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August, 2021 August 6: The virtual symposium, "Attention, Cognition, and the Auditory Self, 1770-1920," which I co-convened with Francesca Brittan was great fun. Special thanks to our 14 speakers, wonderful chairs, and the many attendees who joined us! More information about the event can be found here. June, 2021 June 23: I am honoured and delighted to join the editorial board of Music Theory Spectrum for a term commencing in Fall 2021. June 17: The virtual workshop, "Future Histories of Music Theory: Problems and Possibilities," which I co-convened with Thomas Christesen, Nathan Martin, and Lester Hu, was really fantastic. The event aimed to provoke conversation and reflection among historians of music theory and interested scholars in adjacent fields, with the concrete goal of envisioning what a volume akin to Strunk's Source Readings in Music History with an emphasis on what a more "global" history of theory might comprise. Special thanks to our 97 participants! More information about the event can be found here. June 12: I really enjoyed giving a colloquium talk on Descartes and attention at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. More info here. May, 2021 May 30: My article, "Séances, 'Sperrits,' and Self-Playing Accordions: Musical Instruments in Victorian Spiritualism" has just been published in vol. 38.2 of the Journal of Musicology. This piece grew out of a very cool workshop on music and visual culture held at Yale back in 2015 convened by Erin Johnson-Williams, and it features a stack of really funny Punch cartoons. Link here. April, 2021 April 12: I really enjoyed presenting "Hector Berlioz's Neurophysiological Imagination" at Tel-Aviv University's musicology colloquium series. This was the last time I'll be giving this paper, which will come out in the Journal of the American Musicological Society in early 2022. March, 2021 March 1: It was a pleasure to contribute to Emmanuel Deslouis's piece on the glass harmonica's purported effects on the nerves. Science & Vie Junior is a neat magazine focused on younger readers, and this topic is a fascinating choice. Read more here. November, 2020 November 8: It was a pleasure to present “‘Blinded by Nature:’ Walter Young's Essay on Rythmical Measures” (1790) at the (virtual) Annual Meeting of the Society for Music Theory this year. November 3: It was great fun to respond to Leendert van der Miesen's excellent chapter, “‘The Octave Pleases Everybody:’ Marin Mersenne and the Universality of Harmony,” as part of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science's Department III Colloquium. October, 2020 October 23: I really enjoyed presenting “Attending to Attention in Descartes‘ Musicae Compendium (1618/1850),” to the remarkably interdisciplinary CLaME community at NYU. September, 2020 September 25: It was a pleasure to present “Attending to Attention in Descartes‘ Musicae Compendium (1618/1850),” as part of the Eastman Graduate Forum colloquium series. August, 2020 August 31: My article, “How the Sheng became a Harp”, has been published in the Journal of Sound Studies, as part of a special issue convened by Viktoria Tkaczyk and Leendert van der Miesen of the "Epistemes of Modern Acoustics" Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. The (open-access) article is available here. August, 2019 August 10: The latest issue of the Journal of the American Musicological Society features a colloquy I convened together with the wonderful Francesca Britten on the topic of “Attention, Anxiety, and Audition's Histories”. Growing out of a panel we put together in 2017, it features contributions by some of my favourite scholars: Allie Kieffer, Nicholas Matthew, and Ben Steege. Check out the introduction I co-wrote with Fran, as well as my essay, “Talking to the Hand: The 'Hysterical Epistemology' of the Migrating Sensorium,” here. July, 2019 July 31: I was thrilled to contribute a chapter (“Operatic Fantasies in Early Nineteenth-Century Psychiatry”) to Nineteenth-Century Opera and the Scientific Imagination, edited by David Trippett and Benjamin Walton and published by Cambridge University Press. More information here. May, 2019 May 16: My essay “Music of the Squares: David Ramsay Hay and the Reinvention of Pythagorean Aesthetics” has just appeared in The Public Domain Review. I've been reading and enjoying this online journal for years, and it's a real privilege to have been able to contribute. Special thanks to Sam Dolbear and Adam Green for their brilliant editorial work. April, 2019 April 16: It was wonderful to chat with BBC Radio3's Tom Service again, this time in Glasgow as part of a “Music Matters” feature on eighteenth-century Scottish music theorists. Special thanks to the spectacular Brianna Robertson-Kirkland who joined me for the interview and who organised the first ever recordings of John Holden's hymn arrangements with Glasgow University's Chapel Choir, and to Juan-Carlos Jaramillo, who produced the feature. The piece will be broadcast on April 27; you can catch it here. From left: Me, Brianna Robertson-Kirkland, Tom Service, and Juan-Carlos Jaramillo. March, 2019 March 14-15: It was a real pleasure to host the second meeting of the "Histories of Rhythmic Theories" working group, which was dedicated this time to the theme of "Histories of Musical and Poetic Meter. We were fortunate to be joined by literary scholars as well as music theorists, ethnomusicologists, and music cognition researchers, and the conversations were accordingly rich and exciting. More information about the event can be found at the conference webpage here. February, 2019 February 11: “Going Global, in Theory,” an essay I co-wrote with members of the “Future Histories of Music Theory” Working Group last July, has just been published on the International Musicological Society's official blog, Musicological Brainfood. You can read the essay, which is part of a special issue on “Defamiliarizing the West,” here. February 7: I had a wonderful time chatting with BBC Radio 3's Tom Service about my work on Hector Berlioz. Catch our conversation, which is part of a special feature marking the 150th anniversary of the composer's death, at this link. (My contribution starts around 35'40'). December, 2018 December 15: “Musical Glasses, Metal Reeds, and Broken Hearts: Two Cases of Melancholia Treated by New Musical Instruments,” which I had the honor (and pleasure) of writing together with historian of neuroscience Stanley Finger, has just appeared in The Routledge Companion to Music, Mind and Wellbeing: Historical and Scientific Perspectives, edited by Penelope Gouk, Jacomien Prins, Wiebke Thormaehlen, and James Kennaway. More information about the volume can be found here. December 7: I'm delighted to join the editorial board of Theory and Practice for a three-year term. December 2: I'm very honored to have been nominated to join AcademiaNet, an initiative of the Robert Bosch Stiftung to promote outstanding female academics. November, 2018 November 21: “Histories of Rhythmic Theories, 1600-present” a 2-day workshop hosted by my Research Group, “Histories of Music, Mind, and Body,” at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt, was a really wonderful experience. You can read more about the event here. We'll be holding an expanded follow-up workshop in mid March. Workshop participants from left: Nori Jacoby, Carmel Raz, David E. Cohen, Bill Rothstein, Rick Cohn, Justin London, Martin Küster, Roger M. Grant, Marc Perlman, Lea Fink. November 16: My article “An Eighteenth-Century Theory of Musical Cognition?: John Holden's Essay Toward a Rational System of Music (1770)” has just come out in the Fall 2018 issue of the Journal of Music Theory. A link to the article can be found here. November 2: I really enjoyed presenting my paper, “Music of the Squares: David Ramsay Hay and the Psychology of Pythagorean Aesthetics,” as part of a special session on “Unity, Geometry, and Aesthetics: Revivals of Pythagoreanism in 18th- and 19th-Century Music Theory,” at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Music Theory in San Antonio. More information, including the paper and session abstracts, can be found here. October, 2018 October 24: I had such a great time visiting Queen's University Belfast and it was a real privilege to give a colloquium talk at the Sonic Arts Lab. Many thanks to Zeynep Bulut for the kind invitation! October 6: My second video article, “Anne Young’s Introduction to Music (1803): Pedagogical, Speculative, and Ludic Music Theory” has just come out in SMT-V: Videocast Journal of the Society for Music Theory 4.3. September, 2018 September 28: I really enjoyed giving a colloquium talk