Mud gets everywhere. Rocks, big and small, rattle each bone in the body. Every turn of the formless road brings unexpected challenges, both enticing and menacing. Do we succumb to the treacherous terrain, overheated and out of gas, or do we pull ourselves out of the thick, sticky sludge with a renewed sense of who we are? At one point, the laser-focus attention spent dodging deep potholes sprinkled on the narrow trail is interrupted by the...
Monday, January 27, 2025 7:30 PM Resnick Education Wing Ensemble Connect: Also performing October 27, February 10, 2025, and April 10, 2025. Gabriela Ortiz: Also performing October 18. Program: GABRIELA ORTIZ Pigmentum (NY Premiere) CARLOS SÁNCHEZ-GUTIÉRREZ LuciérnagasILEANA PEREZ VELAZQUEZ Light echoes (NY Premiere) RICARDO LORENZ La Hamaca (NY...
Gustavo Dudamel and Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra have been inseparable for 25 years. The Venezuelan conductor boosted the growth of the national youth orchestra into a world-renowned orchestra and led the now mature musicians all the way to Carnegie Hall. The programme opens with contemporary works by two compatriots. With rhythms and harmonies that take unexpected 180-degree turns, Ricardo Lorenz illustrates the versatile Venezuelan...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgfAJCaZqy0
Concerto for Venezuelan Maracas and Wind Symphony featuring guest soloist Manuel Alejandro Rangel.SHOW LESS Latin Grammy-nominated in 2020! The MSU College of Music is proud to present the MSU Wind Symphony conducted by Kevin L. Sedatole as they present the world premiere of Ricardo Lorenz's Pataruco: Concerto for Venezuelan Maracas and Wind Symphony featuring guest soloist Manuel Alejandro Rangel.
Liaisons:Re-imagining Sondheim from the Piano has been described as a landmark commissioning project that brought together thirty-six of the world’s foremost contemporary composers from across the musical spectrum in order to “re-imagine” Sondheim’s songs as solo piano pieces. Lorenz's The Worst in London is one of re-imaginations included in a 3-CD box set released by the record label ECM featuring pianist, and Liaisons...
Ricardo Lorenz traveled to South Korea on two different occasions as Composer-in-Residence. In 2013, he was the featured guest composer of that Seoul's Pan Music Festival, the longest running contemporary music festival in South Korea. That year he attended the performance of his work Compass Points by the Seoul Modern Ensemble and offered talks on his music at the universities of Sangmyung and Gachon. The following year (2014), he was the...
Lorenz with Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Rene Hinojosa in Havana Four years ahead of the renewed diplomatic relations between former archenemies U.S. and Cuba, Lorenz and his MSU colleague Rene Hinojosa have taken students on a study abroad program to Havana in order to experience the culture of a rapidly changing socialist nation. Initiated in May 2012 and titled Culture and Sustainable Development, this program studies Cuba’s dramatic history,...
The Michigan State University Symphony Orchestra led by conductor Kevin Noe performed Lorenz’s En Tren Vá Changó (Destination Macondo) on Friday November 16, 2012. It is the second time in eight years that this work is heard live on the MSU campus. In 2004, then MSU Assistant Director of Orchestras Raphael Jiménez brought the work for the first time to the University’s Wharton Center. This performance took place before Lorenz joint...
As Composer-in-Residence of the 9th Annual Dali Quartet Chamber Music Festival and Camp, Ricardo Lorenz spent several days this past summer 2012 in North Wales, Pennsylvania, working on two of his works with some of the East Coast’s most talented young string players. Lorenz conducted his Rochela for nine cellos, originally composed for and premiered by the cello section of the Pittsburgh Symphony, and attended the premiere of a new...
Ricardo Lorenz attended the London premiere of his new work Cacerola Soul on May 3rd, 2012 at the Southbank Centre. Cacerola Soul roughly translates as “the soul of the frying pan” and calls for a SATB choir, instrumental ensemble and optional rapper. The work was commissioned by The Iberian and Latin American Music Society of London (ILAMS) specifically to pay tribute to pot-banging protests as instruments of nonviolent resistance. ...
M. Horowitz interviews Sondheim during Liaisons' New York premiere On April 21, 2012, Ricardo Lorenz attended the New York premiere of Liaisons: Re-imagining Sondheim from the Piano, a concert project involving over thirty of the world's foremost contemporary composers, including Lorenz, and their solo piano creations based on Sondheim songs. Produced by Rachel Colbert and performed by pianist and co-producer Anthony de Mare,...
On December 1st, 2011 Music in the Loft founder Fredda Hyman passed away in her Chicago loft. On that day, up and coming performers and composers lost one of their greatest champions. As for myself, I lost one of my greatest friends and supporters, a surrogate mom and a confidant. Please read my Tribute to Fredda Hyman, founder and artistic director for almost two decades of Music in the Loft.
