New Music reBlog

Sympho is a 6-year-old classical ensemble and concert presenter that according to the New York Times “refits the concert experience for a new century.” This June, Sympho will present “Coast to Coast,” a festival of two brand-new programs, one on either side of the country. The two programs will take place nearly 3000 miles apart—one in a former 19th-century synagogue in New York and one inside a 21st-century sculpture and performance space in California—and will encompass a range of repertoire from Rameau to newly commissioned works by Christopher Bono, Bora Yoon, and Artistic Director Paul Haas, including music by Mozart, Haydn, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bizet, and Erkki-Sven Tüür.

Haas has honed an approach to programming that uses techniques such as juxtaposing music of different periods in close proximity and changing the spatial relationship between performers and audience, with a goal that goes beyond merely holding the audience’s attention through variety. Says Haas, “My goal is for audiences to come to a listening experience in a new way, to have something happen that is just different enough from everyday life to open you up to new thoughts.”

For Bionic Symphony, Haas has constructed an evening-length concert comprising four sections, each section being a “bionic symphony” made up of movements from works of the 18th-century Classical and 20th-century Neo-classical periods. These four “bionic” symphonies themselves form a larger-scale four-movement work, knit together with sections of Erkki-Sven Tüür’s haunting Passion. Says Haas about this way of constructing a concert, “Music exists on a historical continuum. Musical styles have changed, but human beings have always asked the same questions, and great art is in part a response to those questions.” He continues, “By listening to pieces of music from different periods of history in close proximity through a modern lens, we can experience this continuum, giving us greater perspective and insight into human nature.”

TOWER, by contrast, consists entirely of new work, though the score incorporates and is heavily influenced by world and ancient musics. The program, which will be performed in collaboration with Bay Area alt-classical pioneers Classical Revolution, was commissioned by the Oliver Ranch Foundation, whose past commissionees include Meredith Monk and the Kronos Quartet. The composers, working closely with each other and multi-disciplinary theater artist Ruth Pongstaphone, have crafted an evening of music written especially for the unique interior of artist Ann Hamilton’s 80-foot tall concrete structure, on whose double-helix staircases both audience and performers will sit and stand. While Haas prefers to avoid saying “this is what this music means” in a concrete and dogmatic way, the dozen-or-so individual segments of the TOWER program—which will be performed as a continuous 70-minute work—were inspired by the idea of portraying an entire human life in music. The works will utilize the space in various ways, responding to both the literal physical configurations of the space and the symbolism of the structure.

While Sympho has its home base in New York, Haas grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and maintains strong roots there. TOWER, which will be presented in collaboration with San Francisco’s Classical Revolution, will be the second concert Sympho has performed in Northern California (following 2008’s REWIND with the New Century Chamber Orchestra at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts).

Sympho to Present "Coast to Coast," Performances in New York and California in Consecutive Weeks in June

Featuring Bionic Symphony at Manhattan’s Angel Orensanz Foundation on June 6, 2012 at 8 PM, and TOWER, at 4 PM on June 16 and 17 at the Oliver Ranch Foundation’s Tower in Geyserville, CA.

reBlogged from: Interchanging Idioms

Classical Action’s 2012 Michael Palm Series Concludes on May 17, with Christine Brewer and Craig Rutenberg in Intimate House Concert

Classical Action: Performing Arts Against AIDS closes its 2012 Michael Palm Series of house concerts on Thursday, May 17, with a memorable evening of song from soprano Christine Brewer and pianist Craig Rutenberg. Held in the Tribeca loft apartment of supporters Simon Yates and Kevin Roon, who have hosted all concerts in the series since 2010, the upcoming recital is part of the New York City-based salon series named for the charity’s late benefactor. The performance begins at 7:30pm, following an hour of wine and hors d’oeuvres; tickets for this series-closing concert may be purchased online at www.classicalaction.org or by calling Classical Action at (212) 997-7717. For the first time in the history of the Michael Palm Series, the music may also be enjoyed beyond this cozy salon setting: the recital will be recorded for a broadcast presentation at a later date on SiriusXM’s Symphony Hall, channel 76.

Grammy Award-winning American soprano Christine Brewer, named one of the top 20 sopranos of all time by BBC Music magazine, was recently lauded as being “in outstanding voice…, floating her high passages effortlessly with clarity and a sound like molten gold.” The review continued: “With that devastating vocal beauty came a powerful stage presence; Brewer exuded a sense of peace to match the music” (St Louis Post-Dispatch). According to the New York Times’s Anthony Tommasini, she is “in her prime and sounding glorious,” while as London’s Sunday Times observes, “she brings a soaring opulence” to her interpretations. Fresh off a May 13 recital with Rutenberg at Alice Tully Hall, Brewer joins Classical Action for the first time on May 17.

While renowned for her stunning portrayals of Wagner, Strauss, Verdi, and Britten heroines, the soprano is equally at home on the recital stage, often appearing in concert and recital at some of the world’s greatest concert halls. To date, her 2011-12 highlights include singing Wagner and Beethoven for the Atlanta Symphony’s season-opening concert, undertaking the Wesendonck Lieder with the New World Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas, and joining the San Francisco Symphony and Esa-Pekka Salonen for excerpts from the Ring cycle.

Pianist Craig Rutenberg, “whose playing range s from sterling directness to expansive beauty” (San Francisco Chronicle), has collaborated with many of the world’s greatest vocalists and is recognized as one of the most distinguished accompanists on the stage today. The upcoming performance marks his third collaboration with Classical Action, and his second appearance in the Michael Palm Series, following a 1996 recital with the late American tenor Jerry Hadley. Besides regularly partnering Brewer, Rutenberg has appeared in recital with Denyce Graves, Sumi Jo, Harolyn Blackwell, Susanne Mentzer, Frederica von Stade, Angelika Kirchschlager, and Dawn Upshaw, and, more frequently, Ben Heppner, Jerry Hadley, Olaf Baer, Simon Keenlyside, Stanford Olsen, and Thomas Hampson, with whom he performed at the White House under the Clinton administration. Rutenberg is also the Director of Music Administration at the Metropolitan Opera and a noted interpreter of operatic repertoire.

reBlogged from: Interchanging Idioms

American Pianists Association’s 2013 Classical Finalists Perform on Classical WQXR 105.9 FM and Online at WQXR.org, Wednesday May 19

The five finalists for a prize valued at more than $100,000 from the American Pianists Association will be showcased in performance on New York’s classical station, WQXR (105.9 FM and online at wqxr.org) on Wednesday, May 19 at 9pm. There will be a simultaneous broadcast on WFYI in Indianapolis, home of the American Pianists Association. The program, hosted by Robert Sherman, is part of The McGraw Hill Companies Young Artists Showcase. It was recorded last month when the names of the finalists for the 2013 ProLiance Energy Classical Fellowship Awards of the American Pianists Association were revealed at Steinway Hall.

The Program:

Andrew Staupe, 27, will open the broadcast with Pierre Jalbert’s Toccata; followed by Sara Daneshpour, 25, in Domenico Scarlatti’s Sonata in B minor, K. 27 and Rachmaninov’s Etude-tableau in A minor, Op. 39/6. Claire Huangci, 22 – the youngest finalist – will play three etudes by Alexander Scriabin: Op. 42/3, Op. 8/10, and Op. 8/12. Sean Chen, 23, will perform Ligeti’s Etude No. 13 (“The Devil’s Staircase”). For the finale, Eric Zuber, 26, will be heard in Rachmaninov’s Preludes in G-sharp minor, Op. 32/12 and B-flat major, Op. 23/12.

About the Five Finalists:

Sean Chen is second prize winner of the 2011 Seoul International Music Competition and a prizewinner in the 2009 Cleveland International Piano Competition. Born in Margate, FL and raised in Oak Park, CA, he has performed in Bucharest, Seoul, Taiwan, Los Angeles, Albuquerque, Miami, and New York. Chen received his undergraduate degree at the Juilliard School, where he won the 2010 Gina Bachauer Piano Competition, and he is currently pursuing his Master’s degree there. His teachers have included Jerome Lowenthal, Matti Raekallio, and teacher-mentor Edward Francis.

Sara Daneshpour is second prize winner of the 2007 William Kapell International Piano Competition, first prize and Gold Medal winner of the 2007 International Russian Music Piano Competition, and first prize winner of the 2003 Beethoven Society of America Competition. She joined the roster of Astral Artists as winner of the 2010 National Auditions. Daneshpour has performed in her hometown of Washington, D.C. as well as in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Russia, Germany, Finland, Estonia, Denmark, and Sweden. She is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, studying under Leon Fleisher, and is now pursuing her Master’s degree at Juilliard with Yoheved Kaplinsky.

Claire Huangci won first prize in the 2010 National Chopin Piano Competition in Miami, and is a laureate in the 2010 Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition. She made her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2003 and has since performed with orchestras in Stuttgart, Frankfurt, St. Petersburg, Moscow, and with the China Philharmonic, among others. Born in Rochester, NY, Huangci entered Philadelphia’s Settlement Music School at age seven and did her undergraduate work at the Curtis Institute of Music. She is currently studying in Germany at the Hochschule für Musik in Hanover with Professor Arie Vardi.