at the University of British Columbia's music department. Many thanks to Ève Poudrier and Claudio Vellutini for the invitation. September 2: My article,“Anne Young’s Musical Games (1801): Music Theory, Gender, and Game Design,” has just come out in SMT-V: Videocast Journal of the Society for Music Theory 4.2. Special thanks to the indomitable Lan Li for her amazing skill in making the video!. August, 2018 August 23: The seminar I taught on “Music and Madness” last semester was featured in the Columbia News - read more about it here. July, 2018 July 20: “Future Histories of Music Theory,” a 2-day workshop hosted by my Research Group, “Histories of Music, Mind, and Body,” at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt, was a really wonderful experience. You can read more about the event here. Stay tuned for a jointly-written essay which will appear in the International Musicological Society's "Brain Food" newsletter later this summer. Workshop participants from left: Lea Fink, Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann, Andrew Hicks, Felix Wörner, Carmel Raz, Caleb Mutch, Nathan Martin, David E. Cohen, Roger M. Grant, Anna Zayaruznaya July 12: I had such a great time participating in the workshop on “Sound Objects in Transnational Contexts” at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, and it was exciting to give a talk on the surprising reception of the Chinese sheng in late eighteenth-century Europe. Special thanks to Fanny Gribenski, Nicolas Donin, Jillian Rogers, and Viktoria Tkaczyk for the invitation! July 1: I am so excited to launch my Research Group, “Histories of Music, Mind, and Body,” at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt. You can learn more about our projects, personnel, and events on our webpage. June, 2018 June 27: I feel very honored to be joining the American Musicological Society's Committee on Communications for a three-year term. June 3: I had a wonderful time at the “‘Altered States’: Mind, Embodiment, Aesthetics,” a 2-day conference at the Sorbonne and the Institut national d'histoire de l'art (INHA) which I co-organized with the wonderful Céline Frigau Manning and Nicholas Manning. The interdisciplinary conversations and vibrant exchange of ideas were truly inspiring. More information about the event can be found on the conference website here: May, 2018 May 29: I had a wonderful time participating in Trinity College Dublin's Neurohumanities Study Day at the Longroom Hub, and it was fun to give a talk on the intertwined histories of music and neuroscience to a such a diverse audience. Special thanks to Jane Ohlmeyer and Mani Ramaswami for the invitation! May 22: I feel very honored to join the editorial board of SMT-V: Videocast Journal of the Society for Music Theory for a three-year term. May 15: My review of Deirdre Loughridge's Haydn's Sunrise, Beethoven's Shadow: Audiovisual Culture and the Emergence of Musical Romanticism (2016) has just come out in issue 99.1 of Music and Letters. April, 2018 April 30: I'm looking forward to giving a talk on “Music of the Squares: David Ramsay Hay and the Psychology of Pythagorean Aesthetics,” as part of a special session on “Unity, Geometry, and Aesthetics: Revivals of Pythagoreanism in 18th- and 19th-Century Music Theory,” at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Music Theory in San Antonio this November. April 3: My articles, “Anne Young’s Musical Games (1801): Music Theory, Gender, and Game Design,” and “Anne Young's Introduction to Music (1803): Pedagogical, Speculative, and Ludic Music Theory,” have been accepted for publication in volumes 4.2 and 4.3 of SMT-V: Videocast Journal of the Society for Music Theory. March, 2018 March 2: I'm thrilled to be returning to the Long Room Hub at Trinity College Dublin for a Neurohumanities workshop in May, and excited to give a talk as part of a workshop on “Sound Objects in Transnational Contexts” at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin in July. February, 2018 February 10: I'm excited to be co-organizing a conference on the theme of “‘Altered States’: Mind, Embodiment, Aesthetics” at the Sorbonne and the Institut national d'histoire de l'Art (INHA) in Paris on June 1-2, 2018, together with Celine Frigau-Manning and Nicholas Manning. Further information can be found on the conference website here. January, 2018 January 6: The roster for the Spring edition of “Explorations in the Medical Humanities” at Columbia University, the lecture series I co-organize with Heidi Hausse, Arden Hegele, and Lan Li, has just been posted here. December, 2017 December 16: I really enjoyed workshopping my paper on “Music of the Squares: David Ramsay Hay and the Reinvention of Pythagorean Aesthetics” at the symposium on “Musical Aesthetics in 19th-Century Britain,” organized by Kathy Fry at King's College London. This was the last conference of Roger Parker's “Music in London, 1800-1851” research project, which has really shaped the field of nineteenth-century musicology over the past five years. I've learned so much from participating in their events. December 4: My article, “An Eighteenth-Century Theory of Musical Cognition? John Holden's Essay Toward a Rational System of Music (1770)” will come out in the Fall 2018 issue of the Journal of Music Theory. November, 2017 November 12: It was great fun to give a talk on “Operatic Fantasies in 19th-Century Psychiatry” at the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society in Rochester. For me, the highlight of the conference was talking about the strange phenomenon of auditory sense transposition as part of a panel I co-organized with Francesca Brittan on “Music and Forms of Attention in the Long Nineteenth Century.” The panel also featured fantastic talks by Francesca Brittan, Davinia Caddy, Allie Kieffer, Nick Mathew, and Ben Steege, with Annette Richards as chair. November 9: “Instruments of Music Theory,” the conference I co-organized with Roger Grant (Wesleyan), Andrew Hicks (Cornell), Nathan Martin (Michigan), Caleb Mutch (Indiana), and Anna Zayaruznaya (Yale) was a really fantastic experience. More info coming soon, but for now, check out photos and videos of the event here. October, 2017 October 30: My article, “Music, Theater, and the Moral Treatment: the Case Dei Matti of Aversa and Palermo,” has just been published in Laboratoire italien 20.2 (2017). Special thanks to the wonderful Celine Frigau Manning for all of her amazing work assembling and editing this special issue on “Italian Music and the Medical Sciences”! You can read the issue here. September, 2017 September 3: I'm excited to announce a new lecture series entitled “Explorations in the Medical Humanities” at Columbia University, which I'm co-organizing together with the inimitable Heidi Hausse, Arden Hegele, and Lan Li. More information about our Fall roster can be found here. July, 2017 July 1: I am incredibly honored to be joining the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt starting in July 2018, where I will be Research Group Leader of a group entitled “Histories of Music, Mind, and Body.” I'll be posting more information about this soon. June, 2017 June 15: Together with the wonderful Roger Grant (Wesleyan), Andrew Hicks (Cornell), Nathan Martin (Michigan), Caleb Mutch (Indiana), and Anna Zayaruznaya (Yale), I'm excited to be co-organizing a conference on “Instruments of Music Theory,” through the auspices of the History of Theory SMT Interest Group / AMS Study Group, which will take place at the Eastman School of Music on November 8-9. More information about the event (including our keynote speakers and the full program) can be found on the conference website here. May, 2017 May 13: It was great fun to co-organize “Sound and Sense in Britain, 1770-1840,” with James Grande at the Heyman Center for the Humanities. The talks and the workshop were fascinating, and it was wonderful to have such a mix of historians, literary scholars, and musicologists thinking about sound together. Special thanks to Roger Parker and Music in London, 1800-1851 for co-sponsoring the event! For more information, please visit the conference website here. May 3: I'll be giving a paper on “Operatic Fantasies in Nineteenth-Century Psychiatry,” and participating in an evening panel on “Music and Forms of Attention in the Long Nineteenth Century” at the American Musicological Society's annual meeting in Rochester. April, 2017 April 1: “Music and the Body between Revolutions, 1789-1848,” a conference I co-organized with Celine Frigau-Manning and Julia Doe at the Heyman Center for the Humanities was great fun. Both the talks and the workshop were incredibly enjoyable, and it was great to hear so many diverse perspective