Continuum (founded 1966) is an American classical chamber music ensemble specializing in contemporary classical music.
Founded in New York City in 1966 by pianists Cheryl Seltzer and Joel Sachs, Continuum is a chamber music ensemble that focuses on performing and recording classical music by composers from the 20th and 21st centuries. Performing in their native New York City, and around the world, Continuum aims "to expand the audience for recent music," [1] and performs and records both well-known contemporary composers as well as many lesser-known composers. [2]
Initially performing works by composers such as Bartók, Stravinsky, Ravel, and Debussy, Continuum branched out to feature works by Cowell, Ives, Seeger, Thomson, and many others. Continuum often performs "retrospective concerts," which focus on a range of works by a single composer. "Exploring a broad range of their work, such concerts offer the listener deep insights into a composer's development." [3] Continuum has performed around the world, including in such countries as Azerbaijan, Brazil, Georgia, Korea, Mongolia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Venezuela.
With a rich history of recordings, Continuum has made more than 20 CDs for the Advance, Capstone, CRI, Cambria, MusicMasters, Naxos, Nonesuch, and TNC labels, recording works by Virko Baley, Henry Cowell, Ives, Kirchner, Nancarrow, Seeger, and Wolpe, among others. [4]
Continuum was awarded the Siemens international prize for distinguished service to music and four ASCAP/Chamber Music America Awards for Adventuresome Programming.
Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown. His music was largely ignored during his early life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Later in life, the quality of his music was publicly recognized, and he came to be regarded as an "American original". He was also among the first composers to engage in a systematic program of experimental music, with musical techniques including polytonality, polyrhythm, tone clusters, aleatory elements, and quarter tones. His experimentation foreshadowed many musical innovations that were later more widely adopted during the 20th century. Hence, he is often regarded as the leading American composer of art music of the 20th century.
Henry Dixon Cowell was an American composer, writer, pianist, publisher and teacher. A leading figure of avant-garde music, Cowell was an early proponent of many modernist compositional techniques and sensibilities.
The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a contemporary classical music ensemble, based in New York City and Chicago. ICE performs a diverse and extensive array of chamber, electro-acoustic, improvisatory, and multimedia works.
Harold Meltzer is an American composer. Harold is inspired by a wide variety of stimuli, from architectural spaces to postmodern fairy tales and messages inscribed in fortune cookies. In Fanfare Magazine, Robert Carl commented that he “seems to write pieces of scrupulous craft and exceptional freshness, which makes each seem like an important contribution.” The first recording devoted to his music, released in 2010 by Naxos on its American Classics label, was named one of the CDs of the year in The New York Times and in Fanfare; new all-Meltzer recordings will issue from Open G Records (2017), Bridge Records (2018), and BMOP/Sound (2019). A Pulitzer Prize Finalist in 2009 for his sextet Brion, Meltzer has been awarded the Rome Prize, the Barlow Prize;, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and both the Arts and Letters Award in Music and the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
The Pacifica Quartet is a professional string quartet based in Bloomington, Indiana. Its members are: Simin Ganatra, first violin; Austin Hartman, second violin; Mark Holloway, viola; and Brandon Vamos, cello. Formed in 1994 by Ganatra and Vamos with violinist Sibbi Bernhardsson and violist Kathryn Lockwood, the group won prizes in competitions such as the 1996 Coleman Chamber Music Competition, the 1997 Concert Artists Guild Competition, and the 1998 Naumburg Chamber Music Competition. In 2001, violist Masumi Per Rostad replaced Lockwood. The group subsequently received Chamber Music America's prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award in 2002, the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2006, and was named "Ensemble of the Year" by Musical America in 2009. In 2017, violinist Austin Hartman replaced Bernhardsson and violist Guy Ben-Ziony replaced Rostad.
Southwest Chamber Music is a chamber music ensemble based in Los Angeles County, California. The organization was founded in 1987 by the artistic director Jeff von der Schmidt and the executive director Jan Karlin. One of the most active chamber music ensembles in the United States, the ensemble performs year round, provides educational programs, tours internationally, and has recorded 30 compact discs.
David Alan Miller is a multi-Grammy Award-winning American symphony orchestra conductor, and since 1992, music director of the Albany Symphony Orchestra. Miller served as assistant and associate conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1987–92 and music director of the New York Youth Symphony from 1982-88. He is currently also Artistic Advisor to The Little Orchestra Society in New York City.
Johanna Magdalena Beyer was a German-American composer and pianist.