Andrew Staupe made his Carnegie Hall debut at Weill Recital Hall earlier this month as recipient of the 2011 Pro Musicis International Award, and he is the Gold Medalist of the 2010 Young Texas Artists Music Competition. The St. Paul, MN native has performed several times with the Minnesota Orchestra and has toured throughout the U.S. and Europe, appearing at the Concertgebouw in the Netherlands as well as in Russia, Holland, Latvia, Romania, France, Germany, and Bulgaria. Staupe received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Minnesota, and is currently completing his DMA in Piano Performance at Rice University in Houston with Jon Kimura Parker.

Eric Zuber has won major prizes in seven international piano competitions: the Cleveland, Arthur Rubinstein, Seoul, Sydney, Dublin, Minnesota, and Hilton Head competitions. The Baltimore, MD native made his orchestral debut at the age of twelve with the Baltimore Symphony, and has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Korean Symphony, and Ireland’s RTE National Symphony, among others. Zuber holds degrees from the Peabody Institute, Curtis Institute of Music, and the Juilliard School, and is currently pursuing his DMA at Peabody. His teachers have included Boris Slutsky, Leon Fleisher, Claude Frank, and Robert McDonald.

reBlogged from: Interchanging Idioms

How is TwtrSymphony Getting so much Attention

TwtrSymphony is rapidly gaining a fan base by leveraging social media. Here's how:

We can be found on Twitter (of course), also on Facebook, Tumblr and the web. Our klout score is at 45 and growing. Several major orchestras are following and socializing with us. Other industry professionals are checking us out and even some record companies have expressed interest in our project. We don't have sponsors yet, but we haven't released our first track either. Everyone is waiting to see what the results of our experiment will be.

How have we gained the attention of all these people in the classical world? Social Media. But it's not only our own tweets, facebook and tumblr posts that are causing all the stir. The real momentum behind the project is our enthusiastic musicians. This blog, for example, posts an article about TwtrSymphony and the musicians mobilize. A TwtrSymphony article has three to four times as many hits in a single day as pretty much any other article I post. Interchanging Idioms posts news about a lot of different classical music stars, but it is TwtrSymphony articles that get the most attention. Our Facebook or Tumblr page don't have thousands of followers yet, but we have more people checking our pages on a daily basis than we have musicians, so it isn't just our musicians who are making all the hits. The news is getting out to a host of other people. With less than 100 fans on Facebook, we typically have a reach of 3-5k people. Just imagine when we have 5,000 or 10,000 fans, how far our reach might be?

A look at these statistics made me wonder --are orchestra musicians normally this enthusiastic, or did we just get lucky? A number of professional and semi-professional orchestras on Twitter and Facebook have a far bigger following. Although it is not uncommon to have musicians comment on their own orchestra's facebook page, I rarely see musicians tweeting about their upcoming performances. Most major orchestras perform two to three different shows a month. Each orchestra has 70-100 musicians for these performances. If only 10% were talking about upcoming shows, that would still be a LOT of chatter. The best part about this kind of chatter is it's honest enthusiasm for the artform.

Still thinking that maybe TwtrSymphony musicians are unique in regards to social media I ran a small survey --The Power of Musicians. In two days I had almost double the number of responses I expected. Beyond that, the responses were glaringly lopsided: musicians clearly want to promote their performances. The "advertising" of the survey was done on social media alone, so already I'm talking to a select group of musicians, but of those that replied +80% are semi-professional musicians or better, 98% of them have a facebook account, over 90% would use their personal pages to promote not only groups they are performing with, but even promote these groups when they aren't performing. Many more musicians replied to this survey than just TwtrSymphony musicians, so I think it's safe to say these statistics aren't the anomaly, but rather the norm.

The key is inclusion. The musicians are not employees of TwtrSymphony; they are TwtrSymphony. Any success we achieve is a direct result of the hard work and enthusiasm of the musicians. With no real product to sell, we are creating a buzz in the industry. When our music does become available, this 'buzz' will only serve to further promote who and what we are: Musicians promoting their Music.

In the final analysis it seems that ownership is key to enthusiasm. When musicians feel invested in an organization's success they are enthusiastic about getting the word out.

reBlogged from: Interchanging Idioms

Erich Auerbach/Getty Images

Around The Classical Internet: May 18, 2012

by Anastasia Tsioulcas

Baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and pianist Gerald Moore in an undated recital rehearsal.

This week has ended on a very sad note with the passing of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who died earlier today in Bavaria at age 86.
Anne Midgette has a remembrance of her friend and co-writer Herbert Breslin, who managed Luciano Pavarotti's career for more than 35 years and who died yesterday in Nice. He was "a man who routinely screamed expletives into the telephone before slamming it down, cut various financial corners, and made gleeful use of his star client's fame to manipulate journalists and other artists ... But there was a lot more to Herbert's story than that."
And yesterday, the French pianist France Clidat died at age 79. She won the Liszt Prize in Budapest in 1956. (link in French)
Der Spiegel has the story behind Dietmar Machold, the "Stradivarius man" going on trial this summer in Vienna for embezzlement, bankruptcy fraud and grand commercial fraud, with criminal complaints also coming from the U.S., Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Prosecutors' efforts "have pieced together a picture of a businessman who was probably cash-strapped for years and sold violins he had taken in commission for millions — often failing to pass on the proceeds to the instruments' owners or to banks, allegedly using the money to pay off other debts instead."
Remember that planned partnership between Kid Rock and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra? Well, it happened: "There was a lot of entertainment, energy and even a few moments of enlightenment."
The Sacramento Philharmonic has raised enough cash to sustain itself through at least one more season.
Speaking of cash, the Wall Street Journal has a look at the New York City Opera's current financial standing: "City Opera scheduled only four performances of Orpheus, which seriously limits its income-producing potential. Indeed, this season, only 8% of the company's $15.3 million budget was met through ticket sales. ... By contrast, the Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, N.Y., has less than half City Opera's budget, does 40-plus performances of four operas in a 900-seat theater, and last year earned about 34% of its budget in ticket income (42% in earned income when you add in rentals, T-shirts, and the like)."
After the first year of partnering with Carnegie Hall in the "Achievement Program" teaching standards program, the Toronto Conservatory has doubled its enrollment. (Famous alums: Glenn Gould, Jon Vickers, Diana Krall.)
Have you heard about the hot young Venezuelan conductor who's come out of El Sistema? No, it's not Dudamel (for once) — it's 32-year-old Rafael Payare, who has just won the very prestigious Malko Competition for Young Conductors in Copenhagen.
I don't speak Mandarin, but this fight between the (Russian) Oleg Vedernikov, the principal cellist of the Beijing Symphony Orchestra, and a random female passenger on a Shenyang-Beijing train is kind of bananas. Vedernikov has apologized, but in the meantime he's been suspended from the symphony and is awaiting further disciplinary action from his employer.
Here's a completely subjective list of the 10 most musical American presidents. (Me, I would have picked Thomas Jefferson over Warren Harding.) Interesting tidbits gleaned: Jefferson practiced three hours a day! Chester Arthur played the banjo!
And the snarky and yet widely beloved (actually, probably in part widely beloved due to the snark) blog "Proper Discord" blog is back at long last. The not-so anonymous author has revealed himself to be Andy Doe, the former classical buyer for iTunes and until recently the COO of Naxos.
Van-tiques Road Show Results. Last week we mentioned that more than 150 items belonging to piano icon Van Cliburn were up for grabs May 17 at Christie's auction house. The event was a success, bringing in $4.3 million. The top lot of the sale was a pair of George II Giltwood Mirrors, attributed to Matthias Lock, dating from around 1570. The final price was $464,500.

reBlogged from: NPR Blogs: Deceptive Cadence

reBlogged from: Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise

Fischer-Dieskau and the War Requiem

Britten to Fischer-Dieskau, 1961: "Please forgive me writing to such a busy man as yourself — you can be sure that if I did not feel very strongly I should not be troubling you! ... I am writing what I think will be one of my most important works. It is a full-scale Requiem Mass for chorus and orchestra ... Peter Pears has agreed to sing the tenor part, and with great temerity I am asking you whether you would sing the baritone. You may not, I fear, be free (the dates of the two performances are May 30th and June 1st, with rehearsals the few previous days), and above all you may not feel inclined to do this, but I am earnestly hoping you may be free and willing... handwritten Please forgive me troubling you."

Britten to Fischer-Dieskau, 1962: "I am made happy when I think of our working together, & our meeting with you and your dear wife, in Coventry. It was one of the great artistic experiences of my life ... I cannot say how touched I was by the great trouble you took over the War Requiem, & by your complete understanding of what I was trying to say in this work."

Fischer-Dieskau in his memoirs: "The first performance created an atmosphere of such intensity that by the end I was completely undone; I did not know where to hide my face. Dead friends and past suffering arose in my mind."

on May 18, 2012 at 09:00 PM

John Tejada Interview: Asking a Techno Ambassador the Big Questions

Photos courtesy John Tejada.

