“Woman at the New Piano: American Music of 2013” was nominated for 58th GRAMMY Awards® in 3 categories: Best Classical Compendium, Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance by Nadia Shpachenko and Genevieve Feiwen Lee (for Tom Flaherty’s Airdancing for Toy Piano, Piano and Electronics), and Producer of the Year, Classical for Marina A. Ledin and Victor Ledin

Album Information: http://goo.gl/mg198D
Album Trailer: http://goo.gl/xbx8L9
Download Booklet: https://goo.gl/bI4g3y

Artists: Nadia Shpachenko, Genevieve Feiwen Lee
Composers: Tom Flaherty, James Matheson, Adam Schoenberg, and Peter Yates
Label: FRESH! From Reference Recordings
Street Date: November 11, 2014

Label: http://referencerecordings.com/FR-711_DETAIL.asp
Amazon: amzn.to/1BWsdYL

World Premiere recordings of new works for piano, chamber instruments and electronics from 4 notable modern composers: Tom Flaherty, James Matheson, Adam Schoenberg, and Peter Yates

Featuring Nadia Shpachenko-Gottesman: piano, percussion;
with Genevieve Feiwen Lee: piano, toy piano, electronics

This innovative project of new compositions brings together piano repertoire representing the diversity of today’s American classical music. With sounds and textures both new and familiar, both tumultuous and contemplative, all the pieces touch on themes of transformation, of resonances across time, and of cycles of rebirth. The four composers present a snapshot of the many facets of piano music in 2013, the beginning of a new era of pianism.

Steinway Artist Nadia Shpachenko-Gottesman has performed extensively in solo recitals and with orchestras in major venues across North America, Europe and Asia. Described by critics as a "truly inspiring and brilliant pianist... spellbinding in sensitivity and mastery of technique," Nadia enjoys bringing into the world things that are outside the box – powerful pieces that often possess unusual sonic qualities or instrumentation. Nadia’s concert highlights include solo recitals at Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as well as numerous appearances as a soloist with orchestras in Europe and the Americas. An enthusiastic promoter of contemporary music, she has been chosen to give world and national premieres of more than 50 works by Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Tom Flaherty, Annie Gosfield, Leon Kirchner, Amy Kirsten, Hannah Lash, James Matheson, Harold Meltzer, Adam Schoenberg, Lewis Spratlan, Iannis Xenakis, Peter Yates, and others. Winner of more than a dozen piano competitions, Nadia currently serves on the faculties of Cal Poly Pomona and Claremont Graduate Universities.

This album is produced by six-time GRAMMY® nominees Marina and Victor Ledin, engineered and edited by the uncompromising and innovative engineer, Barry Werger-Gottesman. Recorded at Pomona College, Claremont, California, July 11-14, 2013

FRESH! is part of Reference Recordings’ mission to encourage new artists and give them a strong platform for promotion and sales nationally and internationally.

Released by:
    Reference Recordings
Release date:
    11 November 2014
P-line:
    ℗ 2014 Nadia Shpachenko

Excerpts from GRAMMY® nominated album "Woman at the New Piano"

Nadia Shpachenko Live at WGBH in Boston

"Quotations and Homages" album PR

62nd GRAMMY® Award Winner for BEST CLASSICAL COMPENDIUM.

Released worldwide on Reference Recordings on March 1, 2019
Featured New Release on Apple Music
Top Album Summer 2019, Two Gold Medals from Global Music Awards

Described by critics as "pure magic" (I Care If You Listen) and "a scintillating mix of daring sound, genuine beauty, and ... humor" (Fanfare Magazine), Shpachenko's new album "The Poetry of Places" features World Premiere recordings of works for solo piano, for two pianos, percussion, electronics, voice, and toy piano in a fascinating mélange inspired by great architecture and places. The eight compositions monumentalize places as wildly diverse as the Copland House in Cortlandt, NY, The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Louis Kahn’s National Assembly Buildings in Bangladesh, Newgrange Ancient Temple in Ireland, and Frank Gehry’s House in Santa Monica, CA. Included is a significant new work from Andrew Norman, "Frank’s House," for two pianos and percussion, and another large work from Nina C. Young, "Kolokol," for two pianos and electronics (a ‘fantasy’ inspired by Russian Orthodox Church Bells). Additionally, six solo works were written specifically for this project by Amy Beth Kirsten, Hannah Lash, James Matheson, Harold Meltzer, Lewis Spratlan, and Jack Van Zandt. The composers use very different musical approaches and sonic techniques in response to their chosen spaces.

