Happy New Year from the New York Composers Circle! A few dates to mark on your calendar: Our next SUNDAY SALON will be at the Ellington Room at Manhattan Plaza Sunday, January 18. JOHN EATON will be providing us with a Salon-length presentation and DVD viewing at our January 18th Salon, which begins at 2:30 p.m. (after a report on administrative matters) in the Ellington Room on the second floor, at 400 West 43rd street (the canopied entrance just off Ninth Avenue). John will be making some preliminary remarks regarding writing for opera, and will then present a full viewing of his 2006 pocket opera production of Pumped Fiction at the Thalia, sponsored by the American Composers Alliance (see earlier notice below).

Also for your calendar, note that February 14 at 8pm the NYCC will present its SECOND CONCERT of the season at Symphony Space Thalia. More details to follow.

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JOSPEH PEHRSON‘s new ensemble piece (flute, bass clarinet, trumpet, acoustic guitar, violin and cello) premieres tomorrow, Sunday January 11 at 3pm. It will feature dance choreographed by Alan Good, presented by Dan Barrett and Gene Pritsker’s “International Street Cannibals” (Group title after Montaigne…) There are three ballet premieres, with great new ensemble pieces by Pritsker and Dan Cooper as well. 

The concert is billed as: NEGATIVE CAPABILITY: POLITICAL / SPATIAL and takes place at St Mark’s in-the-Bowery, 131 East 10th St (at 2nd Ave). $10 admission (at the door). Performers include Krista Bennion Feeney – solo violin, Charles Coleman (narrator), Lynn Bechtold(violin), Thomas Gansch (trumpet), Leo Grinhaus (cello), Franz Hackl (trumpet), Gene Pritsker (steel string guitar), Michiyo Suzuki (clarinet), Linda Wetherill (flute) Dan Barrett – conductor, along with dancers Alan Good (dancer/choreographer), Fiona Evans, Megan Sipe and Luis Gabriel Zaragoza (dancers). More info: Dan Barrett, 646-431-2818 

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Also from JOE PEHRSON: Sunday, February 1, 2009, 5PM (writes Joe, “ok… so it *is* SuperBowl”) cellist Jennifer DeVore and violinist Lynn Bechtold will be premiering a work especially written for them called Slick Clicks at the Roerich Museum, 319 W. 107th Street, NYC. Admission is by contribution.

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EUGENE MARLOW will serve as a jazz competition judge for the New York Youth Symphony. Along with Rufus Reid, a leading strong bass player with over 250 recordings in his discography, who chairs the advisory committee for jazz, Gene, the NYCC’s Director of Media Relations, will serve as one of several judges of the big band jazz commission for the 26th season of commission awards to America’s emerging jazz composers.

A $1,500 commission will be awarded for a work written for big band jazz that will be given a premiere in New York City in May 2010. First Music, the New York Youth Symphony’s acclaimed commissioning program, has awarded 102 commissions to America’s composers since 1984. This ongoing project introduces traditional audiences, as well as the musicians themselves, to new trends in music. Three awards are given seasonally for orchestral compositions and one each for chamber and jazz works. Pulitzer-prize winning composer Steven Mackey, a professor of music at Princeton University, chairs the First Music Advisory Committee for orchestral and chamber music.

The committees will meet in February to review applications.

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Also from EUGENE MARLOW: He and fellow NYCC composer KEVIN MCCARTER are exhibiting at the annual Conductors Guild Conference, being held January 8-11, 2009 at the Park Central Hotel, New York City. If you’re attending the conference, please stop by the table to say hello!