Amy Beth Kirsten at Copland House

We went to Aaron Copland's house yesterday to work with Amy Beth Kirsten on her new piece Fire Balloon!  Amy is the current composer staying there (composers are offered multiweek residencies).  It's a wonderful home and the perfect space for working on music. All around the house are framed handwritten scores by Copland, photos, and posters from concerts.

Fire Balloon is the latest commissioned piece by my Emerging Voices Project.  It uses an original text by Amy Beth Kirsten about fire balloons (hot air balloons).  She grew up in an area with lots of hot air balloons and mimics the unique sound of the burners turning on and off.  We will be premiering the piece this weekend and taking it on tour with the other commissioned works from our 2011 CD.

We also spent some time interviewing Amy for my composer talks series.  We hope to get the video online within the week.  Many thanks to New Music USA's MetLife Creative Connections program for partial funding of our project.

And yes, the above photo is the Copland House's mailbox.

Performance at the NEW National Opera Center

SO excited to announce that we'll be performing at the BRAND NEW National Opera Center in New York City.

The details:

Thursday, November 29th at 7:30pm
National Opera Center - Recital Hall
330 7th Avenue
NY, NY 10001
Tickets $10 at the door

Here's what the NY Times has to say about the National Opera Center.

Hope to see you there!

Here comes our next tour!

It's official!

Our November - February tour is up and running. Booking is ongoing BUT we officially have our first show booked, which means it's really happening!

Join us Sunday, November 18th @ 4.30
Out of the Blue Gallery
106 Prospect Street
Cambridge, MA

We're super excited to unveil Amy Beth Kirsten's new piece, Fire Balloon, and to revisit all three pieces we commissioned for our CD: Adam Knauss' Portrait, George Lam's The Person In The Room Wishes To Be Left Alone and Kathleen Bader's Two Songs for the Sounds Outside.

Stay tuned for more concerts, coming soon to a city near you!

Love,
Z&E

EVP 4:33

In the midst of work on our Emerging Voices Project DVD, I decided to make a super fast, octave-shifted version of our entire CD. Elisabeth and I thought the result was so funny/awesome that we wanted to share with you! In a nod to John Cage's centennial, we made the final version 4:33 long.

So, here it is: EVP 4:33

FREE download of EVP 4:33 - right-click to download

CD anniversary: live-stream concert

Happy 1-year CD anniversary! We are streaming a concert from Zach's living room starting at 3pm. Tune in here and send us questions/comments during the show via Twitter: @ZachHerchen and @ElisabethMusik.

Program:
Adam Knauss: Portrait
George Lam: The Person In The Room Wishes To Be Left Alone
Kathleen Bader: Two Songs for the Sounds Outside

If technical disastor occurs and our stream ends early, check http://www.youtube.com/user/ZachHerchen for a new stream.

EVP premiere of George Lam's "The Person In The Room Wishes To Be Left Alone"

Only a few days away from our CD release anniversary! Here's our final premiere video from the CD release: George Lam's The Person In The Room Wishes To Be Left Alone, with a libretto by Benjamin Rogers.

Elisabeth and Zach will be performing these commissioned works this Sunday in a livestream concert from Zach's living room! Details:
-Sunday Sept. 16 at 3pm
-Livestreamed from a post on our front page and Zach's YouTube channel

Web Concert Sept. 16th @ 3pm

To celebrate the 1-year anniversary of the release of our Emerging Voices CD we are doing a live web concert and we hope YOU will tune in!
We'll be playing all three of our commissioned pieces: 

George Lam's "The Person In The Room Wishes To Be Left Alone"
Adam Knauss' "Portrait"
Kathleen Bader's "Two Songs for the Sounds Outside"

There will also be some chatting, question-answering, fun-having AND announcements about our upcoming tour.
Check back here on September 16th at 3pm to watch us LIVE!
Yours,
Elisabeth & Zach