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May 09, 2008
Hilary Hahn Performs Paganini Concerto
Originally from Ionarts, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)
Spellbound 4/27/2008 hr 2
Spellbound 4/27/2008 hr 2
Spellbound 4/27/2008 hr 2 - Purple Note Radio Network - Spellbound, music for theremin
From Podcast: Spellbound, a brief program of music for theremin.
Originally posted by jeff from cacophonous.org, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)
Spellbound 4/27/2008 hr 1
Spellbound 4/27/2008 hr 1
Spellbound 4/27/2008 hr 1 - Purple Note Radio Network - Spellbound, music for theremin
From Podcast: Spellbound, a brief program of music for theremin.
Originally posted by jeff from cacophonous.org, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)
The Friday Informer: What He Wants, He Gets
The windy city seduces Muti after teasing his hair.Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)
ARTSaha! 2007 Photo Album
We just uploaded the first batch of pictures from ARTSaha! 2007 to our new photo album. The first few photos are from the Cowardly Old World concert in the UNO planetarium, like this one of Heather Fr...Originally from ANALOG Arts Ensemble - MySpace Blog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 03:30 PM | Comments (0)
You Let the Hare Win One Time....
* "You can be rude about the record industry for not reacting fast enough to downloads, but the fact is that that overwhelming change happened years before it expected."* Ian McEwan: "...it doesn’t suit novelists to be collaborators. We are so used to playing God by ourselves."
* Orchestra director in jail for claiming tax refunds on instruments he never bought.
* Albena Danailova becomes the first female concertmaster at the Vienna State Opera.
* Apparently, the only 'sanctioned' T&A at the Classical Brits were Netrebko's.
* 12-year olds are prodigies at many things, but never the trombone!
Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 03:20 PM | Comments (0)
Jean Dubuffet, "Prospère, prolifère"
-- Liner Notes Continued --I am, however well aware of the gap between my intentions and the actual results. The experiments which are available in the small collection of records should be considered as outlines for a programme which, if it were to be finalized, would require a lot of improvements such as enhanced recording techniques and better use of each of the instruments. It might also be necessary to modify the instruments or make better adapted ones.
In the meantime, there is still a lot of room for experiment with what is already available. With any instrument one comes across one can get such a great variety of sound effects that it may not be worth looking for others. Instrumental technique and a thorough knowledge of how to get the most from the instruments are clearly sorely lacking; I am very aware that they would be of great use to me.
It might be, however that this would lead to the loss of the benefit of certain unexpected windfalls which can come of improvising on an instrument one doesn't really know how to use. Having said this, the tracks included on this record were not intended as finished works but as the initial experiments of someone venturing into what is for him, largely unfamiliar territory. I would very much hope that musicians accept to treat them as such.
Jean DUBUFFET, April 1961
Translation by Matthew Daillie
Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 03:20 PM | Comments (0)
Mark Northfield, "Zero"
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Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 03:20 PM | Comments (0)
Is that a Grammy in your cupboard?
s="flickr-image" title="Grammy" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/54084614@N00/2477619193/">
I recently arrived home from being on the road for just over three weeks, and was greeted by a FedEx package at my door. I knew it was my Grammy, and I was excited to open it up, but I decided to wait until I was fully unpacked and settled back into my house. I threw in a big load of laundry, walked to the post office to pick up the rest of my mail and dropped off my dry cleaning.
Then I settled in to open my package.
There it was- my shiny Grammy. I was surprised by its weight. I placed it on my coffee table and started laughing. It was just too surreal. I held it up and pretended I was making an acceptance speech and burst into giggles again.
Now…where to put it? One friend thought I should display it outright well others suggested somewhere subtle, like the bathroom. I couldn’t decide.
Finally I spoke to friend J on the phone. He agreed that subtle placement of the Grammy was a good idea, and suggested the pantry. That way, when I had friends over for dinner, I could go to the cabinet, open it up and say,
“Hmmmmmmm…what should we have with our spaghetti tonight? Perhaps a little GRAMMY?”
Or-
“I know what will be just perfect with the Chicken Marsala, a side of GRAMMY!”
Better still,
“Hey, could you grab the olive oil me please? It’s in the cupboard above the microwave right next to the GRAMMY.”
So for a while anyway, I thought I’d try it out. I put my Grammy in the cupboard. I honestly forget it’s in there, especially in the morning. So when I go over and open that cupboard to take out my morning tea…I smile when I see it.
Originally posted by kap from thirteen ways, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 03:19 PM | Comments (0)
8bb gala reception
Calling all 8bb fans in Chicago and points beyond!
We are hosting our second annual gala benefit on May 29, following the third and final concert in our inaugural Harris Theater series in Chicago.
It will kick serious ass, so even if you can’t make it, send a friend!
Please join us for a post-concert gala reception on May 29, 2008 at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Chicago. Following our performance of “The Only Moving Thing” come enjoy delicious desserts from some of Chicago’s finest pastry chefs while you mingle with the artists. Specials guests to include Steve Reich, Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon. We’ll also have a few exclusive performances just for you, our valued friends and supporters. You can further contribute by bidding on some exciting packages up for auction at our silent auction display as well!
Tickets for the event can be purchased directly from the Harris Theater Box Office. Click here to go directly to our event page on the Harris Theater site or call the box office at 312-334-7777. The ticket price for the concert PLUS the gala reception is $180 with all proceeds being used to directly support eighth blackbird’s series at Harris. Tickets to the concert alone are $30. The concert will begin at 7:30 with the reception immediately following.
We hope to see you on May 29th!
Originally posted by Tim from thirteen ways, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 03:19 PM | Comments (0)
Blackbird remains new - Washington Times
Blackbird remains new Washington Times, DC - The majority of the music the sextet performs and records — by composers such as Frederic Rzewski, Jennifer Higdon and Steve Reich — are new pieces ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 03:19 PM | Comments (0)
Windows Hearts Beethoven
The latest Windows update refuses to install if it senses a lack of Beethoven’s 9th:
Thank you Microsoft for insisting that Beethoven’s MOTHER ********** NUMBER 9 NEEDS TO BE INSTALLED ON MY MOTHER ********** COMPUTER before Service MOTHER ********** Pack 3 can be successfully installed.
