8:00 p.m. at The Colburn School. The festival was inaugurated in May of 2012 and celebrated the ensemble's 25th anniversary season. Each LAINMF concert will be preceded at 7:00 p.m. by a discussion with visiting composers and musicians moderated by legendary radio personality Martin Perlich and Southwest Artistic Director Jeff von der Schmidt.
Composers featured during the 2013 LAINMF include Lei Liang, Unsuk Chin, Toru Takemitsu, Charles Wuorinen, Roger Reynolds, Anne LeBaron, Elliott Carter, Gabriela Ortiz, Adina Izarra, Alberto Ginastera, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage. The Festival presents 15 works including 3 world premieres, 3 U.S. premieres and 4 Los Angeles or West Coast premieres. Southwest commissioned five of these new works: It Happens Like This by Charles Wuorinen (co-commisioned with the Tanglewood Music Center of the Boston Symphony); Some Things Do Not Move by Anne LeBaron; Positings by Roger Reynolds; Unsuk Chin's Cosmigimmicks (co-commissioned with the Nieuw Ensemble Amsterdam and the Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik); and Lei Liang's Listening to Blossoms (co-commis-sioned with the Cicada Players, who are led by members of the New York Philharmonic). Artistic Director Jeff von der Schmidt reflects, "With each passing season, LA continues to become THE place on the map, and the LAINMF is part of the process in shifting attention to the West Coast. I had been searching for a way to integrate Southwest experiences from Vienna to Vietnam, Phnom Penh to Washington D.C., Angkor Wat to UNAM in Mexico City, all connected by the reputation resulting from two Grammy Awards and seven nominations, three from the Latin Academy. Over time our group biography has come to reflect the community of Los Angeles in all its complexity, a civic responsibility our colleagues on the East Coast or in Europe do not embrace. Having completed the successful launch of the festival in May of 2012, I'm looking forward to creating a place where a lot of important ideas in music come together for our audiences here in Los Angeles." In addition to 5 Southwest commissions anchoring the LAINMF, other highlights include a trio of vocal works from Central and South American composers: Gabriela Ortiz from Mexico, Adina Izarra from Venezuela and a revival of a challenging work by Argentinean master Alberto Ginastera. Ortiz's Elegia for four sopranos and ensemble is a setting of the Kyrie from the Latin Mass, inspired as a response to the death of the composer's mother. From Caracas, Adina Izarra will be featured with her Oratorio Profano, a cantata inspired by the work of Venezuelan visual artist Felipe Herrera with texts by Fernando Fernández. The soloists for this important U.S. premiere will be mezzo soprano Laura Mercado Wright and baritone Abdiel Gonzalez. To conclude this triptych of Latin composers, the poems of Pablo Neruda inspire an extremely audacious work by Alberto Ginastera of Argentina, the haunting Serenata, sung by Abdiel Gonzalez. Mexican master Carlos Chávez' Invención III will introduce the Ginastera. "I believe that we're at a unique position in time," continues von der Schmidt. "There is honestly so much important music from the 20th century that rarely penetrates standard programming that I'm consequently not obsessed with a singular focus on recent work from young composers. New music shouldn't be age discriminatory - it's important to me to balance continuity and change while remaining on the cutting edge of new music." Underscoring this situation, LAINMF will offer the West Coast premiere of Elliott Carter's Luimen in celebration of the composer's 104th birthday. Two works by Britain's Peter Maxwell Davies will illuminate his interest in the past and his innovative work in the present as the festival combines his recent Lux in Tenebris with a Davies reworking of John Dowland's Farewell a Fancye. The festival will open with Bryce, a mysterious work from Japan's Toru Takemitsu. On Saturday February 23 the LAINMF will present two major West Coast Premieres from two titan composers, Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage. Plans include Nebadon, a work from Stockhausen's KLANG cycle, which is a monumental series of works celebrating the hours of the day. Andrew Pelletier will be the solo horn. In collaboration with the John Cage Trust, a performance of Cage's Muoyce II: Writing Through "Ulysses," will feature one of his last major works, inspired by James Joyce's epic novel. This 1992 work will celebrate Cage's centennial season and continue Southwest's Cage 2012 series. The speaker for Muoyce II is Southwest Artistic Director Jeff von der Schmidt. Guest artists include Helenus de Rijke, guitar, and Hans Wesseling, mandolin, from the Nieuw Ensemble in Amsterdam; Andrew Pelletier, horn; vocalists Elissa Johnston, Sharon Harms and Ayana Haviv, sopranos, Laura Wright Mercado, mezzo soprano, Steven Brennfleck, tenor, Abdiel Gonzalez, baritone and Douglas Williams, bass. For interviews or photos, please contact Heidi Lesemann at (626)685-4455 or heidi@swmusic.org. | 
