Anthony Fiumara RSS

the house that i built

user@domain.com — 2010-09-02T11:47:32+02:00

The song was commissioned by the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht (Utrecht Early Music Festival), for the rather unusual scoring of positive organ, theorbo, bass gamba and two sopranos. The sopranos are Eugénie Warnier (artist-in-residence in the Utrecht festival) and Elodie Fonnard: two amazing singers, blending together most wonderfully in my music. ...Period instruments are not your usual suspects for contemporary music, plus my instrumental writing is a bit speedy and rhythmically relentless – it’s easy to spin out or miss a side street on the fast lane. ...The lyrics I used are not biblical, nor is the text about the destruction of Jerusalem (or any other city). I found this three-line-song in Henry Thoreau’s Walden, and it seemed to fit perfectly to the occasion: ...This is the man that lives in the house that I built,

welle of mercy (3) radio interview

user@domain.com — 2010-06-20T12:04:45+02:00

Listen to the interview Kees van Mechelen made for RKK Radio (in Dutch) on Welle of Mercy, for their program called Zinspelen. ...I am currently working on a new piece, for Marin Gester’s Le Parlement de Musique, an excellent early music ensemble from Strassbourg. Like my electronic interludes Ponts de ténèbres (composed for the Lamentations of Orlandus Lassus), this new work goes as a companion piece with a setting of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, this time the Leçons de ténèbres by François Couperin. ... Couperin only left us three of those leçons, every single one a marvel of ornamented vocal art for one or two women’s voices plus continuo. All of French high society thronged to these musical services to be beguiled by candlelight. My new work is going to be performed in the Festival Oude Muziek in Utrecht, that commissioned this composition.

welle of mercy (2) recording

user@domain.com — 2010-06-01T15:48:28+02:00

Listen to the radio recording – by Kees van Mechelen (RKK) and Don Vonk (Eurosound) – of the first performance of Welle of Mercy, during the Nederlands Gregoriaans Festival on Sunday 30 May, in the St. ... Schola Maastricht (conducted by Hans Heykers) and string orchestra Lundi Bleu (conducted by Carel den Hertog) did a wonderful and intense performance yesterday. ...Oh, and do take a look at the long interview Monic Slingerland wrote in Trouw, earlier last week. Moze Jacobs recently made translations of most of the articles, for all you non-Dutch readers.

welle of mercy (1) rehearsal

user@domain.com — 2010-05-22T13:28:08+02:00

Lundi Bleu and Schola Maastricht in Crea Amsterdam, rehearsing Welle of Mercy for the premiere performance on May 30.

prolonged playtime

user@domain.com — 2010-05-12T16:00:39+02:00

For instance, on 19 February Trio Mediaeval staged the world premiere of Falling in a jam-packed Laurenskerk in Rotterdam, and over the next couple of days the trio took the work to Tilburg and Heerlen. ... The trio’s singing added beauty to the piece far beyond what I had imagined when composing; the cathedral acoustics of the Laurenskerk made the sound even more magic and – last but not least – at the stroke of midnight I was treated to a three-part song during the afterparty. ...On 4 and 5 March there was a performance by Margreet Niks of my Solo for Alto Flute during the Cross-Linx Festival in Utrecht (Vredenburg, Leidse Rijn) and Eindhoven (Muziekgebouw Frits Philips), where Lunapark also performed twice for a wildly enthusiastic audience of over 1,000 people. ...On 11 and 12 March pianist Ralph van Raat and the Noord Nederlands Orkest (NNO) succesfully played my piano concerto Aerial under the direction of Stefan Vladar. ...Meanwhile we’ve had the first rehearsals of Welle of Mercy, a new work for choir and string orchestra that I wrote for the Dutch Gregorian Festival in Ravenstein. Two weeks earlier Schola Maastricht and the string orchestra Lundi Bleu had already run through the piece in the Luciakerk where the world premiere will take place on 30 May.