Your programmers are morons. Go to hell, the lot of you.
If Windows prefers Beethoven, I bet baroque old Linux likes the intricacies Bach better. What about Apple? Somebody who has form as an utmost priority I suppose… Webern? Nah, that doesn’t feel right. It has to be universally accessible as well. Any suggestions?
Originally posted by Ben from classicalconvert.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 03:18 PM | Comments (0)
RIO 2009 Festival Announced
The now biennial RIO Festival has scheduled their next event.
Once again, the Rock In Opposition 2009 will be an event of international quality. It will be held in the same musical venue that proved to be the perfect setting for listeners to enjoy really innovative music in optimal conditions: the “Maison de la Musique de Cap Découverte”.
With an additional feature however: a special Opening Day will also be organised in Albi.
During the Festival, specific locations will be dedicated to record labels, press representatives or any relevant “movement” showing some fighting spirit in the field of contemporary musical expression.
Specific venues will also be provided to facilitate dialogue between the musicians and the audience.
Additional activities, such as artist residences, workshops, conferences, exhibitions and installations will also be organised within the framework of the festival.
The tentative lineup includes:
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum (USA)
Koenjihyakkei (JP)
Daevid Allen/Hugh Hopper/Chris Cutler (Aus/UK/USA)
Univers Zero (B)
Charles Hayward (UK)
Yolk (F)
Peter Brotzmann (D)
Present (B/USA/F/Israel)
Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 03:18 PM | Comments (0)
Avant-garde German Composer Helmut Lachenmann Makes an ... - LA Downtown News Online
Avant-garde German Composer Helmut Lachenmann Makes an ... LA Downtown News Online, CA - The oldest contemporary classical music series on the West Coast, Monday Evening Concerts has a 69-year history of presenting rarely programmed new music. ... All he asks is: 'Try to like it' |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 03:18 PM | Comments (0)
Sir Andrew awarded outstanding achievement prize at Classical Brits - InTheNews.co.uk
 InTheNews.co.uk | Sir Andrew awarded outstanding achievement prize at Classical Brits InTheNews.co.uk, UK - ... with his first Brit award, almost 25 years after he was awarded the Grammy for best contemporary classical composition for his Requiem Mass. ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 03:17 PM | Comments (0)
Art Pepper... Gerry Mulligan... Lee Konitz... Art Ensemble of Chicago...
In 1957 the Miles Davis band were out on the west coast and Lester Koenig at Contemporary Records put the group's rhythm section together with the alto player Art Pepper – one of a very select group of saxophonists who were not blatant Charlie Parker ripoffs and had forged their own style (while acknowledging the debt). In his autobiography, 'Straight Life,' Pepper tells of how he had not played for six months at the time, pieced together a battered old horn and ventured off into the jazz unknown. A nice story... although I just checked the discography and he is down as playing on three sessions between January 3, 1957 and the date for this recording – January 19 – two under his own name with different quartet personnel and one doubling on tenor and alto for a gig under Joe Morello's leadership (later to acquire much fame in Brubeck's quartet) which was also put out as a co-led band with Red Norvo later on – and under his own name much later again. A measurement of the vagaries of fame... So: print the legend... Whatever the circumstances, up against one of the great rhythm sections – Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones – he makes a pretty good fist of it, however prepared/unprepared. This is 'Star Eyes:' Red Garland leads in at a sprightly bounce before Pepper states the theme and takes the first solo honours. Piano next, the familiar joyous spring in Garland's fingers as Philly Joe rimshots here and there to keep his band partner on track. Chambers takes an arco spot over sparse comping and occasional drum prodding. Pepper returns – then Philly Joe goes for a quick batter around his kit before all return for the ending bars. There is a crisp purity to Pepper's tone, underlaid with an edge on the occasional slur and bend that became more pronounced in later years, signalling a move into a more overtly emotional music, under the sign of John Coltrane. Also: there is an influence from a previous generation of alto players that perhaps helped to balance off the the large shadow of Bird – he plays with the unruffled skill of Bennie Carter, for example. Classic modern jazz.The Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band could be considered in the lineage of the Miles Davis Birth of the Cool band, although let us not forget that Mulligan was a founding contributor to that lineage. He had worked alongside Gil Evans in the Claude Thornhill band during the 1940s when Evans was chief arranger, an outfit that pioneered much of the instrumental colouring that was to come: 'Mulligan and Evans agree that Thornhill never has been given his due as an influence in the evolution of modern jazz writing.'(From here... ). This cross-fertilisation bore heavier fruit when in collaboration with John Lewis and Miles Davis, Evans and Mulligan wrote and arranged much of the music for the Birth of the Cool sessions. Davis took most of the credit in the history books but those other contributions were equally important - especially from Mulligan, who was to further evolve his own style with his 50's quartet to solve the evolutionary challenges of bebop's rapid, cluttered chord sequences. Based on various interpretations of counterpoint, I would submit... Here, then, is 'Come rain or come shine.' Soft footing in before Mulligan takes the theme as velvet sonorities wrap around his throaty baritone saxophone, the bottom end ticked off by the bass – nary a drum to be heard at first – then a stop-time section to take it up – eventually to drop off back into the slow tempo. Varying textures behind the leader as he fires away into increasingly complicated double time figures – sometimes just a single instrument. Another indication, perhaps, of a horizontal, linear thinking as opposed to much conventional section writing in larger groups. Going into a sombre ending. A masterpiece...
Lee Konitz plays 'I'll Remember April.' A sardonic ellipsis committed on the theme - Konitz always seems to be improvising, restating, reshuffling from the get go. Similarities with the other great white alto player above, Art Pepper, playing with a powerhouse rhythm section - here, no piano, just Sonny Dallas on bass and the mighty Elvin Jones behind the drums. How far the rhythm had come since Philly Joe, an earlier master. Konitz plays with unfettered freedom over the strong bass pulse that is the fulcrum as Jones shifts it about, offering so many possibilities to bounce off. This track is taken from a 1961 date and seems to encapsulate what had gone before while hinting at what was breaking and what was to come...