on French music and science. The conference program and more info can be found here March, 2017 March 22: It was very exciting to join the folks at Trinity College Dublin to discuss neurohumanities this past week, and an honor to give a talk at the Longroom Hub as well. Special thanks to Jane Ohlmeyer for the invitation! March 16: I really enjoyed presenting my work at the Sound Studies Reading Group at Kings College, London. It was a treat to get feedback from so many wonderful scholars, and I was especially excited by the large contingent of folks from English. Many thanks to James Grande and Sejal Sutaria for inviting me, and to Roger Parker for making my visit possible. February, 2017 February 21: It was so much fun to co-organize a conference on “Global Perspectives in Histories of Music Theory” at the Heyman Center for the Humanities together with the amazing Lan Li. Our flier is here below; further information about the speakers, abstracts, and program can be found on our conference website here. January, 2017 January 19: I'm excited to be co-organizing a conference on “Global Perspectives in Histories of Music Theory” at the Heyman Center for the Humanities together with my good friend Lan Li. Check out our conference trailer here below! November, 2016 November 7: I had a wonderful time at the joint AMS/SMT meeting in Vancouver this year. It was great to hear so many interesting papers and meet old and new friends. I particularly enjoyed presenting on Anne Young's Musical Games (1801) at the Ludomusicology Study Group's special session on "Ludomusicology Outside Video Games." October, 2016 October 27: I've been awarded a course development grant by the Center for Science and Society at Columbia University. October 21: I had a fabulous time at "Musique Italienne Et Sciences Medicales Au Xixe Siecle," a 2-day workshop organized by the incredible Céline Frigau Manning at the Maison de l'Italie in Paris. I learned so much from the session on my paper, "Music, Theater, and the Moral Treatment: the Casi Dei Matti of Aversa and Palermo." The event was truly international and interdisciplinary, with papers and discussions in French, Italian, and English. October 19: It was a great honor to give a talk on "Theorizing an Ideal Listener: Hector Berlioz's System of Embodied Affect" as part of the research colloquium on the "Histoire du spectateur, 19e-21e siècle" at Université Paris 8. I was so excited to talk about Berlioz's music and writings in the city in which they were created. Special thanks to Céline Frigau Manning and Isabelle Moindrot for the invitation. September, 2016 September 16: My article, "The Lost Movements of Ernst Toch's Gesprochene Musik" has just been published in vol. 97 of Current Musicology. August, 2016 August 26: Its always wonderful to play with Jason Lindner's Breeding Ground band, and we had a really great time at the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival at Marcus Garvey Park. You can check out my solo over a new Lindner original here; stay for Baba Israel's incredible freestyle beatboxing. At the Charlie Parker Festival July, 2016 July 24: I was honored to join Marlysse Rose Simmon's band Miramar for two New York performances at Barbès and at the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival. It was especially great to play again with my friend, the phenomenal cellist-improviser Tomeka Reid, after so many years! At the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival July 13: I really enjoyed the 19th Biennial International Conference on Nineteenth-Century Music at Oxford this month, and it was great fun to join Céline-Frigau Manning for a panel on "Opera and the Medical Sciences." April, 2016 April 8: My review of James Kennaway's edited volume, Music and the Nerves, 1700-1900," has been published online in Social History of Medicine. March, 2016 March 28: I'll be giving talks this Summer at the 19th Biennial International Conference on Nineteenth-Century Music, at the University of Oxford and at the International Society for the History of the Neurosciences's Annual Conference at Maastricht University. February, 2016 February 11: It was a pleasure to join Mariusz Kozak, Luc Nijs, Andrew Goldman, and Jenny Boulboullé in a workshop devoted to music and embodied cognition at Columbia's Heyman Center. My contribution to the panel was a historical account of how what we might understand today as embodied cognition was theorized in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Below is a gif I made of a case study discussed by Kenelm Digby in 1644, a mechanistic account of the method by which a fox rids himself of fleas. December, 2015 December 3: I had a blast playing with Jason Lindner's Breeding Ground at National Sawdust. This is one of my all time favorite bands to play with, and every member of the group is a real inspiration. Look for our CD release in Fall 2016. At National Sawdust November, 2015 November 14: It was great fun to present at the American Musicological Society's annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky. The panel I co-organized with Francesca Brittan on "Music and the Nerves in the Nineteenth Century" featured papers by myself, Brittan, Thomas Christensen, and Sarah Hibberd, and a virtuosic response by Roger Moseley. October, 2015 October 29: I really enjoyed presenting my research on Scottish Common Sense music theory at the Society for Music Theory's annual meeting in St. Louis, Missouri. It was a wonderful conference with many exciting papers and panels. October 22: My blogpost “Of Sound Minds and Tuning Forks: Charcot’s Acoustic Experiments at the Salpêtrierè” has just come out on the American Musicological Society's blog, Musicology Now. September, 2015 September 16: My essay on “Tafillalt’s ‘Soulmate’ and the Israeli Piyyut Revival.” has just come out in Al-Andalus and its Jewish Diasporas: Musical Exodus, edited by Ruth F. Davis. You can learn more about the book here. September 9: Victoria Hanna has just released an amazing new clip of a single from her forthcoming album. You can hear me playing the violin and viola on "22 Otiyot" (22 Letters), her interpretation of an ancient Kabbalistic text about the mystical powers of letters. August 4: I'm very excited to be part of "Esoteric Duos," a CD project produced by JC Jones and Yoni Kretschmer featuring various improvised duets. JC is a longtime hero of mine, and its an honor to join a lineup of improvisers that includes Barre Phillps, Mark Dresser, Pascal Niggenkemper, and many other interesting musicians. Esoteric Duos Kadima and Outnow (2015) July, 2015 July 24: I really enjoyed presenting at the Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain Conference at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and at the Royal Musical Association's Music and Philosophy Study Group at King's College London. During my stay in London, I also joined the AHRC research project, "Scrambled Messages: The Telegraphic Imaginary 1857-1900," for an event marking the 150th anniversary of the failure of the 1865 trans-Atlantic cable. We spent a large part of the day at UCL's Institute of Making handling various unusual substances and building goofy projects. It was a blast. You can see a short video clip about the day here, and read more about it here. May, 2015 May 18: It was a lot of fun to graduate today at Yale. I was especially honored to receive the humanities division's Theron Rockwell Field Prize for my dissertation. A huge thanks to everyone who made these wonderful past six years possible! Receiving the award from Dean Cooley Photo by Harold Shapiro April, 2015 April 14: I'll be giving a talk on "Attention in Scottish Enlightenment Music Theory" at the Society of Music Theory's annual meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, and on "Hector Berlioz's Neurophysiological Imagination" at the annual conference of the American Musicological Society in Louisville, Kentucky. March, 2015 March 22: I'll be giving talks this Summer at the Annual Conference of the Royal Musical Association Music and Philosophy Study Group, King's College London, the Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain Conference in Glasgow, and the Westfield Forte / Piano Festival at Cornell. February, 2015 February 2: I am incredibly honored to be joining the Columbia Society of Fellows next year as a Mellon Research Fellow and lecturer in the Department of Music. January, 2015 April 8: My review of John Savarese's article, "Ossian's Folk Psychology," has been published in Vol. 7 (2) of the Journal of Literature and Science. January 28: My dissertation has been featured in the Yale Graduate School Newsletter. January 23: I'll be giving talks on "Cognition in Scottish Common Sense Music Theory, 1770-1786," at both the 13th Annual Meeting of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic at Princeton in March, and at the 30th Annual Meeting, New England Conference of Music Theorists at Boston University in April. December, 2014 December 9: My article, "'The Expressive Organ Within Us:' Ether, Ethereality, and Early Romantic Ideas about Music and the Nerves," is now out in 19th-Century Music. Special thanks to my wonderful advisor, Pat McCreless, and committee members Brian Kane and Paola Bertucci, for all their help and input. November, 2014 November 4: I really enjoyed presenting at the Yale History of Medicine Program's monthly Holmes Workshop. Unfortunately I broke my foot right before the talk, which meant that I couldn't travel to the History of Science Society's Annual Meeting in Chicago a few days later to give my paper, "'The Expressive Organ Within Us:' Ether, Ethereality, and Early Romantic Ideas about Music and the Nerves." Luckily, my friend and colleague, historian of science Courtney Thompson, stepped in to save the day, and delivered my talk at the session, "Music, Acoustics, and Rhythm in the Sciences." October, 2014 October 13: I had a great time presenting the third chapter of my dissertation "Hector Berlioz's Neurophysiological Imagination," at the Yale Sound Studies Working Group's colloquium at the Whitney Humanities Center. It was really wonderful to brainstorm with so many interdisciplinary scholars. July, 2014 July 15: My article “'The Expressive Organ Within Us': Ether, Ethereality, and Early Romantic Ideas about Music and the Nerves” will be published in Vol. 38:2 of 19th-Century Music. June, 2014 June 25: My recording review, “Cute Boy, Charming Girl: Children's Songs of the Modern Hebrew Nation (1882-1948)” has been published in volume 45/2 of Asian Music. June 10: Check out Eyal Hareuveni's review of my collaboration with Ayelet Lerman and Wade Matthews, "Growing Carrots in a Concrete Floor," in All About Jazz. May, 2014 May 31: Its been an exciting month, with a bunch of different concerts of various musical styles. My piece, Castle, a collaboration with choreographer Rachel Erdos, was performed at the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel-Aviv, while my solo violin piece, Iltur was performed by the wonderful Yael Barolsky at the ContComp Festival at the University of Haifa. I also joined my friends at Ensemble Tafillalt in a concert of Jewish music as part of a conference sponsored by Ben-Gurion University. Most exciting of all, perhaps, was stepping in for the incomparable Moshe Aharonov, violinist of the Meitar Ensemble, for the duration of the "Contemporary Encounters" master course with Ivan Fedele. Learning nine brand-new pieces in three days on violin and viola was an exhilarating experience, and I can't speak highly enough of the composers and conductors who joined us. Contemporary Encounters II April, 2014 April 17: I'm excited to be on a forthcoming CD released by JC Jones and the Kadima Collective. JC is one of the most inspiring people I've met in my life, and he has been integral the Israeli improvised music scene for as long as any of us can remember. JC Jones March, 2014 March 31: I'm so happy to be writing again for my friends at the Meitar Ensemble, this time its a commission for a piece featuring the viola. The premiere will be on July 27, 2015, and I'll post more info soon. March 13: I'm very excited to be giving a talk on my dissertation research at the International Society for the History of the Neurosciences's annual meeting in Brussels, Belgium this July. January, 2014 January 12: I had a wonderful time participating in the Meitar Ensemble's "Contemporary Encounters 2014" Festival at the Center for New Music at the Israel Music Conservatory. Guest composer Philippe Leroux was an inspiring and helpful teacher, as were my friends in Meitar, who agreed to read no less than four different versions of my piece in four days, led by the talented young conductor Ofer Dallal. A video recording of their performance of "Impossible Machines" appears here below. Meitar performing Impossible Machines November, 2013 November 23: I was so happy with the premiere of my new piece, Reading the Coffee Grounds a setting of a text Israeli poet David Avidan for electronics, piano, violin, trumpet and trombone. The wonderful musicians of the Israel Contemporary Ensemble did a fabulous job, led masterfully by conductor Yuval Zorn. The evening itself was the closing concert of the annual Teiva Marathon Festival and was dedicated to Avidan in its entirety. It was a very special and moving occasion, with lots of excellent music. A video of the performance is here below: "Kriah BeKafe" (text by David Avidan) November 20: I had a wonderful time presenting my music at Haifa University through the Israel Composer's League's "Encounters with Composers" series. Special thanks to Yael Barolsky, who played Iltur so beautifully, to the Haifa University Music Department, and to Shai Cohen and Hilat Ben-Kennaz of the ICL for inviting me. Below a clip featuring a bit of my lecture (in Hebrew) overlaid with sounds from Yael's performance. Promo Clip, Israel Composer's League October, 2013 October 11: Playing with Michael Veal's Armillary Sphere at the Underground Lounge was a blast. Great musicians and music. You can check out my solo over Andrew Hill's Dusk here With Michael Veal's Armillary Sphere October 6: I had a wonderful time at the annual conference of the Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie in Rostock. I heard a lot of interesting talks at the incredibly well-organized event, and giving my paper in German was a fun challenge. August, 2013 August 20: I've been commissioned for a new piece for ensemble, to be premiered at the Teiva Festival in Jaffo in November. Special thanks to Dan Yuhas for this exciting opportunity! July, 2013 July 27: I had a great time joining the Meitar Ensemble for the last concert of the season together with Israeli rock star Eran Zur and guests Shlomi Shaban and Rona Kenan. Playing in the ancient Roman amphitheater at Shuni was a very special experience, and Eran's energy and amazing stage presence made the evening unforgettable With Eran Zur and Meitar at Shuni June, 2013 June 17: My article, "From Trinidad to Cyberspace: Reconsidering Toch's Geographical Fugue" has been published in issue 9/2 of the Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft fuer Musiktheorie. Special thanks to Dan Harrison for mentoring me on this project, which originated as a presentation for his fugue class. June 15: A huge thank you to the wonderful Meitar Ensemble for their beautiful premiere of my new piece, "Impossible Machines." It is a remarkable privilege to write for such excellent musicians, and the evening was a really special experience. You can listen to the performance here. Right after the premiere of "Impossible Machines" May, 2013 May 13: A nice review of "Growing Carrots in a Concrete Floor," in His Voice, a Czech music magazine. Reviewer Jan Faix describes our album as: "an exceptionally aristocratic experience in spite of its non-aristocratic name." April, 2013 April 19: I feel so honored to be selected as a Whiting Fellow for 2013-2014. Special thanks to my wonderful advisor, Pat McCreless, and to Brian Kane and Sarah Weiss for all their help! I am incredibly lucky to have such a supportive community here at Yale. April 2: My collaboration with the great Ayelet Lerman and Wade Matthews, "Growing Carrots in a Concrete Floor," is out today on the Aural Terrains Label. Check out a sample of our music here. Growing Carrots in a Concrete Floor" A special thanks to our recording engineer Lars Sergel and to Thanos Chrysakis of A. T. March, 2013 March 13: The wonderful cellist Yonatan Niv has just released his debut CD, entitled "Writer's Block" (Machsom Ktiva). It's a fantastic album featuring original and cover versions of great songs, with Yoni on cello and vocals. I contributed to a few tracks, together with some other interesting musicians in our circle. Check out his version of 'Ne me quitte pas' on youtube here. Yonatan Niv, "Machsom Ktiva" February, 2013 February 11: A nice review by Guy Taneh of Israel rock star Eran Zur's collaboration with the Meitar Ensemble, who gives a shout out to my arrangement here February 7: Israel rock star Eran Zur's collaboration with the Meitar Ensemble has just been released on CD. Its a truly wonderful project, and I was thrilled to be part of it: I play throughout the album and also contributed an arrangement of Parparei Ta'atua. Bravo to Eran, Amit, Ziv, and the ensemble for a really lovely crossover album! You can hear