ARRAY CO-PRESENTS:
ARRAY/CLC COMPOSER SALONS + READING SERIES
Anna Thorsvaldottir (+ the Array Ensemble)
MARCH 11, 2023 @ 2:00 PM ET
- Live Audience at the Arrayspace: Free
- Livestream Online: Free
PRESENTED BY ARRAYMUSIC +
THE CANADIAN LEAGUE OF COMPOSERS
w/ SUPPORT FROM
THE AZRIELI FOUNDATION +
THE METCALF FOUNDATION
Hosted by Bruce A. Russell
ABOUT THE EVENT
In collaboration with the Canadian League of Composers / CLC, with support from The Azrieli Foundation and The Metcalf Foundation, Arraymusic is thrilled to announce our first Composer Salon, a new initiative tailored to early-career/emerging composers who may be struggling to access traditional workshops, reading sessions, and/or other professional development opportunities.
Our salons will be hosted by Arraymusic’s Composer-in-Residence, Bruce A. Russell.
The first salon takes place Saturday, March 11, 2023 at 2PM and features a ZOOM interview with Icelandic composer Anna Thorsvaldottir, along with a performance of her work.
In addition, the Composer Salons offer a reading session to four Canadian composers by a subset of Array Ensemble musicians (string trio of violin, viola, and cello), along with a live in person social gathering after the presentation and readings.
The Salons take place at the Array Space as hybrid live/online events so that folks who cannot attend in person can still tune-into the Interview portion of the Salon from where they are. All are encouraged to attend the event in person. The reading sessions will be recorded so that participants will be free to use the recordings for non-commercial purposes.
While submissions for this first session accepted by the CLC are now closed, please keep an eye on the league’s website to submit your score for the next Salon reading sessions to be held in May (TBA).
The submission process involves no juries, no judges, no panels – simply submit an application; these are accepted on a first-come, first-serve basis with the exception that priority will be given to non-university music students, or those without access to these types of reading session opportunities. We particularly welcome applications from artists who are women, non-binary, trans, Black, Indigenous, People of Colour, as well as artists from traditionally under-represented populations. There is no age limit, minimum educational requirement, or aesthetic limitations and/or expectations for participants.
Submissions need not be complete pieces; sketches, fragments, movements, ideas, and experiments are all welcome. However, those submitting for the next Salon’s reading session should keep in mind that it is a 30-minute reading session, so shorter submissions give the musicians a greater chance for multiple play-throughs.
EMAIL questions, or accessibility needs: [email protected]
ABOUT ANNA THORVALDSDOTTIR
Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s (b. 1977) “seemingly boundless textural imagination” (NY Times) and striking sound world has made her “one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary music” (NPR). Her music is composed as much by sounds and nuances as by harmonies and lyrical material – it is written as an ecosystem of sounds, where materials continuously grow in and out of each other, often inspired in an important way by nature and its many qualities, in particular structural ones, like proportion and flow.
Anna’s “detailed and powerful” (Guardian) orchestral writing has garnered her awards from the New York Philharmonic, Lincoln Center, the Nordic Council, and the UK’s Ivors Academy, as well as commissions by many of the world’s top orchestras. CATAMORPHOSIS was premiered by the Berlin Philharmonic and Kirill Petrenko in January 2021, following the orchestra’s European premiere of METACOSMOS with Alan Gilbert in 2019. CATAMORPHOSIS received its UK premiere by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Ludovic Morlot in June 2022, with the US premiere with the New York Philharmonic and Santtu-Matias Rouvali taking place in January 2023. ARCHORA – the latest addition to Anna’s “ever-growing and ever more essential catalogue of orchestral pieces” (BBC Radio 3) – was premiered at the BBC Proms in August 2022, by the BBC Philharmonic and Eva Ollikainen. The work received its US premiere with the LA Philharmonic and Eva Ollikainen in May 2023. And “while [she] has made the symphony orchestra her own,” according to Gramophone Magazine, “her chamber music is cut from the same cloth and somehow sounds with much the same combination of immensity and intimacy.” Anna’s recent string quartet Enigma was recorded and released by Sono Luminus in August 2021, performed by the Spektral Quartet, and was one of the New York Times’s recordings of the year (“a masterly entrance to the genre”). Portrait albums with Anna’s works have appeared on Deutsche Grammophon, Sono Luminus, and Innova.
Anna’s music is widely performed internationally and has been commissioned by many of the world’s leading orchestras, ensembles, and arts organizations – such as the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Danish String Quartet, BBC Proms, and Carnegie Hall. Among the many other orchestras and ensembles that have performed her music include the Boston Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Bang on a Can All-Stars, BBC Singers, The Crossing, the Bavarian Radio Choir, Münchener Kammerorchester, Avanti Chamber Ensemble, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, and Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
Portrait concerts with Anna’s music have been featured at several major venues and music festivals, including Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival in NYC, London’s Spitalfields Music Festival, Münchener Kammerorchester’s Nachtmusic der Moderne series, the Composer Portraits Series at NYC’s Miller Theatre, the Leading International Composers series at the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, Knoxville’s Big Ears Festival, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Brooklyn’s National Sawdust, and Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra’s Point Festival. Other prominent venues and festivals include the BBC Proms, Aldeburgh Festival, London’s Royal Opera House, Southbank Centre, Lucerne Festival, ISCM World Music Days, Nordic Music Days, Ultima Festival, Beijing Modern Music Festival, Reykjavik Arts Festival, Tectonics, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Helsinki’s Musica Nova Festival, and the Kennedy Center in Washington DC.
Anna is currently based in the London area. She regularly teaches and gives presentations on composition, in academic settings, as part of residencies, and in private lessons. Invited lectures and presentations include Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, NYU, Northwestern, University of Chicago, Sibelius Academy, and the Royal Academy of Music in London. Anna is currently Composer-in-Residence with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra – in 2023, she will also be in residence at the Aldeburgh Festival and at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music. She holds a PhD (2011) from the University of California in San Diego.
ABOUT THE SERIES
With support from the Azrieli Foundation, Arraymusic proudly continues our support for Canadian composers, as part of our new Composer Accelerator Program, with a new series of events for emerging composers.
Arraymusic is excited to team up with the Canadian League of Composers to offer this new series of composer salons at the Array Space, featuring internationally known guest composers, and open readings by members of the Array Ensemble of newly created works by composer participants. The Composer Salons & Readings series builds on our annual Young Composers’ Workshop & Concert Program – now in its 34th season