From his home in LA to the global scene, John Tejada is a planet-navigating techno ambassador and one of our favorite electronic musicians. He’s one of a handful of artists successful today who has managed to cross eras, whose experience isn’t just of this moment but who has touched the evolution of that scene. We turn to guest writer Alex Brandmeyer, who interviews Mr. Tejada about his own work as well as where the music scene is headed. What I like about Alex’s interview is that he asks some really fundamental questions about the evolution of the international audience for this music and tools – and Mr. Tejada is just the sort of person whose answers are worth reading. -PK

John Tejada’s music has been raising the bar for more than fifteen years. Alongside an intense schedule of performances all across the world, he’s managed a steady stream of high-quality releases on dozens of labels, including his own baby (now fully-grown), Palette Recordings. Add to this some high-profile DJ mixes for outlets like Fabric, along with strong support for his music from top international DJs, and what you’ve got is one of the highest-calibre electronic artists around. Despite this success, he remains a very friendly, down-to-earth guy who’s instantly approachable, and whose love and enthusiasm for electronic music and performance immediately comes across. I caught up with him following one of his recent live shows at Studio 80 in Amsterdam.

One thing that interests me most about dance music, and about house and techno music in particular, is the fact that its appeal traverses national and geographic boundaries. What do you think the common thread is? Psychology? Biology? Culture? And what is it about four-on-the-floor electronic beats and sounds between 120-130 BPM that allows dance music to tap into these things?

I feel these days it has become such a global movement, with everyone around the world linked together through social media and other sources on the net. My experience in the early 90s, however, was much different. These avenues didn’t exist yet, and you had to grab magazines to find out about what was going on abroad and order new releases with your local shop. These days it is so instant. Most of my friends and I still can’t wrap our heads around it. Back then, it was such a treat to find the thing you were looking for or hear an artist you loved live, because you couldn’t just do an MP3 search and have it instantly or watch clips on YouTube from last night’s concert half way around the world. I see all these new developments as mostly a positive.

The sound seems to spread to all cultures at this point. Everyone likes to dance all over the world and many want that moment of hearing a new sound for the first time and wondering what it is. For these reasons, I don’t think it is all that unique that the music is loved the world over now. Many genres of music exist worldwide because people love music and keep all these scenes going.

Of course there are differences, too. As someone coming from California with strong connections to Europe, how do you feel about moving between these places, between the different audiences and cities? Does it matter in the sense that it pulls music and music communities in different directions over time? Or does the music itself make this type of question less important?

I still have a tie to Vienna with my father still being there, and being able to travel to Europe on a regular basis, so I feel connected to both places. I feel when it comes to audiences being different, it’s usually a case of a venue or the people you meet that can have a big impact on your opinion of that place. You may have a good or bad experience in a certain city and your whole experience might rely just on that one club night, when down the street at another club could have been potentially a completely different good or bad experience. It took me repeat visits to cities to realize this and to try not to make up my mind about a place just because of one night. I think the music will keep evolving, as it always does.

Every year, there are new pieces of gear, new bits of software, new labels, new clubs, and new ways of spreading music. Apart from the internet and social media culture you mentioned before, what have been the most important evolutions in your own music making over the years? Have there been specific ideas or techniques which really opened up new creative possibilities for you?

I feel while technology comes along and makes many things easier and options pretty much limitless, it also turns the same solutions into problems. Music has become more of a “paint by numbers” type of process for many people, which has made lots of new music less interesting for myself. The difference between imposing limitations on one’s creative process and actually having limitations is a different thing. When we were all starting out, the creative process was different than it is now. We now basically have limitless options, which can keep you second-guessing your work. At the same time, sure, it’s great to have new tools working more the way they were intended, and the resurgence of analog has made quite an impact in my workflow and sound. Generally, computer programs have developed mostly in positive ways, making music creation a lot more straightforward.

Again on the subject of evolution… an interesting question is always where this is all headed. People predicted a lot of different outcomes of the digital revolution, but underground clubs, labels, and to some extent, vinyl, all still seem to be doing pretty well, hand-in-hand with the ‘new era’ of Beatport, laptop DJs ,and commercial dubstep. What are your feelings about where the underground dance music scene is headed? Do you have any hopes or fears for the music? Does history repeat itself?

Things do seem to go in circles. I think we’re at the beginning of the next phase in the way music is being distributed. I have a strong belief that physical media will in some form make a comeback, wether it will be records or something else. I just can’t imagine a future where one’s music and book collection are only digital. It sort of misses the point of having a collection. Part of the fun of collecting is finding these physical objects that are tangible. While watching the new Comic-Con documentary, I had this thought that no one values PDFs of classic comic books, or JPEGs of hard-to-find baseball cards. The real physical item has great importance. This is why we love to collect records. I think people will start to miss that the more it disappears.

The past year I’ve been lucky enough to catch a couple of your live shows, and have enjoyed seeing you perform some of the tracks which I’ve come to love over the years. I’ve also really enjoyed listening to some of your DJ mixes. What for you is the difference between playing out as a DJ and playing using your live setup? Do you have a preference for one or the other? What are the challenges in each type of performance?

DJing can be stressful in the way that I’m looking to make a playlist with the goal of being an entertainer. Sometimes I don’t want to bother with that, and just concentrate on my own art and being creative that way. Playing live limits me to my own ideas which is a little easier for me, but can also be stressful, because if the set isn’t going down well I’ve got nowhere to go, really. I may have the ability to change my set list and arrangements live, but for the most part, it’s just me. At the moment, I’ve been enjoying the live sets quite a bit more. I’d love to bring more gear, but I’m usually shoved in a DJ booth, so for now, it’s a small synth and computer mixer set up.

I think distinguishing between a DJ as entertainer and a live performer as artist taps into something interesting about the way in which electronic music is performed and consumed these days. How important is your connection to the audience when you perform? Do you notice a difference in this connection when you perform live as compared to when you DJ?

When DJing, I have a stronger connection to the audience, because I’m choosing songs based on what I perceive to be their reactions. When playing live, I am really involved making sure I am doing all the right things and controlling the right parameters; I hardly have time to take a look around. That can also be a good thing, as I’m less influenced by people’s reactions. I’m limited to my own compositions, so my main goal is to perform those pieces that as best as I can.

Do you notice differences in the types of crowds that will come to see a live PA as opposed to those who come out for a DJ set?

The crowds can be different, more in the US I think. In the States you’ll have more “concert” shows, and that’s where people are more open to what a live performer will do. If I’m just shoved into a DJ booth in Europe and asked to make it work somehow, and the crowd is just a party crowd, then there is no difference there. I find in those spaces a DJ set is more appropriate.

You’ve been involved with electronic music for quite a while now. Do you have any particular achievements or peak moments that really pop out from the rest?

I’ve had some really unique opportunities including doing some shows here in LA at the Disney Hall which were really special. Checking out most of the planet has been quite great as well.

Could you tell me a bit more about the shows you did at the Disney Hall? How different is performing in a proper concert hall from performing in a club?

I got to play there twice. Once opening for The Orb at an all night event, where I played a hardware set and covered a table full of synths. The other time was when I got to play my piece “The End Of It All” with a 100 piece male chorus. The piece was reinterpreted by myself as well as adding all the vocal harmonies.

What was it like performing with a choir?

It was quite an experience to be able to do that, especially in that space.

Did the acoustics kick ass?

The acoustics are really tailored for acoustic performances. It was designed for the LA Philharmonic. While they have a really high-end PA, it is not really geared towards electronic shows. However, the space below the hall, The Red Cat Theater, hosts a big variety of very cool synth shows and avant garde programs. I’ve seen tons of shows at both recently. Definitely LA’s best venue.

Can you amuse us with any anecdotes about bizzare/amusing/plain weird things that have happened to you so far during your career as an electronic musician? No need to name any names.

There’s just so much and of course nothing comes to mind immediately. It’s usually disasters that end up being a little bit funny later on, but at the time they are not amusing, unless someone just says something completely ridiculous at dinner like the Italian promoter who was repeatedly asking Arian (Leviste) and I “don’t you think my wife is beautiful?” I remember in Tokyo, a good friend from Germany was playing and asked if I could start immediately. I said “sure,” and he went off to a corner of the stage and huddled on the ground in fetal position and just stayed there, apparently a bit food poisoned. He was soon OK.

For the coming years, what are the things that keep you motivated to make new music? Do you have any projects or ideas that you’re really excited about? Are you still looking for the perfect beat?

I’m always striving for something, tweaking my technique, my mixdowns, quality of sounds, stripping things away, the list goes on and on. I’ve just completed work on a new full length. Hopefully details on that will be announced soon.

http://www.paletterecordings.com/

reBlogged from: Create Digital Music

on May 18, 2012 at 08:00 PM

Remembering 'A Born God' Among Singers: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

by Anastasia Tsioulcas

Erich Auerbach/Getty Images

A portrait of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau taken circa 1965.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau — often cited as one of the greatest and most influential singers of the 20th century — died near Starnberg, Germany this morning at age 86. His wife, soprano Julia Varady, announced his death from undisclosed causes.

