Avery Fisher Career Grant-winning violinist Tim Fain was seen and heard on the GRAMMY-nominated soundtrack of the film Black Swan, and gave “voice” to the violin of the lead actor in the film 12 Years a Slave, as he did for Richard Gere’s violin in Fox Searchlight’s Bee Season.

Winner of the Young Concert Artists Award, he has appeared as a soloist with the Baltimore and Pittsburgh Symphonies, the Hague Philharmonic, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestras, and the National Orchestra of Spain, among others.

He performs worldwide in a duo evening with composer Philip Glass, has toured with Musicians from Marlboro, and has appeared at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and the Spoleto, Ravinia and Santa Fe Festivals.

His discography for Naxos and other labels includes music by Xavier Montsalvage conducted by Angel Gil-Ordoñez [8.573101], and Glass’s Duo Concerto with the Hague Philharmonic.

Michael Boriskin has appeared at such venues as the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, the BBC in London, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, and Vienna’s Arnold Schoenberg Centre, and as a soloist with such orchestras as the Munich and Polish National Radio Orchestras, the San Francisco, Utah, and Seattle Symphonies, the UNAM Philharmonic of Mexico, the American Composers Orchestra, and the Buffalo Philharmonic.

His recordings include an album of Lou Harrison’s music for solo piano. His innovative NPR series, Century View, was heard regularly on over 200 stations across America, and he served as music director of Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project.

He is artistic and executive director of Copland House, the award-winning creative center for American music based at Aaron Copland’s National Historic Landmark home near New York City.

Under the leadership of Music Director Ángel Gil-Ordóñez, PostClassical Ensemble (PCE) takes the listener on a musical journey for the heart and mind. Through depth of interpretation and skilful execution, and with an ensemble of the most distinguished musicians in the area, the music comes alive with vibrancy and richness of expression.

Founded in 2003 by Ángel Gil-Ordóñez and music historian Joseph Horowitz, PCE has been a pioneer in transforming the concert experience through innovative programming and with collaborations across artistic mediums. Its humanities-infused programming tells stories—exploring music in its cultural and historical context, and it often integrates theatre, dance, film, and visual art, as well as folk, indigenous, and popular music and instruments.

By flexibly expanding and contracting, the ensemble becomes an adaptable medium for instrumental music, ranging from chamber repertoire to full-orchestra compositions, both old and new.

In 2008, PCE established American Roots as a core programmatic module to prioritise the story of American music, with special attention to the central contributions of African-American composers. It also has a tradition of championing works by composers, such as Silvestre Revueltas, Lou Harrison, Bernard Herrmann, and Willam Dawson, deserving of greater advocacy for their cultural influence and social significance. Other core programmatic areas include Film, Cultural Diplomacy, and Encounters, all of which help enhance and inspire a broader and more relevant musical repertoire.

For more information, visit postclassical.com.

Photo: Tom Wolf

Angel Gil-Ordóñez is music director of PostClassical Ensemble, principal guest conductor of New York’s Perspectives Ensemble, and music director of the Georgetown University Orchestra. In León, Mexico, he serves as lead advisor for Trinitate Philharmonia, modelled on Venezuela’s El Sistema.

He regularly conducts at the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine and at the Jacobs School of Music (University of Indiana/Bloomington). The former associate conductor of Spain’s National Symphony Orchestra, he is the recipient of the Royal Order of Queen Isabella, the country’s highest civilian decoration. This is his tenth recording for Naxos.

For more information, visit www.gilordonez.com.

A leading American avant-garde musician, John Cage won notoriety for his famous silent work 4’33”, for any instrument or instruments. Equally controversial was 0’0”, 10 years later, performed by the composer and consisting of the slicing of vegetables, then put into a blender, with the performer concluding by drinking the juice. Cage has had a considerable influence on younger composers, with his use of chance and indeterminacy, electronic techniques, and all manner of experimental devices, whether musical or dramatic. He combined his interest in music with considerable knowledge of mushrooms and a fondness for bridge and other card and board games.

Music

Cage’s compositions are not easily classified. His early use of percussion was a natural corollary of his work with dance groups. Devices used included the prepared piano, pioneered in his 1938 Bacchanale, and developed in a number of subsequent compositions in which various objects are inserted into the piano to create different effects, largely percussive in quality. An interest in Zen and the I Ching resulted in Music of Changes, where chance dictated the choice of notes. Dramatic actions dominate Water Music, for a pianist, who must empty pots of water and perform other feats, while later music makes considerable use of tapes or requires undetermined forces.

Born in Portland in 1917, the American composer Lou Harrison won a particular reputation for his percussion music, his experiments in intonation, and his synthesis of East and West in his music. A pupil and friend of Henry Cowell, whose interest in other musical traditions he shared, he also profited from a close study of the work of Charles Ives. He collaborated with John Cage in San Francisco, studied under Schoenberg in Los Angeles, wrote under Virgil Thomson in New York, continuing a varied career and the development of his many gifts as a poet, artist and musician.

Orchestral and Instrumental Music

Lou Harrison’s compositions include four symphonies, but the greater part of his work lies in a wide variety of compositions for Western and Eastern instruments, notably, in the latter case, for the gamelan, with which he experimented in later years. His Suite for Symphonic Strings, with its opening Estampie and allusive classical movement titles is characteristic of the breadth of his cultural and musical grasp.

Vocal Music

Harrison’s varied compositions for voices include his Strict Songs for eight baritones and chamber orchestra, completed in 1955.