Press Release: Hear Now Festival 2023 announcement (Updated)

View the most recent press release below, or download a copy here. Please let us know if there’s anything else we can provide. All programs are subject to change.

Press Contact: Sylvi Brown 310-702-5847
scbrownpr@msn.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 27, 2023 UPDATED

HEAR NOW 2023 FESTIVAL OF NEW MUSIC BY CONTEMPORARY LOS ANGELES COMPOSERS ADDS A MULTIDISCIPLINARY CONCERT AND NEW VENUE

CELEBRATING 12 YEARS, FESTIVAL DATES APRIL 13 TO APRIL 16

INCLUDES ARTISTS FROM DANCE, FILM AND ART

Los Angeles — Hugh Levick, Artistic Director, and Founder of HEAR NOW MUSIC FESTIVAL is pleased to announce HEAR NOW 2023, A Festival of New Music by Contemporary Los Angeles Composers, April 13 through 16, 2023. The festival will present works by 24 composers with 12 premieres of electroacoustic, chamber music, and works involving more than one art form in a collaborative multidisciplinary concert. The festival will be held at 2220 Arts + Archives, 2220 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles 90057. Tickets are available on the Hear Now website, hearnowmusicfestival.com.

“For many years HEAR NOW has wanted to present other art forms in collaboration with the music written by LA composers. HEAR NOW 2023 makes that dream into a reality,” states Levick. “We are also very grateful to be welcomed into the collaboratively curated venue, 2220 Arts + Archives, which, with all of its amenities, allows us to bring the concept of ‘fiesta’ to the wide-ranging, bold and against-the-grain music presented by HEAR NOW!”

The Festival opens with Hear Now’s annual program of electroacoustic works, curated in collaboration with Isaac Schankler of People Inside Electronics (P.I.E.) and features Brightwork Ensemble in six works for live instruments and electronics, including the West Coast premieres of Towdah by João Pedro Oliveira and To the Lighthouse by Anuj Bhutani.

The multidisciplinary concert headlines with the renowned Brooklyn street dancer Storyboard P (“He’s the Basquiat of street dancing…”—NY Times), who will choreograph and perform with piano trio in OTHERWISE, a world premiere by composer Hugh Levick. an echo that Doesn’t rhyme, by Daniel Newman-Lessler, choreographed by Mady Thornquest, isfor 9 pianists on 3 pianos, 2 percussionists, and solo dancer. Additional works are TRASH MOON, a collaboration between composer Brandon J. Rolle and artist Christopher Richmond which uses film and music to build a second moon made of trash from our planet (world premiere). Paleface by Russell Steinberg, in a collaboration with artist Jerry Kearns and video artist Amanda Tiller, takes a look at the Old West with new eyes with Trio Accento and video.

Saturday and Sunday’s afternoon programs include the world premiere of A Shadowy Figure Went Past, a new work by Joseph Pereira for piano quartet; the West coast premiere of 86’d by Ian Dicke; the world premiere of Cross the Line of Death by Pin Hsin Lin, and the US premiere of Our Glass Bodies by Carolyn Chen.

Featured ensembles include the Lyris Quartet, Brightwork Ensemble, Trio Accento, and the newly formed UCLA Philharmonia Soloists. Featured artists include baritone Joel Balzun in Peter Knell’s ARKHIPOV, countertenor Darryl Taylor in the West Coast premiere of Ian Dicke’s 86’d, and Rachel Constantino, horn, in Anne LeBaron’s Cosmic Rose (West Coast premiere), in addition to many of the brilliant and renowned Los Angeles musicians.

In a new venture, Hear Now and conductor Neal Stulberg are collaborating on a large chamber ensemble of 18 UCLA students – a large chamber ensemble of 18 UCLA students – UCLA Philharmonia Soloists — coached by composers as they prepare the works for performance. These large chamber works will include 86’d by Ian Dicke in a West Coast premiere, and Still Images by Vera Ivanova. Hear Now has offered its first Ursula C. Krummel Commission to Arash Majd, an emerging and visionary young composer with his work entitled Continuum: Cause & Effect, composed for a 10-piece ensemble, closing the festival.

The new venue, 2220 Arts + Archives at 2220 Beverly Boulevard has a Main Theater space, a lecture space, and a bar/cabaret space. Hear Now will be in the Main Theater, and the audience is invited to enjoy the bar/cabaret space before the concert and at intermission. After the final concert on Sunday, Hear Now offers the audience a catered reception in the bar/cabaret.