Fischer-Dieskau's lyricism and sensitivity to the words he was singing made him unmatched among song interpreters. His repertoire was said to include more than 3,000 songs by composers including Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Mahler and Wolf, and he made hundreds of recordings over the course of his 50-year career. When he made his American debut in 1955 (singing Schubert's Winterreise), the New York Times cheered, "The performance left no doubt that last night's listeners were in the presence of a singing artist." In Richard Wigmore's 2007 biography Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau: The Baritone of Our Age, soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf hailed her frequent colleague as "a born god who has it all."

Reached this morning by phone, critic and author Tim Page said, "What makes Fischer-Dieskau such a significant artist, especially when it comes to lieder, is just the way he throws himself completely into the music. You have the sense that he's examined it from every possible angle and he's chosen this way to go with it. The shading and the sensitivity with which he works with words, not only their meaning but the way he caresses their phonemes, is quite remarkable."

Fischer-Dieskau was also widely respected on the opera stage, with roles that ranged from the Count in Mozart's Nozze di Figaro to the title roles of Verdi's Rigoletto and Paul Hindemith's Cardillac. After his retirement from the stage in 1992, he continued to be a vigorous presence in master classes.

The baritone was born May 28, 1925 in Berlin. By his own figuring, he tried to start singing somewhere around age 2. His mother supported his fascination by taking him to concerts even when he was barely school-aged. By the time he was a teenager, he was already becoming a force to be reckoned with.

He first sang Winterreise in public at age 17, in 1943. He was singing at the town hall of Zehlendorf, a suburb of Berlin. The performance was interrupted by an RAF bombing. In an interview he gave to The Guardian upon turning 80, the singer recalled, "The whole audience of 200 people and myself had to go into the cellar for two-and-a-half hours. Then when the raid was over we came back up and resumed."

One of his most frequent collaborators, the pianist Gerald Moore, wrote in his memoirs: "He had only sung one phrase before I knew I was in the presence of a master." (At the time, Moore was 52 years old, while Fischer-Dieskau was just half the pianist's age.) As time went on, the admiration only increased for this musician's musician: Fischer-Dieskau partnered with such pianistic legends as Sviatoslav Richter, Vladimir Horowitz, Daniel Barenboim and Alfred Brendel.

The baritone's very first recording, of Brahms' Four Serious Songs, was made in 1949. Within two years, he was giving his first concert in London and made his first recording with Gerald Moore — the first of no less than three recorded traversals of Schubert's Die Schoene Muellerin with Moore, along with other recordings of the same cycle with Alfred Brendel and other pianists.

The Second World War defined a large part of the singer's youth. Conscripted into the German army, he was captured in Italy by the Americans in 1945 and spent almost two years as a POW; while there, he gave recitals of Schubert songs. Once the Nazis were defeated, Fischer-Dieskau returned to Berlin and began singing professionally.

In a gesture suffused with symbolism, it was Fischer-Dieskau whom English composer and conductor Benjamin Britten requested to sing in the premiere of Britten's War Requiem in 1962 at the shattered and then rebuilt Coventry Cathedral. Britten's choice of wording speaks volumes about Fischer-Dieskau's immense reputation among fellow artists: "With great temerity," Britten wrote in his letter, "I am asking you whether you would sing the baritone."

reBlogged from: NPR Blogs: Deceptive Cadence

on May 18, 2012 at 07:00 PM

It's A Marvel-ous Wagner Production

by Pablo Helguera

Pablo Helguera

ea for a classical cartoon, or a reaction to this one? Leave your thoughts in the comments section.

Pablo Helguera is a New York-based artist working with sculpture, drawing, photography and performance. You can see more of his work at Artworld Salon and on his own site.

reBlogged from: NPR Blogs: Deceptive Cadence

on May 18, 2012 at 07:00 PM

Beckett listens to Fischer-Dieskau

"A. Avigdor Arikha put on Hans Hotter singing Der Leiermann, S. preferred Fischer-Dieskau, 'at the end there's a real cry, he cries out.' We put on Fischer-Dieskau to compare. At the end, the cry, a shudder. S. looked at me,...

reBlogged from: Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise

Bach: Cappriccio in E-Major BWV 993 (Richard Egarr, harpsichord)

	Bach: Cappriccio in E-Major BWV 993 (Richard Egarr, harpsichord) Painting: detail from Chardin's "La rale."	From: p0lyph0nyXX Views: 5 0 ratings
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Manuel Zurria: loops4ever

Manuel Zurria

loops4ever

music for flute and electronics

Mazangran

Casaciescelsi – Giancinto Scelsi

Portrait – Pauline Oliveros

Almost New York – Alvin Lucier

Madonna and Child – Alvin Curran

The Carnival – John Duncan

The Garden of Love – Jacob TV

I Will Not Be Sad In This World – Eve Beglarian

Lipstick – Jacob TV

…Until… – Clarence Barlow

A Movement in Chrome Primitive – William Basinski

Last Judgement – Frederic Rzewski

Dorian Reeds – Terry Riley

There is nothing typical about this 2 disc set. I would submit that when most flutists are putting together a recording project of music for flute and electronics, they would tend to shy away from the majority of the works that Manuel Zurria has so expertly collected and performed. Not only that, Zurria ups the ante by leading off with his own Scelsi-hommage. Casadiscelsi is really a combination of Scelsi’s bass flute work Maknongan and flute work Pwyll with sounds that Zurria himself recorded from Sclesi’s house in Rome. It sets the stage for this whole first disc which is one of luminesce and slow-moving atmospheres. The virtuosity of performance is not one of a million notes per second but one of tone, mood, and environment. Zurria nails it every single time and loops4ever is consistently captivating. In Portrait by Oliveros, Zurria is almost invisible, with the voice taking center stage, yet he could not be removed. Few flutists are brave enough to feature a work like Lucier’s Almost New York for flute and three oscillators, giving up 25 minutes of precious CD space so they can play long tones, but Zurria anchors the first disc around this particular work to great affect. After the Scelsi and the Oliveros, the Lucier is exactly what we want to hear, played in precisely the way we want to hear it.

Curran’s Madonna and Child is a relief from the stasis which culminated in the Lucier but still the work floats in a somewhat restless and rocking manner. Zurria’s bass flute tone is sumptuous and once layered upon itself, the lullaby nature of the piece is exponentially amplified. I couldn’t believe my ears with the last work on the disc, The Carnival by John Duncan. A single sustained piccolo pitch (and not the most comfortable one, I should add) is held, Lucier-style, for 17 minutes. There are gradual spectral and timbral changes through the electronics but for the most part, it is a monolith of piercing brightness. Imagine a piccolo arrangement of Lucier’s Silver Streetcar. I don’t mean any of this is a bad way, although some folks will be quick to skip this track. The Carnival is an amazing listen, the perfect tonic/alarm clock to the slumber found in the Curran.

Disc two contains works that are more expected of a “flute and electronics” recording. Zurria has packed in more peppy and traditionally-technical works with the same quality of performance found in disc one. Jacob TV’s works are rhythmic and cool, quirky and spiky with the electronic component coming almost exclusively from voice editing while the flute zips out perky punctuations. I Will Not Be Sad in this World by Eve Begrarian is the perfect palate cleanser, silky smooth and tender with subdued sustained vocal manipulations.

Clarence Barlow’s work for piccolo and drone finds the middle ground between Lucier’s work and Berio’s oboe Sequenza. Barlow’s repetitive melodic fragment changes subtly enough to keep me engaged while the drone does what drones do. It was also refreshing to hear a drone in the middle of the flute’s line as opposed to underneath. Once again, Zurria highlights his programming prowess by contrasting the bright sounds of the Barlow with the murky and luxurious sounds of Basinski’s A Movement in Chrome Primitive for bass flute, temple bells, and delays. Rzewski’s Last Judgement uses the bass flute as well but in a more strained and tense register, focusing more on propulsive energy than letting the listener wallow in sound. Either way, Zurria sounds great. Dorian Reeds, originally for soprano sax, gets the final word on the second disc. The overall take on this track uses more reverb than I expected, leaving the different delayed lines a grayish wash instead of dense contrapuntal lines.

