Lorenz and Robert Benton
An international group of euphonium players and music institutions has joined forces to commission a work from Ricardo Lorenz that will feature the euphonium while calling for the same instrumentation of Leos Janacek’s seldom performed Cappricio for piano and winds. The consortium is spearheaded by Robert Benton, currently on the University of Windsor Brass Faculty and hailed for being “a compelling performer and outstanding Embassador for the euphonium.” Other distinguished euphonium players joining the commissioning consortium who will co-premiere Lorenz’s upcoming work are Hidenori Arai (Japan) , Tormod Flaten (Grieg Academy in Norway), Adam Frey (Emory University), Fritz Kaenzig (University of Michigan), Ken Kroesche (Oakland University), Jamie Lipton (Henderson University), Cale Self (Western Georgia University), Pat Stuckemeyer (www.justforbrass.com), and Matt Van Emmerick (Sydney Conservatorium). In addition, the Royal Northern College of Music (U.K.), Easter Michigan University and Michigan State University are also part of the consortium. The upcoming co-premieres are scheduled to take place during the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons.
“I’ve come to appreciate the immense expressive power and unique agility of the euphonium through my acquaintance with Robert,” says Lorenz who wants to write a work that, among other things, “exploits the contrast that exists between the tongued quality of the trombone, or the percussive quality of the piano, and the unmatched voice-like legato which the euphonium is capable of producing.” Prior to this project, the Venezuelan-born composer was acquainted with the euphonium through some of the coastal music of neighboring Colombia, where the close cousin of the euphonium, the so-called Bombardino, is featured predominantly in traditional ensembles. Perhaps some of this unique sound, still ringing in the composer’s mind, will make it into the newly commissioned piece.
Right to Left: "Live from the Mill" host Bill Stibor with Lorenz and members of the Dali String Quartet.
As part of their 2010 Meadowlark Music Festival engagement, Guest Composer Ricardo Lorenz and the Dali String Quartet appeared as featured artists of “Live from the Mill,” a laidback yet incredibly informative art news show that is broadcasted live from The Mill, a landmark café in downtown Lincoln, Nebraska. “Live from the Mill” is hosted by Bill Stibor every Friday morning and is heard throughout Nebraska on KUCV Net Radio 91.1 FM, an affiliate of NPRN.
Lorenz, Harrison and CYSO Musical Director Allen Tinkham following the dress rehearsal of Pataruco.
To conclude a year of performances in celebration of the 10th anniversary of Lorenz’s Pataruco: Concerto for Venezuelan Maracas and Orchestra, the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra and soloist Ed Harrison performed the work at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion of Chicago’s Millennium Park. During the 2009-2010 season, the work received performances in Nevada, Oregon and in Mexico by percussionists Ricardo Gallardo and Terry Longshore. Pataruco was the result of a close collaboration between Venezuela-native Ricardo Lorenz and Ed Harrison, who studied with maraca virtuoso Maximo B. Teppa while on tenure as percussionist with the Caracas Philharmonic during the early 1980s. Harrison, current principal timpanist of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, premiered the work with the Chicago Sinfonietta in 1999 and recorded it with the Czech National Symphony a year later for Albany Records. Pataruco has also received performances by Venezuelan maraca player and Atlanta Symphony bass clarinetist Alcides Rodriguez.
Cotto and the Dali String quartet rehearsing Puente Trans-Arabico at the Cottonwood Festival.
As Guest Composer of the 2010 Meadowlark Music Festival, Ricardo Lorenz curated a program of Latin American music that brought together Philadelphia-based Dali String Quartet and Puerto Rican percussionist/marimba virtuoso Orlando Cotto. A highlight of the program was the Nebraska premiere of Lorenz’s Puente Trans-Arabico for percussion and string quartet. Among other works for percussion and string quartet, the program included Lorenz’s arrangements of Cuban dance music as well as a brand new string quartet and marimba adaptation of Orlando Cotto’s Marimba for an Angel. The festival was hosted between June 12 and 19 at the University of Nebraska Lincoln in conjunction with the Sheldon Museum of Art’s exhibit “Flowers, Lies and Revolution: Contemporary Cuban Art.” The program was repeated at the Cottonwood Festival in Hastings, Nebraska.
