Southwest Chamber Music

Press Release 

Los Angeles, CA - SOUTHWEST CHAMBER MUSIC celebrates its 25th anniversary in the upcoming 2011-2012 season. Highlights of the 25th anniversary season include the world premiere of Ten Freedom Summers by Wadada Leo Smith, a three-part cycle inspired by the main events and figures of the Civil Rights Movement. Blending Southwest's ensemble with Smith's Golden Quartet, Ten Freedom Summers will be premiered over three evenings at REDCAT in the Walt Disney Concert Hall Complex on October 28-30, 2011. 

 Concert Information and Listing 

Southwest Chamber Music 2011-2012 25th Anniversary Season

Tickets: $38 general admission, $28 seniors over 65, and $10 students with full-time ID

For tickets or information: 1.800.726.7147 or www.swmusic.org  

Wadada Leo Smith

Ten Freedom Summers

REDCAT in the Walt Disney Concert Hall Complex

Friday, October 28 at 8:30 p.m.

Wadada Leo Smith   Ten Freedom Summers, Part One

Wadada Leo Smith   Ten Freedom Summers, Part Two

Sunday, October 30 at 7 p.m.

Wadada Leo Smith   Ten Freedom Summers, Part Three

CAGE 2012 

Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles

Saturday, March 3 at 8 p.m.

Sunday, March 4 at 5 p.m.

John Cage                              One-6

John Cage                              One-10

(Both works feature audio-kinetic sound sculptures by Mineko Grimmer)

John Cage

Art Center College of Design, Pasadena 

Saturday, March 10 at 8 p.m. 

John Cage                              Nirvana - Atlas Eclipticalis 

                                               Samsara - Variations IV

                                               Individual Action - 0'00"

Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena

Sunday, March 11 at 5 p.m.

John Cage                              Program to include Score (40 Drawings by                                                 Thoreau with parts to be determined and 12                                               Haiku followed by a recording of the dawn at                                               Stony Brook, New York, August 6, 1974)

The Colburn School, Los Angeles

                                 Saturday, March 24 at 8 p.m.

                                 John Cage                              Program to include Lecture on the Weather

NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL

The Colburn School, Los Angeles

May 9-24, 2012       Dates and programs will be announced in January, 2012

Programs will include world premieres of commissioned works by:

Charles Wuorinen (It Happens Like This), Unsuk Chin (Homage to Gyorgy Ligeti), Anne LeBaron, Vu Nhat Tan (The Song of Napalm), Hyo-shin Na (Morning Study), Gabriela Ortiz (De animos y quebrantos) and others to be announced.

Commissions for the 25th Anniversary of Southwest Chamber Music are supported by the                     James Irvine Foundation, Meet the Composer, Sue Bienkowski and Wang Chung                   Lee, and the Schoenberg Family Charitable Foundation.

 L to R: Vu Nhat Tan, Unsuk Chin, Charles Wuorinen, Anne LeBaron, Hyo-shin Na, Gabriela Ortiz

Ten Freedom Summers is a three-evening musical composition by Wadada Leo Smith, which will be performed by Smith's dynamic Golden Quartet, joined by Southwest Chamber Music, and conducted by Grammy Award-winner Jeff von der Schmidt. This large multimovement work is inspired by the activity of the civil rights movement from 1954-1964. The composition is in suite form and reflects the spiritual condition and attitude surrounding many incidents that changed American social history. 

The music of Ten Freedom Summers is a psychological interpretation of the events pertinent to the struggle for civil rights, not a pictorial or cinematic treatment that musically describes each event or situation. The trajectory of the three-concert experience is: Part One-America Part 1 & Part 2, Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party 1964, Rosa Parks, and The Freedom Riders Ride; Part Two-Dred Scott 1857, Democracy, Buzzsaw: The Myth of the Free Press, September 11, 2001, and People of the Shahada; Part Three-Brown v. Board of Education 1954, Little Rock Nine 1957, Freedom Summer 1964, LBJ Civil Rights Act 1964, and Martin Luther King, Jr.-Memphis Prophecy and Assassination. 

Ten Freedom Summers was commissioned by the MAP Fund, James Irvine Foundation, and the Clarence E. Heller Charitable Foundations. Chamber Music America and the Doris Duke Foundation commissioned "America" for the Golden Quartet, which inspires the opening of Ten Freedom Summers.   

CAGE 2012: March 2012

Southwest is proud to continue the most significant national celebration of the centennial of John Cage, who was born in Los Angeles (at Good Samaritan Hospital) on September 12, 1912. These concerts will begin at the Japanese American National Museum with a not-to-be-missed revival that includes two audio kinetic sculptures designed by artist Mineko Grimmer to accompany Cage's solo violin works One 6 and One 10, performed by violinist Shalini Vijayan. 

At Art Center College of Design we will perform for the first time a cycle of three works Cage intended to be heard together: Atlas Eclipticalis, Variations IV and 0'00", representing the Hindu states of Nirvana, Samsara, and Individual Action. The next Cage 2012 concert takes place at the Pacific Asia Museum where Cage spoke during the era of the Encounters series at the old Pasadena Art Museum. His Score (40 drawings by Thoreau plus 12 Haiku followed by a recording of the dawn of August 6, 1974) will be included on the concert.  

The series will conclude at the Colburn School with a program including another Cage magnum opus inspired by Henry David Thoreau, Lecture on the Weather. The piece consists of readings from Thoreau's works by 12 speakers (preferably 12 Americans who have become Canadian citizens), accompanied by the sounds of a gathering storm.

NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL: May 2012

Between May 9 and May 24, Southwest will present a dazzling series of commissions celebrating the ensemble's international reputation. The complete schedule for the New Music Festival will be announced in January 2012. Already confirmed are commissioned works by Unsuk Chin, Anne Le Baron, Hyo-shin Na, Lei Liang, Kurt Rohde, Tôn Thât Tiêt, Charles Wuorinen, and Vu Nhat Tan. 

Highlights include It Happens Like This by Charles Wuorinen, co-commissioned with the Tanglewood Music Center of the Boston Symphony and dedicated to James Levine. Wuorinen's next major work is the highly anticipated opera, Brokeback Mountain, which will be premiered in Madrid in 2014. Unsuk Chin's Homage to Gyorgy Ligeti captures her reflections on her imposing mentor and his lasting musical influence, and is a co-commission with the Nieuw Ensemble of Amsterdam and the Witten Festival in Germany. 

Vu Nhat Tan will return to Los Angeles, supported by the Asian Cultural Council in New York City, following his successful appearances during Southwest's Ascending Dragon Music Festival of 2010. Working with American poet Bruce Weigl, Tan's The Song of Napalm is a break-out piece for the up and coming Vietnamese composer. Lei Liang contributes his new Falling Blossoms to the festival and San Francisco- via-Seoul composer Hyo-shin Na offers her ravishing Morning Study, inspired by the time of day many creators find most conducive to thoughts and ideas. 

Gabriela Ortiz will join us from Mexico City for her De animos y quebrantos, while Anne Le Baron is planning a ruminative Viennese-haunted monodrama. Paris-based Vietnamese master Tôn Thât Tiêt plans a new work for string quartet. Kurt Rohde has received a Meet the Composer grant for a new work still under construction. More composers will be announced in January 2012.