For more biographical information about Vanessa Lann in both English and Dutch: DONEMUS Composer's Brochure
"Repetition and multiplication - two simple words. The entire world perceivable with the senses would fall apart into meaningless chaos if we could not cling to these two concepts."
M.C. Escher
Resurrecting Persephone, for flute and chamber orchestra ('99): first movement, "Temple of the Mind". Eleonore Pameijer, flute. Radio Kamerorkest of The Netherlands; Kenneth Montgomery, conductor. November 26, 2000. De Doelen, Rotterdam (for more sound samples please go to compositions page). The majority of Vanessa Lann's compositions include aspects of ritual, ceremony or contemplation. She is interested in breaking with the conventional concert-hall approach to the performance and programming of music, and she frequently experiments with alternative ways of sharing sound, other media and time with audiences, often hoping to blur the boundary between art and daily experience. In her music Lann uses the repetition of recognizable figures, as well as layers of structures based on number ratios, to create a world in which each subtle element has a distinct meaning. In many works she explores the listener's perception of continuity, infinity and silence, as well as the shifting psychological relationship between foreground and background material, or between performer and audience. Lann is intrigued by the boundaries of what is audible: how long or how quietly a note can be appreciated, how a performer's changing physical experience of a musical gesture changes its nature, why an altered context of a recognizable element can render it absurd or divine. She embraces the sensuality of the rawest of sounds (including the deliciousness of non-equal temperament!), as well as the riskiness and "impolite" quality inherent in the seemingly endless recurrence of the most basic, even childlike, patterns. She searches for extremes within limited means and asks the listener to enter the time and sound world of the music in as simple a manner as possible: as the essence of the music gradually becomes apparent, she hopes that the listener continuously reevaluates his relationship to the music and to the meaning of listening, itself. Vanessa Lann (New York, 1968) has been a composer and pianist since the age of five. She studied composition with Ruth Schonthal at the Westchester Conservatory of Music, where she received the William Petchek Scholarship. For two summers she was a scholarship student at the Tanglewood Institute. She was graduated summa cum laude from the music department of Harvard University (composition, theory, musicology, piano performance, conducting), where her teachers included Earl Kim, Leon Kirchner and Peter Lieberson. Lann won the New York Music Teachers Association 'Herbert Zipper Prize,' the New York Musicians Club 'Bohemians Prize' and the Harvard University 'Hugh F. MacColl Prize.' She directed the Harvard Group For New Music and was co-founder of the Harvard Group For Gender Studies In Music. She also produced and announced radio feature programs (WHRB, Cambridge) and worked as music director for productions at the American Repertory Theatre. In addition to her music courses, Lann studied film theory and physics. In 1990 Vanessa Lann was awarded the Harvard University 'John Knowles Paine Travelling Fellowship,' which brought her to The Netherlands for further study in music composition. She received her Diploma with highest honors in 1993 from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, where her teachers included Theo Loevendie, Gilius van Bergeijk and Louis Andriessen. At present Lann lives and works as a composer in The Netherlands. She is also a Professor of Music at Webster University in Leiden, where she enjoys combining musicological studies with other related fields. She has put together a variety of interesting courses, including: - Music and Mathematics - Music and Art Performed as Theatre (multimedia studio course) - The History of Vocal Music: From Gregorian Chant to Modern Song - Western Music, Eastern Thought (influences of various forms of Eastern philosophy on both Eastern and Western music and art) Vanessa Lann also works as a lecturer at individual events and cultural series on topics involving music, art, history and society. Special subjects include multimedia/multicultural interaction and influences; music history from new perspectives; the role of the arts in modern society, the life and work of Hildegard von Bingen, and the connections between Eastern art and aesthetics and Western music and culture. She also performs as a pianist in orchestras, ensembles and multimedia projects. Vanessa Lann has been commissioned to write pieces for, among others, The Netherlands' Residentie Orkest, Radio Kamerorkest, Studentenorkest, Schoenberg Ensemble, Nieuw