For more information please visit: http://nadiashpachenko.com/recordings-the-poetry-of-places

Official CD Page

"The Poetry of Places", 2020 GRAMMY® Award winner

Music: “Picture Etudes” for Solo Piano: Three Pierrots
Composer: Adam Schoenberg
Artist: Nadia Shpachenko
Album: Woman at the New Piano: American Music of 2013
Label: FRESH! From Reference Recordings
Street Date: November 11, 2014

http://referencerecordings.com
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1BWsdYL

World Premiere recordings of new works for piano, chamber instruments and electronics from 4 notable modern composers: Tom Flaherty, James Matheson, Adam Schoenberg, and Peter Yates

Featuring Nadia Shpachenko-Gottesman: piano, percussion;
with Genevieve Feiwen Lee: piano, toy piano, electronics

This innovative project of new compositions brings together piano repertoire representing the diversity of today’s American classical music. With sounds and textures both new and familiar, both tumultuous and contemplative, all the pieces touch on themes of transformation, of resonances across time, and of cycles of rebirth. The four composers present a snapshot of the many facets of piano music in 2013, the beginning of a new era of pianism.

Steinway Artist Nadia Shpachenko-Gottesman has performed extensively in solo recitals and with orchestras in major venues across North America, Europe and Asia. Described by critics as a "truly inspiring and brilliant pianist... spellbinding in sensitivity and mastery of technique," Nadia enjoys bringing into the world things that are outside the box – powerful pieces that often possess unusual sonic qualities or instrumentation. Nadia’s concert highlights include solo recitals at Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as well as numerous appearances as a soloist with orchestras in Europe and the Americas. An enthusiastic promoter of contemporary music, she has been chosen to give world and national premieres of more than 50 works by Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Tom Flaherty, Annie Gosfield, Leon Kirchner, Amy Kirsten, Hannah Lash, James Matheson, Harold Meltzer, Adam Schoenberg, Lewis Spratlan, Iannis Xenakis, Peter Yates, and others. Winner of more than a dozen piano competitions, Nadia currently serves on the faculties of Cal Poly Pomona and Claremont Graduate Universities.

This album is produced by six-time GRAMMY® nominees Marina and Victor Ledin, engineered and edited by the uncompromising and innovative engineer, Barry Werger-Gottesman. Recorded at Pomona College, Claremont, California, July 11-14, 2013

FRESH! is part of Reference Recordings’ mission to encourage new artists and give them a strong platform for promotion and sales nationally and internationally.

Adam Schoenberg: Picture Etudes for Solo Piano: Three Pierrots

“Woman at the New Piano: American Music of 2013” is nominated for 58th GRAMMY Awards in 3 categories: Best Classical Compendium, Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance by Nadia Shpachenko and Genevieve Feiwen Lee (for Tom Flaherty’s Airdancing for Toy Piano, Piano and Electronics), and Producer of the Year, Classical for Marina A. Ledin and Victor Ledin

Album Information: http://goo.gl/mg198D
Album Trailer: http://goo.gl/xbx8L9
Download Booklet: https://goo.gl/bI4g3y

Artists: Nadia Shpachenko, Genevieve Feiwen Lee
Composers: Tom Flaherty, James Matheson, Adam Schoenberg, and Peter Yates
Label: FRESH! From Reference Recordings
Street Date: November 11, 2014

Label: http://referencerecordings.com/FR-711_DETAIL.asp
Amazon: amzn.to/1BWsdYL

World Premiere recordings of new works for piano, chamber instruments and electronics from 4 notable modern composers: Tom Flaherty, James Matheson, Adam Schoenberg, and Peter Yates

Featuring Nadia Shpachenko-Gottesman: piano, percussion;
with Genevieve Feiwen Lee: piano, toy piano, electronics

This innovative project of new compositions brings together piano repertoire representing the diversity of today’s American classical music. With sounds and textures both new and familiar, both tumultuous and contemplative, all the pieces touch on themes of transformation, of resonances across time, and of cycles of rebirth. The four composers present a snapshot of the many facets of piano music in 2013, the beginning of a new era of pianism.

