Apparently the balalaika can only be found in hell, and the viola just doesn’t exist in the afterlife. Or at least that’s what Louis Andriessen seems to think. Thursday April 15th was the New York premiere at Carnegie Hall of the concert version of his opera La Commedia, which was based on portions of Dante’s Divine Comedy as well as a polyglot collection of other texts. The opera was presented in five sections (as opposed to Dante’s original three), three of which were set in hell, including a long episode narrated by a female Dante. The opera itself was fairly plotless, following the basic contours of Dante’s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven but mostly consisting of vignettes sung by individual characters.

The work was performed by the orchestra-like Asko-Schoenberg Ensemble, in conjunction with the talented Synergy Vocals and Brooklyn Youth chorus. Claron McFadden played a luminescent Beatrice while Cristina Zavalloni played an impassioned, seemingly possessed Dante that was accented by stalking around the stage and exaggerated dancing to the music. Jeroen Williams made for a creepy Devil in the third section and a bizarre fast talker in the fourth, while Marcel Beekman sang a lovely aria as Casella from the last box of the first tier.

The piece itself was rather like a Jackson Pollock painting; blotches of jazz here, streaks of dense cluster chords over there, a Broadway finale down at the end. The piece was not a refined intellectual exercise, but rather a hundred sprawling minutes of comedic gestures, sarcasm, dense cluster chords that seemed to lambast the audience, and a collage of the jetsam and flotsam of the classical music world. The work was entertaining, but in the end much of it was not very affecting. There was one brilliantly creepy moment during Lucifer’s aria when he sang (in Dutch) of the new world he was going to create and a gentle pastoral theme played behind him, but it was soon lost in the overwhelming tide of noisy diminished chords that characterized hell. It would have been far more interesting if he had picked up the irony and shock of the moment of Lucifer’s aria.

For the neophyte, trying to figure out the new music scene can be both confusing and overwhelming. The many splintered traditions as well as the huge variety of music out there can make it quite intimidating to get an idea of the bigger picture. That’s why the new Contact! Series organized by Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic has the potential to be a dynamic force in getting people interested in new music. Between the first concert in December and the second April 16th and 17th, 7 commissioned new works by 7 different composers were premiered by members of the New York Philharmonic. Alan Gilbert and composer-in-residence Magnus Lindberg chose a wide variety of composers that painted a nice picture of the different facets of composition today. The concert on April 16th and 17th (Friday at Symphony Space and Saturday at the Rainey Auditorium at The Metropolitan Museum of Art) featured new works by young composers Sam Shepard, Nico Muhly, and Matthias Pinscher. Each piece was a startlingly different take on the heritage of esoteric music in the West.

Shepard’s piece, These Particular Circumstances is best described as neo-Impressionist, drawing inspiration from and even quoting Debussy and Ravel. The piece’s seamless seven movement structure, would have been more interesting if one could have told Floating apart from Grinding. There were lovely moments and details in the piece, but there was something wanting in its overall structure. Nico Muhly’s Detailed Instructions drew obvious inspiration from minimalism, jazz and even indie rock, but found its own identity by creating a mood and staying within it. Though developmentally static the piece still grabbed the audience’s attention with its changing orchestration. Matthias Pinscher’s piece songs from Solomon’s garden featured baritone Thomas Hampson singing Hebrew text from the Songs of Solomon. The strong vocal line was backed by diverse orchestration, at times sparse and at others dissonantly dramatic, evoking quite a varied and interesting garden.

Beyond the pieces themselves, the concert was particularly impressive for the laidback and intimate feel generated by conductor Alan Gilbert. His amusing pre-performance interviews with each of the composers and obvious enthusiasm for the project did away with much of the stuffy institutionalism that can characterize Lincoln Center. One can only hope these concerts will continue with this enthusiastic and welcoming take on new music that encourages strangers to become fans.