The Martinů Quartet is a Czech string quartet ensemble founded in 1976, originally under the name Havlák Quartet by students of Professor Viktor Moučka at the Prague Conservatory. In 1985, with the approval of the Bohuslav Martinů Foundation, the quartet assumed its present name Martinů Quartet, pledging to promote the chamber music of Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů. The quartet specialises in the works of Czech composers such as Smetana, Dvořák and Janáček, and especially the works of Bohuslav Martinů. They perform regularly at the Prague Spring Festival as well as concerts in many European Countries, the United States, Canada and Japan. The quartet also teaches chamber music performance at two annual chamber music workshops in the Czech Republic, which are open to both amateur and professional musicians.
Paul Hostetter is an American conductor, the Ethel Foley Distinguished Chair in Orchestral Activities for the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University, the Conductor and Artistic Advisor for the Sequitur Ensemble, and the Founder and Artistic Adviser to the Music Mondays chamber series in New York City. He has held appointments as the Director of the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University where he also was the Director of Orchestral Studies/Associate Professor, the Music Director of the Colonial Symphony, the Music Director of the High Mountain Symphony, Artistic Director of the Winter Sun Music Festival, Music Director of the New Jersey Youth Symphony, and the Associate Conductor for the Broadway productions of Candide and George and Ira Gershwin's Fascinating Rhythm.
The Carpe Diem String Quartet was founded in 2005 and is a classical string quartet based in Columbus, Ohio. The quartet's repertoire ranges from classical to contemporary chamber music. They regularly perform the works of contemporaries like Reza Vali, Richard Danielpour, Jonathan Leshnoff, Jessie Montgomery, Osvaldo Golijov, Gunther Schuller, Erberk Eryilmaz, Bruce Wolosoff, and Korine Fujiwara, as well as the works of classical composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Felix Mendelssohn, Joseph Haydn and countless others. Carpe Diem performs and tours regularly, in the United States, Canada, Japan, China, and Europe. The quartet is a strong proponent for the overlooked Russian composer Sergei Taneyev, and recorded his nine (9) string quartets, as well as his viola quintet, all for the Naxos label. The quartet regularly performs and collaborates with non-classical artists, including Willy Porter and Jayme Stone. A few of the outstanding artists with whom the quartet has played include Yo-Yo Ma, David Krakuaer, Raul Juarena, and Richard Stoltzman.
Laura Elise Schwendinger was the first composer to win the American Academy in Berlin's Berlin Prize.
The Moscow Chamber Orchestra (MCO) is a chamber orchestra run under the auspices of the Moscow Philharmonia, a state-run enterprise, formerly under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture and now, Ministry of Culture of Russian Federation.
Jack Gallagher is an American composer and college professor. His compositions include orchestral, chamber, piano and choral works. He has written two symphonies, both of which have been recorded.
Spectrum Concerts Berlin is a German classical chamber music ensemble.
Kenji Bunch is an American composer and violist living in Portland, Oregon. Bunch currently serves as the Artistic Director of Fear No Music and teaches at Portland State University, Reed College, and for the Portland Youth Philharmonic.
Julian Wachner is an American composer, conductor and keyboardist. Since 2011, he has served as the Director of Music and the Arts at Trinity Wall Street, conducting the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, the Trinity Baroque Orchestra and NOVUS NY. Wachner has recorded five albums with these ensembles, primarily for the Musica Omnia label. Since 2008, he has also served as the Director of The Washington Chorus. In March 2018, Wachner was named Artistic Director of the Grand Rapids Bach Festival, an affiliate of the Grand Rapids Symphony, in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
David Froom is an American composer and college professor. Froom has taught at the University of Utah, the Peabody Institute and the University of Maryland, College Park. He has been on the faculty at St. Mary's College of Maryland since 1989. He has received awards and honors from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters,, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard, the Koussevitzky Foundation of the Library of Congress, the Barlow Foundation, and is a five-time recipient of an Individual Artist Award from the State of Maryland.
Harold Rosenbaum is an American conductor and musician. He is the artistic director and conductor of the New York Virtuoso Singers and the Canticum Novum Singers. The New York Virtuoso Singers appear on 48 albums on labels including Naxos Records and Sony Classical. He has collaborated extensively with many ensembles including the New York Philharmonic, Juilliard Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, Bang on a Can, Mark Morris Dance Group, Orchestra of Saint Luke's, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Riverside Symphony, and Brooklyn Philharmonic.
Ben Richter is an American composer, accordionist, and director of Ghost Ensemble, an experimental chamber ensemble based in New York.