Steinway Artist Nadia Shpachenko-Gottesman has performed extensively in solo recitals and with orchestras in major venues across North America, Europe and Asia. Described by critics as a "truly inspiring and brilliant pianist... spellbinding in sensitivity and mastery of technique," Nadia enjoys bringing into the world things that are outside the box – powerful pieces that often possess unusual sonic qualities or instrumentation. Nadia’s concert highlights include solo recitals at Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as well as numerous appearances as a soloist with orchestras in Europe and the Americas. An enthusiastic promoter of contemporary music, she has been chosen to give world and national premieres of more than 50 works by Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Tom Flaherty, Annie Gosfield, Leon Kirchner, Amy Kirsten, Hannah Lash, James Matheson, Harold Meltzer, Adam Schoenberg, Lewis Spratlan, Iannis Xenakis, Peter Yates, and others. Winner of more than a dozen piano competitions, Nadia currently serves on the faculties of Cal Poly Pomona and Claremont Graduate Universities.

This album is produced by six-time GRAMMY® nominees Marina and Victor Ledin, engineered and edited by the uncompromising and innovative engineer, Barry Werger-Gottesman. Recorded at Pomona College, Claremont, California, July 11-14, 2013

FRESH! is part of Reference Recordings’ mission to encourage new artists and give them a strong platform for promotion and sales nationally and internationally.

Released by:
    Reference Recordings
Release date:
    8 November 2014
P-line:
    ℗ 2014 Nadia Shpachenko

Woman at the New Piano

Adam Schoenberg: Picture Etudes for Solo Piano; Olive Orchard

Music: Airdancing for Toy Piano, Piano and Electronics
Composer: Tom Flaherty
Artists: Nadia Shpachenko, Piano; Genevieve Feiwen Lee, Toy Piano and Electronics
Album: Woman at the New Piano: American Music of 2013
Label: FRESH! From Reference Recordings
Street Date: November 11, 2014

referencerecordings.com
Amazon: amzn.to/1BWsdYL

World Premiere recordings of new works for piano, chamber instruments and electronics from 4 notable modern composers: Tom Flaherty, James Matheson, Adam Schoenberg, and Peter Yates

Featuring Nadia Shpachenko-Gottesman: piano, percussion;
with Genevieve Feiwen Lee: piano, toy piano, electronics

This innovative project of new compositions brings together piano repertoire representing the diversity of today’s American classical music. With sounds and textures both new and familiar, both tumultuous and contemplative, all the pieces touch on themes of transformation, of resonances across time, and of cycles of rebirth. The four composers present a snapshot of the many facets of piano music in 2013, the beginning of a new era of pianism.

Steinway Artist Nadia Shpachenko-Gottesman has performed extensively in solo recitals and with orchestras in major venues across North America, Europe and Asia. Described by critics as a "truly inspiring and brilliant pianist... spellbinding in sensitivity and mastery of technique," Nadia enjoys bringing into the world things that are outside the box – powerful pieces that often possess unusual sonic qualities or instrumentation. Nadia’s concert highlights include solo recitals at Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as well as numerous appearances as a soloist with orchestras in Europe and the Americas. An enthusiastic promoter of contemporary music, she has been chosen to give world and national premieres of more than 50 works by Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Tom Flaherty, Annie Gosfield, Leon Kirchner, Amy Kirsten, Hannah Lash, James Matheson, Harold Meltzer, Adam Schoenberg, Lewis Spratlan, Iannis Xenakis, Peter Yates, and others. Winner of more than a dozen piano competitions, Nadia currently serves on the faculties of Cal Poly Pomona and Claremont Graduate Universities.

This album is produced by six-time GRAMMY® nominees Marina and Victor Ledin, engineered and edited by the uncompromising and innovative engineer, Barry Werger-Gottesman. Recorded at Pomona College, Claremont, California, July 11-14, 2013

FRESH! is part of Reference Recordings’ mission to encourage new artists and give them a strong platform for promotion and sales nationally and internationally.