Ensemble, Doelen String Quartet, Maarten Altena Ensemble, Cappella Amsterdam, Orkest De Volharding and Ensemble ELECTRA. She has been asked to compose music for musicians including Tomoko Mukaiyama, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Ivo Janssen, Benjamin Schmid, Cristina Zavalloni, Monica Germino, Isabel Ettenauer, Heleen Hulst, Hans Woudenberg, Ananda Sukarlan, Guy Livingston, Eleonore Pameijer, Irene Maessen and Alberto Mizrahi, and for duos including Liza Ferschtman & Inon Barnatan, Harry Sparnaay & Annelie de Man, and Doris Hochscheid & Frans van Ruth. Other musicians who have championed her work include Ralph van Raat, Pekka Kuusisto, Phyllis Chen, Joshua Gordon, Randall Hodgkinson, Patricia Goodson, Sarah Bob, Sonsoles Alonso, Laura Carmichael, Elinor Freer, Ellen Ugelvik, Patrick Hopper, Lora Tchekoratova, Amy Briggs Dissanayake, Ursula Oppens, Anthony Fogg and ensembles such as Wendingen, Insomnio, Duo Vertigo, Ricochet, Kaida, Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, [P-DI]2 and De Ereprijs. Lann recently completed a large commissioned work for the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague entitled THE FLAMES OF QUIETUDE (premiered during Festival In De Branding under the direction of Etienne Siebens), which is inspired by ideas in Eastern philosophy and involves the listener's gradual recognition of simple, recurring patterns in music, as well as in daily life. The majority of the orchestral parts can be played in two different ways: alongside the other instrumental parts during an orchestral performance, or separately as works of solo or chamber music. Vanessa Lann performed the orchestral piano part herself - both with the orchestra during the concert, as well as in an infinitely-repeating solo version in the background of the foyer of the hall as the audience entered the building prior to the concert. "I've heard it all before..." ??? Lann asks: is there really a beginning or an end to a piece of music? When, during our experience of a work of art, does memory begin? During a performance of The Flames of Quietude audience members will likely connect many of the elements of the piece to things they have already heard or experienced thousands of times, triggering individual paths of personal recognition and recollection as the piece progresses. But do these "connections" originate one hour back in time with the endless piano patterns from the foyer, or do they occur simply from the time the conductor's arms are raised, or do they go back to circumstances and reference points with entirely different meanings from moments in each listener's past? Does all musical material already exist in the world around us, just waiting to be discovered and reassembled in new and different contexts and combinations? Since the musical material in The Flames of Quietude is largely taken from former works of Lann, from everyday sound sources and from well-known works of other composers, and merely newly juxtaposed, each audience member will ask these questions in his or her own way during the ritual of the shared concert experience, reflecting his or her unique awareness, sense of humor and method of listening. Throughout her career Vanessa Lann has continued to receive prizes and awards for her music. In 1993 Lann's work for orchestra, Madness and the Moonwoman, was awarded the 'Nederlands Balletorkest Prize' of a performance in the 25-year jubilleum concert of the Nederlands Balletorkest under the direction of David Porcelijn. Her work for piano solo, Inner Piece, won a prestigious Amsterdam Arts Foundation 'Composition Prize' in 1995. This work also won the 1997 'Boswil International Composition Competition' (Switzerland) and the 1998 'Collegium Novum Competition' (USA). In 1997 Vanessa Lann was featured in a Dutch television documentary which focused on her music and on the compact disc recording of her work for large ensemble, Dancing to an Orange Drummer (Ensemble Present; Jurjen Hempel, conductor / NM CLASSICS). Other works of Vanessa Lann available on compact disc include (see compact discs for more details): Inner Piece for piano solo (Tomoko Mukaiyama / BV HAAST) The Owl and The Pussycat for mezzo soprano and piano (Jannie Pranger, Tomoko Mukaiyama / DONEMUS) Recalling Chimes for piano solo (Ivo Janssen / NM EXTRA) The Key to the Fourteenth Vision for violin solo (Benjamin Schmid / NM CLASSICS) DD (Double D) for piano solo (Guy Livingston / WERGO) Is a bell... a bell? for 2 toy pianos (Isabel Ettenauer / edition eirelav) Leaps of Faith for piano and tape (Marcel Worms / ATTACCA) Vanessa Lann's music has been performed throughout the world in venues like the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Lincoln Center (New York), and Philharmonie (Berlin), and at festivals including the Gergiev Festival (The Netherlands), Delft Chamber Music