Richard Beaudoin
The music of Richard Beaudoin (b. 1975) has been performed by some of the finest musicians in Europe and America, including the soprano Annette Dasch, the Kreutzer, Lydian and Chiara String Quartets, pianists Marilyn Nonken, Mark Knoop, Constantine Finehouse and Wolfram Rieger, organist Clive Driskill-Smith and tenor Joseph Kaiser. Mr. Beaudoin’s works have been premièred at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Wiener Konzerthaus, New York’s Weill Recital Hall/Carnegie Hall and London’s Royal Festival Hall. He has received opera and vocal music commissions from the Konzerthaus-Dortmund, the Staatstheater-Kassel and the Boston Lyric Opera. His writings on music have been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Perspectives of New Music and The Journal of Music Theory, and some of his recent works pioneer a compositional technique involving micro-temporal measurements of recorded performances. Mr. Beaudoin is a member of the Faculty of Music at Harvard University.
Featured Performances & Recordings
The Kreutzer Quartet records new works in London
The Kreutzer Quartet has recorded five of Mr Beaudoin's new works at sessions in London in May 2011. The sessions, which were attended by the composer, included Étude d’un prélude X—Second String Quartet (ca. 35’, composed in 2009) and la durée sans contacts s’affaiblit (ca. 23’, composed in 2010).
The members of the Kreutzer Quartet are Peter Sheppard Skærved, Mihailo Trandafilovski, Morgan Goff and Neil Heyde. Peter Sheppard Skærved plays the 1698 Stradivari ‘Joachim’ violin and was recently nominated for a Grammy award for his Henze concerti. The Macedonian-born Mihailo Trandafilovski is a composer who also applies new music to violin pedagogy. Morgan Goff plays the 1715 Daniel Parker viola (considered one of the finest British instruments of all time) and has recently recorded a solo disc for Naxos. Cellist Neil Heyde recently made a ground-breaking film documenting Ferneyhough’s Time and Motion Study II under the composer’s supervision. The Kreutzer Quartet has recorded for Naxos, Metier, NMC and Chandos.
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Mark Knoop records six recent piano works at Potton Hall
The pianist Mark Knoop (“one of the most brilliant pianists of the contemporary repertoire” The Sunday Times) has recorded six of Beaudoin’s new piano works at Potton Hall, near Snape, UK. Works include Études d’un prélude I, IV, VII and XI (Chopin desséché, Black Wires, Latticed Window and four28, all composed 2009), nach Webern, nach Pollini (2009-10) and la fille floutée (2010). The latter work is dedicated to Mr Knoop.
In addition to this recording, Knoop will première new works at his upcoming recital at the Royal Academy of Music in London on 1 September 2011.
Click here to listen to Mark Knoop’s recording of Étude d’un prélude IV—Black Wires (2009).
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The Chiara Quartet gives the American premiere of Étude d'un prélude X—Second String Quartet
The Chiara String Quartet will give the American premiere of Beaudoin's Étude d’un prélude X—Second String Quartet on 30 September at Sanders Theater in Cambridge, alongside Ives’ First Quartet and Brahms' Op. 51/2. The Chiara Quartet is Rebecca Fischer, Julie Hye-Yung Yoon, Jonah Sirota and Gregory Beaver. During 2010-2011, the Chiara is celebrating its tenth anniversary season. Over its first decade, the Chiara has established itself as among America’s most respected ensembles, lauded for its "highly virtuosic, edge-of-the-seat playing" (The Boston Globe).
The Chiara Quartet performs in major concert halls across the country, including Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, Philadelphia's Kimmel Center, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the National Gallery in Washington DC, and Harris Hall at the Aspen Music Festival. The ensemble also devotes a portion of its performance season to concerts in non-classical venues including (le) Poisson Rouge and Galapagos Art Space in New York, The Tractor Tavern in Seattle, Avant Garden in Houston, and the Hideout in Chicago, among many others. Recent highlights of the Chiara Quartet's international performances include the American Academy in Rome, a critically-acclaimed eight-city tour of Sweden with clarinetist Håkan Rosengren, and a performance of Steve Reich's Different Trains in Munich at the storied Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität.
photograph of the Kreutzer Quartet by Leif Johannsen (top)—photograph of Mark Knoop by Marco Melchiorre (middle)—photograph of the Chiara Quartet by Liz Linder (bottom)
In Development
Mr. Beaudoin’s recent works inaugurate a new compositional process involving micro-measurements of recorded interpretations. His discovery, made in collaboration with Dr. Olivier Senn of the Hochschule Lucerne, has links to both photography and the musical tradition of cantus firmus. Performances of these works began in 2009 and will continue during the 2011-2012 season; studio recordings are in-progress.
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The Artist and his Model
The Artist and his Model I — La fille floutée, for solo piano (2010, 9')
The Artist and his Model II — La durée sans contacts s'affaiblit, after Paul Valéry, for string quartet (2010, ca. 23')
The Artist and his Model III — La fille rythmée, for solo percussion (2011, 6')
The Artist and his Model IV — La tradition française, for clarinet and piano (2011, 8')
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nach Webern, nach Pollini
nach Webern, nach Pollini, for solo piano (2010-11, 9')
I. Neuordnung nach Dauern (Reorganization according to Duration)
II. Bewegungen in Zeitlupe (Movements on Slow-motion, or Magnified Time)
III. Neuordnung nach Lautstärken (Reorganization according to Volume)
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Études d'un prélude
The new approach was inaugurated by Mr. Beaudoin’s Études d’un prélude [Studies of a prelude], which engage with Martha Argerich’s 1975 recording of Chopin’s Prélude Op. 28/4, published in 1839. These works commemorate the 200th anniversary of Chopin’s birth. Mr. Beaudoin has given lectures on these works at Cambridge University's Centre for Music and Science (23 March 2010), The Royal Academy of Music, London (19 March 2010), The Steinhardt School at New York University (4 Feb 2010), The New England Conservatory (16 April 2010), Harvard University (20 September 2010) and Dartmouth College (6 October 2011). Completed works in this series include:
Étude d'un prélude I — Chopin desséché, for solo piano (2009, 7’30”)
Étude d'un prélude II — Flutter echoes, for string quartet (2009, 8’30”)
Étude d'un prélude III — Wehmut, for voice and piano (2009, 3’)
Étude d'un prélude IV —Black Wires, for solo piano (2009, 7’)
Étude d'un prélude V — Photorealism, for orchestra (2009, 12’30”)
Étude d'un prélude VI — The Real Thing, for string quartet (2009, 5’)
Étude d'un prélude VII — Latticed Window, for solo piano (2009, 1’51”)
Étude d'un prélude VIII — Kertész Distortion, for string quartet (2009, 7’30”)
Étude d'un prélude IX — And they talked about Chopin again (2009, 10’)
Étude d'un prélude X — Second String Quartet (2009, ca. 38’)
Étude d'un prélude XI — four28, for solo piano (2009, 22’15”)
Étude d'un prélude XII — The After-Image, for two voices and ensemble (2010, ca. 20')
[Image above by Picasso, from Vollard Suite, 1933; photograph of Cortot, right, published by Bain News Service]