The notes for the disc consist mainly of the short interviews that Zurria did with each composer and they make for a compelling read. I find the music and the performances speak for themselves, though. This is a terrific disc full of great repertoire and expertly performed.

reBlogged from: CD Reviews

Erich Auerbach/Getty Images

Remembering "A Born God" Among Singers: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

by Anastasia Tsioulcas

A portrait of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau taken circa 1965.

reBlogged from: NPR Blogs: Deceptive Cadence

Re Orso - Réptétion Générale du 16 mai 2012 à l'Opéra comique

	Re Orso - Réptétion Générale du 16 mai 2012 à l'Opéra comique Re Orso Favola per musica Commande Opéra-Comique,Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Ircam-Centre Pompidou, Ensemble intercontemporain, Françoise et Jean-Philippe Billarant Création Marco STROPPA, musique Livret d'après Arrigo Boito Catherine Ailloud-Nicolas et Giordano Ferrari, adaptation du livret Richard Brunel, mise en scène Bruno de Lavenère, décors et costumes Laurent Castaingt, lumières Thierry Thieû Niang, collaborateur aux mouvements Gilles Rico, assistant mise en scène Rodrigo Ferreira, Re Orso Monica Bacelli, Ver Marisol Montalvo, Oliba, une courtisane Alexander Kravets, le Trouvère, un courtisan Geoffrey Carey, Papiol Piera Formenti, Daniel Carraz, Cyril Anrep, courtisans Ensemble intercontemporain Susanna Mälkki, direction Carlo Laurenzi, réalisation informatique musicale Ircam Arshia Cont, conseiller scientifique Ircam Production Opéra-Comique Coproduction Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Ircam-Centre pompidou, Ensemble intercontemporain Représentations le 19, 21 et 22 mai 2012 à l'Opéra comique-Paris	From: ensembleinter Views: 1 0 ratings
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reBlogged from: Uploads by ensembleinter

Buglers, Veterans And The Lonely Yet Comforting Sound Of Taps

For Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

A monumental, vastly influential figure is gone. I can't help feeling shock at the news — a world without Fischer-Dieskau seems foreign and unnerving. As it happens, I had been listening to his recordings constantly in recent days, as I worked on a column on Christian Gerhaher and Florian Boesch, two of his most distinguished younger successors. I will say more in The New Yorker a week from Monday.

reBlogged from: Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise

on May 18, 2012 at 03:00 PM

Matthew Herbert’s One Pig, On Tour, and the Making of a Sty Harp

Composing the sounds of an animal’s life cycle and ultimate consumption into a musical portrait, Matthew Herbert’s “One Pig” is in turns grotesque and sentimental, rock and opera. I expected squeamishness and vegetarian conversions when I saw it on tour, but instead, the crowd eagerly devoured the creature at the end. (Make of that what you will.)

One Pig is in Manchester, UK tonight before continuing to Brighton and Portugal.

As my own incurable appetite is for musical instruments, for me a highlight of the show is Scotland-based, American artist Yann Seznec’s Sty Harp. (See also our coverage of his iPad music game development work.) Gut strings in historical instruments already make use of animal parts, so a stringed instruments seems appropriate. But by dissecting obsolete, forgotten technology – a bit of a theme in these parts lately – Yann is able to make an effective, expressive instrument.

Sadly, there’s not much video of the instrument in action, but seeing it is a highlight of the live show. Yann’s performance has its own theatricality, rocking out on these extended strings around the “pig pen” like a boxer swinging against the ropes of a ring. First, Yann shares some notes on the show itself:

The album is an elegy to a life lived for the benefit of humans and raises complex questions about our relationship to these often-maligned and misunderstood creatures.

The album is made entirely out of sounds from the pig and its surroundings – the first squeals, the sound of it being alone for the first time, and the dripping of its blood after being butchered. The result is a delicate, beautiful, and occasionally terrifying musical composition with a profundity rarely heard in electronic music.

The live show debuted at the Royal Opera House, London, in September 2011 and has since toured the world, performing at Berghain Berlin, STRP Eindhoven, Club Silencio Paris, Liquid Room Tokyo, Ancienne Belgique Brussels, and more. Future dates include headlining at Future Everything in Manchester, the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, Palais de Tokyo in Paris.

The show explores and questions the life, death, and consumption of the pig. A chef cooking onstage brings the sound and smell of cooking pig, and the performance features a brand new custom instrument – the “Sty Harp”, built and performed by Edinburgh-based artist Yann Seznec. This representation of the pig’s home is used to trigger and control elements of music, forming an integral part of the 5 piece band. The rest of the band is comprised of Sam Beste on keyboards, Tom Skinner on SPDS, Hugh Jones on samplers, and Matthew on various keyboards and samples and things.

Yann explains how the instrument itself is constructed:

Above: As “One Pig” dissects the life and being of a pig, here, we see inside the mechanical innards of the Sty Harp. Photos courtesy Yann Seznec.

In terms of the Sty Harp, the instrument is built using hacked Gametraks, which were a failed proto-motion controller from around 2003. They were sold only in the UK, and worked by using two joysticks with strings attached that you clipped onto your hands. These could then sense the distance and vague location of your hands …a few terrible games were released on PS2, Xbox, and PC for the Gametrak before they were pulled from the market.

In any case, I took apart a whole load of these (I probably have owned more gametraks than anyone in the world, ever) and used their innards for the string/joystick controllers, which are totally great! I built a whole system with Jon (from Lucky Frame) to hook up twelve of these controllers into my computer at once. I’m using an Arduino with a mux shield to handle the 36 analog inputs (x/y/string for 12 controllers) at once, converting them into MIDI and sending them over to Ableton.

In Ableton the controllers are doing a number of different things, slightly different for each song. In the Max patch I made I can send out 5 individual MIDI notes from each string, one for general movement above a threshold, and one each for a push, pull, up, or down movement. These movements are also sending out CC values, as is the pulling of the string. So each string controller is sending a whole pile of MIDI data at all times, and I pick and choose for each song which gestures to use. So in some cases I’m just triggering individual sounds using the strings, but in others I am using some strings to trigger clips, others to control effects on those clips, and still other effects to do master play/stop/effects/etc.

The climax of the Sty Harp happens about 2/3rds of the way through the show, when the whole band joins me in the sty for the symbolic butchering of the pig. For that song each band member controls different strings, building a huge sound wall.

You can read more about my building of the sty harp here: http://theamazingrolo.net/styharp/

We’re playing in Manchester on Friday the 18th, Brighton on Monday the 21st, then in Lisbon on June 29th and Porto on June 30th.

http://www.matthewherbert.com/

Matthew Herbert – One Pig: exclusive album stream The Guardian

reBlogged from: Create Digital Music

on May 18, 2012 at 02:00 PM

Erdem Helvacioğlu, Eleven Short Stories

Let’s play a word association game. If I say, “prepared piano,” many of you might think “John Cage.” Yes, John Cage was a pioneer for prepared piano, and yes, Sonatas and Interludes becomes an almost inevitable comparison when discussing any prepared piano composition, but I only mention Cage because I don’t want you to think about him. (I realize, of course, that’s like saying, “Don’t think of a honey badger.”)

The problem with comparing Eleven Short Stories to Cage is that while the basic instrument is the same(ish), the end results are anything but. If you listen to this album with Cage as your expectation, you will be confused at best and incorrectly disappointed at worst. Cage’s prepared piano is exotic, percussive, and somewhat esoteric. It is high art in the best sense. Erdem Helvacioğlu’s prepared piano is electronic, quasi-minimalistic, and highly accessible. This is more a pop album, also in the best sense.

Erdem Helvacıoğlu

Eleven Short Stories is inspired by the works of film directors Kim Ki-Duk, David Lynch, Krzysztof Kieslowsi, Theodoros Angelopoulos, Jane Campion, Anthony Minghella, Ang Lee, Atom Egoyan, Darren Aronofsky, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Steven Soderbergh. As to which director is paired with each piece, that is deliberately left unstated. Each is given a title suggesting a scene, such as “Jittery Chase” and “Shrine in Ruins,” and since each track is more about its title than anything else, Helvacioğlu seems wise to avoid any specific associations.

As a whole, it is abundantly clear that Helvacıoğlu has a remarkable ear, and he makes it easy to forget that all these sounds are generated from a piano. Every sound, every nuance serves the music, and nothing ever feels forced or hollow; his background in electroacoustic music most likely contributed to these highly successful preparations. The means of recording are also an important part of this album. Helvacioğlu used five microphones, two extremely close to the strings with the other three serving to capture broader perspectives. He also isn’t afraid to use multi-track recording to get all the sounds he needs, which brings me back to this being a pop album.

The influence of popular music is evident in several tracks, even to the extent that there seems to be a backbeat and claps on occasion.¹ More than that, though, is that this CD feels like a pop album. Most ‘classical’ CDs are about taking music that was originally meant to be heard live and attempting to archive it. They are recordings, if you will. In this case, the music seems to be written for the CD, and would be rather difficult to reproduce live—each piece has a unique preparation and the multi-track recording would require that some sounds be played over speakers in a live setting. The tracks are also relatively short (4:21 on average), adding to the pop feel. This isn’t a recording. It’s an album, and a very good album, at that.²

Helvacioğlu does a wonderful job evoking each of these eleven scenes. Two standouts for me were Blood Drops by the Pool and Six Clocks in a Dim Room. The former is decidedly the most experimental on the CD, but also one of the most evocative. The scraping sounds would be perfectly at home in any thriller, and the gradual accretion of the “blood drops,” which crescendo into chaos in the middle of the track is just fantastic. Were I alone in a dark alley in a strange city, this is not the music I’d want to hear. Safe at home, I love it. Six Clocks on the other hand has an entirely different feel. There is a driving beat that fades in and out, which might be heard as either rhythm guitar or bass, and a simple melody produced by plucked strings hangs over this foundation as other ambient sounds fill out the track.