You have to have been studying abroad on a different planet if you haven’t seen (or at least heard about) the video from 2005’s UltraViolet Live that shows a nascent Lady Gaga (alias Stefani Germanotta) performing. At 2010’s version of the all-school talent show, you could almost hear the question, “Who’s next?” 20 competitors, each representing one of NYU’s residence halls, took to the stage to try and give us an answer. Whether singing Mozart arias or beat boxing, an impressive array of talented performers had their five minutes of fame on Skirball’s stage. Given the talent-show-nature, those who shone the brightest had, like Gaga, a complete act, a novel presence. But regardless of who won, the February 25th show was an entertaining snapshot of the NYU community.

The show was hosted by Derrick Comedy member and NYU alum DC Pierson, who enjoyed making fun of overenthusiastic audience members and overly flirtatious artists. The night started with indie band Winter, North, & Night giving a noisy, vocally passionate rendition of an original song. Kudos went to vocalist Chris Duggan for his expressive and enthusiastic singing. Crowd favorite Martha-Sadie Griffin (after declaring “I’m single, just putting this out there” ) got the crowd going with acoustic versions of rap hits like Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” that showed off her large range and great sense of comedic timing. Guitarist Eric Kim took up the single-and-mingle banner and wooed the audience with his poignant original “Wine.” After a tap dancing interlude by Greenwich Hotel’s Lauren Lashua, classical pianist Francis Guo wowed the audience with his version of Lizst’s virtuosic “La Campanella” and an awesome lace ascot. Carlyle’s Don’t Forget to Write took things down a notch with their mellow, barefoot “Coast to Coast” which included a brilliant use of harmonica and dance. Carissa Matsushima sold the audience on her flirtatious take of the Queen of the Night’s aria from Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Alex Goley and his band (as yet unnamed) played “Don’t Let Me Go Alone” showing off a beautiful voice and indelible mandolin playing. Christian Oreste and Noah Welch thrilled the audience with their acoustic, stripping version of Britney Spear’s “Intoxicated” that included a very well placed moment with a glitter filled bandana. Phoebe Ryan’s band was the most professional-sounding of the night, including a string section, bells, creative lyrics, and overall polished sound, particularly impressive from a freshman. Guitarist Andrew Onore sang an original song with gusto, managing to fill the stage by himself. After David Sangillo’s juggling, Daniel Eiseman gave another polished performance of his song “Tiger” which started off as a piano and vocal number and blossomed into a jam complete with trumpet and sax. Meghan Offtermatt and accompanist Daniel Lee offered a different take on Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love” that showed off another lovely voice with theater sensibilities. Paolo Bitanga did a little bit of everything. A combination of break dancing, piano playing, singing, and beat-boxing kept the audience guessing. Lionel Yu played an original piano waltz that developed several catchy themes in complex variations. Andrew Flockhart, the ultimate winner, had a great act, escalating from creating simple beats to singing and beat boxing at the same time; just when things couldn’t get any crazier Flockhart pulled out a harmonica and played, sang, and beat boxed at the same time. The crowd went wild, and it came as no surprise that the judges chose him as the winner. To finish off the evening Brother Goose played a mellow composition about the beach with box percussion and strings.

Perhaps in a nod to Lady Gaga, the judges chose the performers of the evening as winners, awarding 2nd place to juggler David Sangillo and 3rd place to poi performer Shaun Sim. Regardless, there’s no doubt several of the performers of the night have more than enough talent to be seen far beyond Skirball’s stage.

As the last notes of Randall Woolf’s Motor City Requiem faded away, one couldn’t help but admire his clever, effective use of electronics with piano and string quartet. The samples from Motown songs and beats evoked the dynamics of a bustling city, and as they faded away, leaving only a mournful violin melody over a droning string background, one could see the city fading. Of course, for Mr. Woolf, the use of electronics and influences from other genres to shape the landscape of his pieces is nothing new. However, each of the four pieces members of the Brooklyn Philharmonic performed January 24th as part of the Music Off the Walls series at the Brooklyn Museum showed what diverse results can arise from similar methods. As Mr. Woolf explained in later conversation, he rarely does the same thing twice. This has led to projects like composing a ballet based on Where the Wild Things Are in 1997 and premiering a concerto for rappers and orchestra in Chicago later this year. It has also lead to Mr. Woolf’s position as composer mentor to the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s unorthodox composer fellows- hiphop DJ Evan Vytal and jazz bassist Ryan Brown.