Festival (The Netherlands), Gaudeamus Music Week (The Netherlands), Tanglewood Music Festival (USA), ULTIMA (Norway), West Cork Music Festival (Ireland), Kuhmo Festival (Finland), Warsaw Autumn (Poland), Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival (Germany), Festival Nuovi Spazi (Italy), June In Buffalo (USA), Ars Musica (Belgium), Kiev Music Fest (Ukraine), SummerGarden (NY, USA), FOCUS! Festival (NY, USA), Holland Music Sessions (The Netherlands), ICE-Fest (USA), Stavanger International Chamber Music Festival (Norway), and Time of Music (Finland). Lann recently composed a cello concerto for Hans Woudenberg and the Schoenberg Ensemble, which was premiered in October of 2008 under the direction of Reinbert de Leeuw during the International Cello Biennial in Amsterdam. It is titled Divining Apollo, and it further explores her fascination with the Divine Proportion, Memory and mathematical time structures. Please see upcoming events for more details, plus go to the blog On An Overgrown Path (November 3 posting) to read about the event! Pieces just completed include a trio commissioned by Cristina Zavalloni (voice), Monica Germino (violin) and Andrea Rebaudengo (piano) entitled Knowing Rose, as well as a large piece for the Utrechts Blazers Ensemble to celebrate their 30th Anniversary (Down to the Sea in Ships), which will be premiered in The Netherlands on June 11, 2010. At present Lann is composing a commissioned work for the 2011 International Choir Biennial in Haarlem, The Netherlands. The piece is scored for Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin solo), Viktor Kopatchinsky (cymbalon solo), the Dutch Radio Choir and the Latvian Radio Choir. Vanessa Lann's music is available through DONEMUS and their American affiliate, Theodore Presser. She also composes music for private commissions/events. Please contact her directly through the email address on this site for further information. MySpace pages for Vanessa Lann (several sound clips per page): original page multimedia, experimental vocal works Photo credit, top of page, Vanessa Lann: Gerhard van Roon Photo credit, "Composer Vanessa Lann performing the piano part of her orchestral piece 'The Flames of Quietude' in the foyer of the Dr. Anton Philips Hall in The Hague prior to the world premiere of this work with the Residentie Orkest under the direction of Etienne Siebens": Ym Bosma man at piano: Edvard Grieg statue, head: Pythagoras dude with sunglasses: Igor Stravinsky sculpture: Constantin Brancusi, "The Beginning of the World" (c. 1920, Dallas Museum of Art) For more biographical information about Vanessa Lann, please click here for her DONEMUS Composer's Brochure, in both English and Dutch. For a discussion of Lann's music and ideas, please read Thea Derks' article in Keynotes Magazine, "I focus on a limited amount of material". For an interview with American pianist, Ursula Oppens, discussing her recommendations for new music for piano, please read this article in New Music Box, the web magazine of the American Music Center. For more on Lann's work for The Residentie Orkest of The Hague, The Flames of Quietude, please go to this blogspot from On An Overgrown Path (September 1, 2006). For a feature on pianist Guy Livingston's "60 Seconds Project," including a discussion of Lann's work, DD (Double D), please read Allan Kozinn's article in The New York Times, "Daring To Be New" (January 21, 2000). For a front-page feature on the Donemus website about Vanessa Lann, please go to this link, in either English or Dutch (August 31, 2006). Link to listing in Classical Composers Database Link to listing in Women Composers Starter Page (Dutch only) Also, in Dutch only: article by Els van Swol in April, 2000, issue of Mens en Melodie, "Tussen Kagel en Feldman: eenvoud en rituel in het werk van Vanessa Lann". Vanessa Lann is a member of: DONEMUS (Dutch Publishing House) Gaudeamus Foundation (Dutch Center of Contemporary Music) IAWM (The International Alliance of Women in Music) AMC (American Music Center) NYWC (New York Women Composers) In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing about the dark times. - Bertold Brecht Edvard Munch, "The Scream" (November 2, 2004) Perhaps all music, even the newest, is not so much something discovered as something that re-emerges from where it lay buried in the memory, inaudible as a melody cut in a disc of flesh. A composer lets me hear a song that has always been shut up silent within me. - Jean Genet index compositions reviews commissions article compact discs upcoming events e-mail
Resurrecting Persephone, for flute and chamber orchestra ('99): first movement, "Temple of the Mind". Eleonore Pameijer, flute. Radio Kamerorkest of The Netherlands; Kenneth Montgomery, conductor. November 26, 2000. De Doelen, Rotterdam (for more sound samples please go to compositions page).