A year after its first performance at Michigan State University, Ricardo Lorenz's Viola Concerto received its East Coast premiere on October 15, 2011. This time it was outside of Philadelphia, once again with violist Roberto Díaz for whom the concerto titled Canciones de Jara was especially composed, and this time accompanied by Symphony in C, a recently created professional training orchestra lead by conductor Rossen Milanov. Lorenz's...
Though there appears to be a tension between the song short form -simple, with alternating verses and choruses- and the large symphonic form developed during the classical era in Europe, Lorenz uses Canciones de Jara to resolve some of those contradictions and explore the deeper meanings of Jara's songs. 'That's what the symphonic context allows,' he says.
Courier Post's Dave Allen previewing the East Coast premiere of Lorenz's Canciones de...
When one thinks of Cuba, one thinks of three things: tobacco, revolution, and music. However, of these three emblems, music best defines the identity of the country. Since more than a century and a half, music has allowed Cubans to remain attached to the past while at the same time respond to influences and demands from the present. Throughout the dramatic history of Cuba —which includes slavery, independence from Spain, U.S....
Rumba Sinfónica, a thirty-minute concerto of sorts for Latin band and symphony orchestra, was the result of a close collaboration between composer Ricardo Lorenz and pianist/arranger Jorge Gómez. Since its premiere with the Minnesota Orchestra in the fall of 2007, Rumba Sinfónica has been performed two dozen times by Jorge Gómez’s band Tiempo Libre and different professional, college, and youth orchestras across the...
As a guest composer of the 2nd Congress of Musical Creation hosted by the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico in San Juan, Ricardo Lorenz attended the Caribbean premiere of his work Merengue en el Espejo and delivered a two-part lecture presentation on the topic of finding appropriate spaces for optimal musical creation. The Conservatory of Music’s composition faculty Alfonso Fuentes organized the multidisciplinary event that gathered...
Read about Lorenz's Canciones de Jara on the Discovery Channel's Blog. Read more about the premiere on the Michigan State News website. Listen to Ricardo Lorenz talk about Canciones de Jara with Spartan Podcast host Russ White. Listen to violist Roberto Díaz and conductor Leon Gregorian talk about the premiere of Canciones de Jara on NPR affiliate WKAR 90.5FM
On October 22, 2010 Violist Roberto Díaz premiered Ricardo Lorenz's Canciones de Jara: Concerto for Viola and Orchestra with the Michigan State University Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Leon Gregorian at the Wharton Center for Performing Arts. After consecutive tenures as Principal Violist with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra, Roberto Díaz currently heads the Curtis Institute of Music and performs...
An international group of euphonium players and music institutions has joined forces to commission a work from Ricardo Lorenz that will feature the euphonium while calling for the same instrumentation of Leos Janacek’s seldom performed Cappricio for piano and winds. The consortium is spearheaded by Robert Benton, currently on the University of Windsor Brass Faculty and hailed for being “a compelling performer and outstanding...
As part of their 2010 Meadowlark Music Festival engagement, Guest Composer Ricardo Lorenz and the Dali String Quartet appeared as featured artists of “Live from the Mill,” a laidback yet incredibly informative art news show that is broadcasted live from The Mill, a landmark café in downtown Lincoln, Nebraska. “Live from the Mill” is hosted by Bill Stibor every Friday morning and is heard throughout Nebraska on KUCV Net Radio 91.1 FM,...
To conclude a year of performances in celebration of the 10th anniversary of Lorenz’s Pataruco: Concerto for Venezuelan Maracas and Orchestra, the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra and soloist Ed Harrison performed the work at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion of Chicago’s Millennium Park. During the 2009-2010 season, the work received performances in Nevada, Oregon and in Mexico by percussionists Ricardo Gallardo and Terry Longshore. Pataruco...
As Guest Composer of the 2010 Meadowlark Music Festival, Ricardo Lorenz curated a program of Latin American music that brought together Philadelphia-based Dali String Quartet and Puerto Rican percussionist/marimba virtuoso Orlando Cotto. A highlight of the program was the Nebraska premiere of Lorenz’s Puente Trans-Arabico for percussion and string quartet. Among other works for percussion and string quartet, the program included...
Minnesota native and flutist Marissa Olin will premiere a new and improved version of Ricardo Lorenz’s Perfiles Sospechosos on Sunday, April 18, at Michigan State’s Hart Recital Hall. Originally a trio for flute, cello, and percussion commissioned by the National Flute Association, Olin will premiere a quartet version of Perfiles Sospechosos that incorporates bass clarinet. “As soon as it was premiered in 2007 at the NFA New Mexico...