The Art Ensemble of Chicago, recorded in 1970 during their tenure in France. 'Theme: Libre.' A percussion/drum-driven clattering, wilding blowout to clear the cobwebs – outside the sun is shining and all is suddenly well in God's Little Acre... trumpet and saxes rise out of the thunder and hissing spatters of cymbals, jumping across each other in a gloriously chaotic leap-frogging (no pun intended...)... Lester Bowie sounds the charge - and also signals periods of repose among the clamour as the flutes join in for a touch of pastoral evocation to ease on out with...
Art Pepper
Art Pepper (as) Red Garland (p) Paul Chambers (b) Philly Joe Jones (d)
Star Eyes
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Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band
Gerry Mulligan (arr, bs) Bob Brookmeyer (arr, tr) Al Cohn, Johnny Mandel (arr)
Don Ferrara, Nick Travis, Clark Terry (t) Willie Dennis, Alan Ralph (tr) Gene Quill (as cl) Bob Donovan (as) Jim Reider (ts) Gene Allen (bs, b-cl) Bill Crow (b) Mel Lewis (d)
Come rain or come shine
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Lee Konitz
Lee Konitz (as) Sonny Dallas (b) Elvin Jones (d)
I'll Remember April
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Art Ensemble of Chicago
Malachi Favors (b, perc) Don Moye (d, perc) Roscoe Mitchell (ss, as, fl perc) Joseph Jarman (ss, as, fl, perc, bass, ob) Lester Bowie (t,, flug, perc)
Theme: Libre
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Originally from wordsandmusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 03:14 PM | Comments (0)
Late on parade...
Mucho apologies for being late on parade (again!). Combo of the arrival of summer and other pressing tasks... music coming later...Originally from wordsandmusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 02:10 PM | Comments (0)
Sending art to a better place
Via the Art Newspaper, "One of the central works in the exhibition “Design and the Elastic Mind” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (until 12 May), Victimless Leather, a small jacket made up of embryonic stem cells taken from mice, has died. The artists, Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr, say the work which was fed nutrients by tube, expanded too quickly and clogged its own incubation system just five weeks after the show opened."
Catts and Zurr, based at an Arts and Science collaborative lab in Western Australia, designed the work as a prototype mixing living and manufactured elements, intending to provoke "a more responsible attitude towards our environment". It succeeded in doing just that, forcing curator Paola Antonelli to euthanise the jacket, halting growth permanently.
For more information, see the Victimless Leather entry at the Design and the Elastic Mind site.
Originally from Window: Scene // Electronic art, new media, and digital culture in New Zealand, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)
Gazira Babelli coming to Window
Pioneering Second life performer, sculptor, and general cause of mayhem, Gazira Babelli will be staging a work at Window in the first week of June. One of the earliest artists working in this virtual space, Babelli has consistently pushed the limits of art in SL - from the grotesque distortions caused by hitting terminal velocity in COME.TO.HEAVEN. to the world-crashing, lag inducing cyber terrorism of Grey Goo.
Notable European contemporary arts/new media blog We Make Money Not Art recently featured a review of Babellis show at the Fabio Paris gallery in Brescia, Italy, as well as the iMAL in Brussels. The Window exhibition, entitled "Olym Pong" features a new work designed and coded specifically for the show, and will be interacted with by SL performance group, "Second Front", as well as available On Site, giving visitors to the opening a chance to engage with it.
Originally from Window: Scene // Electronic art, new media, and digital culture in New Zealand, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)
Happy Friday Gifts
for Elaine, Michael and everyone else who thought “a piece that has about as much artistic merit as a cameraphone snap of the neighbour’s cat” was overstating the point just a tad.
One for reals
And one for funsies.
Super extra funsies here and here
Originally posted by Miss Mussel from The Omniscient Mussel on Classical Music & Culture, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)
REDCAT Studio Spring 2008
Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)
the million things she gave me
La Cieca offers her own personal salute to a very special holiday with an edition of Unnatural Acts of Opera featuring Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia. In this legendary April 20, 1965 performance, the eponymous antiheroine is Montserrat Caballé.
Originally posted by La Cieca from parterre box presents La Cieca, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)
Danger - musicians having fun
In their 1951-2 season the Hallé Orchestra perfomed all six of the symphonies Ralph Vaughan Williams had then written. Five of them were conducted by the inimitable John Barbirolli, while No. 1, the Sea Symphony with its Walt Whitman text, was conducted by Vaughan Williams himself. When the symphony was performed in Sheffield with the composer conducting, the orchestra was a 'cello short, and at Vaughan William's request Barbirolli, a talented 'cellist, took the vacant seat.
I was reminded of this story when listening to Jordi Savall and Hesperion XXl's superb new CD Estampies & Danses Royales. The programme of music from the thirteenth century Chansonnier du Roi is for instrumental forces only, so soprano Montserrat Figueras (aka Mrs Savall) wasn't needed for the sessions. But she wasn't going to miss the fun, and there she is on the recording playing the kithara, a rare instrument which featured here recently.
Fun is what this new release is really all about. It is superb music brilliantly played and recorded; but above all there is a quality that seems to be disappearing from recordings and live concerts - the sound of musians having fun. As contemporary composer Kurt Schwertsik said - 'I believe the function of art is to denounce seriousness. It should be fun. There's a halo of awe around modern music. You achieve more if you're not serious'.
Vaughan Williams, Savall, Barbirolli and Schwertsik in one post? - that's what I call fun! And there's more musicians having fun here.
The Kurt Schwersik quote is from the excellent CageTalk (ISBN 9781580462372). Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)
End of Quarter Laziness
im just sitting around, being rather un-productive. eating, surfing Youtube,etc. Anyway, the other day I found a video of my favorite work of Philip Glass, Music in a Similar Motion ( its broken into two videos, actually, since it goes over youtube's video time limit.)And its lovely. During my roadtrip across California and Oregon this summer it was music that kept me calm in stressful moments of (generally California) driving. My passenger was not always pleased, but he was able to deal with it, and i think it might have even rubbed off on him.
