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to be updated soon!
"talent to burn..."-Fanfare
The 2023 recipient of the American Academy of Arts & Letters Charles Ives Opera Award ($50,000)with librettist Ginger Strand for their opera Artemisia
ARTEMISIA
an opera about Artemisia Gentileschi, fueled by passion, betrayal and art in 17th Century Italy
"The Genuine Article..onto the season's 'best list' it goes" -Boston Globe
"Artemisia” lasts just 80 minutes, but fits in big themes set to music of quivering intensity.
The story of the rape is there, blended with Gentileschi’s unbearably compassionate painting of the biblical character Susanna, who was ogled and shamed in her bath. But larger questions of idea and form, image and projection, sight and gaze also find nuanced and intelligent treatment." CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM
NY Times review https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/arts/music/classical-music-youtube.html
SF Classical Voice
"Left Coast Chamber Ensemble Proves That Great Opera Needn’t Be Grand"
"Laura Schwendinger's Artemisia, on the other hand, is sumptuous on every level...Schwendinger’s score is striking. ..Tommaso’s aria, a breathtaking piece of worry and longing...Most memorably, the music underscores Artemisia’s deteriorating vision."
OPERA WIRE
https://operawire.com/left-coast-chamber-ensemble-2019-review-dorothea-and-artemesia/
Additional sound files at https://schwendinger.music.wisc.edu/soundfiles4.html
Soundfiles & Videos
Sound files below for chamber works
orchestral and choral works (see below chamber works)
vocal works and more!
Featuring the ACO, Matt Haimovitz, Julian Wachner with Trinity Novus Wall Street, Christina Jennings,
JACK Quartet, Dawn Upshaw, The Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston, Lincoln Trio, Christopher Taylor, Theater Chamber Players of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and many others
ARTEMISIA links (below as well, under videos)
See/ hear Orchestral, Choral and Opera works, and videos below Chamber Music
Quick Links (newer links in construction)
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Sinfonietta in three movements
Trinity Wall Street Novus
conducted by Julian Wachner
Nightingales (2021) for Two Solo Violins and Orchestra (17:00)
UWSO with Oriol Sans conducting
A Consortium with the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra
Chamber works
The Artist's Muse
For flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano & percussion (21:00)
For The Chameleon Arts Ensembl, e of Boston, for the Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston (2016)premiered May 20, 2017, Boston
For the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress, and dedicated to the memory of Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky
Musical portraits of seven women- in works by Petrus Christus, Picasso, Da Vinci, Cezanne, Vermeer, Sargent and Klimt
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High Wire Act
for flute, violin, viola,cello and piano
Commissioned by BrightMusic featuring
Christina Jennings
Inspired by Alexander Calder's Cirque Calder
(can be seen at the Whitney Museum of Art)
http://whitney.org/Collection/AlexanderCalder/8336195
II. Tight-Rope Walker
IV. Trapped Bird
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C'e La Luna Questa Sera?
