News – Michael Gordon

Decasia receives UK premiere!

September 28, 2012

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Michael Gordon’s remarkable and critically acclaimed work for orchestra, Decasia, receives its United Kingdom premiere on October 14 during the Southbank Centre’s Ether Festival.

In Decasia, Gordon transforms the sound of the orchestra into a hazy and blurred sonic experience, as if it were “covered in cobwebs, with instruments that had been sitting for a hundred years, creaky and warped and deteriorated, and the musicians happen to come by, pick them up and play.”

Inspired by images from decaying archival film uncovered by filmmaker Bill Morrison, Gordon’s Decasia is an orchestral masterwork for the 21st century…

Rushes for 7 bassoons world premiere at EMPAC in Troy, NY

July 11, 2012

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On Saturday, September 15, Michael Gordon’s newest work, Rushes for 7 bassoons, is premiered by the Rushes Ensemble at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center in Troy, NY.

The new work is a 60+ minute tour-de-force that takes some inspiration from his recent work for percussion, Timber. In the new work Gordon shifts polyrhythmic material not only through timbre and dynamics, but by weaving melodic lines into the kaleidoscopic waves of rhythmic texture…

Bang on a Can All-Stars Premiere Field Recordings

July 1, 2012

At the Barbican Centre in London, on March 20, 2012, the Bang on a Can All-Stars premiere Field Recordings — with new works by Gordon, Lang and Wolfe. The evening-length project that is as much a mystery as a concert – a kind of ghost story. The ghosts aren’t the physical presence of people gone before, but they are the ghosts of sounds, images, ideas, and voices. Each composer has been asked to find and interact with something recorded before, using the power of music made right in front of us to reach out to other things not present…

Dystopia Australian Premiere

June 7, 2012

On April 27, the Melbourne Symphony gives the Australian premiere of Michael Gordon’s Dystopia at the 2012 Metropolis New Music Festival.

Feature in The New York Times

April 20, 2012

Click Here To Read The Article

Kronos Premieres

December 16, 2011

The Kronos Quartet has been a long-time champion of the music of Michael Gordon, having commissioned Sad Park in 2006 and Potassium in 2000. This fall, they premiere two brand new pieces by Gordon: Clouded Yellow, with a world premiere at Dartmouth on October 2nd and at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City on October 9th, and another world premiere, Exalted, for string quartet and chorus, for which they will join forces with the Young People’s Chorus of New York City at Le Poisson Rouge

Listen above to Francisco Nuñez and 3 of his choristers from the Young People’s Chorus of NYC talk about their work on Gordon’s Exalted…

Rewriting Beethoven’s 7th Symphony UK Premiere

December 16, 2011

On May 7, London’s Barbican Centre presents the BBC Symphony in the UK premiere of Michael Gordon’s Rewriting Beethoven’s 7th Symphony. Commissioned by the Beethoven-Bonn Festival and premiered by the Bamberger Symphoniker in 2006, Gordon’s remarkable re-imagining filters one of the classics of the classics through the lens of the 21st-century. Not looking to improve on the work’s timeless quality, but to imagine ‘what if someone unknowingly used this material in the course of writing his or her new work?’

Gordon writes:

Read more…Beethoven’s brutish and loud music has always inspired me…

Timber for six percussionists premieres

December 15, 2011

Timber US premiere and tour

December 15, 2011

On October 14 at Bowling Green State University, Mantra Percussion gives the US premiere of Michael Gordon’s percussion sextet, Timber — followed by a North American tour that includes the Canadian premiere on October 22 at the X Avant Festival (with indie rock-duo Buke & Gass).

The new work, an evening-length tour de force scored for six graduated wooden 2x4s brings the physicality, endurance and technique of percussion performance to a new level…

World premiere: new work for chorus

December 15, 2011

On November 29, Paul Hillier conducts the Coro Casa da Musica in Porto, Portugal in the world premiere of Michael Gordon’s The Bird Watcher for chorus. Click here for more info!