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So here are some pics from said roadtrip..
.
Originally from Music in a Suburban Scene, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 11:55 AM | Comments (0)
Smith adds Iowa post
Mark Russell Smith, the outgoing music director of the Richmond Symphony, has been named music director of the Quad Cities Symphony, beginning in the 2008-09 season, when he will conduct five
of six concerts in the orchestra's classical series.Smith, who concludes his Richmond tenure next season with pre-Christmas performances of Handel's "Messiah" and spring programs of Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" and Mahler's Ninth Symphony, began last fall as artistic director of orchestral studies at the University of Minnesota and director of new music projects at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.
His wife, Ellen Dinwiddie Smith, is a French horn player in the Minnesota Orchestra, and the family resides in Minneapolis.
The Quad Cities Symphony is based in Davenport, IA, and also performs in Moline and Rock Island, IL.
Originally from Letter V, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)
'I always wanted to be different' - guardian.co.uk
'I always wanted to be different' guardian.co.uk, UK - "The idea behind Can was to form a rock group whose members came from all the different directions of 20th-century music - Stockhausen, jazz, Hendrix - and ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)
Bringing Classical Music into a Modern Age
That's what I'm talking about... incorporating all different styles of music (including pop, rock and jazz) into classical music. An article in the Boston Globe speaks of the Quartet San Francisco and the Boston String Quartet including improvisation into their concerts as well as doing covers from U2 and Metallica. Cool! The article goes on to talk about California's Turtle Island Quartet which is credited with starting the trend.
In the concert on 4 June, the Edinburgh Quartet will be premiering my newest quartet - and it incorporates a number of these elements in the composition. While it is not a cover of any specific song, much of the motivation and inspiration for this piece comes from bands like Yes, Kansas, Styx, and Pink Floyd. They were (IMHO) some of the great bands from the Anthem Rock era and great composers. While I was studying their music (yes, I actually did spend time analyzing how they did what they did to make their sound) I realised many of their techniques were the same techniques the classical composers used; they were just augmented by electronic effects and played on a whole new set of instruments -but the complexity and ingenuity was all there.
So, why not reverse the process - write music with all the hooks and sequences we'd expect in "rock" song and allow a string quartet to play them? That's what I've done. On June 4th we'll get to see Tristan "rock out" with some incredible solos - if his fingers don't spontaneously combust!!!
Originally from Interchanging Idioms, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)
Whirlwind adventure in the Wonderland of Classical Music
Much of this blog has been dedicated to the quest to define what is new classical music - not that it is an obtainable goal, as music is, and should be, ever changing. This goal is rather like Alice's trip into Wonderland, every turn seems to open completely new unimaginable worlds that don't seem to make sense with what's gone on before. I've talked about composers incorporating jazz and pop (or folk) into their compositions, about the use of new instruments and sounds and about the audience's reaction to new pieces - as I feel the audience is an integral part of music (in firm disagreement with Milton Babbitt). Through all of this exploration I have tried to make sense (for myself) as to what kind of music I should be writing - all the while falling farther and farther down the rabbit hole.
What is new Classical Music? Do I need to embrace the atonal world of serialism, the brain intensity dementions of new complexity or meander through the sonic-scapes of musique accousmatique? Isn't there a potion that will make it all normal again?
Then I came across this (actually, my wife found the article and pointed me toward it). It seems that in 1976, David Del Tredici premiered a piece, "Final Alice." David was (at the time) a proud, prominant member of the avant-gard composers, and yet, "Final Alice" is a blantantly Neo-romantic piece. The piece broke away from the twelve tone serialism and freed future composers to express themselves in new ways, using old tools.
"Final Alice" is a bizarre mix and yet very tonal. "In Memory of a Summer Day" is tonal as well, and yet garnered David a Pulitzer Prize. Even his latest work "Paul Revere's Ride" is tonal with a fugue and a choral. While it has elements that make it a very new work, there are also elements of it that could easily have been written by Benjamin Brittan 50 years ago (echos of Peter Grimes).
As I embark on my own career, presenting a new opera piece in June, I don't want to be Neo-classical, slushy or overly romantic in my music - but I have to admit I am pretty firmly rooted in the tonal world. Yet, I want to say something new - and yet, still feel a strong pull from the tonal world. I am beginning to open doors from rock legends (see previous post), embrace the decorative style of urban artists and lounge in the easy chair of jazz greats. This style may not be wholly new, but rather a collaboration of many elements of my past, as if looking into the glass and seeing myself in a new light. So, I guess I owe a Thanks to David Del Tredici for changing the worlds impression of what Classical Music must be, to what it can be.
Originally from Interchanging Idioms, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)
Topology - Perpetual Motion Machine
The Australian chamber group Topology plays post-modern music at crisp tempos and with a contemporary twist that should surprise those who think modern classical music is difficult and elitist. The five person ensemble displays impeccable musicianship in their mildly unusual array of strings, piano, and saxophone.The works on the excellent album, Perpetual Motion Machine are witty, fun and immensely listenable. The music is what is conventionally, if sometimes erroneously, called Minimalist and there is a good sampling of Australian, American and British composers. For me,the most delightful work is Michael Nyman’s four part “And Do They Do”, a lyrically soaring masterpiece that kept me enthralled throughout. Phillip Glass and John Adams are represented by two excerpts from their operas, Nixon in China and Einstein on The Beach respectively. The Adams aria is especially gorgeous. Saxophonist and Topology member John Babbage’s tangoish “Millennium Bug” is a gem. “McLibel 1″ and “McLibel 2″ by Australian composer Robert Davidson, who also is the bassist for Topology, is a rich socially conscious mixture of minimalist composition and spoken word. John Rodgers’ “Viv’s Bum Dance” and the most avant-garde sounding work on the album, “Variations in a Serious Black Dress” by Elena Kats-Chernin, rounds out this exceptional free and legal online album.