for violin, cello and piano
Lincoln Trio from CD Notable Women
Nonet
for flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, piano, percussion, french horn and harp
Chicago Chamber Musicians
A Fromm Foundation Commission
Nine Muses for Flute Quartet
1. Clio, 2. Calliope, 3. Urania, 4. Thalia, 5. Euterpe, 6. Polyhymnia,
7. Erato, 8. Melpomene, 9. Terpischore) Performed by PANdemonium 4 (Kimberlee Goodman, Lindsey Goodman, Lisa Jelle, and Alison Brown Sincoff), Otterbein University, Westerville Ohio, February 16th, 2020. www.LindseyGoodman.com
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Violinists in My Life
Eleanor Bartsh, violin, Thomas Kasdorf, piano
I. Eleanor Bartsh
II.Wei He
III. Miranda Cuckson
IV. Desiree Ruhstrat
V. Curt Macomber
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Night Cafe at Arles
from Van Gogh Nocturnes
Christopher Taylor, piano
Song for Andrew
for violin, viola, cello and piano
Dedicated to the memory of Andrew Imbrie, Vicinnium Void
Wet Ink
A 2014 Bennington Conference Commission
for clarinet, violin, viola, cello and piano
Commissioned by the Bennignton Chamber Music Festival, when Schwendinger was faculty composer, in a performance by Vicennium Void featuring Christopher Janwong McKiggan, Geoffrey Herd, Leah Gastler, Kevin Downs, and featuring clarinetist Kai-Ju Ho
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JACK Quartet
with Ari Streisfeld, Christopher Otto, John Richards and Kevin McFarland with
Christopher Taylor and Jamie Van Eyck during recording session for QUARTETS at Oktaven
Colin Clarke’s review, in the May/June edition of Fanfare, reads
“The Creature Quartet: Hymn for Lost Creatures is in one sense a sort of Carnival of the Animals for our time, presenting a procession of musical portraits of various animals. It is the composer’s “personal response to the current mass extinction of species”; the creatures chosen are therefore extinct, mythological, or endangered. Perhaps, therefore, it is at heart a carnival of compassion. The trajectory of the work is described in some detail by Schwendinger in the booklet notes; the strength of the music is such that one need not work through that description to realize the power of her music, this despite the fact that the animation artist Pauline Gagniarre was commissioned by Wisconsin Union Theater to provide an animated video to present each creature in order as the music plays (the captivating video is freely available on vimeo.com). Gestural and yet powerfully organized, Schwendinger’s voice is highly individual. The performance by the JACK Quartet is impeccable, and as a studio recording it is technically more secure than the live Vimeo video. The sheer intensity of both music and performance thereof is spellbinding, as if the passion of the composer for her subject shines through like a light.”
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Garden of Earthly Delights
for flute, oboe, violin, cello, mandolin and guitar, for the Cygnus Ensemble
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Creature Quartet
Premiered by the JACK Quartet at
Union Concert series
Based on 12 endangered, extinct and
mythological creatures
Birds
1) Ivory Billed Woodpecker
2) Passenger Pigeon
3) Dodo
Mythological
4) Yeti
5) Chupacabra
6) Nessy
Endangered (or hunted)
7) Javan Rhinoceros
8) Mustang
9) Tasmanian Devil
Extinct
10) Western Lowland Gorilla
11) Thylacine
12) Northern Right Whale
Until the Sunrise (2014)
for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and percussion (9:25)
For Lakeshore Rush of Chicago
Inspired by the sunrise over the Lake Michigan
At 7:24 of video
from ARC of FIRE
for piano trio
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Mise-en-Scene (2010)
for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and percussion (9:25)
For Boston Musica Viva
Brushstrokes (2010)
For flute, clarinet, violin, cello and percussion
For the Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players
WORLD PREMIERES CONCERT SERIES (13:00)
Links to sound files here
1) Contrapposto
2) Mobile
3) Chiaroscuro
4) Kinetic Sculpture 5) Pointillism
Total
(1:12) (1:32) (2:03) (2:30) (2:20) (2:30) (1:33)
From Elissa Birdeye's review in the Boston Musical Intelligencer review
"The title of the program derived from the world premier centerpiece of the evening, Laura Elise Schwendinger’s Mise-en-scene (2011). But it also provided a context for the other pieces on the program. Schwendinger explained before the performance that mise-en-scene refers to all the elements (lighting, sound, props, stagecraft, etc) which create the feel and image seen in either a theater piece or a film. Her work, in nine short, continuously played movements, described a story, and even without program notes, it would have been possible to imagine what was going on onstage. She described her music as “zany,” but perhaps another term would be “looney” in the sense of the fiendishly difficult and evocative music by Carl Stallings that underpinned the familiar Looney Tunes cartoons. Schwendinger’s music was clear, delightful, and descriptive, almost an opera without words."
