The Luminous Ground, my new piece for chorus, string orchestra, and piano will be performed by the great Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez and Musica Viva on December 3 at 5 PM in NYC at All Souls Church, 1157 Lexington Avenue. I’m extremely excited about this performance which will also feature pieces by Joseph Turrin (performed by Fredericka Von Stade), Gilda Lyons and Samuel Barber. Tickets and more information can be found here, at the Musica Viva’s Web site.

Next week, my dear friend and multiple Grammy-winning producer Steve Epstein will be recording The Luminous Ground and the other new works for Naxos Records. Here are the program notes for my piece:

According to the great Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna, "The Luminous Ground" is that stage in a person's progress towards enlightenment when "the pacifying light of wisdom dawns" and "attachment and aversion have thoroughly ceased." It is a nearly unimaginable state of serenity, but one that is evoked, for me, by the extraordinary light sculptures of James Turrell. When Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez said that "light " was the theme of the concert for which he was kindly commissioning a new piece, it was Turrell’s work that immediately came to mind, specifically his stunningly beautiful installation at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City in 2013.

After writing (and rejecting) several extensive sketches that took a different approach, I returned to my initial impression of Turrell's art and sought to turn its contemplative nature into a slow, gradually changing soundscape that always remains still and hushed. A wordless chorus performs long, sustained, overlapping drones that interweave with the strings. The piano plays simple chords and fragments of melody that, in the final section become a soft, chiming chord whose repetitions grow farther apart.

Last year, for Valentine’s Day, I wrote a short string quartet for my wife, Amy Singer. This year, a marvelous quartet recorded the piece at NYU’s state of the art Clive Davis Recording Studios Brooklyn. It was quite a hit when I surprised Amy with the recording. (You can play the recording by pressing Play below the photo.)

Thank you to:

Sarah Fazendin, Violin

Jessica Gehring, Violin

Matthew Ryan, Viola

Ana Lei, Cello

And special thanks to Ethan Feinberg, engineer for suggesting this project and for doing such a stellar job in recording and mixing this performance

Yesterday, I reached for some scrap manuscript paper to write down some ideas for a new piece. I flipped the paper over and found myself staring at some lost notes I took at my first meeting in 1993 with the great gambaist Alice Robbins. We met to discuss gamba techniques because I was about to start composing Voices of Light. I wrote a solo and mini “gamba concerto” for her in the Pater Noster movement. I also incorporated three gambas into the Joan of Arc ensemble; they accompanied the sopranos and altos who sing excerpts from Joan’s letters. Alice is a wonderful musician and for this project she was very kind and patient with me.

Amazing how a simple piece of paper can jog so many joyous memories.

On Wednesday (April 27) at 7:30 PM Pacific at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA, Trio 180 will premiere Floe, a short trio for violin, cello, and piano they commissioned for their 20th anniversary . I heard a rehearsal last week and they played it beautifully. Here’s the link. I hope you can see and hear it!

Thanks, Ann, Sonia, and Vicky — and to 20 more years of splendid music-making!

My friend, the excellent violinist Davis Brooks will be playing my Imagined Natures, at 7:30 Eastern today (April 8). The live performance will be at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania and will be streamed over YouTube. Detailed information is available here.

My dear friend Jana in Australia first turned me on to Fatoumata Diawara. Here’s an 18 minute NPR mini-concert with a crackerjack band (that guitarist and drummer!). Just what the world needs right now…

https://www.npr.org/2022/02/03/1076174800/fatoumata-diawara-tiny-desk-home-concert

Music for another video from Eric Mendlow. This one, Memories of Thay, is dedicated to the great Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, who recently passed away, aged 95.

During the pandemic, visual artist Eric Mendlow, my friend and neighbor, has been making lovely short videos from Riverside Park, which overlooks the Hudson. He’s sent some to me and when I have time, I add some of my recent music. This one is called Traversal.

Exceptional music making from Tinariwen, Tuareg musicians northern Mali.

