June 2008
A new website is coming this summer. Upcoming performances include premieres by the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, cellist Wendy Sutter, violinist Daniel Hope, ensemble MAYA, the Milwaukee Women’s Choir and Children’s Choir commissioned by Present Music, a full concert dedicated to the music of Alexandra du Bois at John Zorn’s performance space The Stone, in Manhattan. You can also visit this website for excerpts of live performances. To join the mailing list, send an email to info (at) alexandradubois (dot com).
December 2006
Alexandra du Bois third String Quartet Night Song (Nachtliederen) received seven stunning performances by the Kronos Quartet during 2006 including the New York premiere, which was performed to a sold out audience at Carnegie Hall in March 2006.
The world premiere Bruciare Distante (Burning Distant) for violin, two cellos, double bass and piano, choreographed by Collin Baja for eight dancers was just presented at The Peter Jay Sharp Theater in New York to several sold out audiences. The Dance and Music programs at the Juilliard School commissioned Bruciare Distante in 2006.
Alexandra du Bois will be in residence with Kronos Quartet through Carnegie Hall’s Professional Training Workshop, Kronos: Signature Works. Kronos will coach several promising new string quartets selected for the Workshop on works by Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Alexandra du Bois, and John Zorn with performances culminating on 28 April 2007 at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall.
Alexandra du Bois’ commission from Bargemusic will be premiered in July 2007. Bargemusic commissioned the New Work in 2006 for clarinet, cello and piano.
Several other new works are also scheduled to be premiered in 2007-8 including Out of Blue for solo cello, (commissioned by Wendy Sutter), L’Arc des Étoiles, (commissioned by MAYA), anda New Work for organ (commissioned by Carson Cooman), as well as arrangements from Kronos Quartet and MAYA (also to be recorded and released in 2007) are scheduled to be premiered during 2007-8. Check performances soon for more information.
The BMI Foundation in cooperation with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s has awarded Alexandra du Bois with an Honorable Mention in their first Women’s Music Commission.
Alexandra du Bois was recently Composer-In-Residence with the Felici Trio at the Mammoth Lakes Music Festival in California where her piano trio, L’Apothéose d’un Rêve received its West Coast premiere. In January the Beaux Arts Trio presented four performances of L’Apothéose d’un Rêve in three cities in The Netherlands including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
In January 2007, two of du Bois’ chamber works, Tempête de Sable (2003) and String Quintet: A Requiem for the Living (2002) will be broadcast on the radio program "The Composer Next Door" on KCSC/KBCW FM in Oklahoma City hosted by Rob Deemer.
Check out Alexandra du Bois’ MySpaceMusic page where three MP3’s are currently available. Experts of several other new works will be available soon.
March 2006
Alexandra du Bois’ new string quartet, Night Songs (Nachtliederen), String Quartet No. 3 was recently premiered at Stanford University’s Dinkelspiel Auditorium. On Friday, 24 March 2006, Kronos Quartet will present the New York premiere of Night Songs as part of the opening night of Kronos’ Live Mix series at Carnegie Hall. Program notes and other information are available here. Night Songs was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet by Deborah and Creig Hoyt in memory of Dr. Wayne Caygill and explores the letters and journals of Etty Hillesum who was born in the Netherlands in 1914 and was killed at Auschwitz 1943. Kronos Quartet’s Zankel Hall concert will also include the world premiere of Michael Gordon’s Sad Park and the US premiere of Henryk Gorecki’s third string quaretet, Piesni Spiewaja (“...songs are sung”). All three works on this program were commissioned by Kronos Quartet.
In May 2006 Kronos will present two European performances of Night Songs (Nachtliederen) in San Sebastian, Spain, and Paris, France. Check out the performances page for more information.
During July 2006, Alexandra du Bois will be Composer-in-Residence with the Felici Trio at the Mammoth Lakes Music Festival in California. The residency will culminate with Felici Trio’s West Coast premiere of du Bois’ Piano Trio, L’Apothéose d’un Rêve, which was commissioned and premiered by the Beaux Arts Trio in January in Amsterdam, Eindhoven, and Groningen, the Netherlands.
New works for 2006 include works for Bang on a Can cellist Wendy Sutter, flutist Sato Moughalian with New York-based ensemble Maya, and Chicago-based double bassist DaXun Zhang with Northwestern University’s Contemporary Music Ensemble.
August 2005
Check out National Public Radio on 5 September for a Creators at Carnegie Series broadcast of Alexandra du Bois' first string quartet, Oculus pro oculo totum orbem terrae caecat. This is a Creators at Carnegie broadcast from a live performance by the Kronos Quartet from 5 February 2005 at Zankel Hall.
Alexandra du Bois has recently been commissioned by the Perspectives Ensemble and concert organist Carson Cooman. Both new works will be completed during 2006-7.