my arrangement and check out some other songs here. (For non Hebrew speakers, my arrangement is second from the top on the little media player). Eran Zur and the Meitar Ensemble January, 2013 January 12: Playing the Winter Jazz Fest in NYC with Jason Lindner's Breeding Ground superband was a real blast! Amazing music and musicians. You can read about the project at the NPR jazz blog here, and an interview with Jason ahead of the concert here. Audio from our forthcoming CD can be heard here. With Breeding Ground at the Winter Jazz Fest January 1-7: I had a great time participating in the Meitar Ensemble's first Contemporary Encounters masterclass and workshops with Philippe Leroux. Working with Leroux was really inspiring, and I was also very happy to have the first movement of my piece, Imaginary Machines workshopped by the Meitar Ensemble. They'll premiere the work on June 15 of this year in their regular concert series. In Tel-Aviv with Ziv Cojocaru, Christian Maerkl, Philippe Leroux, and Tomer Hod. Thanks to Christian for the photo! December, 2012 December 30: It was a privilege to be part of the memorial concert for composer Michael Barolsky (1947-2009) at the Teiva yesterday. His daughter, the great violinist Yael Barolsky, organized a moving evening of his works, which are outstanding. I was particularly touched by Boris Berman's performance of Barolsky's Notturno for piano and electronics, which you can listen to here. Performing Plasmazell by Michael Barolsky, with Yael Barolsky, Ilan Volkov, & Benny Sluchin December 20: I had a great time working in the studio together with Nori Jacoby and Tamir Muskat on Israeli ethnic singer Victoria Hanna's forthcoming CD. We used a bunch of cool instruments from my growing collection, including a Saitenspiel, Schossgeige, and Guzhla, as well as of course violin, viola and mandolin. Victoria's CD features texts from the Kabbalah and Old Testament, and she has one of the most interesting voices I've ever encountered. I'll post more information on the CD release soon. For now, you can read more about Victoria, and listen to her here. Victoria Hanna December 15: I've received a Master of Philosophy (M.Phil) degree from Yale University. November, 2012 November 19: Working with choreographer Rachel Erdos as part of the "Composer Choreographer Project" at the Teiva has been a phenomenal experience. Our piece, Castle, premieres in Tel-Aviv on November 30th, at the Teiva Marathon Festival, which will also feature other new works by many interesting artists. A big thanks to our amazing dancer, Yoav Grinberg. Yoav Grinberg in Castle, photo by Tami Weiss October, 2012 October 15: Special Thanks to Andrea Hallam for playing my viola piece, Adom, at the 30th Asian Composers League Conference & Festival in Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem. September, 2012 September 10: I am excited to be working on a new commission together with choreographer Rachel Erdos, as part of the "Composer Choreographer Project" at the Teiva in Jaffo. August, 2012 August 12: It was lovely to join the Meitar Ensemble in their residency at the Samos Young Artists Festival for a week in one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen! With Meitar in Samos June, 2012 June 21: My piece, Adom for solo viola has been selected for the young composers competition of the 30th Asian Composers League Conference & Festival. Special thanks to Ayal, Dan, Hilat and the folks at the ICL for this opportunity! June 10: It was great fun to join the Israel Contemporary Players in their final concert of the season in a program of Birtwistle, Francesconi, Sciarrino and Steinberg at the Tel-Aviv Museum. Our soloists were Nic Hodges (piano) and the great Yael Barolsky (violin), with Ilan Volkov conducting. A fantastic group of musicians and a lot of wonderful music. With the Israel Contemporary Players May, 2012 May 17: I've advanced to candidacy at Yale, and am really excited to be working with Pat McCreless as my advisor on a dissertation exploring the relationship between nerves and music at the end of the eighteenth-century through the early Romantic period. May 12: Participating in the Music, Cognition, Technology, Society conference at Cornell University was very exciting. The conference featured some really amazing scholars and musicians, and I met interesting people from across a number of music-related fields. April, 2012 April 30: It was incredible fun to join the Meitar Ensemble in the studio over the past few days in recording their upcoming joint CD release with Israeli Indie rocker Eran Zur. Eran has a hypnotic voice and some pretty incredible songs. If you don't know his music, check out his website, here. April 2: Orrie Golan, the legendary director of the Kfar Saba Recorders Ensemble, has commissioned me for a new piece for her ensemble. I'm honored and excited to write for them! March, 2012 March 8: The final concert of TrumpetIn, the all-trumpet workshop organized by Na'ama Golan in cooperation with the Jerusalem Music Center and the Tel-Aviv Academy of Music, was a wonderful experience. Na'ama commissioned me for a trumpet trio, Neimot, which was premiered by two young trumpeters, Eyal Weinberger and Ofri Abramov, with tutor William Forman jumping in to save the day at the last moment when the third trumpeter unfortunately fell ill. I learned a lot about composing for the trumpet over the past three days, and heard a lot of really great new music. I've posted the live recording from the concert here. Right after the premiere of Neimot March 7: Chicago-based composer Sarah J. Ritch has just released an album of her works featuring my performance of a violin and electronics piece called "400 g" on the independent net label "Pan y Rosas Discos." Sarah's a very interesting sound artist and composer, and you can learn more about her, and download the album for free right here: String Theory, by Sarah J. Ritch March 6: My paper "From Trinidad to Cyberspace: Toch's Geographical Fugue, Reconsidered " has been accepted at the Music, Cognition, Technology, Society Conference at Cornell University in May 2012. February, 2012 February 21: It was great fun joining Ensemble Tafillalt on their German tour. We played at the "Sounds of Israel" Festival, produced by the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie on Feb. 19, followed by a concert at the Lichtburgform under the auspices of the Jewish Community of Berlin. Both truly wonderful experiences. At the Kulturkirche Altona (photo: © Matthias Mramor) January, 2012 January 26: My article "Wagnerpunk: A Steampunk Reading of Patrice Chereau's Staging of Der Ring des Nibelungen (1976)" is now available online as part of the Journal of Neo-Victorian Studies special issue on Spectacles and Things - Visual and Material Culture and/in Neo-Victorianism, edited by Nadine Boehm and Susanne Gruss. November, 2011 November 28: Violinist Sivann Maayani Zelikoff's debut solo CD "The Polyphonic Violin" has just been released on the FONS label, and it includes Secret Ballad, a piece I wrote especially for Sivann. Please visit this link to learn more about the CD, about Sivann, and about the amazing polyphonic possibilities of violin repertoire. November 2: The Meitar Ensemble has commissioned me for a quintet for their 2012-2013 concert season. I'm very excited about the opportunity to write for them! October, 2011 October 15: My article "Wagnerpunk: A Steampunk Reading of Patrice Chereau's Staging of Der Ring des Nibelungen (1976)" will be forthcoming in volume 4:2 of the Journal of Neo-Victorian Studies. September, 2011 September 30: After taking my comprehensive exams at Yale in August, I've moved to Heidelberg for this academic year. The town itself is gorgeous... A photo of the Heidelberg Castle, taken a few days after I got here. July, 2011 July 24: I joined the Jewish music band Tafillalt for their performance at the Lviv Klezfest in Lviv, Ukraine. The Klezfest is part of attempts by the Hesed Arye foundation to revive Jewish tradition in Eastern Europe, and they are doing really important work. Videos of the performance can be found here. Soundcheck at the Lviv Klezfest July 13: Participating in the Center for Creation, Content and Technology's Summer School at the University of Amsterdam was a really wonderful experience. I learned so much about different psychological, biological and neuroscience-based approaches to empathy and communication, and met many interesting students and lecturers from around the world. June, 2011 June 2: I've received a Master of Arts (MA) degree from Yale University. Its been an exciting and fun two years here so far, I look forward to the next few! May, 2011 May 5: Just finished recording an album