Read concert review in the Journal Star
In Chicago with flutist Marissa Olin (fourth from left), Director Raphael Jiménez (center with Lorenz), and members of Michigan State's Musique 21 before the 2007 Midwest premiere of Perfiles Sospechosos. Photo by Mark Sullivan.
Minnesota native and flutist Marissa Olin will premiere a new and improved version of Ricardo Lorenz’s Perfiles Sospechosos on Sunday, April 18, at Michigan State’s Hart Recital Hall. Originally a trio for flute, cello, and percussion commissioned by the National Flute Association, Olin will premiere a quartet version of Perfiles Sospechosos that incorporates bass clarinet. “As soon as it was premiered in 2007 at the NFA New Mexico convention,” explains Lorenz, “I felt the work could greatly benefit from the addition of a low wind instrument to back up the cello and complement the flute’s high register, particularly in the last movement which calls for piccolo. Only after I made the adaptation I realized that the new version sounds –and looks– like a piece for flute and rhythm combo.” Marissa Olin attended the NFA Convention’s premiere of Perfiles Sospechosos (Spanish for “suspicious profiles”). She has performed the original trio version on several occasions and Lorenz created the new version especially for her. For this premiere, Olin will be joined by cellist Callum Hall, bass clarinetist Remi Hamel, and percussionist Ty Forquer, who also appears in the photo above (left of Olin).
Luis Julio Toro
Molly Barth
Ricardo Lorenz receives commission from the University of Oregon to compose work for two world-renown flutists: Grammy-Award winning, University of Oregon faculty Molly Barth and revered Venezuelan flutist Luis Julio Toro. In addition to having long standing solo careers, Molly Barth is a founding member of the nationally acclaimed sextet Eight Blackbird and Luis Julio Toro has traveled all around the world with his virtuoso contemporary folk ensemble Gurrufio. Lorenz and Toro have collaborated many times in the past. They both met Molly Barth for the first time in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the 2007 National Flute Association’s convention where a new trio by the composer (a NFA commission) was premiered. Lorenz’s new commissioned work is scheduled to receive North and South American premieres by the recently formed duo during the 2010-2011 season.
Read about Molly Barth
Read about Luis Julio Toro
One of several artist studios at the MacDowell Colony
Ricardo Lorenz will spend five weeks in residency at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. As a MacDowell Colony Fellow, Lorenz will work during April and May 2010 on a new concerto for viola and orchestra. The concerto is loosely based on a group of songs by the late singer songwriter Victor Jara, one of the first casualties of Chile’s 1973 military coup. Lorenz is composing this concerto for Roberto Díaz, former principal violist of the Philadelphia Orchestra and current President of the Curtis Institute of Music.
Founded by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife Marian in 1907, MacDowell Colony is the oldest and most prestigious artist residency in the U.S. Writers, poets, playwrights, visual artists, and composers are supported during four to eight weeks while in residence at the MacDowell Colony. Among the many works created at the colony are Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, Aaron Copland’s ballet Billy the Kid, and Leonard Bernstein’s multi-genre cantata Mass. Over 61 works done at the Colony have been awarded Pulitzer Prizes over the past one hundred years.
Link to the Library of Congress online exhibit
“A Century of Creativity: The MacDowell Colony 1907-2007”
After the Mexican premiere of Pataruco in 2004, Lorenz, conductor Kyle Wiley Pickett, and percussionist Ricardo Gallardo (left to right) relax at a souvenir shop in San Miguel de Allende.
Several performances of Ricardo Lorenz’s concerto for maracas and orchestra are scheduled for the 2009-2010 season in cities across the US and Mexico. Premiered ten years ago and titled Pataruco, this first-ever concerto for maracas will be performed in Oregon and Nevada by percussionist Terry Longshore (http://www.terrylongshore.com) with the Rogue Valley Symphony and the Carson City Symphony respectively. Almost simultaneously, Mexican percussionist Ricardo Gallardo will performed the concerto with the Michoacan Symphony in Mexico City and Morelia. Pataruco was premiered in March 1999 by the Chicago Sinfonietta and percussionist Ed Harrison, to whom the work was dedicated. Since then, the work has been heard in many cities across the globe: from Juneau, Alaska, to Prague, to Bello Horinzonte, Brazil. A recording of Pataruco with the Czech National Symphony and Ed Harrison was released in 2001 by Albany Records.
