Composers Concordance: Protest Songs
$20
- Jessica Bowers, mezzo-soprano
- Oren Fader, guitar
- John Pietaro, percussion & poetry
- Laurie Towers, electric bass
- Robert C. Ford, poetry
- Eugene McBride
- Carman Moore
- Seth Boustead
- Kathleen Supové, piano
- Gene Pritsker (Noizepunk), guitar
- Shanan Estreicher, voice
- Lotte Arnsbjerg, voice
- Tessa Brinckman, flute
- Thomas Piercy, clarinet
- Kebra-Seyoun Charles, double bass
- Premik Russell Tubbs, saxophone
Seth Boustead — Selected works
Frank Brickle — Selected works
Shanan Estreicher — Selected works
Gilbert Galindo — Selected works
Patrick Grant — Despair Plus Action
Eugene W. McBride — Lock Him Up
Carman Moore — Selected works
Gene Pritsker — Protest Songs Cycle
Carolyn Steinberg — Voters
Randall Woolf — Selected works
On Sunday, March 16, 2025, at 5pm Eastern, at the world-famous Stonewall Inn in the West Village, Composers Concordance presents Protest Songs. We are living in perilous times, where our freedoms, our democracies, and our artistic expressions are being threatened by far-right radicals and an unhinged dictator wannabe in the White House. This is when artists need to stand up and protest.
Protest music has a long history in this country, with songs addressing social injustice, war, and civil rights. At this event, we will present brand-new songs of protest at the most fitting location: the Stonewall Inn—the site of the 1969 Stonewall riots, which ignited the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBTQ+ rights in the United States. The event will feature the Bowers Fader Duo, Laurie Towers/John Pietaro Duo and many composer/performers in works by Lynn Bechtold, Seth Boustead, Frank Brickle, Shanan Estreicher, Gilbert Galindo, Patrick Grant, Eugene W. McBride, Carman Moore, Gene Pritsker, Carolyn Steinberg, Randall Woolf
Featured compositions include: Voters with words and music by Carolyn Steinberg, which will contain an audience participation sing along; Lock Him Up with words & music by Eugene W. McBride; Despair Plus Action with words and music by Patrick Grant; and Gene Pritsker's Protest Songs Cycle on three poems of John Pietaro.
The in-person concert will also be livestreamed on Composers Concordance's Facebook Page.
About Composers Concordance
Staying in rotation for 40 years in NYC is a rare feat. In the case of a new music presenting organization, it requires not only diligence and cognizance of achievements of the past but also an ethic of keeping one's ear to the ground for emerging stylistic and technological developments, as well as talented new composers on the scene.
Composers Concordance, founded in 1984 by Joseph Pehrson and Patrick Hardish, advised by Otto Luening, strives to present contemporary music in innovative ways, with an emphasis on thematic programming. Directors Gene Pritsker and Dan Cooper co-curate the programs and lead the CompCord Ensemble, Chamber Orchestra, String Orchestra, and Big Band. Associate Directors are Milica Paranosic, Peter Jarvis, Debra Kaye, and Seth Boustead.
Composers Concordance has also created a Naxos-distributed record label: Composers Concordance Records, co-directed by Peter Jarvis. Composers Concordance's overriding vision is to promote contemporary music, composers, and new works as a rightful and respected part of society. Good music performed and recorded well, pushing the boundaries of sound and composition.
http://www.composersconcordance.comAbout Bowers Fader Duo
Of the Bowers Fader Duo, The American Record guide has stated "The deep oak of Jessica Bowers' lower range and the lush honey of her higher range mix well with the steady and sensitive guitar playing of Oren Fader." In Opera News, "Mezzo-soprano Jessica Bowers and guitarist Oren Fader are to be commended just for helping to expand the art-song catalogue...reminding listeners of the genre's innate power as a vehicle for storytelling."