with Breeding Ground, Jason Lindner's 11-piece band. I'll post more details on the forthcoming album soon. May 1: I'll be spending the next academic year as an exchange student at the University of Heidelberg through the CT-Baden-Wuerttemberg Exchange program. April, 2011 April 19: I've been selected to participate in Amsterdam University's Center for Creation, Content and Technology's Summer School, "Reading Mediated Minds: Empathy with Persons and Characters in Media and Art Works." April 1: Music journalist Ben Walzer quoted me in a recent feature on the great Israeli bass player, oudist and composer Omer Avital. You can read the complete article here, and I strongly recommend checking out Omer's music, too! March, 2011 March 30: It was a real privilege to give my paper, "Arrangements of Shirei Eretz Israel as Expressions of the Shifting Politics of Israeli Identity," at the Institute of Music Research's conference on Israeli Music at the SOAS in London, a marvelous four-day event centered on both current and historical developments in Jewish Art Music. In addition, I sat in with the Jewish Music band Tafillalt at their concert in North London, which was great fun. At SOAS March 19: Sivann Maayani-Zelikoff's premiere of my new piece, Secret Ballad, was an wonderful experience - Sivann put in a lot of inspired work on both learning the piece, and collaborating with me on the compositional process. Fenruary, 2011 February 12: The past month saw my official debut as an academic: I gave a paper on "Arrangements of Shirei Eretz Israel as Expressions of the Shifting Politics of Israeli Identity," at the Yale Music Department's Works-in-Progress Series, and gave another paper, "Putting the Cart(er) before the Horse" at the Stony Brook Graduate Music Symposium. Thanks to the talented folks at Stony Brook for organizing an incredibly fun event! Cart(er)ing it up at Stony Brook December, 2010 December 20: My paper, "Putting the Cart(er) before the Horse" was accepted at the Stony Brook Graduate Music Symposium, which will take place on February 11-12, 2011. An abstract is available here. The paper, which I wrote as a final project in Prof. Eve Poudrier's Elliott Carter Seminar, is an empirical study of whether we can hear metric modulations in different contexts. November, 2010 November 30: I've been awarded a travel grant by the Yale Graduate Student Assembly Travel Fund ahead of my talk at the "Art Musics of Israel: Identities, Ideologies, Influences" conference, taking place between Monday 28 March - Thursday 31 March 2011 at the University of London. I'll be discussing "Arrangements of Shirei Eretz Israel as Expressions of the Shifting Politics of Israeli Identity," the abstract is available here. October, 2010 October 3: Jason Lindner's Breeding Ground got rave reviews in the New York Cultural Examiner after our show last month. Critic Layla MacCoran writes "Breeding Ground is a supergroup version of a big band that features Now vs. Now (Jason Lindner, Panagiotis Andreou, Mark Guiliana- drums) at its core, vocalist Jeff Taylor, horns (John Beaty- sax; Rafi Malkiel- trombone; Jorge Continentino- soprano/baritone sax; flute) and an unexpected but pleasantly surprising string quartet. The Iridium set started with the immediate rich sound of the introduction to "Sparkle Wolf". The strings (Mazz Swift-violin, Curtis Stewart-violin, Carmel Raz-viola, Will Martina-cello) reminded this examiner of ribbons in the wind. The rippling was flexible and sturdy simultaneously." You can read the complete review here. Breeding Ground September, 2010 September 17: David Sait's "Sixty Musicians Interpret Sixty Seconds" CD Project, in which I took part, has been reviewed in Downtown Music Gallery's September Newsletter:. "Yet what is seemingly unique about this compilation, despite the huge amount of great musicians, is the overall outcome. The tracks on this disc come across as convincing composed songs. David Sait creates as he arranges the tracks seamlessly together like any good mix tape." September 15: I've been awarded an ASCAPPlus Award by the American Society of Authors and Publishers. September 9: Violinist Sivann Maayani Zelikoff has commissioned me for a solo violin piece for her Polyphonic Violin Project, which will debut at the Jerusalem Music Center in February, and will be released on CD. August, 2010 August 27: The "Sixty Interpretations of Sixty Seconds by Sixty Solo Instruments" CD Project, in which I took part, has just been released on Apprise Records. I was invited to contribute to this record by Canadian musician David Sait, who organized a top-notch group of musicians from around the world. The CD offers a fascinating take on time, improvisation, and stylistic differences. You can learn more about the project, listen to me and 59 other musicians, and / or buy a CD on their website here. August 6: I've been invited to give a paper at the "Art Musics of Israel: Identities, Ideologies, Influences" conference, taking place between Monday 28 March - Thursday 31 March 2011 at the University of London. I'll be discussing "Arrangements of Shirei Eretz Israel as Expressions of the Shifting Politics of Israeli Identity," the abstract is available here. This paper grew out of experiences I had playing in Omer Avital and Israel Borochov's Debka Fantastia Project back in 2008. July, 2010 July 20: My analysis of Shulamit Ran's String Quartet no. 1, "Shulamit Ran: In Tune with the Audience and the Performer," has been published in Israeli Music Institute's journal. You can read the article in Hebrew here, but the original English version should appear sometime this year, as the IMI's website is undergoing an upgrade. Special thanks to Uri Golumb, for his fantastic translation and editorial help! June, 2010 June 20: Misha Piatigorsky's new album, Paris Troika has received rave reviews in online magazines All About Jazz and Jazz Chicago. I collaborated with Misha on the strings in four tracks - great fun and excellent music. You can read the reviews here and here, and please check out Paris Troika's website, too. May, 2010 May 15: My piece, Merhavim, commissioned by Ron Merhavi, has been reviewed in Vol 33 no. 3 of Bass World, the journal of the International Society of Bassists. Jeremy C. Baguyos writes: "Raz's Merhavim (Landscapes) (2008) demonstrates a maturity not often found among youthful composers. Between Raz's writing and Ron Merhavi's capabilities, Merhavim (Landscapes) develops logically and always has a sense of direction and form. As a result, Merhavim (Landscapes) accomplishes what is so hard to attain in solo double bas writing and other predominantly monophonic instrumental media, an apparent form and direction." You can read the complete review here, listen to Ron's recording here, and learn more about his CD project here. May 13: Unfortunately I couldn't attend the performance of my string quartets 2 and 3 by members of the Kammerakademie Potsdam, but found this review of the concert in the Maerkische Allgemeine Zeitung. Matthias Mueller writes: Die beiden Streichquartette von Carmel Raz entsprachen mehr dem Lebensgefuehl der Menschen von heute. Im zweiten Quartett lotet sie klangliche Moeglichkeiten aus vom elastischen Abprallen des Bogens auf der Seite, dem Einsatz der Bogenstange bis zum Flageolett - so klingt eben ein technisches Auftragswerk des Chicagoer Buren-Quartetts. In ihrer Nr. 3, als "Programmmusik" bezeichnet, setzte sich Carmel Raz mit dem Lungenkrebstod ihres Vaters Tzvi Raz auseinander. Schwer gehender Atem, Herzschlagmotive, auch Weinen praegen das kurze komprimierte Opus... ein hoch interessantes Konzert, das der Tradition und der Moderne gleichfalls verbunden war." You can read the complete review here, and read more about Matan Dagan and the Kammerakademie Potsdamer here. April, 2010 April 20: The Kammerakademie Potsdam's performance of two of my string quartets has been postponed to May 12. The volcano prevented me from attending this week's performance, and I really hope to come to Berlin in time for the next. April 2: The Jersey City Independent interviewed me for an article about Con Vivo Jersey City, an organization of which I am proud to be an artistic advisory board member. The article can be found here. Go Amelia and the rest of Con Vivo! March, 2010 March 7: Omaha Area Youth Philharmonic's world premiere of my commissioned piece, Oayo, was a great experience. The orchestra is truly fantastic: incredibly motivated and talented young people playing under the expert direction of Maestra Aviva Segall, a driving force within the Omaha area new music scene. A recording of the first performance can be heard here. Dress rehearsal with the Omaha Area Youth Phil February, 2010 February 