Woman at the New Piano: American Music of 2013

Airdancing for Toy Piano, Piano and Electronics

Tom Flaherty: Airdancing for Toy Piano, Piano and Electronics

Anton Arensky: "An der Quelle" from "The Fountain of Bakhchisaray" (1899)
Nadia Shpachenko, piano
Live Performance, May 4, 2016
Cal Poly Pomona University

Anton Arensky: The Fountain of Bakhchisaray (1899)

A. Scriabin: Etude in D-sharp minor, Op. 8, No. 12
Nadia Shpachenko, piano
Live Performance
WGBH, Boston

Scriabin Live on WGBH

Music: “Rainbow Tangle” for piano and electronics
Composer: Tom Flaherty
Artist: Nadia Shpachenko, piano
Album: Quotations & Homages
Label: FRESH! From Reference Recordings (FR-726)
https://referencerecordings.com/recording/quotations-homages/

Nadia Shpachenko’s latest Reference Recordings release Quotations & Homages features World Premiere recordings of works for solo piano, for piano and electronics, for speaking pianist, for piano with extended techniques, and collaborative works for 6 pianists (performed with Ray­-Kallay Duo, HOCKET and Genevieve Feiwen Lee) inspired by a variety of earlier composers and works. These fascinating new pieces come from eight notable modern composers: Tom Flaherty, Missy Mazzoli, Vera Ivanova, James Matheson, Nick Norton, Adam Borecki, Daniel Felsenfeld and Peter Yates.

Pianist Nadia Shpachenko-­Gottesman has performed extensively in solo recitals and with orchestras in major venues across North America, Europe and Asia. Described by critics as a “truly inspiring and brilliant pianist…spellbinding in sensitivity and mastery of technique,” Nadia enjoys bringing into the world things that are out of the box—powerful pieces that often possess unusual sonic qualities or instrumentation. Nadia’s concert highlights include solo recitals at Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw, Disney Hall and Bargemusic, as well as numerous appearances as a soloist with orchestras in Europe and the Americas. An enthusiastic promoter of contemporary music, she has been chosen to give world and national premieres of more than 60 piano, string piano and toy piano works. Her previous album on Reference Recordings, Woman at the New Piano (FR-­711, 2014), was nominated for GRAMMY® Awards in three categories: Best Classical Compendium; Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance, and as part of the body of work in the Producer of the Year, Classical nomination for Marina A. Ledin and Victor Ledin.

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Tom Flaherty: Rainbow Tangle For Piano And Electronics

Lewis Spratlan: "Bangladesh" for solo piano (2015)

The last episode of "My Architect", Nathaniel Kahn’s film tribute to his father, the great architect Louis Kahn, takes place in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and features a brief interview with an elderly local figure, wherein he extols Kahn’s vision in creating the vast complex of buildings that constitute the National Assembly. He argues that Kahn’s work has given transformative hope and a sense of focus and purpose to his nation, otherwise an endless terrain of rice paddies. This piece is about Kahn’s National Assembly Buildings and their unique power.

It consists of these five interlocking sections:
1. The people of Bangladesh. The energetic local music is evoked.
2. The buildings. They are of two main types, concrete and brick.
3. Water. The buildings seem to be floating on a lagoon, a projection of the country’s inseparability from water.
4. The people build the buildings. Swarms of laborers create visionary structures using the most primitive materials – bamboo scaffolding, concrete buckets made of straw
5. The buildings in the nation. A contemplation of the buildings’ looming presence in the life of Bangladesh.

The opening music pervades the whole piece and provides the F# foundation on which it is built. This is the key of the people. Water is its opposite pole, C, the given of nature. The buildings oscillate around G and F, the pitches that surround F#, and bear a sturdy fifth relationship to C. Beyond these structural bases, the music floats freely, inspired always by Kahn’s towering edifice and its integrative force.

"Bangladesh" was commissioned by Piano Spheres and is dedicated to Nadia Shpachenko.

Lewis Spratlan is the winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in music. He is the recipient of numerous awards and Guggenheim, Rockefeller, NEA, Bogliasco, and MacDowell fellowships. Recent works include the one-act opera Earthrise, commissioned by San Francisco Opera; a piano quartet, Streaming, commissioned by the Ravinia Festival as part of its 50th anniversary celebration; "Architect", a chamber opera, released on CD and enhanced DVD by Navona; "A Summer’s Day", commissioned by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project; and "Shining": Double Concerto for Cello and Piano, commissioned by Matt Haimovitz and Christopher O'Riley. "Bangladesh", for solo piano, commissioned by Piano Spheres, was premiered in 2015 by Nadia Shpachenko at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, followed by numerous subsequent performances. "Common Ground", commissioned by The Crossing choir, was premiered in 2016 Philadelphia and repeated in New York on the Mostly Mozart Series. Spratlan's opera "Life is a Dream" received its world premiere by the Santa Fe Opera in 2010, under the baton of Leonard Slatkin, and was awarded the $50,000 Charles Ives Opera Award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters in May 2016. His fourth opera, "Midi", a black French Caribbean Medea, is now being developed for production.

“I’ve always been intrigued by how buildings are put together: how beams are attached to walls, floors to joists, ceilings and roofs to walls, the whole to the basement. At Yale I became familiar with the Louis Kahn “new” Yale Art Museum. I became a devotee of Kahn’s, getting to know many of his buildings and his vast commentary. My collaboration with Jenny Kallick and John Downey resulted in an opera about Kahn’s brilliant work and personal failures. Bangladesh is my response to Kahn’s greatest work, the National Assembly Buildings in Dhaka.”

The Poetry of Places

Bangladesh

09 Lewis Spratlan "Bangladesh" SD

Amy Beth Kirsten: "h.o.p.e." for piano, toy piano, and voice (one performer) (2016)

The American Visionary Art Museum (Baltimore) is a sacred place for me. Even though it’s a fantastically beautiful building, it’s not the architecture that draws me to the place, it’s the artwork inside, the stories of the lives of the untrained artists, and the memories that I’ve made there.

My new work, "h.o.p.e.", was inspired by "The Big Hope Show", a 2015/16 exhibition that “champions the radiant and transformative power of hope. Over twenty-five visionary artists, among them many ‘super survivors’ of enormous personal traumas, exhibit soulful creations reflecting their personal transcendence, and, often, a heightened or newfound creativity and sense of humor.” (quoted from the AVAM website).

This work was commissioned by Nadia Shpachenko and is dedicated to her.

Composer-director Amy Beth Kirsten’s musical and conceptual language is characterized by an abiding interest in exploring theatrical elements of creation, performance, and presentation. Her body of work fuses music, language, voice, and theatre and often considers musicians’ instruments, bodies, and voices as equal vehicles of expression. Ms. Kirsten evening-length, fully-staged theatrical works, as well as traditional concert works, have been premiered by her own ensemble HOWL, musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New World Symphony, Peak Performances, the multi-GRAMMY®-winning Eighth Blackbird, and American Composers Orchestra, among many others. 

Ms. Kirsten spent the 2017-18 Season in collaboration with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to create Savior, an evening-length work of composed theatre which she wrote and directed. Called “ingenious, absorbing and quietly powerful” by The Chicago Tribune, Savior is scored for pre-recorded voice, two sopranos, mezzo-soprano, flute, cello, percussion, lighting, and sound design and is a mystical re-telling of the life and death of Joan of Arc.

Educated at Roosevelt University (MM) and the Peabody Institute (DMA), Ms. Kirsten grew up in the suburbs of Kansas City and Chicago. She lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

“Place, to me, is about the power of nature and the spirit and how a structure communes with those elements, protects those elements, pays homage to those elements, and allows those elements to be elevated, or seen in a different light. For me, an awe-inspiring structure can be an unusually shaped building of glass and metal, or simply an ancient oak in an open field framed by a big sky. Part of my aim as an artist is to project myself, through meditation and imagination, into another place so I might find the music that lives there.”

h.o.p.e.

05 Amy Beth Kirsten "h.o.p.e." SD

Hannah Lash: "Give Me Your Songs" for solo piano (2016)

"Give Me Your Songs" is a piece that plays with material that feels very songful and rather simple. This song-like idea is developed and shifted in a number of different ways throughout the form; it is represented in many different lights and shapes, as if being shown through a kaleidoscope, it is the very stuff of the piece, and yet the piece itself spins forward in a form that is anything but a reflection of song-form. I was inspired to write this piece when I was in residence at Aaron Copland’s house in upstate New York in summer 2015. The place itself was tremendously inspiring because of its history and the fact that Copland lived there for so many years, and also because of the rocky ground on which it sits, and the rather unique structure of the house itself. I found something mysterious about the layout of the house; it interacts interestingly with the rocky hilltop on which it sits, so that the main living room seems almost to float in the air when you look out of the large picture window. The layout of the house is interesting and I found myself making wrong turns for the first couple of days I was there, surprised every time I ended up in the kitchen or living room, thinking I was headed toward one but in fact going toward the other. All these elements together gave me the idea for this piece, "Give Me Your Songs" – a piece that plays with its own structure in various angular and surprising ways, and also, as is the case in Copland’s music, reflects a song-like musical essence.