January 24th’s offering was the first in a series curated by these three composers based around a particular gallery at the Brooklyn Museum. Mr. Woolf took Patricia Cronin’s realization of unfinished works of artist Harriet Hosmer as his inspiration to create a concert entitled “Distant Partners, Distant Portraits.” Each work on the program was a collaboration between Mr. Woolf and artists he had never met.

Motor City Requiem was composed for Woolf’s hometown of Detroit, a Motown-inspired piece that mourned the city that once was. Woolf listened to lots of Motown both to find samples and to become familiar with the style so that he could compose a piece based around it. He went back and forth between many different samples, before the right ones fell into place and were orchestrated (back to back, the samples only occupy 20 seconds!) What is interesting in this piece is that the relationship between the live musicians and the electronic sounds is constantly shifting. At the beginning of the piece it seems as if the musicians are accompanying single words (“and”, “please”, “away”), while later there is a call and answer, or the sounds are just part of the background. The quintet part changes between fast dance parts and slow ballads, all strongly in the style of Motown. Woolf, who used to play rock and jazz, considers “classical” a way to prescribe everything that is usually improvised in other genres. While he admits that something is lost in this approach, the cohesion of one person’s vision makes for strong pieces. Although he approaches every piece from a classical perspective, he aims to blur genres instead of forcing one into the box of another. The effect, in this piece, is a fusion of the best of both worlds.

The second piece on the program was Franz Schubert, for string quartet. The piece was inspired by Franz Schubert’s sonatas that successfully integrated songs into strict classical form. Feeling that melody is largely lacking from most modern music, Woolf decided to create a piece that had a minimalist texture but strong melodies. He played around with several different melodies before finding a seamless structure that combined singable melodies with a dense, minimal background. The piece was something of a departure for Woolf in that it involves no electronics. It surprised him that this is becoming one of his most frequently performed pieces though it involves no electronics, proving that it can be difficult to gauge what audiences appreciate. Woolf tries to consider the audience when he composes while staying true to his own aesthetic, though he would not write music that no one likes. Franz Schubert proved successful at achieving Woolf’s vision while also being likable and refreshing.

Played between these pieces was a performance of Debussy’s Hommage a Rameau, itself an interaction between artists, which was then remixed live by pianist Kathleen Supove, bassist Ryan Brown and DJ Evan Vytal. The performance, Woolf’s brainchild, took influences from jazz, hiphop, and modern music, mixing them together to create otherworldly and occasionally sublime reworkings. While jazz and classical music have a history of crossover, it was quite interesting to see a DJ in the mix. Woolf described himself as “rabid” about the turntable and lamented the lack of DJs in classical music. Many DJs he knows are interested in classical music, and Woolf is working on a system of notation so that DJ’s might be better incorporated into the classical music world.

The final piece on the program, Revenge! was a live film score accompaniment to the first stop-animation film created in 1912 by Ladislav Starevich, entitled The Cameraman’s Revenge. After watching the film several times, Woolf decided to compose a tragic and dramatic score, as opposed to the cartoonish Klezmer-style music other composers had used. Writing a score to an already established film as opposed to creating film for a piece was a challenge for Woolf, though the already established contours did cut down on the number of decisions that needed to be made. Unfortunately, the performance was slightly marred by technical problems, but for Woolf that is part of the struggle to integrate electronics into classical music. While electronics are easy to use with the right setup, that set up almost never exists and Woolf has struggled with everything from finding extension cords to malfunctioning click tracks. As he philosophically stated, “anything you don’t do over and over has problems.” However, the expansion of sonorities that occurs when electronics are added as well as joy of experiencing something new and unexplored make the technical difficulties worth the pain.

Mr. Woolf’s compositions have the unique quality of being both stimulating and accessible for those who shy away from modern music. Check out www.randallwoolf.com.