Perpetual Motion Machine is available from Jamendo in VBR MP3. If you enjoy the music, be sure to support the artists by buying their CDs and DVDs.
Originally posted by Marvin from Free Albums Galore, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)
And again…
Alright, since the last one went in about as long as the clip lasted for, here’s another for today:
This time it’s from a 1st movement.
Originally posted by Ben from classicalconvert.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)
Guessing The Piece Again
Anyone fancy a bit more small-snippet classical music guessing action? This one is about 3 seconds long:
Here’s a verification hint: it’s from a last movement.
Originally posted by Ben from classicalconvert.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)
El-P credits failure for success
One of the favorite DJ’s here at AMN central, El-P is profiled.
Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 11:52 AM | Comments (0)
Anniversary issue
"I have four razors and a dictaphone."
— Andrey Tarkovsky, 1979
Many thanks to all who have visited the blog over the past four years — 3.3 million page views.
Originally posted by Alex Ross from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 11:52 AM | Comments (0)
Alu Returns With Sophomore Album "Lobotomy Sessions" - Plug In music
 Plug In music | Alu Returns With Sophomore Album "Lobotomy Sessions" Plug In music, PA - Her highly cinematic music is a kaleidoscope of classical, jazz, electronic, pop, world, avant-garde, singer/songwriter, and Goth. ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 9, 2008 at 11:52 AM | Comments (0)
May 08, 2008
Handel's Saul: "Thou darling of my soul"
Originally from Ionarts, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 8, 2008 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
Six Hour Later
This is a piece I composed for Dr. Boulanger's Csound class at Berklee College of Music. It was completed within 6 hours and only uses Csound Catalog instruments. I rendered the instruments as they were and edited the audio.
If you enjoy this piece and want to hear more Csound in action, visit http://www.myspace.com/blowyourbrainout" title="www.myspace.com/blowyourbrainout">www.myspace.com/blowyourbrainout or http://www.blowyourbrainout.com" title="www.blowyourbrainout.com">www.blowyourbrainout.com
Enjoy!
From Podcast: cSounds.com - .
Originally posted by jeff from cacophonous.org, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 8, 2008 at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)
Also, A Pig Just Flew Past My Window
Miss Mussel never thought she would say this but it appears that, for once, she unequivocally and without reservation agrees with ACD. Don’t tell anyone.
Originally posted by Miss Mussel from The Omniscient Mussel on Classical Music & Culture, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 8, 2008 at 07:09 PM | Comments (0)
Can You Hear Me Now?
Opera Chic brought this exhibition to Miss Mussel’s attention the other day. All the images on the site seem to be un-right-clickable due to Flash, so none are available to repost here. Miss Mussel could pinch the one from OC but it’s actually the worst of a fairly awkward bunch. To be fair, hearing loss is rather a difficult concept to photograph but even at the portrait level, Mr Adams is lacking a little in imagination.
The organization putting on the exhibit is the Hear The World Initiative, a organization “that aims to raise awareness of the topic of hearing and hearing loss and to promote good hearing all over the world.” This is, of course, especially timely considering the implementation of EU regulations regarding decibel levels. North American orchestras seem to be dealing with it on their own for now.
The site has a hearing test, loads of facts about hearing loss and a video of the Vienna Philharmonic as it would sound if you were hard of hearing. To Miss Mussel’s ears, it sounded as if the Wieners were underwater. There was a refreshing absence of piccolo. Of course, if this were a permanent circumstance, it is possible that one might yearn for the sweet tweet of quite possibly the annoying instrument in the world. Particularly when they practice in a green room full of people minutes before the concert.
Despite not actually having ears, if we’re going to get right down to it, Miss Mussel managed to score “adequate hearing” on the test. Is this the highest rating or is exceptional a class that is now out of Miss Mussel’s reach?
Originally posted by Miss Mussel from The Omniscient Mussel on Classical Music & Culture, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 8, 2008 at 07:09 PM | Comments (0)
Quiz #15 Philip Amos, COME ON DOWN!
You’re the next winner of the OM Quiz! [cue thunderous applause]
Ah…Rod Roddy…those were the days. (relive them here and here and here).
The Answer: Richard Strauss Horn Concerto No.1 Op.11 composed in 1882/1883
The Prize: $20 Gift Certificate for Arkiv Music.
The Recording: Hermann Baumann Strauss Concertos 1&2 and Weber Concertino Op 45.
Thanks to everyone that participated this week. Come back next week to hear what Quiz #14 winner William Hughes has selected as the Quiz #16 mystery. Heres a hint: be nice to your choir friends this weekend….you might need them. Now onto a bit of information about Op.11.
This concerto and the Mozarts are standard rep for horn players. Strauss’ father Franz was the first horn player in Wagner’s orchestra. The men hated each other but Franz was widely acknowledged to be without peer as a player, a circumstance that got much of his grumpy behaviour excused. Proving that hatred is passion just as much as love is, Strauss delivered first rate performances in each of Wagner’s premieres despite his fondness for referring to the composer as Mephistopheles.
Of the two concertos Richard wrote for horn, this youthful effort is Miss Mussel’s favourite. It’s only about 15 minutes long, and much less ambitious than it’s younger cousin. In fact, the pieces make an interesting pair of bookends to Strauss’ career. The first was written in 1882/1883 when he was 18 and the second four years before his death in 1945 at the grand old age of 85.
Because of his father, Richard had real affection for the instrument and wrote well for it. The hours of practicing he heard would have most certainly made him aware, if only subconsciously, of the instrument’s strengths and colours.
The second concerto is more technically challenging, far more lushly orchestrated and reflective of the tone poems and operas that came before it. Op.11 on other hand, owes a large debt to the Beethoven and Mozart so highly revered by his father, a man who thought anything after Beethoven 7 was too modern. Although his stubbornness was likely highly irritating at the time, Franz’ unwavering commitment to the Mozart-Beethoven-Haydn trinity is rather endearing in retrospect.
In the rare instances when horn concertos are played, soloists often opt for the second concerto if they’re not playing Mozart because it is a sort of benchmark in the horn world. Everyone plays the first one in high school and university but it is only those who are “really good” that master number two.