Premiering on New Year’s Eve was a lovely new video performance of the violin/guitar version of Pañca. The performers are from the Albany-based Musicians of Ma’alwyck: Ann-Marie Barker Schwartz on violin and Sten Isachsen on guitar. The video begins with description of the Arkell Museum in Canajoharie, New York and the provenance of one of its featured paintings, a magnificent full-scale copy of Rembrandt’s Night Watch. The performance begins at 18:15 as Ann-Marie and Sten walk through a hole in the museum wall and take their places in front of Night Watch.

Thank you, Ann-Marie, and Sten, for another compelling performance of my music!

Nice explanation of issues of sample rates and aliasing from FabFilter:

Artist Eric Mendlow creates lovely, deceptively simple videos of skyscapes in Manhattan. It inspired a simple piece for sampled string quartet:

I’ll be joining the wonderful West Coast music group Salastina on their terrific Happy Hour series tonight It is at 6pm Pacific / 7PM Mountain 8PM Central and 9 PM Eastern. It’s completely free! Here’s the link  You need to sign up beforehand.

If Salastina is new to you, they’re a group of young musicians in the LA area with an informal and charming attitude towards concert music of all stripes. They’ve hosted many fabulous performers and composers including Hilary Hahn, Susan Hellauer (Anonymous 4), and Kenji Bunch. I’ll be playing various videos of my music and discussing how/why I wrote it. 

Columbia University has a symposium on women composers at their Computer Music Center. When I was there, it was called the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. The first panel of the symposium included Alice Shields, Pril Smiley, and Daria Semegen. I didn’t study formally with any of these composers but I knew all of them back and count them among my mentors. I learned so much from all of them and was in awe of the music they composed as well as their knowledge and integrity. They were also very generous with their time to a young and very inexperienced (but passionately committed) composer. It is wonderful to see these great composers again and hear them speak. Thank you so much for organizing this!

I'm thrilled to be part of Salastina's wonderful Happy Hour series. I'll be talking and playing videos/audios of my music on April 20 from 6PM to 7PM Pacific Time (that's a 9 PM start for those on the East Coast). It's free so please join us!

I first learned of Salastina when my friend Susan Hellauer, one of the founding members of Anonymous 4, was on. Susan asked me to join her and it was a delightful experience with an enthusiastic audience. then Salastina decided to do a separate show with me scheduled for Tuesday April 20. I’ll keep you posted on repertory plans!

On March 23, 2021, the wonderful violinist Davis Brooks will be premiering Imagined Natures, an extended suite for solo violin I wrote last spring. Here is the link (the concert is virtual and free). The piece is dedicated to him. Davis and I exchanged perhaps 2 dozen extended emails about the piece while I was writing it. His attention to detail and commitment to this piece was deeply heartening. He made numerous editing suggestions for phrasing, articulations, and violin colors, each of which vastly focused my musical intent. I’m deeply grateful to Davis and am eagerly looking forward to hearing him play it!

Here’s the opening page:

As the snow fell on the first day of February, 2021, in upstate NY, I was listening to a recording I made of the great Cambodian musician Sam Ang Sam for a documentary many years ago. It somehow seemed to fit.

During this crazy time, my brilliant friend Eric Mendlow has been documenting the amazing sunsets from his apartment in Manhattan. He asked me for some music to accompany one of these videos and I gave him the opening of The Summit of La Verna, a piece for four female voices performed by another brilliant friend, Galen Brandt.

Ambient Sunset by Eric Mendlow. Music by Richard Einhorn

My good friend and neighbor Emily Grishman is on Philip Rothman’s wonderful Scoring Notes podcast about notation software, Emily is Broadway’s busiest music preparer, an expert on music notation and one of the most organized and focused people I’ve ever known. We go way back to the mid 80’s when, I believe, I was one of Emily’s first clients. She copied perhaps 10 feature film scores for me by hand and her calligraphy was a work of art.

Emily discusses her career and gives some wonderful tips on how to wring the most out of Finale and Sibelius. If you love music and how it’s notated, this is not to be missed.

I bought this record at the much-loved J&R Audio in lower Manhattan. I listened to it back in my loft twice in a row, then immediately went back to the store intending to buy everything they had by Pärt. A truly fascinating and often misunderstood composer. His early music, prior to tintinnabuli, is as fascinating as the later masterpieces.

I don’t listen to Pärt much anymore because it so deeply ingrained in my mind, I’m hearing it all the time.