I don’t know about you, but I’ve clung to summer as tightly as I possibly could these past few weeks….and the weather hasn’t helped me move on (yesterday’s rain and gloom excluded). But, the fall has found us…or dragged us, as the case may be. Since the last time we spoke, I’ve started to teach again at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore as well as began two exciting projects: the Twelve in 12 festival with Novus NY at Trinity Wall Street and my residency as a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s CMS Two program.

Now, I think I mentioned these in passing in my last mailing, but I wanted to go into a little more detail here. First, Trinity. Novus NY is the contemporary music ensemble in residence at Trinity, and the group was founded by music director Julian Wachner and concertmaster Marjolaine Lambert about a year and a half ago. Trinity’s commitment to music, between the award-winning Trinity Choir, Trinity Baroque Ensemble and other groups, is astounding, and it’s wonderful that they have expanded their offerings to include contemporary music. To kick off this season, we’ve planned an extremely interesting festival: Twelve in 12. The idea is that we will play one piece by each of the 12 last winners of thePulitzer Prize in music. It’s a series of concerts where every single piece performed is by one of the best composers of our time – to say that the music is amazing is an understatement! So, we’re halfway through now. Last week, we played an incredible program of music by Jennifer Higdon, John Corigliano and David Lang. Trinity streams and records all of these concerts, and you can check last week’s concert out here. Last night, we began rehearsing for this week’s program: The Second Madrigal:Voices of Women by Yehudi Wyner and Einstein on Mercer Street by Kevin Puts. Both of these pieces have vocal soloists – soprano in the Wyner and baritone in the Puts – and both are really incredible pieces. The Wyner feels like a snapshot of Berg – it’s a bunch of short poems, each set to music in a completely unique way. The Puts blows me away every time I hear it – it’s an incredibly emotional 30-minute experience (coincidentally it was commissioned and recorded by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble - the group I played with last July). That concert is this Thursday (tomorrow!) at 1pm at Trinity, and is free. You can also watch it online (or stream it later at your convenience) right here. Stay tuned for next week’s tour-de-force of a program as well (same time, Thursday’s at 1): Henry Brant’s Four Skeleton Pieces, John Adams’ Son of Chamber Symphony and Steve Reich’s painfully beautiful Daniel Variations.

Last week I had my first rehearsal at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center: Gilles Vonsattel and I sat down for a couple hours to work through Georges Aperghis’ marimba/piano duo: 4 pièces fébriles. It’s a striking piece – I’ve played and heard a bunch of other works that Aperghis has written, and almost all of them involve theatricality or some other extra-musical element. This one doesn’t. It’s straight-up/really-hard chamber music from beginning to end, and it’s a lot of fun. We’re going to play it as part of the New Music at the Kaplan Penthouse series on October 18th at 7:30pm. In addition to the Aperghis, this concert features a colleague of mine from Chamber Music Northwest, harpist Bridget Kibbey, and it will be streamed live for those of you who live out of town. For more information on that, or for tickets, click here. I’m beyond excited to start this three-year journey with CMS, and I’d love for you to join me for this first performance!

Up next on the horizon…..for you Maryland folks: on October 5th, Sandbox percussion will play on Washington College’s 12 @ Hotchkiss concert series. We’ve got some ‘old’ favorites (Steve Reich, Paul Lansky) as well as new interpretations of works by Brooklyn-based composer/percussionist Jason Treuting. Then, on October 16th, Le Train Bleu joins luminaries Anne-Marie McDermott and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg at Symphony Space for an all-Gershwin program. Tickets and more infohere.

That’ll do it! Sign up for my mailing list (top or bottom of this page) to get these updated delivered directly to your inbox and try to enjoy this last drop of good weather while we’ve still got it….