Watch Atlanta Symphony Orchestra member Alcides Rodriguez performing Pataruco with the Orquestra Filarmonica de Minas Gerais, Brazil.
Read review in Mexico’s La Jornada of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Michoacan’s performance of Pataruco.
UF graduate students in Band Conducting with Ricardo Lorenz, UF Director of Bands David Waybright (center), and Assistant Director Chip Birkner (2nd from right)
By invitation of the University of Florida Bands, Ricardo Lorenz visited the Gainesville campus on September 29-October 2, 2009 to attend the official premiere of El Muro, a work for wind symphony commissioned by the American Bandmasters Association and the University of Florida Bands. The work was premiered on October 1st by the UF Wind Symphony conducted by David Waybright. While at University of Florida, Lorenz met with graduate students in the Band and Music Composition programs, as well as with Composition Faculty Paul Richards and Paul Koonce. Lorenz also had a chance to tour the brand new Steinbrenner Band Building, a $10-million state-of-the-art facility suitable for rehearsals, performances, and recordings.
Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Orchestra
Ricardo Lorenz’s Rumba Sinfónica will receive its twentieth performance at the historic Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Orchestra.
On October 24, 2009 Tiempo Libre and The Cleveland Institute of Music Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Carl Topilow will perform Rumba Sinfónica at Cleveland’s Severance Hall. One of the world’s most prestigious concert halls, Severance Hall underwent a major, $36-million restoration and expansion in 2000. This landmark building was one of the most modern, up-to-date concert facilities in America when it opened in 1931 as The Cleveland Orchestra’s permanent home.
Ricardo Lorenz’s Rumba Sinfónica has toured many cities in North America since its premiere by the Minnesota Orchestra in fall 2007. The work has been featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered” as well as in Symphony Magazine and on the Big Ten Network. Other orchestras performing Rumba Sinfónica during the 2009-2010 season include Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Hartford, North Carolina, and San Diego symphonies as well as the Youth Orchestra of Palm Beach County.
Link to NPR story
Link to ‘Rumba Sinfónica’ comes to Severance for a CIM Benefit.
After fulfilling a commission from the National Flute Association in 2007, Ricardo Lorenz was the 2008 recipient of the American Bandmasters Association/University of Florida Commission Award. The award, funded by a grant from the University of Florida band program, includes a commission honorarium to create a major artistic work for wind band. After a preview performance at the 2009 CBDNA conference, the ten-minute work, titled El Muro , is scheduled to be premiered this upcoming October 1st by the University of Florida Wind Symphony conducted by David Waybright. El Muro is Spanish for “the wall,” and Lorenz describes the work as a collection of tightly woven Latin American riffs in reaction to how he feels about walls, whether these exist in reality or in people’s minds.
The second half of the concert felt more convincing than the first. After Mr. Giorgetti’s “Dialogue” came the Venezuelan-American composer Ricardo Lorenz’s “Compass Points,” the most successful piece on Sunday’s program. Each of the work’s three sections was written in a different location and reflects the composer’s state of mind and circumstances at the time. The first movement, composed in Umbria, Italy, offered a sultry canvas with passionate violin interludes. The second — both melancholy and defiant, with languid clarinet riffs — was written in Bloomington, Ind., as a tribute to the pianist and composer Robert Avalon. The frenzied, driven dance rhythms of “Scherzarengue,” the last movement, evoke a busy period in the composer’s life when he moved to East Lansing, Mich.
Music Review – New Juilliard Ensemble – NYTimes.com
Ricardo Lorenz’s first composition, written at age 12, was extremely simple. “Just two chords, jumping back and forth,” he says with a laugh. “I got such a kick out of it.” Now, after more than 25 years as a composer, Venezuelan-born Lorenz, PhD’99, not only creates large-scale works for multi-instrument groups, but he also harmonizes two musical worlds: classical and Latin American.
More>