28: Paris Troika has released their first CD, which features me on violin and viola. Paris Troika is the project of Misha Piatigorsky, Buster Hemphill and Chris Wabish: three fun and original jazz musicians taking on classic rock. You can hear me on four tracks, or on their website here. January, 2010 January 11: Interval Recordings has released a CD featuring my violin sounds: electronic artist Ido Govrin's Moraine, which he describes as "six electro-acoustic pieces partly created by the analysis-re-synthesis process of acoustic instruments (Cello and Violin) and partly by a pure computer generated process of sound, Moraine is composed of exquisite sound qualities consisting of restrained gestures of simultaneous assembling and disassembling processes, slow though diligent creation holds a promise for total collapse, destruction, and as such, fills the listener with sweet sadness and longing." Please visit the Interval Recordings website for more information. Moraine (Interval Records, 2010) December, 2009 December 24: I had a wonderful time giving a masterclass on music for violin and electronics at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. Meeting Nori Jacoby's group of talented students at the Bar Ilan music department was great fun. Nori Jacoby November, 2009 November 30: I've been awarded a Meet the Composer's Creative Connections grant ahead of the performances of my orchestra piece Oayo by the Omaha Area Youth Orchestra in March 2010. September, 2009 September 17: I've been awarded an ASCAPPlus Award by the American Society of Authors and Publishers. September 10: It's been a while since I've updated this section of my website - after a wonderful summer which included many exciting musical experiences, I started grad school a week ago. June, 2009 June 2: I've been awarded a Meet the Composer's Creative Connections grant ahead of the performances of my third string quartet by Con Vivo in July. May, 2009 May 5: I joined members of the NYC-based Red Light New Music Ensemble in a concert of new music at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage in Washington D.C. The program was a lot of fun, and working with the composer-directors and other performers was a pleasure. A video of our concert can be found on the Kennedy Center website here. May 2: I just finished a three night run at the Jazz Gallery as part of Jason Lindner's Breeding Ground project. This was one of the best musical experiences of my life! Joining fellow string players Mazz Swift, Curtis Stewart, Will Martina, as well as percussionist Mark Giuliana, bass player and vocalist Panagiotis Andreau, vocalist Jeff Taylor, wind players Rafi Malkiel, John Beaty and Jorge Continentino was a rare privilege. I can't wait to play with these amazing musicians again. I've posted a clip of my solo here. I strongly encourage everyone to check out these incredible musicians if you can! April, 2009 April 30: Richard Grooms of Improviser Magazine reviews Karl Siegfried's CD release "Blue Rhizome," describing this the record as: "A varied document, encompassing Celtic-tinged jazz, jazz rock, hard rock and a couple of pastoral pieces where Raz shines. All the group members are very strong." Please visit Imaginary Chicago Records to learn more about the CD. April 20: I've added a new Research section to this website, currently accessible through the tab at the top of each page. March, 2009 March 27: Bassist Ron Merhavi's debut solo CD "One on One: Double Bass's Many Faces" was released earlier this month, and it includes Merhavim, a piece I wrote especially for this project. Please visit this link to learn more about the CD, about Ron and the other composers involved. March 3: Another big change in my life - I've been accepted to the PhD program in Music Theory at Yale University. After spending the last three years performing and composing, I was starting to really miss academics. The music department at Yale has an unbelievable roster of scholars and musicians, and I can't wait to start this exciting program. February, 2009 February 3:The Carmel Quartet (not relatives of mine! we just share the same name) gave the world premiere of my Third String Quartet: Programmmusik live on Israeli Radio's Etnachta Program. This piece was commissioned by Raz Binyamini of the Israel Chamber Music Center for the Carmel Quartet - special thanks to Yoel Greenberg for the punning involved, and to the Rabinovitch Foundation, for making the commission possible. And a huge thank you to the Carmel Quartet for their beautiful and moving performance, both on the 3rd at the Henry Crown Symphony Auditorium in Jerusalem and on the 5th at the Einav Cultural Center in Tel-Aviv. My Third String Quartet: Programmmusik is dedicated to the Carmel Quartet, but the music itself was written to the memory of my father, Tzvi Raz, who passed away in July 2007 at age 55 of lung cancer. Much of the musical materials in the work are explicitly related to his illnes - the piece opens with a "breathing" motive, which undergoes various transformations, and "crying" and heartbeat motives can also be easily recognized. Listen to a recording from the Jerusalem concert here. Tzvi Raz (1951-2007) January, 2009 January 10: Playing in Merkin Hall with Omer Avital was a lot of fun. I've had the opportunity to work with Omer before in Israel on many projects, and he's one of the leaders in creating a style of "Israeli fusion" music which brings together Classical / Jazz / Afro / Ashkenazi/ Mizrachi / Arab traditions in an exciting way. Merkin Hall December, 2008 December 7: The Omaha Area Youth Orchestra reading of my new orchestra piece OAYO was a wonderful experience. The young musicians, under the baton of Maestra Aviva Segall, did an outstanding job. December 4: The Israel Contemporary String Quartet tour of Holland and Belgium was great fun! Playing with Boris Malkovsky and Ora Boason-Horev was a pleasure. At the Concertgebouw November, 2008 November 8: The Rabinovitch Foundation has supported the commissioning of my third string quartet by the Chamber Music Center at the Israel Music Conservatory for the Carmel Quartet October, 2008 October 31: Cadence magazine reviewed Karl Seigfried's Blue Rhizome Project with the New Quartet, mentioning that: "Raz is also impressive on pieces like the understated 'A Distant Beauty.'" October 14: I've taken up mandolin playing - which is a wonderful addition to my improv options. A few links to Mandolin / Cello jams with cellist Yoed Nir posted below. Mandolin with Cello Jam 1 Mandolin with Cello Jam 2 October 1: A big change in my personal life - I've moved to New York City, a city I've always loved. I'll be maintaining a lot of my performance activities in Israel, Europe and Chicago as well - I'll keep you posted! September, 2008 August 7: The International Ensemble Modern Academy residence at the Klangspuren Festival in Austria and Italy was a really wonderful experience - and performing Steve Reich's Violin Phase was an exhilarating challenge. August, 2008 August 7: The Millennium Chamber Players Canada tour was great fun! Our performance at the Jusqu' aux Oreilles Festival in Montreal was a success, special thanks to flutist Kim Sopata for her beautiful interpretation of my solo flute piece Iola. August 2: The Toronto Summer Festival Academy was a wonderful experience. Working with R Murray Schafer and the Molinari Quartet was revelatory. The Molinaris workshopped my new 3rd String Quartet- a recording of the reading can be heard here. with Schafer, fellow students, Molinaris July, 2008 July 21: Ron Merhavi recorded "Merhavim" for Solo Contrabass at the Jerusalem Music Center "Mishkenot Sha'ananim." A recording can be heard here July 17: I joined members of the Israel Contemporary String Quartet in Omer Avital and Israel Borochov's Debka Fantasia Project at the Tzavta Theater in Tel-Aviv. This was an exhilarating experience, which reunited Israeli folksongs with their Sephardic/Arabic origins, arranged through the prism of Omer's classical and jazz influences, and culminated in a few of the composers of these classic tunes, now in their 80s, dancing on stage. All the musicians were incredible, including the solo singers Chaya Amir and Ravid Kahlani. Onstage with Debka June, 2008 June 5: I've been invited to the 2008 Ensemble Modern Academy in Schwaz, Austria, as part of the Klangspuren Festival, we'll be working with members of Ensemble Modern and with resident composer Steve Reich. June 4: "Merhavim" for Solo Contrabass dedicated to virtuoso bassist Ron Merhavi, who commissioned me for a piece to be featured on his upcoming CD centered on lyrical works for solo double bass. I'll post more information about the CD release soon. Ron