Fauxharmonic Orchestra » From the music director

Beethoven – Symphony No. 1 in C, op. 21 – II Andante cantabile con moto

Paul Henry Smith — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 05:36:08 +0000

Second movement, andante cantabile con moto, from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21
Conducted by Paul Henry Smith. Recorded live, in concert, May 20, 2009.

Beethoven – Symphony No. 1 in C, op. 21 – III Menuetto: Allegro molto e vivace

Paul Henry Smith — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 23:14:18 +0000

Third movement, menuetto: allegro molto e vivace, from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21
Conducted by Paul Henry Smith. Recorded live, in concert, May 20, 2009.

Free Recording Download: May 20, 2009

Paul Henry Smith — Tue, 26 May 2009 03:37:02 +0000

Thank you very much for attending the inaugural concert in our Beethoven Digital Symphonies Series. As a small token of appreciation, we’re happy to offer you these recordings from that historic evening. As you know, it was the first time a Beethoven symphony was played in a live concert with a digital orchestra.

To get your free download, visit InstantEncore and enter your download code (printed in your concert program). Enter it in the upper right corner of the web page.

If you’d like to know about our upcoming concerts, just let us know and we’ll add you to our announcement list.

Enjoy!

- Paul H. Smith

Concert 1
May 20, 2009
Holy Name Church, West Roxbury, Massachusetts

Tom Myron
Two Arias from Iphigenia at Aulis
Tynan Davis, mezzo soprano

II. Mother, why are you silent?
III. Lead me on, destroyer of Illium’s city

George Frideric Handel
‘Ombra mai fu’ from Xerxes
Tynan Davis, mezzo soprano

Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 1 in C, op. 21
I. Adagio molto – Allegro con brio
II. Andante cantabile con moto
III. Menuetto: Allegro molto e vivace
IV. Adagio – Allegro molto e vivace

Order a full quality audio CD of the

concert for $12.95 (plus $5 s/h)

Beethoven – Symphony No. 1 in C, op. 21 – IV Adagio, Allegro molto e vivace

Paul Henry Smith — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:33:35 +0000

Finale from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21
Conducted by Paul Henry Smith. Recorded September 12, 2008.

Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies

Paul Henry Smith — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 01:24:24 +0000

About the project and who’s participating …

The Fauxharmonic Orchestra has begun a massive project to perform all nine Beethoven symphonies. This may well be the first digital orchestra performance of the symphonies.

2006 Orchestral Composition Contest Winner: David Heuser

Paul Henry Smith — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 15:47:19 +0000

The Fauxharmonic Orchestra is pleased to announce that composer David Heuser has won its first annual international orchestral composition contest. Heuser’s work stood out as particularly expressive, original, inventive and powerful. The winning composition, A Screaming Comes Across the Sky, was chosen from among eighty-six entries. Heuser will receive a cash prize as well as a recorded performance of his work by the Fauxharmonic Orchestra. The contest was open to composers of all ages, career stages, and nationalities.

About the winning composition

Listen to the Fauxharmonic Orchestra performance: A Screaming Comes Across the Sky

“A Screaming Comes Across the Sky” was commissioned by the Immanuel and Helen Olshan Texas Music Festival for its “New Texas Overtures” season in 2005. The title of the piece is the first sentence from Thomas Pynchon’s novel Gravity’s Rainbow. The piece was premiered in 2005. One reviewer of that performance wrote:

David Heuser’s ‘A Screaming Comes Across the Sky’ was a shot-in-the-arm beginning. … Heuser’s music certainly matched the title through its intense, driving rhythms and thunderclap-loud outbursts. This was all-American music at its most dynamic and visceral. Yet the piece by the University of Texas-San Antonio composer was well-crafted and smartly orchestrated … The music continually engaged mind and body as it careened along.