There is a fair amount of variety across the CD, both in sounds and styles, and I imagine that nearly everyone will have their own favorite tracks. Still, there remains a cohesiveness to this album that works extremely well, thanks in large part to the single underlying source of sound production. I was not familiar with Erdem Helvacioğlu before this CD, but I am now anxious to hear what else his discography has to offer. Eleven Short Stories is an excellent CD, and I would highly recommend it.

Just don’t think about Cage.

Erdem Helvacioğlu. Eleven Short Stories (Innova Recordings, #245) March 2012 – Buy it on Amazon

¹Every time I hear claps in a song, I inevitably think of this. I just couldn’t think of any possible way to mention this in the review without, well, utterly confusing most people who clicked the link while simultaneously tarnishing my reputation as an academic. Enjoy.

²There are two CDs that spring immediately two my mind that share the same album “feel,” both of which are on heavy rotation at home: Leah Kardos’ Feather Hammer, and Jean-Philippe Goude’s Aux Solitudes. I would highly recommend both.

reBlogged from: I care if you listen(.com)

on May 18, 2012 at 12:00 PM

150 Years Of 'Taps'

by NPR Staff

Audio for this story from Morning Edition will be available at approx. 9:00 a.m. ET

May 18, 2012

Transcript

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Logan Mock-Bunting/Getty Images

A lone bugler stands at attention in the rain at Wilmington National Cemetery in North Carolina, in 2009.

rday, 200 buglers will assemble at Arlington National Cemetery to begin playing "Taps," a call written 150 years ago this year.

Retired Air Force Master Sgt. Jari Villanueva, a bugle player, says he started out as a Boy Scout bugler at about age 12. He went on to study trumpet at the Peabody Conservatory before being accepted into the United States Air Force Band — where one of his duties over the next 23 years was to sound that call at Arlington National Cemetery.

Villanueva says "Taps" has taken him on a wonderful journey. "During the Civil War," he says, "in late June and July of 1862, the Union Army is camped all along the James River, and especially at a place called Harrison's Landing. Within that big army is a brigade commanded by Gen. Daniel Butterfield. Butterfield doesn't like the regulation call for 'lights out' — that call, like most calls in the Army manual at that time, was derived from the French.

"So Butterfield calls his brigade bugler," continues Villanueva, "a 22-year-old private by the name of Oliver Wilcox Norton. Butterfield gives him music to a new call, and asks him to play it that night. The next morning, Norton is approached by different buglers from other brigades who asked, 'What was that you played last night?' He then furnishes copies of the music to the other buglers, and pretty soon everyone is now sounding this new call" — the 24 notes of "Taps."

It might seem amazing that parts of the Confederate army also picked up "Taps." However, Villanueva points out, "both armies shared the same manuals, so bugle calls on both sides were the same. The Confederates were close enough to the Union camps that they probably heard 'Taps' being sounded, and pretty soon they were using it."

In today's military, "Taps" is used in two ways: the first, as the regulation call for extinguished lights at the end of the day; the second and certainly more important is its use at military funerals, wreath-laying ceremonies and memorial services. At Arlington National Cemetery, "Taps" is heard about 30 times every day.

Playing "Taps," Villanueva says, is "an awesome responsibility. It is the one piece of music that the people coming to Arlington would hear and that they would go away with. I was striving to make it as perfect as possible."

When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the Army Band's principal bugler, Keith Clark, knew that he might be called soon to perform this duty. "When he heard the news," Villanueva says, "the first thing he thought of was to go get a haircut, because he thought he might be the bugler called to sound 'Taps.' He got the call, went into his spot and stood for about three hours in the cold, waiting for the procession to arrive."

Finally, without much of a chance to warm up, Clark sounded the call — and cracked on the sixth note. "People would talk about that, about how he perhaps had missed it on purpose as a tribute — the nation sobbing for their lost president," Villanueva says, "and Clark remarked that for weeks afterward in the Arlington cemetery, buglers kept missing the same note. It must have been a psychological thing."

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reBlogged from: NPR Blogs: Deceptive Cadence

on May 18, 2012 at 10:00 AM

Notation: Augmented and Interactive

Since I spend a good part of my life notating music and I often use computers to do it, I pay some attention to developments in the computer notation world. It's a very good thing that the tools available for notation are far from limited to Sins and Fibs. (BTW: If you happen to teach music theory in an institution which presently requires the purchase of Finale or Sibelius*, why not do your cash-strapped and loan-burdened students a favor and encourage them to use an open source program like Musescore? It's free and open source, can do everything that would be required in a university-level theory sequence or orchestration class, and it's constantly getting better.)

The latest item to come across my desktop is INScore, an augmented and interactive program. "Augmented" means it allows all sorts of objects — among them score notation, graphics, text, signals or triggers or sensors of various sorts — to share space (and music-notational space-time) on page or screen and "interactive" means that it can be used in real time to generate and respond to objects and events and scores can even be designed in real time. The utility of a program like this — for live animated scores for players, triggering electronics, re-arrangeable in realtime — is obvious. It looks to me to be in an early but very much usable stage of development and is multi-platform and open source. If anyone reading this gives INScore a spin, please let me know what you think of it.
_____
* AFAIC the one thing worse than a music school or department requiring student to purchase a particular notation program — however good they may be (I use Finale and Sibelius myself, with a half dozen other notation programs as well) and however convenient it may be for classroom management — is giving credit courses for learning to operate one of these programs.

reBlogged from: Renewable Music

on May 18, 2012 at 12:00 AM

Peter Mennin / Richard Yardumian-Split Release (1971)

Today is the birthday of Peter Mennin, who died 29 years ago- in 1983, at 60 years of age.Notes excerpted from the back cover (enclosed):Born in Erie Pennsylvania, May 17, 1923, Mennin attended the Oberlin Conservatory briefly before serving in the Air Force, later resuming his studies at Eastman School of Music. In 1947 he joined the composition department at the

reBlogged from: A Closet of Curiosities

on May 18, 2012 at 12:00 AM

Visual Music: My God, It’s Full of Dots – Yayoi Kusama Meets Musical Design

Tenori-On and iPad apps, hardware designs and visual creations: set against the beautifully-generative mind of Japanese/New York artist Yayoi Kusama, the flurries of dots and circles and patterns in musical interfaces take on a richer meaning. This video, from a workshop hosted at the Tate Modern alongside an exhibition of Kusama’s work, needs little introduction. Instead, the dizzying cuts of geometric abstraction, the array of visual ideas for musical interface begin to take on the same personality of her expansive creations. The galaxies produced out of the minds of musicians somehow overlap with this iconic artist. I hadn’t really made the connection before, even as a fan of her work, but with this workshop, the sympathetic vibrations – intentional or not – become clear. Description:

Sonic Kusama:

Workshop exploring connections between the work of Yayoi Kusama and creation and representation of new music & sound art through visual audio interfaces.

Presented by Simon Little and Kelvin Brown with Chase Lane.

Audio track by Capstone Music

Video production by Territory Studio

If you’re in London, Infinite Kusama is on view now at the Tate Modern.

reBlogged from: Create Digital Music

on May 18, 2012 at 12:00 AM

May 17, 2012

Bruckner al fresco

That is the view of the Pic du Canigou, the Catalan holy mountain, seen this morning from where we are staying at Le Racou in Languedoc. At the foot of Canigou is Prades where Pablo Casals lived in exile from the Spanish fascists, and in previous years I have followed the path of the refugees who fled from Spain only to be interned in French concentration camps in the last months of the Spanish Civil War. But such is humanity's propensity to do evil to its fellows that just a few years later the flow of refugees was reversed as Jews and other 'undesirables' fled from the fascist powers in Germany and Vichy France into Spain. Their number included Alma Mahler and her third husband the Jewish Austrian-Bohemian author Franz Werfel. Rendered stateless by the Nazis and without exit visas, Werfel and his wife were forced to cross the French/Spanish border by climbing high into the Aspres range, which is an extension of the Pyrénées, to avoid French gardes mobiles who were stooges of the Gestapo. Among the Werfel's baggage were Mahler manuscripts and the autograph score of Bruckner's Third Symphony, which Alma had kept out of the hands of another passionate Brucknerian, Adolf Hitler. This year our travels have been informed by that little-known east to west flow of refugees which was facilitated by the enigmatic American journalist Varian Fry and included a number of prominent intellectuals. The photo below was taken by my wife as we literally followed the path of the Werfels and the Bruckner manuscript over the mountains to safety in Spain. More to follow on this story, meanwhile there is a lighter take on Alma Mahler here.

Also on Facebook and Twitter. Photos are (c) On An Overgrown Path 2012. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

reBlogged from: On An Overgrown Path

on May 17, 2012 at 09:00 PM

Can You Beat Out The 'Rite' Rhythm?

by Anastasia Tsioulcas

"creditwrap">London Symphony Orchestra/YouTube

Over the past few weeks, supporters of the London Symphony Orchestra (and a mysterious gent in the back of a car) have been busy teaching Londoners one of the trickiest and most compelling rhythms in all music: the famously jerky 32 beats in Stravinsky's Rite of Spring that usher in the wild "Augurs of Spring."