Merhavi May, 2008 May 31: The Chicago Reader's Jazz critic Peter Margasak's review of Karl Seigfried's New Quartet's upcoming CD release Blue Rhizome: "...a lovely fusion of jazz and Hindustani music... every piece gets extra emotional heft and melodic nuance from reedist Greg Ward, violinist Carmel Raz, and drummer Chris Avgerin." Blue Rhizome (Imaginary Chicago Records 2008) May 15: I've been selected by the Toronto Summer Music Academy and Festival as one of four young composer fellows to participate in their Composition Academy with R. Murray Schafer and the Molinari Quartet, who will perform my third string quartet on a concert on August 2nd at the Chiurch of the Redeemer in Toronto. May 7: my improvisation with Gene Coleman and Chris Adler was broadcast on national Latvian radio. More info about the broadcast here. April, 2008 April 13: The Carnegie Hall Professional Training Workshop led by David Krakauer was a fantastic experience. With repertoire ranging from Osvaldo Golijov's Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind for clarinet and string quartet to traditional bulgars, the final concert at Zankel Hall felt like one long party... Klezmer craziness led by David Krakauer (his blurred head in the picture is the result of spectacular circular breathing) March, 2008 March 29: As part of the John Zorn Festival in Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, I was part of the Israeli premiere performance of Zorn's Walpurgisnacht for string trio as well as assorted works for quartet at Beit Avichai. An exhilarating and exhausting experience, after the show Zorn suggested we take faster tempi in future performances, which we did, four days later, at a night performance at the Levontin 7 club. Crazy music. March 23: The Chamber Music Center at the Israel Music Conservatory has commissioned me to compose a new work for the Carmel Quartet, in residence there for the 2008-2009 season. The Carmel Quartet (Rachel, Lia, Yoel and Tami) are terrific musicians, I'm really looking forward to writing a piece for them. The Carmel Quartet (not relatives of mine! We share just the first name.) March 20: The Israel Contemporary String Quartet tour of Eastern Europe was a lot of fun! We played in some really stunning venues with great audiences, and getting to see Romania and Bulgaria was a real treat. with the members of the ICSQ. March 15: The Millennium Chamber Players, under the baton of Robert Katkov-Trevino, gave the US premiere of Snake, arranged for chamber ensemble. The performances took place March 15-18 at Sherwood Conservatory, the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, Lewis University and Eastern Illinois University. Snake (live recording from the Tarble Arts Center at Eastern Illinois University) February, 2008 February 22: Snake for 17 Musicians was premiered by the Orkest de Ereprijs under the baton of Rob Verheulen at the 14th Young Composers Meeting in Apeldoorn, Holland. Working with the wonderful musicians of the Ereprijs during the 5-day workshop was great fun. Snake for 17 Musicians (live recording from the Podium Gigant in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands The Orkest de Ereprijs seconds before performing Snake. February 2: I've been selected to perform in the David Krakauer / Weil Music Institute Workshop at Carnegie Hall, where "advanced classical, jazz, and klezmer musicians will explore traditional, experimental, and classically set klezmer music in this five-day workshop with acclaimed clarinetist David Krakauer and his colleagues Socalled, Alicia Svigals, and Michael Alpert." January, 2008 January 28: my improvisation with Gene Coleman and Chris Adler was broadcast on national Polish radio as part of Polskie Radio's Nowe Kontrapunkty program. More info about the broadcast here. January 10: Adom for Solo Viola won first place in the 2008 Karen Sokolof Javitch Composition Competition in Omaha. Special thanks to Jesse Griggs for a wonderful performance w. January 7-8: Variants for Chamber Ensemble was premiered by the Modern Chamber Players of Texas under the baton of the incredible Robert Katkov-Trevino at the University of Texas in Arlington and at the First United Methodist Megachurch in Hurst Texas. A video of the Arlington performance is posted here December, 2007 December 8: Mimesis for violin and live electronics, my collaboration with sound designer and composer Ido Govrin, was premiered at the UltraSound Festival at the Tmoona Theater in Tel-Aviv. The festival made quite an impact on the avant-garde scene in Israel, and included performances of works by Jennifer Walshe and John Duncan, who flew in for the event. A recording can be heard here: Mimesis November, 2007 November 12: I've been selected to participate in the 14th International Young Composers Meeting 2008 in Apeldoorn, Holland, organized by Orkest de Ereprijs, Podium Gigant in Apeldoorn and GAUDEAMUS Foundation in Amsterdam. The Orkest de Ereprijs will workshop a new piece of mine specially written for the IYCM 2008. November 2: I've been selected as one of three finalists in the Karen Sokolof Javitch Composition Competition in Omaha, Nebraska. They have kindly invited me to Omaha for the finals, to be held on January 10th, 2008. October, 2007 October 12: The members of the Israel Contemporary String Quartet have invited me to join them in concert and on tour in February and March 2008 as replacement second violin, performing works by Itzhak Yedid on Israel Radio's Etnachta Series and by Steve Reich, Josef Bardanashvilli and Dimitri Shostakovitch at the March Music Days International Festival in Rousse, Bulgaria. The Israel Contemporary String Quartet September, 2007 September 20: The International Ensemble Modern Academy as part of the Klangspuren Festival in Schwaz, Austria was a lot of fun. Working with members of the Ensemble Modern, especially their concertmaster Jagdish Mistry, was an incredible experience. I've posted a recording of the Schoenberg Chamber Symphony Op. 9 here - conductor Franck Ollu is another amazing musician I hope to work with again some time. with members of the International Ensemble Modern Academy and conductor Franck Ollu at the final concert in Innsbruck, September 20, 2007 September 4: World premiere of Amnon Wolman's violin, cello, tape+video piece August 2007 at Levontine 7. with Dan Weinstein (Musica Nova Consort) at Levontine 7, September 4, 2007 August, 2007 August 3: "Art of the States" radio selects my improvisation with Gene Coleman and Chris Adler for broadcast on its upcoming program, distributed to classical stations across the world. Chris Adler, Carmel Raz and Gene Coleman at a pre-concert panel at the Rennaisance Society on April 6, 2007 July, 2007 July 31: String Quartet no.2 selected for the final round (top eight entries) in the 2007 BMI Women's Commission Composition Competition. July 19: As part of a special tribute concert to Shulamit Ran at the University of Chicago, Mary Stolper gives the Chicago premiere of "Iola" for Solo Flute, and the Millennium Chamber Players under the baton of Robert Katkov-Trevino premiere "Variants" for Ensemble. Recordings can be heard here: Iola for Solo Flute. Variants for Ensemble. July 15: Yossi Mar Haim reviews the premiere of "Anaphora" in Bama Magazine: "...the piece by Carmel Raz was the icing on the cake...a moving experience" July 12: "Anaphora" for open ensemble, video and electronics premiered at the Jazz-o-Nova festival in Tel-Aviv by the Musica Nova Consort and the Avi Adrian trio (Avi Adrian, Eli Magen and Noam David). A recording can be heard here: Anaphora for Open Ensemble Photo from the concert on July 12th at the Einav Center June, 2007 June 22: I've dedicated Trialogue for Solo Saxophone to concert saxophonist Geoffrey Deibel. Geoff's recording can be heard here: Trialogue for Saxophone Geoffrey Deibel June 21: My Iola for Solo Flute was premiered by Barry Crawford at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater (Symphony Space) in New York City, as part of the American Composer's Alliance Festival of American Music. A recording can be heard here: Iola for Solo Flute June 16: My Fantasy on "All in a Garden Green" was premiered by Musica Donum Dei at Christchurch Belper, Derbyshire, UK. June 7: My String Quartet no. 2 workshopped by the Arditti Quartet at the June in Buffalo Festival in Buffalo, USA. A recording can be heard here: String Quartet no.2 May, 2007 May 10: I have been awarded funding by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the University of Chicago Fine Arts Fund to enable my participation in Soundfield's Orpheus in China Project. April, 2007 April 15: I've been selected as a finalist in the 2007 Volti Composition Competition.