— Houston Chronicle (July 2005)

About the composer

David Heuser is associate professor of theory, composition, and electronic music at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Heuser’s music has been performed by various groups and individuals and on festivals and conferences throughout the US and abroad. He has won a variety of awards, grants and commissions including an ASCAP Young Composer Award, many ASCAP Standard Grants, a First Music commission from the New York Youth Symphony, an Immanuel and Helen Olshan Texas Music Festival “New Texas Overture” Commission, and the Delius Composition Contest Chamber Music Award.

More about David Heuser

Honorable Mentions

The following outstanding compositions were selected by the judges for hornorable mention:

Ikarus	Brydern Benedikt
The Flames of Imbolc	Garrett Byrnes
The Cerneian Hind	Kevin Cancellaro
In Fire	Sabang Cho
Creo de Irritum	Jonathan Crane
Caldera	Christopher Dietz
Amadeus ex machina	Lawrence Dillon
Elegy	Joel Feigin
Passacaglia on a Theme by Bach	Federico Garcia
Symphony No. 1, First Movement	Takanori Honda
Mogao	Xiao-ou Hu
Scherzo	Igor Iachimciuc
Variations on Chords	Vera Ivanova
Horizons	Jon Bauman
Memories from my previous lives	Angel Lam
Sparkle	Shafer Mahoney
Là, ou la mèr rencontre le ciel, Prelude for orchestra	Tudor Dominik Maican
Surreal Abundance	Ed Martin
Albanian Rhapsody No. 1	Anesti Nova
Bénédiction d’un conquérant	Adriàn Pertout
Inertia	Jonathan R. Pieslak
Atonement	John Spencer

About the contest

The Fauxharmonic Orchestra’s international composition contest was established in 2005 to help foster new orchestral composition, and to showcase digital orchestral performance. The contest winner receives a $1,200 prize and a recorded performance by the Fauxharmonic Orchestra.

This year’s contest involved eighty-six entries by composers from the US, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Canada. Judges for the 2006 contest were:

Emily Doolittle, composer (bio)

Markand Thakar, Music Director of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra and the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra; Co-director of the graduate program in orchestral conducting at the Peabody Conservatory of Music (bio)

Herb Tucmandl, CEO and Founder, Vienna Symphonic Library, the world’s pre-eminent maker of digital orchestral instruments and performance systems (bio)

Paul Henry Smith, Music Director of the Fauxharmonic Orchestra, a digital orchestra ensemble devoted to producing recordings of orchestral music, new and old, of the highest artistic caliber.

Thoughts on digital music from Paul Lansky

Paul Henry Smith — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 02:43:52 +0000

“the emergence of digital sound is really a watershed moment in the history of music. It enables us to harness technology in the service of musical adventure in ways that were unimaginable only twenty years ago. The computer is the ultimate instrument of the imagination.”

Digital thoughts — Paul Lansky

For the past fifty years computers have played a role in musical composition. The significant recent change is that the technology has now moved out of composition studios and into the performer’s hands.

Digital Orchestra Performance in 2050?

Paul Henry Smith — Sun, 26 Feb 2006 01:18:45 +0000

Given technology’s inexorable march forward, how good will digital musical performances sound by 2050? This chart says it in a nutshell:

Clearly the best digital orchestral performances already surpass bad or even mediocre live performances. It’s only going to be a short time before they can equal, and surpass, the best orchestral recordings. But will they ever be able to deliver a musical experience as good as the best live orchestra performances?

Perhaps, if you compare the rate at which digital orchestral performances are improving to the rate at which live orchestra performances are improving, you might answer, “yes, some day digital musical performances will be as good or better than the best live performances.” But what would it take for that to happen? Much better digital instruments, for one. And much better trained musicians to be able to play these instruments.

What about the spontaneous aspect of live performance? Obviously that is already lacking in every single recording … but could it possibly be re-introduced into a live digital orchestra performance? Of course it could. And of course it will take a lot of time and work to develop that to the point of being capable of delivering the most superlative musical experience. After all, the symphony orchestra didn’t just emerge over night.

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