Plan now to join us throughout 2011, a year jam-packed with thrilling contemporary music both composed and performed in Kansas City and around the globe!

newEar Concert 3: Vocalissimus – Saturday, February 19, 2011 8:00PM All Souls UUC

Have you marked your calendar to attend this no-holds-barred evening of contemporary gems? The centerpiece of this concert is much-lauded (Grawemeyer Award, Berlin Prize, Rome Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship) composer Sebastian Currier's fascinating cycle of 18 songs for soprano and chamber ensemble, Vocalissimus, which takes as its text the Wallace Stevens poem. Tomas Svoboda's Discernment of Time is a showcase of the gong's surprising timbral spectrum amidst increasingly dense layers of repetitive rhythmic motives. Delightful recent works by Sofia Gubaidulina, Leon Kirchner, and Sara Graef provide added intrigue to a wonderful winter program.

Spotlight on … Lawrence Figg, cello

Lawrence Figg

newEar and area audiences have long known Lawrence Figg to be a talented, mild-mannered member of the Kansas City Symphony cello section. However, were they aware that this unassuming gent is in fact a passionate player of contemporary music? Someone, who under the baton of one of the 20th century's greatest musical minds, became a true titan of the bow? newEar recently had the opportunity to find out more about this dauntless new music player who has quickly become a fixture of our ensemble.

newEar: Having a career as an orchestral musician, what attracts you to the contemporary musical idiom?

Larry Figg: I would have to say that apart from the obvious unusual nature of contemporary music compared to the orchestral repertoire there is the attraction to the challenge of applying fundamental, or "classical," musical skills to a medium that expresses itself in a way that sounds structured but seems foreign, like a language from another culture altogether.

nE: Who or what contributed to your facility in performing contemporary chamber music?

LF: In 1988, while living (and surviving) in Paris as a freelance musician, I had the opportunity to spend a season as a member the Ensemble Intercontemporain, under the direction of Pierre Boulez, who is the founder of this state-of-the-art modern musique group. The no-nonsense approach to modern music they had really opened my eyes to the fact that modern music is no different than baroque, classical, romantic or serial music. It's merely a question of language skills to find a way to reveal the emotion of the music at hand.

nE: How long have you performed with newEar, and what is your favorite performance moment with the ensemble thus far?

LF: I believe it has been at least 3 seasons I have had the pleasure of performing with newEar. I would have to say that performing the Ligeti cello concerto (May, 2009) was the most memorable for it's unusual nature as a concerto, for it felt more like an anti-concerto in its demands for seemingly impossible dynamics and grinding sonorities and effects - the delicious tension in the silences - yet it seemed to work splendidly in spite of it all. (It is) … truly a masterwork of contemporary music.

Lawrence Figg received his bachelor's degree from the Curtis Institute of Music and was a semi-finalist at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1986. He lived in Paris for five years doing extensive chamber music and solo performances as well as studio work for French radio and television. While in Paris, he was invited to play a season with Pierre Boulez's modern music ensemble, Ensemble Intercontemporain. He then moved to Bordeaux where he was a member of the Orchestra National Bordeaux Aquitaine for nine years, the last five serving as Principal Cellist. Mr. Figg is currently a member of the Kansas City Symphony and co-principal cellist with the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra.

2nd Annual newEar Composers' Competition –
CALL FOR SCORES

Full competition details may be found on the newEar web site. Postmark deadline for submissions is February 1.

POSTED – newEar Production Coordinator

Have what it takes to spearhead the operational elements of an upwardly mobile contemporary chamber ensemble? Review the Production Coordinator job description and send your résumé today!

Please consider newEar when giving.

There is no better way to show your support for progressive musical artistry in Kansas City than to offer a tax-deductible donation to the newEar contemporary chamber ensemble, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization. Your gift in any denomination enables newEar to remain an internationally recognized vanguard of contemporary chamber music. Donate Now

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Financial assistance for newEar has been provided by the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Carolyn L. Hart Memorial Trust, DST Inc., Francis Families Foundation, the Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City and the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency.