Copious Notes

Note: I’ll be Twittering the Grammy Awards tonight, using the hashtag #grammys, if you want to join in the chat.

Discovering new music is often a matter of trust, particularly if you are interested in exploring something like contemporary classical music.

Osvaldo Golijov. Photo by John Sann | Deutsche Grammophon.

Yes, you can just dive in and start listening to any piece composed in the past 50 years - classical music is a field in which that would be considered “new.” But exploration is often more interesting if you find artists whose tastes you appreciate and you keep up with what they’re doing.

That’s how I discovered Osvaldo Golijov.

The Lexington Philharmonic audience will get its first chance to hear Golijov on Friday, when guest conductor Alastair Willis conducts the orchestra in a performance of Golijov’s Last Round, a piece that helped introduce the composer to many listeners in 1996.

“He looks to be a voice to be reckoned with,” London’s Independent wrote of the world premiere of Last Round, commissioned by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.

The group was created by conductor Simon Rattle, an artist whose contemporary tastes I started following many years ago when he was making ear-grabbing recordings with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

But that is not where I found Golijov.

It was Kronos Quartet’s and Dawn Upshaw’s work with the composer that initially intrigued me, and when I heard it, I had to hear more.

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Fans of Kronos Quartet, which played a sold out show at Transylvania University in October 2007, may want to get up to Cincinnati for the foursome’s show as part of the MusicNow Festival.

Kronos Quartet.

During Kronos’ two-night stand, March 11 and 12, the group will premier a new work by Arcade Fire bassist Richard Reed Parry and present a recent work by J.G. Thirlwell as well as other pieces reflecting Kronos’ world music influences. The Books, an eclectic folk and electronica duo, will also perform March 11 and Toumani Diabatè, an African kora player, is on the 12th. Both shows are at 8 p.m. at Cincinnati’s Memorial Hall, 1225 Elm St. Tickets are $20 each night or $35 both evenings.

Kronos Quartet — L-R, violinists David Harrington, John Sherba, violist Hank Dutt and cellist Jeffrey Zeigler perform at Transylvania University Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2007. Copyrighted photo by Joseph Rey Au, courtesy of Transylvania University.

You have to love a string quartet that can create parking problems and traffic congestion on Broadway. Classical music in Lexington often takes place in relative quiet. But last night, there was unmistakable hubbub around Transylvania University’s Mitchell Fine Arts Building.

It was for Kronos Quartet, the new music pioneers brought in to inaugurate the Dorothy J. and Fred K. Smith Concert Series.

The stated goal of the endowed series is to “bring high-quality musical performances to Transylvania’s campus annually, reflecting a variety of musical styles that will include classical, jazz, American folk, world music, popular, musical theater, opera and multimedia.”

Save for the opera and musical theater, series really couldn’t have come up with a better ensemble to distill the breadth of that goal into one evening of music.

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