Once this syncopation is in your head and body, it's there for good — particularly if you go in without expectations of where the beats "should" fall. (And as for unraveling Stravinsky's incredible tonalities in this section, that's another matter.)

In any case, don't worry if you don't get it on the first go-around. You've got a whole year until the 100th anniversary of the Rite's premiere.

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reBlogged from: NPR Blogs: Deceptive Cadence

on May 17, 2012 at 09:00 PM

Talking up, not down: London Sinfonietta’s new Blue Touch Paper series

I was lucky to have been invited last night to attend a preview of the London Sinfonietta’s three latest projects in their Blue Touch Paper scheme. The main part of the evening involved work-in-progress previews of around 20 minutes for each … Continue reading →

reBlogged from: The Rambler

on May 17, 2012 at 05:00 PM

The Sinking of the Titanic: Gavin Bryars Ensemble @ Barbican

Just over one hundred years since the sinking of the Titanic. The tragedy was immortalized with emotional intensity and delicate musical sensitivity in The Sinking of the Titanic, written by British composer Gavin Bryars, and performed by him and his Ensemble at the Barbican on April 15. Bryars is recognised as a diverse musician and composer, his roots as a jazz bassist never far from the surface of this Titanic work. The Sinking of the Titanic (1969) was originally released on Brian Eno’s Obscure label in 1975 and is the composer’s first major work. Along with Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet (1971), this work sold over a quarter of a million copies when re-released in more recent performances. The Gavin Bryars Ensemble was founded in 1981 and continues to perform across the world.

Gaving Bryars and his ensemble performing "The Sinking of the Titanic" at Barbican Centre - Photo http://www.gavinbryars.com

According to some reports of the tragedy, the ship’s string ensemble kept on playing the hymn tune Autumn as the ship sank on April 14, 1912. This was the inspiration for the piece and, as a result, a string quartet forms the core of the ensemble. Fragments of the hymn tune can be heard throughout this work which lasts just over an hour. Philip Jeck’s turntabling added an additional layer of sonic material to the live music, creating sounds that never gratuitously attempted to recreate the sounds of the Titanic yet always suggesting an air of nostalgia. Two large mirrored screens played visuals prepared by Bill Morrison and Laurie Olinder (the images showed footage of the Titanic.) The music was never overstated, and the looped hymn tune became something of a meditation on the disaster rather than an attempt to recreate the experience through the visuals and music, which were always in synergy.

Gaving Bryars and his ensemble performing "The Sinking of the Titanic" at Barbican Centre - Photo http://www.gavinbryars.com

The slow opening accompanying footage of the Titanic about to embark on its journey was coloured by Jeck’s turntabling, rich in crackling sounds that were further coloured by percussion that sought to capture the creaking of the ship commencing its journey. The first time we heard the hymn tune performed by the quartet, we were confronted by the faces of the passengers: a poignant moment. The music always had the hymn tune at its core yet the material that encased it flowed like water, Jeck’s material adding something rather real to the experience: voices and sounds reminiscent of what one would imagine could be heard on the ship. Even with the ebb and flow of the material it remained something quite static, not in a disconcerting way, but rather in a moving meditative way. The silent close to this work was nothing but fitting. This was something beyond a concert but it represented a powerful and moving tribute to the disaster.

–

Steven Berryman is a composer and teacher working and living in London. Follow him on Twitter: @Steven_Berryman

reBlogged from: I care if you listen(.com)

on May 17, 2012 at 05:00 PM

Music as World Building (1)

In adding Les Troyens to my landmarks list, I forgot to note one other attraction of the opera, which is Berlioz's musical world building. World building is usually thought-of as an element of fiction — fantasy and science fiction in particular, whether in literature, films, tv, or games — , through which just enough structure and details are presented as to make vivid the suggestion that the location of the fiction is within a larger and plausible (at least within the terms of its own logic) world

Les Troyens is set in Troy and Carthage and is peopled by Trojans in the first two acts (Greeks are only a background presence) and refugee Trojans and Carthaginians populate acts three through five. The historical status of Troy is, well, complicated, but the myth is vivid, in both Homer and Vergil while the historical Carthage (near modern Tunis) is much more established, but it is also the myth here, of a thriving city established in only seven years by exiles from Phoenician Tyre, that is at work. A substantial part of Berlioz's project in Les Troyens was to project the two city-states through distinctive music and while we are now perfectly clear that his was not a reconstructive project and he was composing for western orchestra within a range the limits of which we now readily recognize (compare the range of instruments and scales/tunings Lou Harrison used to contrast Rome with Bythinia in the original version of Young Caesar), the composer audibly pushed those limits to suggest these two states as contrasting cultures, if only in the anthems and marches he devised, with the Trojans in particular marked by major-minor contrast, unconventional functional harmony and by reminiscences of French Revolutionary music, repertoire that presumably continued to carry a marker for otherness.

There is some prehistory to this in that the ancient and exotic was a frequent and early theme in opera, but it took some time before the ancient and/or exotic actually was distinguished musically. Rameau's Les Indes galantes, presented four tableau representing non-European cultures, but these were supposed to be contemporary, fictional stories within real worlds, and the music was not strongly distinguished (if at all) from Rameau's usual style. The tradition of imitating Ottoman military music is more familiar, particularly in Viennese classicism, and even when a composer's contact with actual Janissary music was relatively close (think of the Austro-Turkish War of 1787) this is again in the context of fictions told about real cultures. Haydn's Il mondo della luna arguably attempts some fictional world (well, okay, satellite) building in the form of the faked moon landing, which is distinguished largely by reserving the key of Eb for the pseudo-lunar scenes.

A useful case for the potential advantages of world building as a compositional project may be found by considering Roger Session's opera Montezuma as a counter-example. Sessions made no attempt to synthesize distinctive musical styles for the two clashing cultures portrayed and I suspect that this lack of characterization contributed to the opera's failure.

reBlogged from: Renewable Music

on May 17, 2012 at 03:00 PM

Marketing Plan Tactics For Independent Musicians - Part 1 of 3: New Album Preparations

Chris Hacker here, I create Marketing Plans for artists at Cyber PR® and really enjoy working with my many clients. I’ve noticed a huge problem though. Artists call the Cyber PR® offices all the time looking for us to promote their new album, totally fine of course, but the problem lies in that many of these artists call us when their albums are coming out the next week!! It completely baffles me that an artist or band will work so hard on an album, spending hours and hours writing songs and practicing these songs and then spending large sums of money recording, mixing and mastering, to only rush the release with no plan in place! Not planning enough lead time for a press campaign isn’t the only issue, but many people we talk to try to release their album when some of the basic music promotion elements aren’t even in place, for example a website where you can sell the music!

In a three part series I will discuss some basic components of a marketing plan to help properly market you and a new release. This first blog post in the series can eloquently be called the “getting your sh*t together” phase. Here I’ve laid out 5 areas that need to be addressed before any official announcements should be made about a new album coming out.

1. Digital Distribution

Figure out how you’re going to digitally distribute the album, and a physical CD only release or selling the CD and mp3’s strictly on your website is not the way to go. You need to make your music available everywhere digital music can be streamed and bought, such as on iTunes and Spotify, and the best way to do that is work with a digital distribution company like CD Baby or Tunecore. With that said, I talk to people all the time who then take this one step too far and sign up with multiple distribution companies because they think they are covering all their bases this way. Which they are not. All that does is put multiple copies of the same album on iTunes and the like, which looks silly and can cause unnecessary confusion. And if you plan on working with a PR company to promote the release don’t set the release date until AFTER you have talked with them first.

2. Online presence

Make sure your online presence is complete, effective and contains all the necessary promotional tools. There are lots of places online that artists can have a presence, here I talk about three of the most important sites: Official Website, Facebook and YouTube.

Official Website - Your website should have a place where people can easily listen to and buy your music (but not a player that plays automatically when a person enters the site, can’t stress that enough), a homepage that has a news section where people can read the latest happenings with your career, and a newsletter sign up form, one that offers an incentive for signing up such as free music or discounts on merch. Plus it always surprises when I go to an artist website and can’t find any contact information or links to their social media networks.

Facebook - Just as important as your website is your Facebook Fan Page. On the new timeline there are three tabs that are on display; one tab should be a band profile that at a minimum contains a music player, tour dates and press quotes. Next is a newsletter sign up form, and again, this should offer an incentive for signing up. And the last visible tab should be a Store.

YouTube - Another important piece of your online presence is YouTube. I’m always curious how people listen and discover new music and time and time again the response I hear back is YouTube. It’s critical to have videos up on YouTube for every song of the new release by the release date or soon after. Not saying these have to be well produced music videos, but just the songs themselves. To do this some artists just put up an image of their cover and leave it at that, but people are much more inclined to listen to your music if there are scrolling lyrics they can read as they listen or if there is a slideshow to watch. Taking free archival footage and editing together to make a music video is another relatively easy and inexpensive way to create a video for your songs, and can be a lot of fun too.