The majority of Vanessa Lann's compositions include aspects of ritual, ceremony or contemplation. She is interested in breaking with the conventional concert-hall approach to the performance and programming of music, and she frequently experiments with alternative ways of sharing sound, other media and time with audiences, often hoping to blur the boundary between art and daily experience. In her music Lann uses the repetition of recognizable figures, as well as layers of structures based on number ratios, to create a world in which each subtle element has a distinct meaning. In many works she explores the listener's perception of continuity, infinity and silence, as well as the shifting psychological relationship between foreground and background material, or between performer and audience. Lann is intrigued by the boundaries of what is audible: how long or how quietly a note can be appreciated, how a performer's changing physical experience of a musical gesture changes its nature, why an altered context of a recognizable element can render it absurd or divine. She embraces the sensuality of the rawest of sounds (including the deliciousness of non-equal temperament!), as well as the riskiness and "impolite" quality inherent in the seemingly endless recurrence of the most basic, even childlike, patterns. She searches for extremes within limited means and asks the listener to enter the time and sound world of the music in as simple a manner as possible: as the essence of the music gradually becomes apparent, she hopes that the listener continuously reevaluates his relationship to the music and to the meaning of listening, itself. Vanessa Lann (New York, 1968) has been a composer and pianist since the age of five. She studied composition with Ruth Schonthal at the Westchester Conservatory of Music, where she received the William Petchek Scholarship. For two summers she was a scholarship student at the Tanglewood Institute. She was graduated summa cum laude from the music department of Harvard University (composition, theory, musicology, piano performance, conducting), where her teachers included Earl Kim, Leon Kirchner and Peter Lieberson. Lann won the New York Music Teachers Association 'Herbert Zipper Prize,' the New York Musicians Club 'Bohemians Prize' and the Harvard University 'Hugh F. MacColl Prize.' She directed the Harvard Group For New Music and was co-founder of the Harvard Group For Gender Studies In Music. She also produced and announced radio feature programs (WHRB, Cambridge) and worked as music director for productions at the American Repertory Theatre. In addition to her music courses, Lann studied film theory and physics. In 1990 Vanessa Lann was awarded the Harvard University 'John Knowles Paine Travelling Fellowship,' which brought her to The Netherlands for further study in music composition. She received her Diploma with highest honors in 1993 from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, where her teachers included Theo Loevendie, Gilius van Bergeijk and Louis Andriessen.
