Eastern Music Festival a sheltered corner for horn and orchestra (2011) - WORLD PREMIERE
50th Anniversary Commission for the Eastern Music Festival
Eastern Music Festival Orchestra
Jamie Hersch, horn
Gerard Schwarz, conductor MORE INFORMATION
October 18, 2011 at 8PM
Transit Circle Contemporary Music Series MUSIC OF MICHAEL HERSCH
Miranda Cuckson, Director After Hölderlin's 'Hälfte des Lebens' for viola and cello - (NY PREMIERE)
Miranda Cuckson, viola; Julia Bruskin, cello
from The Vanishing Pavilions (2005) - NY PREMIERE
Michael Hersch, piano
Merkin Concert Hall. New York, NY MORE INFORMATION
"The evening felt downright historic. [Hersch] conjured volcanic gestures from the piano with astonishing virtuosity. Overtly or covertly, The Vanishing Pavilions is about the destruction of shelter (both in fact and in concept) and life amid the absence of any certainty. And though the music is as deeply troubled as can be, its restless directness also commands listeners not to be paralyzed by existential futility." — The Philadelphia Inquirer
November 1, 2011 at 8PM
Evolution Contemporary Music Series the wreckage of flowers - Works for Violin of Michael Hersch Fourteen Pieces for Unaccompanied Violin after texts of Primo Levi (2007) the wreckage of flowers for violin and piano (2003)
Miranda Cuckson, violin; Blair McMillen, piano
An die Musik LIVE!
409 North Charles Street
Second Floor
Baltimore, Maryland 21201 MORE INFORMATION
JANUARY 26, 2012 AT 8PM
Thomas Hampson, Baritone
Craig Rutenberg, Piano Domicilium - a song cycle after texts of Thomas Hardy
Ingram Concert Hall
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN
FEBRUARY 17, 2012 AT 8PM
Blair String Quartet Images From a Closed Ward (2010) - WORLD PREMIERE
The Blair 21st Century Commissions
Ingram Concert Hall
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN
March 15/17, 2012 at 8PM
Cleveland Orchestra Night Pieces for trumpet and orchestra - WORLD PREMIERE PERFORMANCES
Cleveland Orchestra Commission
Michael Sachs, trumpet
Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor
Severance Hall. Cleveland, OH 44106 MORE INFORMATION 03/15/12 MORE INFORMATION 03/17/12
April 1, 2012 at 4PM
The Blair String Quartet: Havertown New Music and Art Series
The Blair String Quartet
Franz Schubert - String Quartet No. 14: Death and the Maiden, D.810
Michael Hersch - Images from a Closed Ward (2010)
Studio of Christopher Cairns - 2130 Darby Road - Havertown, PA 19083
April 5, 2012 at 8PM
Blair String Quartet - Carnegie Recital Hall
Michael Hersch - Images from a Closed Ward (2010) - NY PREMIERE
The Blair 21st Century Commissions
Weill Recital Hall. New York, NY MORE INFORMATION
May 15, 2012
Seattle Symphony Orchestra along the ravines (Piano Concerto No. 2) - WORLD PREMIERE
Commissioned by Shai Wosner and the Borletti-Buitoni Trust
Shai Wosner, piano
Gerard Schwarz, conductor
Seattle, WA
MORE INFORMATION
Upcoming Projects
Cello Concerto for Daniel Gaisford
Cellist Daniel Gaisford has commissioned a new cello concerto from Hersch, with plans for a premiere in 2013. Gaisford, a longtime champion of the composer's work gave premiere performances of both the Sonata No. 2 for unaccompanied cello (2000) and Last Autumn for horn and cello (2008). The second sonata is dedicated to Gaisford.
Program-length work for newly created nunc
Mr. Hersch has begun work on a major new work for female voice and chamber ensemble. The premiere is tentatively scheduled for the 2012-13 concert season of nunc (now), a newly formed organization committed to the creation and performance of contemporary music, directed by Miranda Cuckson. More details soon.
