Jean-Francois Charles

My friend Michael Heller , a great musician whom I met at the Harvard Music Department , led in 2011-2012 an exciting year with the Dudley House Jazz Band. I already told you about his 2010 project around Mary Lou Williams' music ; he went further in 2011-12 when he invited Dave Liebman and Lewis Porter to perform with the band in Paine Hall. Michael released videos of the concert. Here is a favorite, Hiroshima Memorial : Creation Creation lied at the core of this artistic project, with improvisation, creative arrangements, and the world première of a concerto for Dave Liebman and symphonic orchestra, composed by Lewis Porter in what we could call the Third Stream tradition of mixing genres. An excerpt from the program, where composer Lewis Porter presents his Liebman concerto .

I just received Gunther Schuller 's memoir A Life in Pursuit of Music and Beauty . Gunther Schuller is an exceptional musician. I am not going to summarize his biography, since it already takes him more than 600 pages to tell the first 35 years in the book. Here is a short video where he's talking about Miles Davis' Birth of the Cool recording: I have been blessed to meet with Gunther and work for him during my time in Cambridge, MA. He has a great eye for score engraving. His experience as a performer, composer, and conductor taught him that the quality of music engraving has a direct influence on the use of rehearsal time. This is especially important when you are working with a full orchestra, of course. That's why he is almost picky with the placement of expression marks and other such details. When it comes to making parts layout very efficient for rehearsals, Gunther Schuller is very much like Karlheinz Stockhausen, whom I also worked for . Here is an excerpt...

Last year, the contemporary classical music ensemble Alea III performed the première of my composition Viola palustris . It would be fair to speak of Third Stream Music , since the piece is a concerto for a jazz soloist and a classical music ensemble. Watch on youtube: Third Stream Music - Viola palustris by Alea III Alea III, dedicated to new music Alea III is giving his Young Composers' Workshop Concert this Wednesday, January 27th, at 7:30pm in TSAI performance center, in Boston. The exciting program includes new music by the following composers: Graham Dixon (United Kingdom) Kittinger’s Fall Aaron Krerowicz (USA) Asterisk Lina Tonia (Greece) Prismatic Eun Young Lee (Korea) Yeol-doo-dal Mohammed Fairouz (United Arab Emirates) Symphony No. 2 Gon Hwang (Korea) Cosmorleans Concerto Antonis Anestis (Greece) Villa R. (homage à Paul Klee) Miles Bergsma (USA) Phoenix If you are a composer, make sure you check the Alea III's composition competition (you may submit an a...

Here is the live recording of this Alea III concert , when they premiered my composition Viola palustris . Listen while watching this slide show with pictures by composer Phivos-Angelos Kollias . A slide show put together by soloist Alan Lenarcic Or if you prefer, Viola palustris on last.fm . The musicians The amazing soloist Alan Lenarcic was accompanied by Alea III, conducted by Theodore Antoniou: Flute: Sue-Ellen Herschman-Tcherepnin Oboe: Jane Harrison Clarinet: Diane Heffner Bassoon: Janet Underhill Horn: Laura Carter Trombone: Denis Lambert Percussion: Thomas Schmidt and Philip Trembley Piano: Yukiko Shimazaki Violins: Irina Muresanu and Iman Khosrowpour Viola: Anne Black Cello: Mark Simcox Double Bass: Irving Steinberg Thanks to all of the artists for your awesome commitment, and congratulations for getting this great result in just 1h30 of rehearsal time!

Gunther Schuller, Theodore Antoniou, and Alan Lenarcic after the première of Viola palustris . On Monday, March 23rd, Alea III performed my most recent composition, Viola palustris , in its "Composers' Workshop" concert (see announcement ). After the concert, the conductor Theodore Antoniou invited all the composers to dinner. That was great to spend some time with this authentic music lover. Gunther Schuller was excited about the piece and about the soloist Alan Lenarcic's playing. The first thing he told me was: "C'est une vraie composition du Troisième Courant!" ("It's a true Third Stream composition!") Then, he talked a lot with Alan about improvisation and saxophone players. Notably, he defended Charlie Parker's album Charlie Parker with Strings (result: I just ordered the CD). Thank you Alan Lenarcic, Gunther Schuller, and Theodore Antoniou, for your enthusiasm for music!