This favorable chance introduction inspired me to go see the premier of Wolfe’s newest piece, Steel Hammers at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall November 21^st. The piece was a retelling of the American myth of John Henry, known for using his steel hammers to beat a steam machine in a race. But unlike many composers before her, Ms. Wolfe did more than just retell a legend-she chose to look at the legacy of legends themselves through the lens of this particular one.

The piece called for piano, clarinet, cello, bass, guitar/banjo/mountain dulcimer, and quite an assortment of percussion (including performers’ feet and hands) as well as the wonderful Trio Mediaeval, three female vocalists from Scandinavia. The piece was organized into several movements that each told a part of the legend. The first movement was a setting of the words “Some say he’s from”, which were broken down and put back together in a round of the three vocalists. The instrumentalists joined in at the end with percussion that sounded like a train moving on a track, a hint of the clash to come.

The next movement, The States, was a list of (as Ms. Wolfe explained in the talk beforehand) all the places that different versions of the story said John Henry was from, which were again layered by the vocalists over and over such that the meaning of the words themselves was almost obscured. One got a sense of how many different versions of the story exist and have been told. Ms. Wolfe used lyrics of conflicting description throughout the piece to narrate the narration of the legend. The three vocalists embodied the hundred different narrators of these stories, speaking with different musical voices to lend a rich diversity of sound to the entire piece. By the end, I felt as if I had heard not a story, but the legend of John Henry itself.

The instrumental accompaniment to the piece also added to the feeling of many stories being communicated at once. The background was constantly shifting, as the mood changed from tender to cacophonous, often within the same movement. However, a percussive take on the instruments as well as repeated melodic motifs gave cohesion to the piece. The clarinet and vocal trio provided the melodic and harmonic material, while the cello, bass, and guitar lines, in combination with prepared piano and an assortment of drums and mallets, created rhythm accompaniment and drove the piece forward.

Though I felt the piece was rather lengthy, the ingenuity of its conception and the lovely presentation it was given were quite impressive. Julia Wolfe’s ability to draw on a broad range of influences to create and communicate her visions and concepts was a refreshing experience at both concerts I attended.

Emily has just released her first album, “Rush.” She is a bubbly, outgoing person and a talented singer and songwriter who is also quite serious about creativity and “getting it right.” Her album was the result of a lifelong love of singing and numerous requests from fans for an EP ever since she began performing in high school.

The album is also a result of Emily’s hard work and dedication over the past year. Not content to merely record a couple of songs live and throw together an EP, Emily chose to hire a backup band of local musicians and record separate tracks that were then mixed. The result is an album that sounds crisp, professional, and well-balanced.

As part of the process, she founded her own record label, Emmerik Records. She decided to do so not only to protect her intellectual rights, but also because she wanted to be involved in every step of the production. She explained, “If I was to work for a big record company, I would just go into the studio and record and they would do all the rest. By producing my own album I got to be involved in the editing, mixing, and design of everything.”

Emily worked with a friend studying graphic design to design her album and attractive website. She worked with producer Josh Gannet on the actual tracks. After deciding to make an album in July of last year, Emily chose which of her 30 original songs to record by searching for a particular theme. She noticed a pattern of love songs, and decided to use the material that fit under the theme. She spent September through December practicing her songs and finding a back-up band of local Morristown, NJ musicians. She recorded in January and February, edited and mixed her songs, designed the album, had it pressed, and then released it this September. All while commuting 4 hours to NYU every day, taking 20 credits, and never getting enough sleep.

I had to wonder, was it worth it? “I sort of considered producing this album as my third major. It was such a learning experience…I have so much respect for anyone who produces an album, because I know how much work it is,” Emily explained. With an album under her belt, Emily plans to put together a band before graduating from NYU this year and wants to work as a musician. If that doesn’t pan out, she may work on developing her label and producing albums for other people. “The most important thing I learned was how much business is a part of music. You can say oh, I just want to play my music man, but what are you going to do when you have to talk to lawyers or producers? If you are going to self-produce an album, you really have to be self-motivated and be able to manage yourself.”

And Emily did a great job of doing just that. Do yourself a favor and check out her album “Rush” on iTunes or at her website www.emilyeddey.com.