At present Lann lives and works as a composer in The Netherlands. She is also a Professor of Music at Webster University in Leiden, where she enjoys combining musicological studies with other related fields. She has put together a variety of interesting courses, including:
- Music and Mathematics - Music and Art Performed as Theatre (multimedia studio course) - The History of Vocal Music: From Gregorian Chant to Modern Song - Western Music, Eastern Thought (influences of various forms of Eastern philosophy on both Eastern and Western music and art)
Vanessa Lann also works as a lecturer at individual events and cultural series on topics involving music, art, history and society. Special subjects include multimedia/multicultural interaction and influences; music history from new perspectives; the role of the arts in modern society, the life and work of Hildegard von Bingen, and the connections between Eastern art and aesthetics and Western music and culture. She also performs as a pianist in orchestras, ensembles and multimedia projects.
Vanessa Lann has been commissioned to write pieces for, among others, The Netherlands' Residentie Orkest, Radio Kamerorkest, Studentenorkest, Schoenberg Ensemble, Nieuw Ensemble, Doelen String Quartet, Maarten Altena Ensemble, Cappella Amsterdam, Orkest De Volharding and Ensemble ELECTRA. She has been asked to compose music for musicians including Tomoko Mukaiyama, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Ivo Janssen, Benjamin Schmid, Cristina Zavalloni, Monica Germino, Isabel Ettenauer, Heleen Hulst, Hans Woudenberg, Ananda Sukarlan, Guy Livingston, Eleonore Pameijer, Irene Maessen and Alberto Mizrahi, and for duos including Liza Ferschtman & Inon Barnatan, Harry Sparnaay & Annelie de Man, and Doris Hochscheid & Frans van Ruth. Other musicians who have championed her work include Ralph van Raat, Pekka Kuusisto, Phyllis Chen, Joshua Gordon, Randall Hodgkinson, Patricia Goodson, Sarah Bob, Sonsoles Alonso, Laura Carmichael, Elinor Freer, Ellen Ugelvik, Patrick Hopper, Lora Tchekoratova, Amy Briggs Dissanayake, Ursula Oppens, Anthony Fogg and ensembles such as Wendingen, Insomnio, Duo Vertigo, Ricochet, Kaida, Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, [P-DI]2 and De Ereprijs. Lann recently completed a large commissioned work for the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague entitled THE FLAMES OF QUIETUDE (premiered during Festival In De Branding under the direction of Etienne Siebens), which is inspired by ideas in Eastern philosophy and involves the listener's gradual recognition of simple, recurring patterns in music, as well as in daily life. The majority of the orchestral parts can be played in two different ways: alongside the other instrumental parts during an orchestral performance, or separately as works of solo or chamber music. Vanessa Lann performed the orchestral piano part herself - both with the orchestra during the concert, as well as in an infinitely-repeating solo version in the background of the foyer of the hall as the audience entered the building prior to the concert.
"I've heard it all before..." ??? Lann asks: is there really a beginning or an end to a piece of music? When, during our experience of a work of art, does memory begin? During a performance of The Flames of Quietude audience members will likely connect many of the elements of the piece to things they have already heard or experienced thousands of times, triggering individual paths of personal recognition and recollection as the piece progresses. But do these "connections" originate one hour back in time with the endless piano patterns from the foyer, or do they occur simply from the time the conductor's arms are raised, or do they go back to circumstances and reference points with entirely different meanings from moments in each listener's past? Does all musical material already exist in the world around us, just waiting to be discovered and reassembled in new and different contexts and combinations? Since the musical material in The Flames of Quietude is largely taken from former works of Lann, from everyday sound sources and from well-known works of other composers, and merely newly juxtaposed, each audience member will ask these questions in his or her own way during the ritual of the shared concert experience, reflecting his or her unique awareness, sense of humor and method of listening.
Lann asks: is there really a beginning or an end to a piece of music? When, during our experience of a work of art, does memory begin? During a performance of The Flames of Quietude audience members will likely connect many of the elements of the piece to things they have already heard or experienced thousands of times, triggering individual paths of personal recognition and recollection as the piece progresses. But do these "connections" originate one hour back in time with the endless piano patterns from the foyer, or do they occur simply from the time the conductor's arms are raised, or do they go back to circumstances and reference points with entirely different meanings from moments in each listener's past? Does all musical material already exist in the world around us, just waiting to be discovered and reassembled in new and different contexts and combinations? Since the musical material in The Flames of Quietude is largely taken from former works of Lann, from everyday sound sources and from well-known works of other composers, and merely newly juxtaposed, each audience member will ask these questions in his or her own way during the ritual of the shared concert experience, reflecting his or her unique awareness, sense of humor and method of listening.