Ricardo Lorenz receives commission from the University of Oregon to compose work for two world-renown flutists: Grammy-Award winning, University of Oregon faculty Molly Barth and revered Venezuelan flutist Luis Julio Toro. In addition to having long standing solo careers, Molly Barth is a founding member of the nationally acclaimed sextet Eight Blackbird and Luis Julio Toro has traveled all around the world with his virtuoso contemporary...
Ricardo Lorenz will spend five weeks in residency at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. As a MacDowell Colony Fellow, Lorenz will work during April and May 2010 on a new concerto for viola and orchestra. The concerto is loosely based on a group of songs by the late singer songwriter Victor Jara, one of the first casualties of Chile’s 1973 military coup. Lorenz is composing this concerto for Roberto Díaz, former...
Several performances of Ricardo Lorenz's concerto for maracas and orchestra are scheduled for the 2009-2010 season in cities across the US and Mexico. Premiered ten years ago and titled Pataruco, this first-ever concerto for maracas will be performed in Oregon and Nevada by percussionist Terry Longshore (http://www.terrylongshore.com) with the Rogue Valley Symphony and the Carson City Symphony respectively. Almost simultaneously, Mexican...
By invitation of the University of Florida Bands, Ricardo Lorenz visited the Gainesville campus on September 29-October 2, 2009 to attend the official premiere of El Muro, a work for wind symphony commissioned by the American Bandmasters Association and the University of Florida Bands. The work was premiered on October 1st by the UF Wind Symphony conducted by David Waybright. While at University of Florida, Lorenz met with graduate students...
Ricardo Lorenz's Rumba Sinfónica will receive its twentieth performance at the historic Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Orchestra.
On October 24, 2009 Tiempo Libre and The Cleveland Institute of Music Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Carl Topilow will perform Rumba Sinfónica at Cleveland’s Severance Hall. One of the world's most prestigious concert halls, Severance Hall underwent a major, $36-million restoration and expansion...
After fulfilling a commission from the National Flute Association in 2007, Ricardo Lorenz was the 2008 recipient of the American Bandmasters Association/University of Florida Commission Award. The award, funded by a grant from the University of Florida band program, includes a commission honorarium to create a major artistic work for wind band. After a preview performance at the 2009 CBDNA conference, the ten-minute work, titled El Muro , is...
Links from MSUToday on TV Spartan Podcast: Ricardo Lorenz College of Music News: Composer Heats Things Up with Fusion of Cuban Rumba and Symphony Sound MSU News: MSU professor’s ‘Rumba Sinfonica’ to be performed by Detroit Symphony Orchestra MSUToday Show #12: Tiempo Libre performs “Rumba Sinfónica”
The second half of the concert felt more convincing than the first. After Mr. Giorgetti’s “Dialogue” came the Venezuelan-American composer Ricardo Lorenz’s “Compass Points,” the most successful piece on Sunday’s program. Each of the work’s three sections was written in a different location and reflects the composer’s state of mind and circumstances at the time. The first movement, composed in Umbria, Italy, offered a sultry...
Ricardo Lorenz’s first composition, written at age 12, was extremely simple. “Just two chords, jumping back and forth,” he says with a laugh. “I got such a kick out of it.” Now, after more than 25 years as a composer, Venezuelan-born Lorenz, PhD’99, not only creates large-scale works for multi-instrument groups, but he also harmonizes two musical worlds: classical and Latin American. More>
Get down. Listen up. Get down. How’s that for a history of Western music in six words? It’s also a neat preview of Michigan State University composer Ricardo Lorenz’ massive Latinsymphonic collision piece “Rumba Sinfonica.”For years, two men dreamed of a taboo liaison between full symphony orchestra and Latin dance machine: Lorenz and Jorge Gomez, founder of Grammy-winning Latin combo Tiempo Libre.Their dream comes alive Thursday...
Ricardo Lorenz received a 2008 Michigan State University Intramural Grant (IRGP) from the Vice President's Office for Research to compose a concerto for viola in collaboration with Roberto Díaz, former principal violist with the Philadelphia Orchestra and current President of the Curtis Institute of Music. The concerto is to be premiered by Mr. Díaz and the MSU Symphony Orchestra during the fall of 2010. Watch Roberto Diaz on youtube
"Ricardo Lorenz's 'Bachangó' translates the rhythmic tradition of the black Caribbean into steely pianistic bravura."
Bernard Holland, THE NEW YORK TIMES
"Its appeal is atmospheric, evoking visceral responses to layer upon layer of divergent rhythms and quixotic melodic lines that fit together with jigsaw puzzle perfection."
Diane Windeler, SAN ANTONIO LIGHT
"Ricardo Lorenz proved his mastery of large forces in his Concierto para Orquesta."
Tim...