It’s five minutes longer (an eternity for a brass player) and the phrases seem to last forever but for this bivalve’s money, the final coda section of the first concerto is the more exciting finale….or at least it was when Miss Mussel would get excited and take off on her accompanist. It starts off like a typical third movement rondo and then out of nowhere…opera! Then, it’s a thistle to the horse and it’s off like a shot in a race to the finish!
Originally posted by Miss Mussel from The Omniscient Mussel on Classical Music & Culture, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 8, 2008 at 07:09 PM | Comments (0)
A Curiously Appealing Concept
This strikes us as a curiously appealing concept: [B]eneath Kings Place, 150 strides from Eurostar St Pancras, rumbles a cultural revolution. Peter Millican, the out-of-town...Originally posted by ACD from Sounds & Fury, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 8, 2008 at 07:09 PM | Comments (0)
Orchestras as museums?
At a retreat of the Orchestra Forum program of the Mellon Foundation -- at which I learned a lot -- I got into two discussions about how orchestras might function as museums.
Or, to be more honest, i made, in private conversation, a few provocative remarks, one of which I think is true beyond any chance of contradiction -- that none of the culturally central musical developments of the past 50 years happened in the orchestra world, or have even been reflected there.
But that's not the point! said passionate and honest people I have both affection and respect for. Orchestras are like museums. They display the art of the past. Or as one of these people got in my face (delightfully) and demanded to know, "What's the difference between Brahms and Rembrandt?"
But (and what follows is more or less what I e-mailed him, since we never got a chance to finish the discussion), the important difference is about how Brahms and Rembrandt function in the concert and museum worlds. Though one general point to make -- my wife makes it all the time, and Lawrence Kramer made it memorably in a piece in the New York Times Magazine -- museums are far more contemporary, as institutions, than orchestras even dream of being.
Here's what I e-mailed -- three big differences (at least as I see them) between museums and concert halls.
First, the museum world is way ahead of the concert world, chronologically. Or I could say that their center of chronological gravity lies about a century later. Major 20th century and postwar painters - Picasso, Kandinsky, Klee, Gorky, Pollock, Rothko -- are core classics in museums. A Jackson Pollock show gets lines around the block. Museums of modern and contemporary art (MOMA, LACMA) are major institutions, on a par with museums that show classics from past centuries. The museum world, too, has kept up with developments in outside culture. In the last 50 years, elements of popular culture have been recognized as visual art - for instance, film, graphic design, fashion. All are represented in major museums. The Met has had a costume collection for years (aka fashion). That costume collection just opened a superheroes show. That might be the equivalent of an orchestra mounting a heavy metal weekend - which would actually happen, if orchestras functioned the way real museums do.
Second, a Rembrandt painting hangs on the wall, looking like it comes from the past. A Brahms symphony, played in the concert hall, isn't identifiable as music from the past, because it's so constantly repeated. It sounds like the concert-hall cultural norm, which in fact it is. That means we can't actually hear it. Key elements of it are lost to us, which doesn't happen nearly so easily with Rembrandt.
Finally, Rembrandt
just hangs in the museum, costing nothing (except the museum's general
expenses), demanding nothing, requiring nothing. Brahms has to be enacted over
and over again at great expense by large numbers of musicians, who work together, drawing on their years of training and experience to act out Brahms's music. The audience, likewise, sits
in silence for long periods, worshipping these reenactments. It's as if the museum hired 100
painters every day to copy Rembrandt works. I know this isn't at all a precise
analogy, but it has this value -- it gives us at least a very rough measure of where the two institutions put their energy, and their creative effort. In the visual arts world, the energy goes into creating new work, and creating new understandings of old work
(which is seen, as I said before, as part of the past). In concert halls, the
vast bulk of creative effort goes into recreating old music, the same pieces
over and over again. It's no wonder that the concert world turns away from contemporary culture, or that the visual arts world has more
intelligence, more imagination, and more contemporary relevance. If the
classical music world treated the performance of music of the past as something
extraordinary - how strange! We're putting all this energy into recreating the
19th century! - then the focus on the past might be more invigorating.
If anyone wants to see
what classical music is like when it functions like a real museum, listen to
the "Evening Music" show on WNYC, New York's public radio station -- 7 PM, Mondays through Thursdays, when
Terrance McKnight is the host. (Not that I haven't said this before.)
Originally from Sandow, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 8, 2008 at 07:09 PM | Comments (0)
Personal Beethoven
A conductor Someone made a comment on my previous
post, about orchestras as museums. This commenter put himself in the role of a conductor, about to embark on Beethoven's Fifth. I replied, and both the comment and
reply seem worth promoting to a full post of their own.
Here's the conductor's comment:
The comments here all sound intriguing, but I'm confused about one thing. Suppose I'm going to program Beethoven's Fifth Symphony on my orchestral season next year. I gather from the comments above that I should make sure I have "a distinct, notable, worth paying attention to" ideas about performing this very standard piece of classical music. Other than just really trying to do a good job of it (and making sure audiences haven't just heard the piece recently with the same orchestra) what is a conductor supposed to do? What constitutes a distinctive performance of Beethoven's Fifth? I mean, are the musicians supposed to use kazoos or something? I realize that a certain amount of subjectivity enters into performing a classical piece -- but this freedom doesn't compare with the freedom musicians have in other kinds of music.
Here's another (related thought): As a lay listener at classical concerts, I'm often annoyed with the program notes. Why don't conductors write their own program notes explaining why they have chosen these particular pieces and this particular order? I've been told that the music speaks for itself. But in the dramatic arts, where people actually do speak instead of mutely playing violins, the director never hesitates to tell me her thoughts about "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" or whatever theatrical warhorse is being staged.
And my reply:
Very good thought about the program notes.. I think you should go with it -- really make the notes something like what you're talking about here. You could also involve the musicians, have them say what they think about the piece. But, speaking very honestly, your comments on Beethoven's 5th bother me. If this is all you can offer -- a professional rendition of a work whose meaning and contours seem, if we're to believe you, thoroughly known -- then why play it? I'd rather you didn't.