NONET (2005)
A FROMM Foundation Commission
for flute, oboe, clarinet, french horn, violin, viola, cello, piano and percussion
a Fromm Foundation Commission
for the Chicago Chamber Musicians
and at ASPEN. August 8, 2020
2007) 7:14
Jayn Rosenfeld, flute & Stephen Gosling , PIano
https://soundcloud.com/user527919643/rapture-for-flute-and-piano
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A National Flute Association Young Artist Competition Commission (2018) 8:00
for flute, violin, viola,cello and piano
Commissioned by BrightMusic featuring
Christina Jennings
Inspired by Alexander Calder's Cirque Calder
(can be seen at the Whitney Museum of Art)
http://whitney.org/Collection/AlexanderCalder/8336195
II. Tight-Rope Walker
IV. Trapped Bird
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Far Over the Misty Mountains for solo oboe
Dedicated to Juan Pechuán and performed by Aaron Hill, and Keri McCarthy
https://soundcloud.com/user527919643/far-over-the-misty-mountains
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHAMggddKYo
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Chamber music with voice
Kay Ryan Settings
for mezzo, cello and piano
excerpt from II. If the Moon Happened Once- Erin K. Bryan, Leo Altino, Christopher Taylor
If the moon happened once, it wouldn’t matter much, would it? One evening’s ticketpunched with a round or a crescent. You could like it or not like it, as you chose. It couldn’t alter every time it rose; it couldn’t do those things with scarvesit does.
in just- Spring
Dawn Upshaw with Gilbert Kalish, piano
on TDK Naxos Voices of Our Time
purchase at
https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=DV-VTDU-EUR
About A Mountain
for Mezzo-Soprano and Flute (Picc, C, Alto, Bass) (11:30)
link to information and page with sound files here
https://schwendinger.music.wisc.edu/About%20a%20Mountain.html
Commissioned and premiered by Julia Bentley and Mary Stolper (see article in Time Out Chicago)
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About a Mountain was commissioned by Julia Bentley and premiered at De Paul College in Chicago with flutist Mary Stolper.
"How does one write a sign to warn earthlings (or aliens) away from a radioactive mountain 10,000 years from now? What language should be used? Or what simple iconography? This is an honest-to-god dilemma explored in John D’Agata’s 2010 nonfiction work, About a Mountain. The essayist and University of Iowa creative writing professor examines the U.S. government’s attempts during the last eight years to transform Nevada’s Yucca Mountain into a dumping ground for nuclear waste. The project has been derailed, in part by the impossibility of developing warning placards that could remain universally understandable during its 100-century-plus lifespan. Earlier this year, while reading About a Mountain, local mezzo-soprano Julia Bentley became fixated on the idea of the ephemerality of language. That concern has led to an exciting collaboration with composer Laura Schwendinger."
By Doyle Armbrust, Time Out Chicago
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Songs of Heaven and Earth
-excerpt from IV. I Never Believed
Four settings of T'sai Yens' 17 Songs to a Tartar Reed Whistle
for mezzo voice, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and harp (26:00)
Theater Chamber Players Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts, Leon Fleischer and Dina Koston, Directors & Patricia Green, mezzo-soprano
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Cortona Duo, Rachel Calloway and Ari Streisfeld
Cortona Duo with Ari Streisfeld & Rachel Calloway
Love Sonnets for mezzo and violin (15:00)
Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Sonnet 147 My love is as a fever, longing still
Sonnet 116 Let me not to the marriage of true minds
http://icareifyoulisten.tv/duo-cortona-love-sonnets-by-laura-schwendinger/
AVIARY
for percussion Ensemble
Four players and piano
A fantastical work, a walk through
an imaginary bird house after hours
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Orchestra works and Concerti
Chiaroscuro Azzurro
for violin and chamber orchestra
Premiered by Jennifer Koh and ICE
Recording on Albany 3 Works
with Curtis Macomber,
Matt Haimovitz and Christina Jennings,
Nicole Paiement conducting