"Give Me Your Songs" was commissioned by and is dedicated to Nadia Shpachenko.

Hailed by The New York Times as “striking and resourceful…handsomely brooding,” Hannah Lash’s music has been performed at such major venues as Carnegie Hall, Los Angeles Walt Disney Concert Hall, Lincoln Center, the Times Center in Manhattan, the Chicago Art Institute, Tanglewood Music Center, The Aspen Music Festival & School, among others. In 2016, Lash was honored with a Composer Portrait Concert at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre. In the 2017-2018 season, Lash's Piano Concerto No. 1 “In Pursuit of Flying” was premiered by Jeremy Denk and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; the Atlantic Classical Orchestra debuted Facets of Motion for orchestra; and Music for Nine, Ringing was performed at the Music Academy of the West School and Festival. This season, Paul Appleby and Natalia Katyukova premiere Songs of Imagined Love, a song cycle commissioned by Carnegie Hall. Hannah Lash is currently developing a new chamber opera and a concerto for two harps and orchestra, both of which are scheduled for premiere in 2019. Lash obtained her Ph.D in Composition from Harvard University in 2010. She has held teaching positions at Harvard University, Alfred University, and currently serves on the composition faculty at Yale University School of Music. Lash’s works are published by Schott Music.

“For me, music is to time what architecture is to space. As composers, we build things that occupy spans of time, and we have the opportunity to play with the way a listener experiences time, through musical metabolism. In my mind, this is quite similar to the way an architect might build a structure that plays with our perception of space.”

Give Me Your Songs

04 Hannah Lash "Give Me Your Songs" SD

Jack Van Zandt: "Sí An Bhrú" for piano and fixed electronics (2016)

Time and the River • Stonecutting • Spirals and Zigzags (Homage à Boulez)
Dance of Renewal • Eternal River • Starlit Night

Located along Ireland’s Boyne Valley, Sí an Bhrú, or Newgrange as it is known in English, built around 3200 BCE, is one of the oldest extant buildings in the world. The astronomically aligned Neolithic construction consists of a large earthen mound encircled by a stone wall lined with large, elaborately decorated stones. There is a stone-lined passageway that leads from the outside into a central stone-enclosed chamber with alcoves. Each year on the winter solstice, the rising sun shines through a small slit above the entry and light travels directly down the passageway, illuminating the interior chamber for 17 minutes. Commonly known as a “passage grave,” Sí an Bhrú is much more than a burial site—it is an encyclopedia of Late Stone Age artistic practices, and engineering, scientific and agricultural knowledge.

The musical structure of "Sí an Bhrú" takes the form of continuous variations on cyclic thematic materials that fall into several titled sections based on architectural, environmental, scientific and geometrical aspects of the building that suggested musical expression. "Time and the River" portrays the infinite, slow-motion flow of time in the progression of celestial objects, nature, the seasons and the nearby River Boyne. "Stonecutting" represents technologies that enabled the builders the ability to move and shape the giant heavy stones. "Spirals and Zigzags" (Homage à Boulez) is based on the shapes that decorate the stones, evidence of sophisticated abstract thinking, as well as an acute awareness of nature. "Dance of Renewal" is an imaginary ritual dance for the winter solstice, propelled by a gradually emerging ostinato. A brief return to the piece’s beginning, "Eternal River", leads back to the outside world and the timeless wonder of a moonless, crystal-clear "Starlit Night".

"Sí an Bhrú" was commissioned by and is dedicated to Nadia Shpachenko.

