NEC's Piano Department marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Charles Ives with two programs of his works for piano. 

Tonight's program - '“Ives Extended” - includes The Celestial Railroad, the Set of Five Take-Offs, works by Carl Ruggles, Lou Harrison and Henry Cowell, and rarely heard music for two pianos in quarter-tones by Ives, David Fulmer, and Georg Haas.

EPSG:4326

NEC Piano Department: Ives 150 (Program Two)

New England Conservatory

"The history of American composition at the beginning of the 20th century revolves around an absent center," states Alex Ross, music critic for the New Yorker, and even titles the corresponding chapter in his bestseller "The Rest is Noise" "The Invisibles." This refers to composers such as Charles Ives, Wallingford Riegger, Carl Ruggles and others who had to work hard to establish an identity as American composers. Barbara Hannigan has made it her mission to bring these "invisibles" back to light. After intensive research in the Library of Congress, she presents a program that is probably unique in its form. It shows American music between 1900 and 1945 as if through a magnifying glass: from radical simplicity to radical dissonance to the fusion of classical and popular music, which reached its peak on Broadway. A picture of musical diversity that must necessarily remain incomplete, but even in this form allows fascinating and surprising insights. Hannigan's particular focus is on the individual, edgy, rebellious voices that sought their own expression and broke new ground.

Carl Ruggles

Events

Upcoming events

24 - 25 Jan, 2025

Ives Crawford Seeger Riegger Ruggles Rodgers Gershwin · Munich Philharmonic

Past events

Mar 27, 2024

NEC Piano Department: Ives 150 (Program Two) · New England Conservatory

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