The Baltimore Sun Blog
Recording Review: the wreckage of flowers
by Logan K. Young
Published: November 1, 2011
Born in Washington, based in Baltimore, composer Michael Hersch is indeed a local marvel. In fact, given his myriad early successes, increasingly high-profile commissions and prodigious keyboard skills, I’d argue he’s the Beltway’s own Thomas Adès. No, that’s not hyperbole; Hersch really is that unique a voice, that solid a musician... READ MORE
Interview With Violinist Miranda Cuckson
Violinist Miranda Cuckson speaks about her interest in new music, her artistic collaboration with composer Michael Hersch, and the experience of preparing and performing contemporary works for concert and the recording studio. You can find out more about Miranda here, and information on The Wreckage of Flowers, recently released on CD by Musical Concepts, here.
ASCAP Audio Portrait February 17, 2011 - The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers highly acclaimed Audio Portraits series gives listeners unique insight into the creative process, as told by the writers themselves.
Peter Sheppard-Skaerved plays Michael Hersch
Michael Hersch: Five Fragments for unaccompanied violin
Peter Sheppard-Skaerved, violin
Galleria Marco - Mexico City Click here to listen
SYMPHONY NO. 3 (WORLD PREMIERE)
CABRILLO FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC
MARIN ALSOP, MUSIC DIRECTOR
"Hersch seems to have carved his Symphony No 3 with granitic force. He has cast it in two large movements, surrounding five brief interludes; the dense harmonies, forbidding instrumental detail and sensation of inexorability seem not to have fazed the 83-member festival orchestra. The strings brood, the brass rages and, once in a while, you encounter a consonance with the sweetness of honey. Hersch provides a few moments of relief. Before he plunges into the tumultuous finale, he offers a short episode of broken phrases, and the silences between them leave you breathless."
-- The Financial Times of London, Allan Ulrich
"Hersch's Symphony No. 3, presented after intermission, evoked a considerably darker atmosphere. ... the score introduces a chilly, often harrowing palette, with brooding strings, glowering brass and anguished cries from the woodwinds deployed in formidable blocks of sound. The effect is both mechanized and deeply human ... Hersch impresses with sheer sonic weight and intensity. Alsop, a longtime advocate of the composer — this is his fourth visit to Cabrillo — lavished considerable care on the score's world premiere."
-- The San Jose Mercury News, Georgia Rowe
"In its world premiere, Michael Hersch's Symphony No. 3 delved deeply into dark psychic territory with painfully raw dissonances and near-human instrumental cries. Fleeting moments of calm beauty surfaced momentarily amid the storms. Two of the work's seven movements glittered with flitting woodwind ripples, and the finale, with a weighty fugue-like expansion, provided a welcome level of repose."
-- The Santa Cruz Sentinel, Phyllis Rosenblum
"This was not a sweet sadness. Nearly unbearable, it spoke to the kind of injury from which one does not heal. A deep hurt which we hold tight to ourselves, a hurt that names us. A sudden bang on untuned drum ... The orchestra gathered to a slow thickness, a tension of dread, with shimmer and slick of violins. Trumpets cascaded sharply down, silvered threads among low strings. ... a march across life’s rhythms."
-- The Piedmont Post, Adam Broner
MICHAEL HERSCH’S Sonata No. 1 for unaccompanied cello is one of his earliest published works, written when he was 23, in 1994. The riveting piece, given a gripping performance by Daniel Gaisford, is included on the first of three discs featuring Mr. Hersch’s solo and chamber music for string instruments, being released by Vanguard Classics... READ MORE
Sounds Heard: Michael Hersch—Sonatas Nos. 1 & 2 for Unaccompanied Cello
By Molly Sheridan
NewMusicBox
Published: October 12, 2010
Michael Hersch's disc of two sonatas for unaccompanied cello particularly attracted me both for how strongly it makes this kind of connection with the listener and because it showcases the kind of work that doesn't miss the emotionally engaging forest for the technically sophisticated trees.
October 18, 2011 at 8PM
November 1, 2011 at 8PM
Click here to listen
MICHAEL HERSCH’S Sonata No. 1 for unaccompanied cello is one of his earliest published works, written when he was 23, in 1994. The riveting piece, given a gripping performance by Daniel Gaisford, is included on the first of three discs featuring Mr. Hersch’s solo and chamber music for string instruments, being released by Vanguard Classics... 