On Albany CD (Troy 1390)
Nightingales
for Two Violins and Orchestra
Nightingales (2021) for Two Solo Violins and Orchestra (17:00)
UWSO with Oriol Sans conducting
A Consortium with the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra
Waking Dream
for flute and orchestra
Christina Jennings, solo flute
Esprimere
for cello and orchestra
Matt Haimovitz, cello soloist
3 Works for Solo Instruments and Orchestra
Matt Haimovitz, Nicole Paiement and with Schwendinger, during the recording of her cello concerto Esprimere
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Chiaro Di Luna
for string orchestra (3:50)
Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra of Hungary
https://soundcloud.com/leschwend/chiaro-di-luna-premiered-by-the-franz-liszt-chamber-orchestra
SHADINGS
an ACO UnSafe commission
videos@leschwendinger - password
An American Composers Orchestra
with her cousin Leni Schwendinger premiered at Carnegie Hall in 2011
Betes de la Mer
Inspired by the cut outs of Henri Matisse
For orchestra (8:00)
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Choral Music
For Paris
for Wordless Choir and Solo Viola
Sally Chisholm, viola with Beverly Taylor, conducting
All Those Who Love You
for Women's Choir
Settings of the Songs of Solomon
-from Six Choral Settings for SATB
Commissioned by Julian Wachner, with the Marsh Chapel Choir, 1995
performed with Trinity at Zankel in 2014
Llorona
a setting of the old Mexican Folk Song for SATB choir
With or without guitar
Opera
ARTEMISIA
Schwendinger & Strand, Full length Opera subtitled Subtitled
Composed by Laura Schwendinger with libretto by Ginger Strand, Artemisia tells the story of the Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi, who portrayed herself as Susanna in her famous painting Susanna and the Elders. With Christopher Alden - stage director and Lidiya Yankovskaya - conductor
March 9, St. Paul's Chapel, Trinity NOVUS NY
Cast
Heather Buck – Susanna
Augusta Caso – Artemisia Gentileschi
Oliver Mercer – Agostino Tassi/Elder 1
Christopher Burchett – Cosimo di Medici/Elder 2
Richard Troxell – Tomasso/Oculist
Creative Team
Laura Schwendinger – composer
Ginger Strand - librettist
Christopher Alden - stage director
James Smith - assistant director
Mengmeng Wang - Composer assistant and part preparation
Lidiya Yankovskaya - conductor
Zachary Goodman - assistant conductor
Ika Avaliani - scenic, lighting, and costume designer
Kelly Ruth Cole - production and stage manager
Mason Fick – assistant production and stage manager
FULL PERFORMANCE WITH SUBTITLES
Left Coast Chamber Ensemble premieres
Artemesia (2019)
Cast - Betany Coffland, Artemisia Kyle Stegall, Tommaso Marnie Breckenridge, Susanna Jonathan Smucker, Elder 1 / Agostino Tassi / Holofernes / Occulist Igor Vieira, Elder 2 / Cosimo Nikki Einfeld, Abra Players - Matilda Hofman, conductor Kate Stenberg, violin Leighton Fong, cello Stacey Pelinka, flute Leslie Tagorda, clarinet Anne Rainwater, piano Constance Koo, harp Loren Mach, percussion
Creative Team - Laura Schwendinger, composer Ginger Strand, librettist Jenn BeVard, stage director Elisabeth Reeves, stage manager Susan Thieme, producer Andrew Lucia, projection design Allen Willner, lighting design Maggie Whitaker, costume design Angrette McCloskey, set design June 2019, San Francisco. Program: Changing and Unchanging Things, 2019-20 season.
Video and Sound Recording: Zach Miley www.leftcoastensemble.org Artemisia was produced, in part, due to generous funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the San Francisco Arts Commission, Roger Shapiro Fund for New Music, Fleishhacker Foundation, Mead Witter School of Music at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, and a Discovery Grant for Female Composers from the National Opera Center.
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Laura at Yaddo, 2014
More Videos
Eleanor Bartsch and Thomas Kasdorf
I. For Eleanor From The Violinists in My Life
Link to Eleanor's website: http://www.eleanorbartsch.com/news/
A video about Laura and Leni's ACO UnSafe commission SHADINGS
An American Composers Orchestra with her cousin Leni Schwendinger premiered at Carnegie Hall in 2013
Night City
A video about Leni Schwendinger's "Night Walk" art and work featuring Laura Schwendinger's music High Wire Act