SELECT PAST EVENTS
Highlights of recent
performances:
September 20, 2018
Ford Center
Oxford, Mississippi
April 9, 2018
Carnegie Hall
New York City
December 8, 2017
Gala Opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and Mississippi Museum of History
Jackson, Mississippi
December 15, 2017
Cannes, France
December 30, 2017
Teatro del Lago
Chile
PAST News
Sono LUMINUS RELEASES BRUCE LEVINGSTON’S CITIZEN, A MUSICAL EXPLORATION OF CITIZENSHIP, PATRIOTISM AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Recording Includes Premiere Commissions by Nolan Gasser, David T. Little, and C. Price Walden, and Works by Henry Grant Still (in a Recorded Premiere), Augusta Gross, and Frédéric Chopin
On January 25, 2019, Sono Luminus released Citizen [DSL 92228], the label’s seventh album showcasing the celebrated pianist, author, and founder of Premiere Commission, Inc., Bruce Levingston. “A force for new music” in the words of The New Yorker, and “A pianist’s pianist,” (American Record Guide), Levingston is a master of creative programming, and here the Mississippi native casts his eyes and ears not just on that historically complex state but on other places and times—Chopin’s Poland, for example—that have inspired challenging political responses from creative artists. “In recent years,” Levingston writes, “I have come to see that my beloved state only reveals more intensely what exists in other places in our world: the struggle for people to come to terms with one another’s histories and differences. I chose the title “Citizen” for this album not only because it contains works that reflect upon actual citizenship and human rights, but also to highlight that we are all citizens of one earth, and must find ways to respect one another’s differences and strongly uphold each other’s right to exist with dignity and freedom.”
Bruce Levingston writes of his new release:
The genesis of this recording was an invitation to perform for the opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, an event which inspired me to meditate on the complex history of my birthplace, Mississippi. A storied, culturally-rich state, it has produced some of our countrys most important artists including William Faulkner, B.B. King, Leontyne Price, and Eudora Welty but is also a place that has witnessed notably painful struggles with race, poverty, and equality. The scars are painful and deep. Here, among our colleges, churches, cotton fields and battlefields, contradictions abound. These disparate, but related, elements have long absorbed and confounded artists born in this mystical place. In recent years, I have come to see that my beloved state only reveals more intensely what exists in other places in our world: the struggle for people to come to terms with one anothers histories and differences. In this time of turmoil between peoples and nations, focused on issues of citizenship and patriotism, we continue this struggle. I chose to name this album Citizen, not only because it contains works that reflect upon actual citizenship and human rights, but also to highlight that we are all citizens of one earth, and in order to survive, we must find ways to respect one anothers differences, and strongly uphold each others right to exist with dignity and freedom. On this recording, I have gathered together works by composers who have contemplated these issues deeply. The voices of these artists plead for civility, humanity, and love, and each brings a sense of immediacy to the cause offering not a clenched fist, but an open hand that reaches out with a welcoming embrace.
Bruce Levingston at Carnegie Hall
Bruce Levingston will perform a solo concert on April 9, 2018 at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall that reflects upon today’s important questions of citizenship, freedom and national identity. The centerpieces of the program are two world premieres of powerfully moving works by David T. Little and Price Walden which were commissioned in honor of the opening of the new Civil Rights and History Museums of Mississippi in celebration of the state’s bicentennial. Other featured works include Lèos Janaček’s Piano Sonata 1.X.1905: “From the Street”, depicting the death of an unarmed worker who plead for a Czech university; three Chopin Mazurkas, which represent the composer’s pride and patriotism for his native Poland; two Debussy works from The Children’s Corner and Images, Bk II, Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G-sharp minor, Op. 32, No. 12 and Etude-Tableau in D major, Op. 39, No 9; and Liszt's Vallée d’Obermann from the Années de Pèlerinage (Première Année: Suisse).
For more information and tickets please visit the Carnegie Hall website.
A special gala dinner will follow the concert at Trattoria Dell’Arte restaurant across from Carnegie Hall. If you would like more information about this event, please email info@premierecommission.org.
Click here to reserve tickets to the concert and dinner
Sono Luminus releases Bruce Levingston’s new album Windows on January 26, 2018
On January 26, 2018, Sono Luminus releases Windows [DSL 92137], the sixth album on the label featuring celebrated pianist, author, and founder of Premiere Commission, Inc., Bruce Levingston. Known for his nuanced interpretations and creative programming, Levingston’s focus for this recording is on works which, he writes, “reflect a myriad of overlapping artistic influences and feature composers who have been inspired by multiple art forms.” The album includes two works by Robert Schumann, Kinderszenen, Op. 15; and Arabeske, Op. 18, which are framed by two Premiere Commissions: The Shadow of the Blackbird (2011) by composer David Bruce, and James Matheson’s Windows (2015), for which the album was titled.
The album opens with British composer David Bruce’s two-movement work The Shadow of the Blackbird, which is inspired both by the music of Robert Schumann, and the poetry of Wallace Stevens. The composer writes, “For me, Wallace Stevens’ poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird is one of the most moving meditations on life’s mystery; moving partly because it circles around the mystery without trying to explain it.” After discussions with the pianist about the commission, the composer became inspired by Levingston’s recording of Schumann’s Kreisleriana, and used the first few notes of the work as a starting point for his virtuosic composition. The Shadow of the Blackbird, like the Schumann work on which it is loosely based, has “something of a fantasia quality” and gently plays with the listener’s perception of time and space.
The Bruce work is followed by two of Robert Schumann’s most enduring and beloved compositions, Kinderszenen, Op. 15 (1838) and his Arabeske, Op. 18 (1839). For Levingston, the Schumann was an immediate choice for this album: “Schumann was deeply influenced by poetry and literature. His intimate Kinderszenen, a series of distilled little jewels that offer fleeting glimpses of childhood, is paired with the urbane, elegant Arabeske.” While both works were composed within a year of each other, the pianist notes, “on a certain level, this work [Arabeske] is the emotional opposite of Kinderszenen. Its refined outer grace veils an undercurrent of longing and bittersweet complexity that is very much the domain of the adult world.”
Rounding out the recording is the album’s title work, Windows, by American composer James Matheson. The suite is comprised of five movements which depict the stained glass windows of Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse. The work was commissioned in 2015 by Premiere Commission, Inc., to celebrate the centennial of the Union Church of Pocantico Hills in New York.
The pianist writes, “This deeply touching, epic cycle of music captures the intimate, often heartrending, visions of Chagall as well as the powerful simplicity of Matisse’s modern design which utilizes the striking collage forms he employed in his final years. Matheson’s work also reflects the influence of Olivier Messiaen’s own theologically-inspired music. Like the French master, Matheson utilizes large-scale blocks of harmonies with organ-like sonorities to support and shift the music’s kaleidoscopic planes of color and set into relief the work’s piercing motifs and intricate patterns. The universal themes of love and sacrifice (Jeremiah and Isaiah), loss and altruism (Crucifixion and The Good Samaritan) and the jubilant celebration of life and nature (The Rose) are memorably portrayed in this poignant tribute to the human spirit.”
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