Luna Pearl Woolf

Médium large avec Catherine Perrin | Collectif9: donner une couleur plus rock à la musique classique

By: Catherine Perrin 4 juin, 2018

Le groupe collectif9 joue devant un public.

En utilisant une approche hors de l’ordinaire, le groupe collectif9 souhaite rendre plus accessible la musique classique et contemporaine, parfois méconnue du grand public et peu accessible. Par exemple, les membres du groupe utilisent la mise en scène et l’éclairage, et jouent debout devant leur public. Catherine Perrin rencontre trois membres du groupe, qui présentera, le 9 juin à l’Usine C, à Montréal, le spectacle Quelque part, mon jardin, en compagnie d’Architek Percussion.

Listen to the full broadcast on the CBC

Ludwig van Montréal: Review | A cello concerto by Schubert? Believe it.

By Arthur Kaptainis 25 mai, 2018

Matt Haimovitz (Credit: Brent Callis)

Chamber orchestras have long relied on transcriptions to shore up their limited repertory. Jean-Marie Zeitouni and I Musici de Montréal brought their season to a close on Thursday in Bourgie Hall with a program dominated by such works.

Including, it must be said, a real novelty: Schubert’s “Arpeggione” Sonata. Fans of chamber music will recognize this as the one and only composition of merit for the dodo-like instrument of the title, which became extinct not long after its invention in 1823.

Could the piece work as a concerto for cello and strings? It could and did in a version created by Luna Pearl Woolf for her husband Matt Haimovitz, who was the featured soloist of the evening. Through judicious use of mutes in the Adagio and pizzicato in the finale, Woolf fashioned a string accompaniment that was both faithful to the piano original and idiomatic on its own account.

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The Suburban: Cellist Matt Haimovitz guests with I Musici de Montréal May 24

By The Suburban May 22, 2018

Cellist Matt Haimovitz joins I Musici de Montréal and conductor Jean-Marie Zeitouni for works by Schubert and Ernst Bloch, on Thursday, May 24 at 8 pm at Salle Bourgie.

The Grammy-nominated cellist is acclaimed for his visionary approach, ground-breaking collaborations and innovative recording projects, which he combines with a tireless touring schedule, and with mentoring an award-winning studio at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University.

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LUNA PEARL WOOLF ON THE JURY FOR THE PRIX 3 FEMMES

May 18, 2018

Montreal-based Musique 3 Femmes is uncovering the Next Wave of female talent in opera creation in Canada! Our first project? The new Prix 3 Femmes: prizes for operas by teams of women composers and librettists!

Musique 3 Femmes is dedicated to identifying and supporting the work of emerging female leaders in Classical music. Based in Montreal, it was created in 2018 by pianist/coach Jennifer Szeto, soprano Suzanne Rigden, mezzo-soprano Kristin Hoff.

Our first initiative, the Prix 3 Femmes, addresses the need for better representation of women’s voices in opera creation and direction. It involves cash awards and invaluable opportunity for teams of emerging female composers and female librettists, including a workshop and presentation hosted by Opera McGill (Sept 2018) with participation from other organizations, as well as subsequent performances of these works in Toronto (March 2019).

Our 2018 jury panel includes:

Michael Mori (Artistic Director of Tapestry Opera, Toronto)
Composer Luna Pearl Woolf (Montreal)
Matthias Maute (Artistic Director of Ensemble Caprice, Montreal)

Musique 3 Femmes’ IGG Campaign

The Mercury News: Lieder Alive! adds new songs to an old tradition

By Georgia Rowe January 10, 2018

LIEDER ALIVE! Mezzo-soprano Kindra Scarich will be part of a Lieder Alive! concert that pairs old works from the standard repertoire to new vocal compositions.

Lieder — the revered song tradition closely associated with the Romantic era — isn’t fixed in the past. It’s still evolving, and Lieder Alive! is helping to keep it that way.

This weekend, the San Francisco organization launches its 2018 offerings with a “Neue und Alte” (new and old) Liederfest. The concert presents well-known works from the song repertoire by Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann and others, “in dialogue with” new works by contemporary composers Mark Carlson, Kurt Erickson and Luna Pearl Woolf.

The featured singers include soprano Heidi Moss Erickson and mezzo-soprano Kindra Scharich; pianists Kurt Erickson and Ronny Michael Greenberg are the program’s accompanists.

Details: 5 p.m. Jan. 14; Noe Valley Ministry, San Francisco; $35 advance, $40 at the door; $75 premium reserved seats; 415-561-0100; http://www.liederalive.org.

Read it at The Mercury News

New York Times: When Musicians Get Up and Move

By CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM JULY 28, 2017

…If opera singers are expected to move about the stage and interact with other performers, Ms. Woolf argued, so could string players. “When we hear a musical phrase, we hear a statement of language,” she said. “We all are in the business of emotional storytelling — with everything we have.”…

A Victorian dictum, now out of fashion, states that children should be seen, not heard. The opposite might be said of the 19th-century concert setup: Players were to be heard, not seen — or at least not draw attention to themselves.