Throughout her career Vanessa Lann has continued to receive prizes and awards for her music. In 1993 Lann's work for orchestra, Madness and the Moonwoman, was awarded the 'Nederlands Balletorkest Prize' of a performance in the 25-year jubilleum concert of the Nederlands Balletorkest under the direction of David Porcelijn. Her work for piano solo, Inner Piece, won a prestigious Amsterdam Arts Foundation 'Composition Prize' in 1995. This work also won the 1997 'Boswil International Composition Competition' (Switzerland) and the 1998 'Collegium Novum Competition' (USA). In 1997 Vanessa Lann was featured in a Dutch television documentary which focused on her music and on the compact disc recording of her work for large ensemble, Dancing to an Orange Drummer (Ensemble Present; Jurjen Hempel, conductor / NM CLASSICS). Other works of Vanessa Lann available on compact disc include (see compact discs for more details): Inner Piece for piano solo (Tomoko Mukaiyama / BV HAAST) The Owl and The Pussycat for mezzo soprano and piano (Jannie Pranger, Tomoko Mukaiyama / DONEMUS) Recalling Chimes for piano solo (Ivo Janssen / NM EXTRA) The Key to the Fourteenth Vision for violin solo (Benjamin Schmid / NM CLASSICS) DD (Double D) for piano solo (Guy Livingston / WERGO) Is a bell... a bell? for 2 toy pianos (Isabel Ettenauer / edition eirelav) Leaps of Faith for piano and tape (Marcel Worms / ATTACCA) Vanessa Lann's music has been performed throughout the world in venues like the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Lincoln Center (New York), and Philharmonie (Berlin), and at festivals including the Gergiev Festival (The Netherlands), Delft Chamber Music Festival (The Netherlands), Gaudeamus Music Week (The Netherlands), Tanglewood Music Festival (USA), ULTIMA (Norway), West Cork Music Festival (Ireland), Kuhmo Festival (Finland), Warsaw Autumn (Poland), Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival (Germany), Festival Nuovi Spazi (Italy), June In Buffalo (USA), Ars Musica (Belgium), Kiev Music Fest (Ukraine), SummerGarden (NY, USA), FOCUS! Festival (NY, USA), Holland Music Sessions (The Netherlands), ICE-Fest (USA), Stavanger International Chamber Music Festival (Norway), and Time of Music (Finland). Lann recently composed a cello concerto for Hans Woudenberg and the Schoenberg Ensemble, which was premiered in October of 2008 under the direction of Reinbert de Leeuw during the International Cello Biennial in Amsterdam. It is titled Divining Apollo, and it further explores her fascination with the Divine Proportion, Memory and mathematical time structures. Please see upcoming events for more details, plus go to the blog On An Overgrown Path (November 3 posting) to read about the event! Pieces just completed include a trio commissioned by Cristina Zavalloni (voice), Monica Germino (violin) and Andrea Rebaudengo (piano) entitled Knowing Rose, as well as a large piece for the Utrechts Blazers Ensemble to celebrate their 30th Anniversary (Down to the Sea in Ships), which will be premiered in The Netherlands on June 11, 2010. At present Lann is composing a commissioned work for the 2011 International Choir Biennial in Haarlem, The Netherlands. The piece is scored for Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin solo), Viktor Kopatchinsky (cymbalon solo), the Dutch Radio Choir and the Latvian Radio Choir. Vanessa Lann's music is available through DONEMUS and their American affiliate, Theodore Presser. She also composes music for private commissions/events. Please contact her directly through the email address on this site for further information. MySpace pages for Vanessa Lann (several sound clips per page): original page multimedia, experimental vocal works Photo credit, top