Seda Röder

Blackbox #008: How it all began Part I: Reinventing Dissonance and its Resolution

sedaroeder.com — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:50:19 +0000

Tristan Chord

In Blackbox I usually talk about contemporary music. However recently I have been receiving questions about how it all began. So I decided to prepare a few episodes about the beginnings of modern music, and about some of the pieces that are pivotal in showing a new musical direction.

For many of us, contemporary music is defined by its extensive use of dissonances: intervals that -when played simultaneously- sound clashing, and not really in harmony, for some ears even disturbing. But there is something very important here to keep in mind: dissonance as such is not necessarily something unpleasant or unnatural. Composers like Bach, Mozart, Chopin, all used dissonances. With one important point however, when these composers used dissonances, and created tension they always resolved it.

Today I would like to bring three examples for the different uses of dissonance by Mozart, Chopin and Wagner, and show you how these composers handled dissonance and paved the way for the future composers.

– Seda

Commemoration at the Austrian Embassy in Washington, DC

sedaroeder.com — Sun, 16 May 2010 17:23:59 +0000

On May 13, Seda performed for Holocaust survivors and invited guests at the Austrian Embassy in Washington, DC.

The event was held to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the National Fund for the Victims of National Socialism in Austria.

After introductory remarks by the Austrian Ambassador Christian Prosl, the fund’s general secretary, Hannah Lessing, as well as the U. S. Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues, Ambassador Christian Kennedy, and the U. S. Special Representative for Holocaust Era Issues, the Honorable Stuart Eizenstat gave powerful and emotional speeches.

Each attendee was presented with a copy of the anniversary publication of the National Fund–a two volume history of the fund and a impressive collection of memories from Holocaust survivors.

Seda performed selections from her Viennese Piano Music of the Turn of the Century program, which she presented in April at the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York City.

Photography by Karl Schrammel

Concert Gift from the Austrian Cultural Forum

sedaroeder.com — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:42:33 +0000

Photograph by Frederic Ohringer

What a nice hall and wonderful audience! Thank you all for coming out to hear Seda perform at the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York City on Tuesday.

We have just sent out an mp3 with excerpts from the performance to those who attended. Enjoy this concert gift from Seda!

For those of you who couldn’t make it, please contact us at info@sedaroeder.com and we would be more than happy to send you the file as well.

Blackbox #007: “A Child’s Play” Listening to Helmut Lachenmann

Seda Röder — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 23:03:10 +0000

In this episode of Blackbox I would like to talk about a piece that caused a very interesting discussion on my YouTube Channel: “Ein Kinderspiel” (A Child’s Play) by Helmut Lachenmann. I am hoping that this episode will help you to develop a new listening strategy for this very interesting piece while also clarifying its context a little bit.

As always please don’t hesitate to contact me with questions or comments. Enjoy!

–Seda

An Alphabet of Sounds: Tolga Tüzün on his Compositional Process

Seda Röder — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 04:53:13 +0000

The Turkish composer Tolga Tüzün speaks about the compositional process that underlies his new piano piece “Permanence,” a piece he composed for the “Listening to Istanbul” Project and dedicated to me. I can’t wait to play this composition for the Listening to Istanbul project.

By the way, if you haven’t signed up to my mailing list yet, please do so. I’ll send around a notice once the recording is ready. And hopefully you will be able to come to one of the many concerts that we are planning as well!

– Seda

Listening to Istanbul…

Seda Röder — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:10:13 +0000

As many of you know, right now I am working on a CD and concert project: “Listening to Istanbul”. For this project I have commissioned six piano works by the most talented Turkish composers of our time. I will record this excellent music in June 2010, and perform the pieces in a series of concerts in Turkey, Europe and the US starting in July.

If you would like to learn more about “Listening to Istanbul” here is a video in which I introduce the project. To stay informed about the upcoming CD and the concerts simply sign up for my newsletter or visit us on http://www.newmusicistanbul.com!

This video and many other videos about the project are also available on Listening to Istanbul Website, and on Youtube.

Thanks for watching!

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

Watch Hans Tutschku’s “Winternacht”

Seda Röder — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:36:24 +0000

Hi Everyone,

if you missed the HYDRA concert on December 11, here you can watch the video of our performance (with Sam Solomon on percussion). Even if this video cannot capture the effect of the electronics with 32 loudspeakers I guess it will still stimulate your appetite for the next HYDRA series. I hope you enjoy the video of Winternacht as much as we enjoyed performing it! Let us know what you think!

Best,
Seda

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

Blackbox #006: HYDRA in a Winter Night

sedaroeder.com — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:27:40 +0000

Those who are familiar with the Blackbox series will remember the composer Hans Tutschku. Today I would like to dedicate another episode to Hans and his work. Actually to two of his works: one of them is a compositional achievement: a piano, percussion, and live-electronics work Winternacht (Winter Night), which I will perform together with the percussionist Sam Solomon on Friday.

The other one is an extraordinary contribution to the electro-acoustic music scene in North America: Hydra. Hydra is a so to speak loudspeaker orchestra specially designed for the performance of electro-acoustic music.

The concerts will take place at Paine Hall at Harvard University, on December 10 and 11 starting at 8pm, there will also be a late night concert on December 10 at 10.30pm with a large scale electro-acoustic work by Francois Bayle.

Our performance will take place during the Friday concert. Hope to see many of you there!

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Blackbox 005: Fuchs vs. Brahms – 1 : 1

sedaroeder.com — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:23:28 +0000

Robert Fuchs and Johannes Brahms

As you all know in this podcast series I usually talk about contemporary music, but this time I would like to focus on music that is new not in the sense that it was composed recently, but that is new because it is still undiscovered for the wider public: the piano sonata op. 88 in g-minor by Robert Fuchs.

Fuchs was a contemporary of Brahms and in today’s episode I compare two pieces by these two composers.

Please leave me a comment if you like the podcast!

Best wishes,
– Seda

Update: Video and Images of AMREF Benefit Concert

sedaroeder.com — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 18:28:34 +0000

“Thank you all for coming out to Killian Hall yesterday night! I hope you enjoyed listening to the concert as much as I enjoyed playing it for you! I also wanted to thank you for your generous contibutions to the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) which will help improve health care for many communities across the African continent.”
– Seda