But that view is changing as well. Continue reading “New York Times: When Musicians Get Up and Move” →

Calgary Herald: New Music review: Evelyn Glennie and Land’s End Ensemble provide spectacular evening of six premieres at the Bella

By STEPHAN BONFIELD

May 31, 2017

…perhaps best summarized as an opera aria for cello, entangling a dramatic theatricality and an erotic intimacy between instrument and performer(s). — a striking image about music and our acoustical relationship to it through the innateness of deeply felt rhythmic vibration, elucidating our permanent entanglements with such deeply intimate musical experiences…

This past Friday night was a truly special one for Calgary’s new music community and a milestone for the city’s arts community as a whole. Land’s End Ensemble hosted internationally-renowned percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie its 20th Anniversary Celebration at the Bella Concert Hall, Mount Royal University, in a wrap-up recital of epic proportions capping off the new hall’s exciting début series.

The sold-out concert was the month’s hottest ticket in town, featuring percussion-themed premieres of no less than six new compositions specially written for Glennie by Allan Gordon Bell, Luna Pearl Woolf, Omar Daniel, Derek Charke and Vincent Ho, the ensemble’s artistic director and concert curator.

Continue reading “Calgary Herald: New Music review: Evelyn Glennie and Land’s End Ensemble provide spectacular evening of six premieres at the Bella” →

Superconductor: Concert Review: Let Me Drown. Novus NY plays Become Ocean.

Friday, May 19, 2017

by Paul J. Pelkonen

…The concert opened with After the Wave by Ms, Woolf. It started with a lone, faraway trumpet, answered from a seemingly great distance by oboe and English horn, that most desolate sounding of wind instruments…Swelling surges of strings and brass crashed and broke on the senses, at turns meditative and anguished, moaning of irredeemable loss…

The composer John Luther Adams who won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Become Ocean.

St. Paul’s Chapel, located in the long shadow of the World Trade Center is one of the oldest and most historic churches in New York. On Thursday afternoon, the last matinee concert of the annual music series sponsored by Trinity Church featured another historic occasion: the second New York pperformance of Become Ocean, the 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning composition by John Luther Adams. This concert, featuring contemporary orchestra Novus NY under the baton of Trinity Church maestro Julian Wachner, paired Mr. Adams’ creation with works by contemporary composers Luna Pearl Woolf and Jessica Meyer. All three composers were in attendance. Continue reading “Superconductor: Concert Review: Let Me Drown. Novus NY plays Become Ocean.” →

New York Music Daily: Vast, Intricate, Awe-Inspiring Oceans of Sound Downtown

May 19, 2017

…From the first few stark, distantly enigmatic notes of Luna Pearl Woolf’s After the Wave, …it was clear that Julian Wachner’s fearlessly eclectic ensemble had come to deliver a message…a flood of low tonalities and bracing close harmonies as haunting as anything in Adams’ work…

What’s the likelihood that the two opening works on a program featuring John Luther Adams’ Become Ocean would hold their own alongside that epically enveloping, meticulously churning, playfully palindromic masterpiece? It happened yesterday at St. Paul’s Chapel downtown, where Novus NY delivered a mighty coda to this season’s program of music on themes of water justice, staged by Trinity Church.

The pervasive cynicism that still exists at corporate rock concerts has roots in the classical world: “Let’s warm up the crowd with something short and random and then get down to business.” From the first few stark, distantly enigmatic notes of Luna Pearl Woolf’s After the Wave, a portrait of the 2004 Indonesian tsunami and its aftermath, it was clear that Julian Wachner’s fearlessly eclectic ensemble had come to deliver a message. With just the hint of foreshadowing, the methodical pulse of daily routine gave way to a flood of low tonalities and bracing close harmonies as haunting as anything in Adams’ work. From there the orchestra made their way through an unexpectedly triumphant latin-tinged fanfare of sorts, up to a conclusion that signaled triumph and recovery over an ocean of devastation. Continue reading “New York Music Daily: Vast, Intricate, Awe-Inspiring Oceans of Sound Downtown” →

NOVUS NY performance: After the Wave

NOVUS NY Ensemble will feature their fantastic performance of After the Wave from the Sunken Cathedral series on their website.

From the New York Times Classical Music in NYC listings:

NOVUS NY at St. Paul’s Chapel (May 18, 1 p.m.). If your John Luther Adams cravings are not fulfilled by the Crossing’s concert on Friday and Alarm Will Sound’s on Sunday, here’s a free lunchtime opportunity to hear “Become Ocean,” his symphonic masterpiece of tone painting, compositional process and ecological awareness, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014. Alongside it, Julian Wachner conducts a premiere from Jessica Meyer and Luna Pearl Woolf’s “After the Wave.”

212-602-0800, trinitywallstreet.org