Jack Van Zandt is a Los Angeles composer of music for concerts, public spaces, gallery installations, television, film and advertising. He studied composition with Alexander Goehr, Peter Maxwell Davies, Thea Musgrave, Peter Racine Fricker and Emma Lou Diemer. His concert music has been performed in the USA, Canada and Europe, and his commercial music, composed in partnership with Joel Wachbrit, is regularly heard on broadcast and cable TV. He has scored documentary and silent films, and his electronic music has been used for installations, multimedia presentations, and meditation videos and workshops. He is also a writer, teacher, music education program designer, concert producer, and frequent university guest lecturer on various musical subjects. He was Visiting Artist at Cal Arts in 2017. He has recently received commissions from the Copland House Foundation, the Cal Poly Pomona Piano Ensemble, Celliola, LA Harptette, bass-baritone Nicholas Isherwood, and soprano Stacey Fraser, who will premiere his new music theater work with a libretto by Jill Freeman, “The New Frontier,” in 2020. Jack is a member of the board of directors of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Composers Forum, of which he was president 2014-17.

“Architects and composers have been influencing and inspiring each other for centuries: a work of music in its metaphysical environment and a building in its earthly environment are closely related and deeply felt artistic expressions created by utilizing space in the context of time through direct application of the physical sciences and mathematics. The Neolithic building Sí an Bhrú inspired me by its 5,500 years of existence in the Irish landscape, the method and process of its construction, and its encyclopedic representation of Stone Age knowledge and experience.”

Si An Bhru

03 Jack Van Zandt "Si An Bhru" SD

Harold Meltzer: "In Full Sail" for solo piano (2016)

For years I have been taking walks in Manhattan through Chelsea, along the High Line park, or to take my son to summer camp by the Hudson River. Regularly they bring me past the curved white glass facade of Frank Gehry’s IAC Building, which, according to a critic, “gives the appearance of a tall ship in full sail.” I began to imagine the building launching from the New York harbor into the open sea, a little like the office building did in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life.

An architect’s primary challenge may lie less in creating a beautiful or electrifying space, and more in figuring out how to move people around and through the space. So this piece of music is an attempt to translate into sound not only the quality of the facade, the feeling that everything is bravely in motion, but also what it’s like to be on the streets near it.

"In Full Sail" was commissioned by Piano Spheres and is dedicated to Nadia Shpachenko.

Harold Meltzer 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, was named one of the CDs of the year in The New York Times. In December 2017 Open G Records released a second recording of Harold’s music, and in November 2018 Bridge Records released a third. 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. Commissions in recent years have issued from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the Fromm and Koussevitzky Music Foundations. Upcoming projects include a Piano Concerto for Sara Laimon and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, a cantata for The Crossing and Sandbox Percussion, and a concert duet for Anthony Roth Costanzo and Paul Appleby with the American Modern Opera Company.

“In Full Sail" is the fifth "architectural" piece I've composed. Though I became interested in translating architectural space into music as a way to solve problems of form in my own music (with "Brion", based on Carlo Scarpa's Brion-Vega Cemetery), more recent efforts like "Aqua" for string quartet as well as this piano piece try to capture the paradox of experiencing the waves, curves, and seeming movement of an immense and stationary structure.”

In Full Sail

02 Harold Meltzer "In Full Sail" SD

Andrew Norman: "Frank’s House" for two pianists and two percussionists (2015)

"Frank’s House" is an exploration in musical deconstruction inspired by Frank Gehry’s Santa Monica home. Like Gehry, who took a turn-of-the-century Dutch Colonial bungalow and wrapped it in an explosion of asymmetric angles and raw surfaces, I took an old four-hands piano waltz and wrapped it in layers of percussive activity and chance happenings.

Many of the industrial materials Gehry utilized to make his home—including plywood, corrugated metal, and chain link fence—are used here as musical instruments.

Frank’s House was commissioned by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and is dedicated to Berta and Frank Gehry.

Andrew Norman is a Los Angeles-based composer of orchestral, chamber, and vocal music. Andrew’s work draws on an eclectic mix of sounds and notational practices from both the avant-garde and classical traditions. His music has been cited in the New York Times for its “daring juxtapositions and dazzling colors,” in the Boston Globe for its “staggering imagination,” and in the L.A. Times for its “audacious” spirit and “Chaplinesque” wit. Named Musical America’s 2017 Composer of the Year, Andrew received the 2004 Jacob Druckman Prize, the 2005 ASCAP Nissim and Leo Kaplan Prizes, the 2006 Rome Prize, the 2009 Berlin Prize, and a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship. Andrew’s string trio, The Companion Guide to Rome was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Music, and his large-scale orchestral work Play was named one of NPR’s top 50 albums of 2015, nominated for a 2016 GRAMMY® award, recently won the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, and was praised in the New York Times as a “breathtaking masterpiece” and “a revolution in music.” Andrew joined the faculty of the USC Thornton School of Music in 2013, and serves as the director of the L.A. Philharmonic’s Barry and Nancy Sanders Composer Fellowship Program. Andrew’s works are published by Schott Music.