of page, Vanessa Lann: Gerhard van Roon Photo credit, "Composer Vanessa Lann performing the piano part of her orchestral piece 'The Flames of Quietude' in the foyer of the Dr. Anton Philips Hall in The Hague prior to the world premiere of this work with the Residentie Orkest under the direction of Etienne Siebens": Ym Bosma man at piano: Edvard Grieg statue, head: Pythagoras dude with sunglasses: Igor Stravinsky sculpture: Constantin Brancusi, "The Beginning of the World" (c. 1920, Dallas Museum of Art) For more biographical information about Vanessa Lann, please click here for her DONEMUS Composer's Brochure, in both English and Dutch. For a discussion of Lann's music and ideas, please read Thea Derks' article in Keynotes Magazine, "I focus on a limited amount of material". For an interview with American pianist, Ursula Oppens, discussing her recommendations for new music for piano, please read this article in New Music Box, the web magazine of the American Music Center. For more on Lann's work for The Residentie Orkest of The Hague, The Flames of Quietude, please go to this blogspot from On An Overgrown Path (September 1, 2006). For a feature on pianist Guy Livingston's "60 Seconds Project," including a discussion of Lann's work, DD (Double D), please read Allan Kozinn's article in The New York Times, "Daring To Be New" (January 21, 2000). For a front-page feature on the Donemus website about Vanessa Lann, please go to this link, in either English or Dutch (August 31, 2006). Link to listing in Classical Composers Database Link to listing in Women Composers Starter Page (Dutch only) Also, in Dutch only: article by Els van Swol in April, 2000, issue of Mens en Melodie, "Tussen Kagel en Feldman: eenvoud en rituel in het werk van Vanessa Lann". Vanessa Lann is a member of: DONEMUS (Dutch Publishing House) Gaudeamus Foundation (Dutch Center of Contemporary Music) IAWM (The International Alliance of Women in Music) AMC (American Music Center) NYWC (New York Women Composers) In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing about the dark times. - Bertold Brecht Edvard Munch, "The Scream" (November 2, 2004) Perhaps all music, even the newest, is not so much something discovered as something that re-emerges from where it lay buried in the memory, inaudible as a melody cut in a disc of flesh. A composer lets me hear a song that has always been shut up silent within me. - Jean Genet
Inner Piece for piano solo (Tomoko Mukaiyama / BV HAAST) The Owl and The Pussycat for mezzo soprano and piano (Jannie Pranger, Tomoko Mukaiyama / DONEMUS) Recalling Chimes for piano solo (Ivo Janssen / NM EXTRA) The Key to the Fourteenth Vision for violin solo (Benjamin Schmid / NM CLASSICS) DD (Double D) for piano solo (Guy Livingston / WERGO) Is a bell... a bell? for 2 toy pianos (Isabel Ettenauer / edition eirelav) Leaps of Faith for piano and tape (Marcel Worms / ATTACCA)
Vanessa Lann's music has been performed throughout the world in venues like the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Lincoln Center (New York), and Philharmonie (Berlin), and at festivals including the Gergiev Festival (The Netherlands), Delft Chamber Music Festival (The Netherlands), Gaudeamus Music Week (The Netherlands), Tanglewood Music Festival (USA), ULTIMA (Norway), West Cork Music Festival (Ireland), Kuhmo Festival (Finland), Warsaw Autumn (Poland), Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival (Germany), Festival Nuovi Spazi (Italy), June In Buffalo (USA), Ars Musica (Belgium), Kiev Music Fest (Ukraine), SummerGarden (NY, USA), FOCUS! Festival (NY, USA), Holland Music Sessions (The Netherlands), ICE-Fest (USA), Stavanger International Chamber Music Festival (Norway), and Time of Music (Finland).