Now well underway, Alexandra du Bois’ Night Songs (Nachtliederen), String Quartet No. 3 explores the internal and world of the young Etty Hillesum (b.1914, Deventer, the Netherlands) who wrote twelve journals from 1941-1943 during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Etty Hillesum was killed at Auschwitz when she was only twenty-nine. However, du Bois’ String Quartet No. 3 also reveals a second backdrop to Hillesum’s life and writing—a brighter world although equally chaotic—out of which a tender inner-landscape, visceral and intensely searching, depicts a single human being living, creating and growing despite inhuman circumstances around her. Night Songs (Nachtliederen) was commissioned by the Kronos Quartet and will be premiered in March 2006 at Stanford University and Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall by the Kronos Quartet. Check the performances page for more info.
April
2005
The Beaux Arts Trio has announced
that Alexandra du Bois’ Trio for Piano,
Violin and Cello: L'apothéose d'un Rêvewhich
was commissioned by Menahem Pressler for the Beaux
Arts Trio in 2003 will be premiered by Beaux Arts
at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam
on 16 January 2006. Check the performances page
for more information and other performance dates.
Alexandra is currently writing her third string
quartet. Du Bois’ new string quartet is inspired
by the life of Etty Hillesum,
Hillesum’s Letters from Westerbork, and
Hillesum’s eleven poignant journals which
were written during the Nazi occupation of the
Netherlands. In 2004 du Bois received a grant from
the Netherland-America Foundation to retrace Hillesum’s
footsteps in the Netherlands and Poland. String
Quartet No. 3, which was commissioned by the Kronos
Quartet, will be premiered by Kronos at
Stanford University and Carnegie Hall in
New York in March 2006. Check the performances
page for more information.
Recently, Alexandra du Bois has accepted an invitation
from the Juilliard School of Music where she will
pursue her Masters degree in 2005. Du Bois is also
the recipient of the Piser Scholarship at the Juilliard
School.
February
2005
Hear Alexandra du Bois’ String Quartet live!
An international broadcast of String Quartet:
Oculus pro oculo totum orbem terrae caecat will
be available on BBC’s
Radio 3 on
27 March 2005. This is a recording of Kronos
Quartet’s live performance from
22 January at Barbican Hall in London. This broadcast
also includes the arrangement of Jimi Hendrix’s
version of the Star Spangled Banner as
well as Monk, Gordon, Jeths, Ali-Zadeh, and Mansell.
Alexandra du Bois first string quartet will also
broadcast on 5 September 2005 on National Public
Radio’s Creators
at Carnegie series featuring
Kronos Quartet’s Zankel Hall performance
from 5 February 2005. Check this NPR
website for more information and local broadcast
dates. More detailed information will be available
later this spring.
January
2005
Alexandra has recently been commissioned by the
Kronos Quartet for the second time. Her new string
quartet will be inspired by the life and writing
of Etty Hillesum. After receiving
a grant from the Netherland-America Foundation,
Alexandra traveled to Holland
and Poland to receive creative insight into the
piece while following in the footsteps of Hillesum
during August 2004. Hillesum was twenty-nine when
she was killed at Auschwitz in 1943. Her eleven
journals, Etty:
The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum 1941-1943, and Letters
from Westerbork were written during the last
years of her life during the Nazi occupation of
the Netherlands. Du Bois’ String Quartet
No. 3 will be premiered by the Kronos
Quartet in 2006.
In February 2005 Alexandra du Bois will be a featured
composer at Merkin Hall in New York City through
the Zoom:
Composers Close Up series
hosted by composer and Bang
on a Can co-founder
Michael Gordon. The concert will include the world
première of a work for solo amplified cello
commissioned by the Kaufman Center as well as by
cellist Wendy Sutter, the New York première
of Preludes to Solitude for solo guitar, and
a post-performance discussion. Check performances for
more information.
Alexandra’s first string quartet to be commissioned
by the Kronos Quartet will be
performed by Kronos at the Barbican Centre in
London and Zankel Hall at Carnegie
Hall in New York. Check performances for
more information.
Alexandra’s newly completed Trio for
Piano, Violin and Cello will be premièred
by the Beaux Arts Trio during the 50th anniversary
season of the Beaux Arts Trio in 2005-6. Pianist Menahem
Pressler and the Beaux Arts Trio commissioned
her Trio in 2004. More information about
the premiere will be available soon.
In 2005-6, Alexandra will begin writing the soundtrack
to a film by French filmmaker and director Luc
Gétreau. Du Bois and Gétreau met
in 2004 when they were both researching Etty
Hillesum at the Jewish Historical
Museum in Amsterdam. Getreau is currently
creating a film about Hillesum.
all photos on this page copyright ©2004 by
Alexandra du Bois |