https://www.bowersfaderduo.com/About The Red Microphone
The Red Microphone was founded as a quartet of Pietaro, Towers, Moshe and Iacovone in 2010 to record "Brecht Breakdown" for British label IAR's The Beat Sounds from Way Out. The band has performed widely, recording independent CD The Red Microphone Speaks in 2013, and for ESP-Disk, the critically acclaimed Amina Baraka & the Red Microphone (2017), followed by And I Became of the Dark (2021).
https://theredmicrophone.bandcamp.com/audioAbout Jessica Bowers, mezzo-soprano
About Oren Fader, guitar
About John Pietaro, percussion & poetry
About Laurie Towers, electric bass
About Kathleen Supové, piano
In May 2012, Kathleen Supové received the John Cage Award from ASCAP for “the artistry and passion with which she performs, commissions, records, and champions the music of our time.” Kathleen Supové is one of America’s most acclaimed and versatile new music pianists, continually redefining the pianist/keyboardist/performance artist in today’s world. Ms. Supové presents solo concerts under the moniker THE EXPLODING PIANO. A striking presence onstage, she has performed with computers, boxing gloves, robots, and laptop orchestra.
Recent projects include two solo CDs: "The Debussy Effect," on New Focus Recordings (La Barbara-Clark-Marks-Felsenfeld-Woolf-Gosfield-Cooper), the result of a multi-composer commissioning project; and "Eye to Ivory" (Childs-Woolf-Barash-Didkovsky-Naphtali), with vocalizing, extended techniques, Yamaha Disklavier, and noise-based effects.
http://www.supove.com/About Gene Pritsker (Noizepunk), guitar
Composer/musical polymath Gene Pritsker has written over nine hundred compositions, including chamber operas, orchestral and chamber works, electro-acoustic music and songs for hip-hop and rock ensembles. His compositions employ an eclectic spectrum of styles, that are influenced by his studies of various musical cultures.
He is the founder and leader of Sound Liberation, an eclectic hip hop-chamber-jazz-rock-etc. ensemble. He also Co-Directs Composers Concordance. Gene's music is performed all over the world at internationally recognized festivals and by highly respected ensembles and performers.
He co-founded the Grammy-nominated Absolute Ensemble with Kristjan Jarvi and has been a composer in residence and guitarist since its creation in 1993. He worked closely with jazz fusion legend Joe Zawinul and has orchestrated major Hollywood movies, including Cloud Atlas, for which he wrote additional music and composed his Cloud Atlas Symphony. He is also the lead orchestrator for such TV series as Babylon Berlin, Jett, Netflix's Sense8, and Messiah. Gene is the lead orchestrator and has additional music in the 2021 film The Matrix Resurrections.
"My music is extremely eclectic, for me music has no bounds – I view the world of music as one big genre. My motto for my art is ending the segregation of sound vibration."
Gene is also a guitarist/rapper/Di.J./ and producer he incorporates each of these musical attributes to create music that is "not designed for easy listening or to melt into the background. It is insistent. It demands attention and curiosity." (New York Newsday) "Mischief-maker and cultural blender-in-chief, Pritsker is a serious artist, yet much of his work is witty and irreverent. Anyone can draw a mustache on the Mona Lisa, but few musicians draw it as artistically and creatively as Gene Pritsker." (Raymond Tuttle, Fanfare Magazine)
https://www.genepritsker.com/About Shanan Estreicher, voice
About Tessa Brinckman, flute
About Thomas Piercy, clarinet
Thomas Piercy is a critically acclaimed musician with orchestral, concerto, solo recital, and chamber music appearances throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia.
Described by The New York Times as “Brilliant... playing with refinement and flair… evoking a panache in the contemporary works…,” Mr. Piercy presents audiences to varied and exciting concerts of standard classical music, jazz-inspired programs, contemporary works, pieces written specifically for him and his own original arrangements, compositions and collaborations.
Piercy's repertoire ranges from the Classical period to premieres of compositions written for him by some of the most outstanding composers of today, including Ned Rorem, Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, Jennifer Higdon, Fernando Otero, and Shoichi Yabuta.
http://www.thomaspiercy.com/