Lann recently composed a cello concerto for Hans Woudenberg and the Schoenberg Ensemble, which was premiered in October of 2008 under the direction of Reinbert de Leeuw during the International Cello Biennial in Amsterdam. It is titled Divining Apollo, and it further explores her fascination with the Divine Proportion, Memory and mathematical time structures. Please see upcoming events for more details, plus go to the blog On An Overgrown Path (November 3 posting) to read about the event!
Pieces just completed include a trio commissioned by Cristina Zavalloni (voice), Monica Germino (violin) and Andrea Rebaudengo (piano) entitled Knowing Rose, as well as a large piece for the Utrechts Blazers Ensemble to celebrate their 30th Anniversary (Down to the Sea in Ships), which will be premiered in The Netherlands on June 11, 2010.
At present Lann is composing a commissioned work for the 2011 International Choir Biennial in Haarlem, The Netherlands. The piece is scored for Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin solo), Viktor Kopatchinsky (cymbalon solo), the Dutch Radio Choir and the Latvian Radio Choir.
Vanessa Lann's music is available through DONEMUS and their American affiliate, Theodore Presser.
She also composes music for private commissions/events. Please contact her directly through the email address on this site for further information.
MySpace pages for Vanessa Lann (several sound clips per page): original page multimedia, experimental vocal works
Photo credit, top of page, Vanessa Lann: Gerhard van Roon Photo credit, "Composer Vanessa Lann performing the piano part of her orchestral piece 'The Flames of Quietude' in the foyer of the Dr. Anton Philips Hall in The Hague prior to the world premiere of this work with the Residentie Orkest under the direction of Etienne Siebens": Ym Bosma man at piano: Edvard Grieg statue, head: Pythagoras dude with sunglasses: Igor Stravinsky sculpture: Constantin Brancusi, "The Beginning of the World" (c. 1920, Dallas Museum of Art)
Photo credit, "Composer Vanessa Lann performing the piano part of her orchestral piece 'The Flames of Quietude' in the foyer of the Dr. Anton Philips Hall in The Hague prior to the world premiere of this work with the Residentie Orkest under the direction of Etienne Siebens": Ym Bosma
man at piano: Edvard Grieg
statue, head: Pythagoras
dude with sunglasses: Igor Stravinsky
sculpture: Constantin Brancusi, "The Beginning of the World" (c. 1920, Dallas Museum of Art)
For more biographical information about Vanessa Lann, please click here for her DONEMUS Composer's Brochure, in both English and Dutch.
For a discussion of Lann's music and ideas, please read Thea Derks' article in Keynotes Magazine, "I focus on a limited amount of material".
For an interview with American pianist, Ursula Oppens, discussing her recommendations for new music for piano, please read this article in New Music Box, the web magazine of the American Music Center.
For more on Lann's work for The Residentie Orkest of The Hague, The Flames of Quietude, please go to this blogspot from On An Overgrown Path (September 1, 2006).
For a feature on pianist Guy Livingston's "60 Seconds Project," including a discussion of Lann's work, DD (Double D), please read Allan Kozinn's article in The New York Times, "Daring To Be New" (January 21, 2000).
For a front-page feature on the Donemus website about Vanessa Lann, please go to this link, in either English or Dutch (August 31, 2006).
Link to listing in Classical Composers Database
Link to listing in Women Composers Starter Page (Dutch only)
Also, in Dutch only: article by Els van Swol in April, 2000, issue of Mens en Melodie, "Tussen Kagel en Feldman: eenvoud en rituel in het werk van Vanessa Lann".
Vanessa Lann is a member of: DONEMUS (Dutch Publishing House) Gaudeamus Foundation (Dutch Center of Contemporary Music) IAWM (The International Alliance of Women in Music) AMC (American Music Center) NYWC (New York Women Composers)
In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing about the dark times.
- Bertold Brecht
Edvard Munch, "The Scream" (November 2, 2004)
Perhaps all music, even the newest, is not so much something discovered as something that re-emerges from where it lay buried in the memory, inaudible as a melody cut in a disc of flesh. A composer lets me hear a song that has always been shut up silent within me.
- Jean Genet