So let me give you some suggestions, if not about how to perform the piece, then about what differences between performances might exist. First, and most obviously, you might look at some performances that are very different from the current norm. Maybe Stokowski, from generations ago, lingering (as I remember) over phrases in the slow movement, giving each an individual, highly personal treatment.
Or Mikhail Pletnev, from his recent recording of all the Beethoven symphonies. I'll get in a minute to the most remarkable thing (at least for me) about the way he does the Fifth, but you might listen to how flexible his tempi are in the first movement of the Eroica, and how strong a narrative he creates from the music. I gather, listening to him, that one thing very personal about his understanding of the piece is a sense of uncertainty at the end of the exposition, at the end of the development, and just before the coda. That uncertainty pays off wonderfully the first and second times, by which I mean the uncertainty at the end of the exposition, leading the first time into the exposition repeat, and the second time -- and somehow it sounds like a great surprise, a great expansion of what's gone before -- leading into the further uncertainties of the development.
Or, in the Ninth, listen to the unabashed joy Pletnev and his musicians bring to the first statements of the Ode to Joy tune. Could you do anything like htat in the Fifth? Maybe, most obviously, when the sunburst of the finale bursts out. Can you get beyond the routine of even the best normal performances, and make it glow from within?
Or listen to what Pletnev does with the opening of the second theme in the recapitulation in the first movement. The opening notes, so decisive in the horn in the version of the passage that shows up in the exposition, normally sound feeble in the recapitulation, now played on the bassoon. I've never heard a satisfying solution to that. Doubling the bassoon, or even using four of them (as I believe Carlos Kleiber does) only makes the sound more awkward (at least for me).
Pletnev's solution is wonderfully radical. He lets the bassoon statement be different from the horn statement in the exposition -- quieter, far less decisive, just as the nature of the instruments should dictate. And to make that work, he builds a nest of quiet both before and after the bassoon comes in.
Another moment to think about: the oboe cadenza in the first movement. How should that sound? (And a related question, rather radical in today's climate, but not in Beethoven's time: Should the oboist play the cadenza strictly as written, or should she ornament it?) There's a video called Beethoven Alive! about a New World Symphony performance of it, filmed by my friends Janet Shapiro and Philip Byrd. The principal oboist is interviewed in the first part of the film, and she talks about the cadenza. We see her practicing it alone. The film then ends with the full performance of the piece, and when that cadenza comes, instead of seeing the oboist in the middle of the orchestra, we see her alone in her studio, as she was when she practiced the passage. That suggests one interpretation of the cadenza, that it's meditative, even lonely. Would you want it to sound that way in your performance? And if not, how should it sound? Or is that something you'd want to work out with the oboist, the only goal being to get something personal, that spoke for both of you?
Or consider the famous set-piece in E. M. Forster's novel Howard's End, in which members of a family (all young) and their friends are at a performance of Beethoven's Fifth. One of them tells herself a story about goblins. That the goblins, evil little things, show up in the third movement, and then are banished in the fourth. But then -- in the famous passage where, in the middle of the last movement, music from the third movement returns -- they come back again! The moral drawn from this is that you can banish goblins, or evil, but it might always return -- and that this shows how powerful Beethoven is, and how deep his understanding of life can be. Would you want to play these passages with Forster's goblins in mind, or else thinking of your own image of trouble or dismay? This might mean making the return of the music very stark and shocking -- something you might want to do in any case, to convey what the passage must have meant to Beethoven and his audience, since in those days disrupting the normal texture of a symphony was practically unknown.
Finally, you might find your own meaning -- or your own narrative -- for the symphony. What if you thought the triumph in the final movement was unconvincing? Or the coda of the first movement too insistent, as if Beethoven was protesting too much?
To give you an example of how someone else thought about a Beethoven piece, I'll paraphrase what one of my Juilliard students said last week about Beethoven's Op. 59 No. 2 string quartet. I ask my students to make presentations about pieces they play, presentations that should be entirely personal, and full of feeling. This violinist picked this quartet, which he'd played a number of times, and came up with the following scenario. First movement: Beethoven emerges, for the first time in his oeuvre, as a full-fledged neurotic, a man torn by trouble. Second movement: state of grace, transcending any trouble. Third movement: cynicism, Beethoven answering his patron's request for a Russian folktune, by turning the tune almost into a parody, making it sound absolutely trivial. Finale: Beethoven in an uninspired mood, just churning out the notes. I don't say everyone has to agree with this, but it's a very personal description of the piece, which could generate a very personal performance. (And I should add that this violinist went into far more detail than I've tried to render here.)
Originally from Sandow, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 8, 2008 at 07:08 PM | Comments (0)
Why I am not a wise man
The doorbell rang this morning. I wasn’t expecting anyone so I peaked through the side window and saw a creature that resembled Cousin It in the Addams Family. My heart thumped not being sure what it was. I went to the door, opened it and I’ll be damned if it wasn’t the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi — you know, the guru that the Beatles, and Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys, and Mia Farrow and all those people went to in 1968 (7?).
-
Roger: Dude, I thought you died not too long ago.
Maharishi: (Smiling with a white flower in his hand.) I am standing in front of you am I not?
R: Uh, kinda. Please, come in.
(MMY floats across the doorstep, the way the South Park characters ambulate.)
M: A very beautiful home you have here.
R: Why, thank you Maharishi
M: Call me Maha
R: Got it, call me Roho
M You are trapped in the physical world and you are NOT a wise man.
R: (Taken aback) I don’t know what you mean.
M: You went out of town recently. You got out of your element, your community and your way of life, and you became intolerant.
R: I beg your pardon Maha?
M: I scanned your brain the entire time. Here are some exact quotes:
Ugh, I can’t believe how much cologne that man has on.
Look at those beautiful teenagers smoking, what idiots.
Can you believe he ate that entire plate of food?
This person is trapped in 1972.
Your view of the world is so myopic.
Your taste in clothes seems to have stopped in 1973.