HEAR NOW Music Festival promotes the breadth and diversity of concert music being written by composers living in and associated with the LA area by presenting concerts and informative activities of high artistic quality to the general public. HEAR NOW strives to achieve equity and inclusiveness by reaching out in an Open Call to all composers in the area.

The HEAR NOW Festival of New Music by Contemporary Los Angeles Composers began in 2011 with two chamber music concerts and has expanded to include up to six concerts of orchestral, electroacoustic and chamber music. The results from the last eleven festivals are 184 new and recent works by 161 individual composers, from emerging composers to masters.

Hear Now Festival of LA Composers
www.hearnowmusicfestival.com
hearnowcomposerfestival@gmail.com
(323) 226-0326

Hugh Levick, Artistic Director
Peter Knell, Associate Artistic Director
Joseph Pereira, Associate Artistic Director
Isaac Schankler, Associate Artistic Director
Heidi Lesemann, General Manager
Lauri D Goldenhersh, Assistant General Manager

HEAR NOW Music Festival 2023

FESTIVAL DATES: Thursday, April 13 through Sunday, April 16

Venue: 2220 Arts & Archives (Main Theater), 2220 Beverly Blvd., LA 90057

The complete program follows. (Subject to change)

THURSDAY, April 13, 2023, at 8:00pm: Electroacoustic Concert in collaboration with People Inside Electronics (P.I.E.) and Brightwork Ensemble

Mr. Distinguished (2011) Dante De Silva: for violin, alto saxophone, piano, and pre-recorded electronics

To the Lighthouse (2019) (West Coast premiere) Anuj Bhutani: for violin and live electronics

Towdah (2009) (West Coast premiere) João Pedro Oliveira: for flute, bass clarinet, piano, percussion, and electronics

Snow Crystals on Sagebrush (2022) Nick Norton: for string quartet and electronics

Echoes (2009) Liviu Marinescu:for flute and fixed media

remnants (2019) Corey Dundee: for violin, bassoon, Piano+MIDI, Percussion+MIDI

FRIDAY, April 14, 2023, at 8:00pm: Multidisciplinary concert

TRASH MOON (2022) (World premiere) Brandon J. Rolle, composer, and artist Christopher Richmond: for video and immersive multichannel audio

an echo that doesn’t rhyme (2022), Daniel Newman-Lessler, composer, with Mady Thornquest, lead dancer: for 9 pianists, 2 percussion.

Paleface (2017), Russell Steinberg, composer, in collaboration with artist Jerry Kearns, and video artist Amanda Tiller: for video and live trio

OTHERWISE (2022) (World premiere) Hugh Levick, composer, with renowned Brooklyn street dancer and choreographer Storyboard P as dancer with live piano trio

SATURDAY, April 15, 2023, at 2pm: Chamber music concert

86’d (2014) (West Coast premiere) Ian Dicke: for large chamber ensemble, and countertenor

Shadows and Songs (2019) Gabrielle Rosse: for string quartet

A Shadowy Figure Went Past (World premiere) Joseph Pereira: for piano quartet.

Cross the Line of Death (2022) (World premiere)Pin Hsin Lin: for piano, violin, cello

Glimpse (2019) Tomás Peire Serrate: for bass clarinet, violin and cello

A Tempo (2011) Daniel Kessner: for flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass. clarinet, violin, violoncello, marimba/xylophone, and piano

Cosmic Rose (2022) (West Coast premiere) Anne LeBaron: for harp and horn

Thrall (Þræll) (2014) (World premiere), Jeffrey Holmes: for solo piano, flute, bass clarinet, violin, cello, contrabass

SUNDAY, April 16, 2023, at 5pm: Chamber Music Concert

Still Images (2008) Vera Ivanova: for large chamber ensemble

Eighteen Melodies for Hujia (2022) Joan Huang: for soprano, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and percussion

Quartet for the Love of Time (1987) William Kraft: for violin, cello, clarinet, piano

Our Glass Bodies (US Premiere) Carolyn Chen: for violin, cello, percussion, piano, objects

Selections from ARKHIPOV (2022)Peter Knell: for baritone and piano

Continuum: Cause & Effect (2022) (World premiere, Ursula C. Krummel Commission) Arash Majd: for large chamber ensemble

HEAR NOW Music Festival promotes the breadth and diversity of concert music being written by composers living in and associated with the LA area by presenting concerts and informative activities of high artistic quality to the general public. HEAR NOW strives to achieve equity and inclusiveness by reaching out in an Open Call to all composers in the area.