“The things that draw me to architecture are often the same things that draw me to music: the proportions of shapes to each other, the qualities of surfaces and their relations to underlying structures, the expressive uses of patterns and textures, and the exploration of meanings and narratives through abstract means.”

Frank's House

01 Andrew Norman "Frank's House" SD

GRAMMY® Award-winning Ukrainian-American pianist Nadia Shpachenko enjoys bringing into the world things that are outside the box – powerful pieces that often possess unusual sonic qualities or instrumentation. Described as a “gifted and versatile pianist” (San Francisco Chronicle), “one of today’s foremost promoters of contemporary music” (Textura Magazine), and “a great friend and champion of new music” (Fanfare Magazine), Nadia performed recitals at Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, Disney Hall, on the Piano Spheres and Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella and Chamber Music Series, and with numerous orchestras in Europe and the Americas. She premiered more than 100 works by Armando Bayolo, Elliott Carter, Christopher Cerrone, Paul Chihara, George Crumb, Ian Dicke, Daniel Felsenfeld, Tom Flaherty, Annie Gosfield, Yuri Ishchenko, Vera Ivanova, Dana Kaufman, Leon Kirchner, Amy Beth Kirsten, Hannah Lash, James Matheson, Missy Mazzoli, Harold Meltzer, David Sanford, Isaac Schankler, Alexander Shchetynsky, Adam Schoenberg, Lewis Spratlan, Evan Ware, Gernot Wolfgang, Iannis Xenakis, Peter Yates, Pamela Z, Jack Van Zandt, and many others.

Nadia’s debut Reference Recordings CD Woman at the New Piano: American Music of 2013 was nominated for 58th GRAMMY Awards® in 3 categories: Best Classical Compendium, Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance, and Producer of the Year, Classical. “Sure to remain a mainstay of the contemporary discography for posterity” (New Classic LA), Nadia’s 2018 Reference Recordings CD Quotations and Homages features premieres of solo and collaborative works for 6 pianists (performed with Ray-Kallay Duo, HOCKET and Genevieve Feiwen Lee) inspired by a variety of earlier composers and pieces. Described as “superb… evocative… pure magic” (I Care If You Listen), Nadia’s 2019 Reference Recordings album The Poetry of Places features premieres of solo and collaborative works (performed with LA Phil pianist Joanne Pearce Martin and LAPQ percussionists Nick Terry and Cory Hills) inspired by diverse buildings. It won the 62nd Best Classical Compendium GRAMMY® Award. She is also featured on Isaac Schankler’s 2019 Aerocade Music album Because Patterns, Gernot Wolfgang’s 2019 Albany Records album Vienna And The West, José Serebrier’s 2021 Reference Recordings album Last Tango Before Sunrise, and Wouter Kellerman’s 2021 South African Music Award winning album We’ve Known All Times. Nadia’s recording projects are supported by grants from The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, The Alice M. Ditson Fund at Columbia University, and New Music USA, among others.

As a distinguished chamber musician, Nadia frequently collaborates with prominent artists, most recently including Boris Allakhverdyan, Sarah Cahill, Martin Chalifour, Jin-Shan Dai, Kevin Fitz-Gerald, Vijay Gupta, Dahae Kim, Jerome Lowenthal, Kathleen Supové, Ben Ullery, and the Lyris and Argus Quartets. Her recent collaborative performances were featured on Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Chamber Music Series and the Hear Now Music Festival.

Nadia Shpachenko is Professor of Music at Cal Poly Pomona University, where she leads the Piano Performance program and was awarded the 2017 Provost’s Award for Excellence in Scholarly and Creative Activities. She is also on the faculty of Claremont Graduate University, where she teaches Doctoral piano students. Born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Nadia completed her DMA and MM degrees at the University of Southern California, where she was awarded the title of Outstanding Graduate. Her principal teachers included John Perry, Victor Rosenbaum, and Victor Derevianko. Nadia Shpachenko is a Steinway Artist and a Schoenhut Toy Piano Artist.

Nadia Shpachenko

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