It is so beautiful here!
M: So, with the exception of that last line, you are an intolerant, un-evolved dolt in addition to not being a wise man.
I stood up, and he disappeared And where he was standing, George Harrison appeared, playing a sitar, the gourd cradled in the hollow of his bare foot. His eyes looked really dilated, which made him look really cute. He didn’t say anything, just looked up at me for a few seconds, bobbed his head a few times with the music, and then went back into his inner world. I closed my eyes and nodded forward.
The door opened and my assistant walked in:
“Your 11 o’clock appointment is here.”
“Send him in Moneypenny” I thought to myself. “Someday I will learn to tolerate all the shortcomings of my earth co-habitants.”
“Excuse me?” she said.
“Send him in Moneypenny.” Her eyes glanced to to the ceiling.
The Beatles (George Harrison) - Blue Jay Way from the Magical Mystery Tour movie
Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 8, 2008 at 07:08 PM | Comments (0)
back home in transylvania…
Conductor Franz Welser-Moest (not pictured) has backed out of two performances of Die Fledermaus at the Zurich Opera, complaining that he was “unhappy” with the staging by Michael Sturminger. One innovation in this production is the inclusion of several vampires among Orlovsky’s retinue, which of course means that good old Frosch has lots of funny business with crosses and garlic and stuff. Other than this bit of whimsy, the show seems not to be up to much: according to the Wiener Zeitung, “Charme, Erotik und das Doppelbödige sind der Königin der Operetten restlos ausgetrieben.”
The performances Welser-Moest has canceled, May 17 and June 20, are scheduled to be videotaped for future DVD release with Ralf Weikert filling in as conductor. Welser-Moest will become music director of the Vienna State Opera beginning in the 2010-11 season. [via International Herald Tribune]
Originally posted by La Cieca from parterre box presents La Cieca, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 8, 2008 at 07:08 PM | Comments (0)
the trrill of it all
First the bad news, or anyway the bad news for us New Yorkers. Why the hell should Seattle Opera get Mariusz Kwiecien in Puritani, whereas we get — whatever his name was?
Now the good news, though Seattle may think otherwise: Nick Scholl is moving to New York! (The photo’s a detail of an image from Trrill’s MySpace.)
Originally posted by La Cieca from parterre box presents La Cieca, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 8, 2008 at 07:08 PM | Comments (0)
flower child
A very young Anna Moffo sings La sonnambula.
Originally posted by La Cieca from parterre box presents La Cieca, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 8, 2008 at 07:08 PM | Comments (0)
yet another fucking brit hired to ‘mould’ american talent
“Houston Grand Opera has appointed Laura Canning to run its young-artist training program, Houston Grand Opera Studio, effective Aug. 1. She follows General Director and CEO Anthony Freud from the Welsh National Opera, where she has been artistic administrator for the last ten years.” [via musicalamerica.com]
Originally posted by La Cieca from parterre box presents La Cieca, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 8, 2008 at 07:08 PM | Comments (0)
Master Cylinder, Moose Loose, Abacus
Master Cylinder - Elsewhere (1980 USA). Not much is known about this Ft. Worth based jazz rock group (even though they’re from my neck of the woods, their album wasn’t exactly a staple of local jazz or rock radio). On the usually soulless Inner City label, Master Cylinder was anything but that. Their album has a strong melodic sense, and it seems the group must’ve been informed by the Canterbury groups like early Soft Machine or National Health, as well as the DC based Happy the Man. While ostensibly a jazz album, it’s these rock elements that bring Master Cylinder to the next level. A very good album that time has forgot and an album that truly deserves a quality CD reissue.
(The Moose Loose and Abacus reviews are extensions of previous OMD entries, each with an additional album added.)
Moose Loose - Elgen Er Løs (1974 Norway).
Moose Loose - Transition (1976 Norway). Debut “Elgen Er Løs” is a powerful fusion album, that mixes in funky clavinet lines with some ferocious electric guitar leads, playing in an almost psychedelic style. Latter half of the album drifts towards more standard jazz / jazz rock before closing with an acoustic guitar, piano piece. Followup album, “Transition”, is a good fusion work filled with the new addition of violin combined with the guitar leads of the prior album (more subdued here though). Reminds quite a bit of same era Jean-Luc Ponty mixed with Terje Rypdal’s more aggressive works. Neither are on CD as of today.
Abacus - s/t (1971 Germany).
Abacus - Everything You Need (1972 Germany). On the debut, you can find parallels to another quirky German band: Nine Days Wonder. Like NDW’s debut, this album is radically progressive, covering anywhere from Frank Zappa’s more complex works to any number of UK outfits. The vocalist is from England, and he writes much of the material, so this album doesn’t sound Krautrock at all. Would be nice to see a legit CD of “Abacus”! Prior to this listen, I’d only heard the band’s last 1970s work “Midway” (1973) and a pretty horrendous work it is. Recently I picked up their 2nd effort “Everything You Need”, which is quite a drop off from the great first album. All of Side 1 is rural/country rock and is downright terrible. But all is not lost, as the second side is one long suite. Though based again on a rural rock theme, there are plenty of quirky progressive rock moves, that recall the first album. The dramatic difference between the first and second albums reminded me, again, of Nine Days Wonder.
Originally posted by TH from Outer Music Diary, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 8, 2008 at 07:07 PM | Comments (0)
Jonas Kaufmann: Interview on his first Tosca; Domingo sings Tamerlano in Washington DC; Susan Graham sings Sesto in La Clemenza di Tito in New York
Originally from Musical Criticism - the blog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 8, 2008 at 07:07 PM | Comments (0)
Lessons I Learned While Wearing Leather Pants
I've been on this internet block long enough that I should have known better than to title a post "Did I mention the naked dancing girls?". Inevitably, this has waylaid a few Google researchers on their way to other places, but to them I say, "Welcome! Stay for the hot intellectual discussion about culture!"
But actually, that brings the conversation neatly around to the importance of honesty and straightforwardness in audience development. The "butts in seats" movement is often focused on inspiring folks who are not already in the club in s