3. Newsletter

This is real simple. Have one. And contact your mailing list once a month with news. Don’t cut corners on this either, a newsletter is where you’ll see the greatest impact on sales. All the tweets and facebook posts about a new album out for sale won’t equal the results of a well crafted newsletter, so spend money on a mailing list service provider that can help you design a rich looking email and provide analytics and tracking capabilities so you can measure the effectiveness of your newsletters and make adjustments where need be.

4. Touring

Ideally you’ll have a tour booked immediately following the release, which greatly helps a PR campaign. A local blog or local newspaper will be much more inclined to cover a new album for an artist if a show is booked in town. And not saying this has to be a month long tour, just a few regional dates will help with your press efforts. Now timing can be tricky here, just like setting a release date too soon, you don’t want to book a tour and then not have the album ready or press plan in place. So wait until you have a better idea of what that will look like and then start booking a tour, and if the tour doesn’t happen until a month or so after the release that is quite alright.

5. Merchandise

Pretty much everything in regards to your music career takes longer than expected, from making the album to creating the artwork to booking shows, and this definitely applies to any merchandise you want to have available to sell with the new album. And merch isn’t limited to T-Shirts and tote bags, handmade items can make for great unique offerings. Here’s a tip, at your merch booth bundle your music with these items cheaply and easily through download stickers from MerchMusic.com, where 120 codes will cost you just $10. Even though people aren’t buying CDs much anymore, they are still interested in supporting artists they love so give them lots of different ways to support you and purchase your music instead of just having a CD and leaving it at that.

So remember, plan early so you can have these items when you’re ready to release a new album, which I will be getting in to in more detail in the next blog post where I will discuss some basic principles for an effective pre-sale and album launch.

To find out more about the marketing plans I create for artists please visit our page here.

reBlogged from: Music Think Tank (primary) RSS

on May 17, 2012 at 12:00 PM

Spektral Quartet’s Theatre of War (preview)

May 23-24, 2012: Spektral Quartet and High Concept Laboratories Present Theatre of War

by Arlene and Larry Dunn

On Wednesday, May 23 in Chicago, the Spektral Quartet and High Concept Laboratories will present Theatre of War, an artistic investigation into the disconnects between the experiences of those most directly affected by our wars and the experience of the public at large. The event comes at a salient moment, immediately following the NATO summit meeting in Chicago. Theatre of War will be held at the Chopin Theatre and will be repeated on Thursday, May 24. All ticket proceeds are being donated to the Vet Art Project (www.vetartproject.com)

In every era there are artists who are able to use their work as a prism through which the public can examine troubling facts that might otherwise be hiding in plain sight. Examples abound, as diverse as Picasso’s antiwar masterpiece Guernica and Nina Simone’s civil rights broadside Mississippi Goddam. With our personal history in the struggles for civil rights and against the War in Vietnam, we consider this an important role of art. We have been troubled by the lack of public discourse and artistic light shone on a decade of US war-making.

We applaud the Spektral Quartet and their collaborators for embracing this artistic tradition with Theatre of War. The multimedia production will employ music, film, literature, and theater to examine the consequences of our nation being at war. With our modern all-volunteer military, few Americans are directly involved in our war efforts. We as a society hold those who serve in high regard. But we tend to do so with an empty reverence. We worship them as heroes without really understanding what we ask them to do in our names, nor comprehending the physical and psychic toll they pay in doing it. These are the disconcerting realities Theatre of War will confront.

The musical components of Theatre of War will be “Stress Position” by Chicago composer Drew Baker and George Crumb’s “Black Angels.” Guest pianist Lisa Kaplan of eighth blackbird will perform “Stress Position,” a staged piece for solo amplified piano. The pianist is subjected to a kind of torture, stretched to the limits to play constantly at the two extremes of the keyboard. As the volume increases and the lights go out, the audience is engulfed in the experience. The Spektral Quartet will play “Black Angels,” written by Crumb at the height of the Vietnam War turmoil. It is scored for electrified string quartet and the players are also required to vocalize, play percussion, and bow water-filled crystal glasses, creating eerie, otherworldly effects.

Richard Mosse, a filmmaker and photographer who has been embedded with US military units in Iraq and Afghanistan, will provide the video portion of the program. His short films “Theatre of War,” “Gaza Pastoral,” and “Killcam” expose elements of our military efforts of which the everyday public are typically unaware.

The literary and theatrical segments of Theatre of War will come from Nobel laureate Wislawa Szymborska and Chicago writer Virginia Konchan. Szymborska’s poems “Hatred” and “The End and the Beginning” assay the fundamental nature of human conflict and reconciliation. Konchan’s short story “Blackbird,” adapted for the stage by Molly Feingold of High Concept Laboratories, probes the scars of war borne by a returning soldier and his frustrated search for healing.

In presenting Theatre of War in the wake of the NATO Summit, we hope the Spektral Quartet and their artistic partners will spark a personal-level examination of our ongoing global military operations. Following the program, the audience will be encouraged to share their reactions in discussion with the artists and with each other.

Chicago-based Spektral Quartet was formed in 2010 with a commitment to play a wide-ranging repertory in traditional and genre-breaking venues. The members are Aurelien Fort Pederzoli (violin), J. Austin Wulliman (violin), Doyle Armbrust (viola), and Russell Rolen (cello). High Concept Laboratories, led by Co-artistic Directors Molly Feingold and Kevin Simmons, collaborates with Chicago-area artists and performers to foster the creation and development of new works.

Theatre of War

Chopin Theatre

1543 W Division

Chicago, IL 60642

Wednesday, May 23, 2012 at 7:30 PM

Thursday, May 24, 2012 at 7:30 PM

General Admission: $30.00

Student Admission: $20.00

Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/242801

Arlene and Larry Dunn are avid fans of a wide range of contemporary arts and music endeavors as well as life-long social activists. They are frequent contributors of “audience perspective” blog postings for digitICE, the blog of the new music juggernaut International Contemporary Ensemble. They live in rural LaPorte County, Indiana.

reBlogged from: Sequenza21/

on May 17, 2012 at 07:00 AM

Radiophonic Madrid (MP3)

Not all is grey static in the sound world of the excellent broadcast/podcast series Radius, out of Chicago. As always, it takes the phenomenon, the practice, of radio as its subject, but not every Radius participant tunes to the near-dead space between stations. The entry by Desh & Ekis, “Xprmtal Short Wave Radio B-Side (Radius Edit),” is a mix of serrated, burnished, but still quite audible and intelligible signals, from spoken bits to ceremonial drumming. The duo, who are based in Madrid, Spain, are willfully less easily scannable in their project description:

Site: Argantek Industrial State, AIII Motorway, km 23, MAD ESP.

A landscape of scrapheap hills, rusty heavy-duty machinery, abandoned building sites sheltering engine cults’ followers. A constant metallic buzzing interferes with encoded technical transmissions and radio spectrum “white spaces” while, high above, floats a chaos of frequencies.

Two short wave radio broadcasters establish contact through these airwaves, their dialogue sent back to the listeners of the area who are unaware of such free-form vibrations coming from their speakers.

Nonetheless, their mundane fantasy of subverted communication has a rich narrative groove to it, not the groove of metrically coherent rhythm but the groove of sequence, of found sounds paced and given associative power through contrast and accrual. The slow fade-out is a bit of a cheat in most experimental music, but here, as the sounds wind down, there’s a sense of the disparate noises, bonded by chance intervention, finally giving way to entropy.

Track originally posted at theradius.tumblr.com. More on Desh at digikampradesh.wordpress.com and on Ekis at facebook.com/ard2music.

reBlogged from: Disquiet

on May 17, 2012 at 06:00 AM

Understanding Through Tangential Questioning: Art, Dance Your Ph.D., and the Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider/ATLAS at CERN, image by Image Editor

(Shane Crerar received a BSc. in chemistry in 2000, and a BFA in sculpture in 2010. He lives in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada and is employed by the city where he works as an arts administrator, dealing with public art, collections, film, and community arts organizations.)

Dance and theater make no sense to me. I was formerly a chemist, and I cannot count how many times I watched someone’s expression go blank and heard back “I hate chemistry” or some other adverse reaction to math and science when I told them what I do. I imagine that dance and theater are as incomprehensible to me as chemistry is to, well…everyone else. It can be a matter of taste: some people love pineapple. I hate it. Some people hate licorice. I love it. Some people love dance, and maybe I just miss the reference point. Some people find it hard to relate mathematics to “real world” examples, while I find the relationship between dance and reality overly strained and contrived. But on the other hand, I’m fascinated by “Dance Your Ph.D.”

Dance Your Ph.D. works for me. I’m not sure if the original intent was to market science through dance, or to market art to scientists, or maybe it is based on a meme of ridiculous interpretive dance. But it works. A Ph.D. thesis represents a huge investment of time and energy, but it also represents an incomprehensible tome that is rarely read, in full, by more than a handful of people. “Dance Your Ph.D.” provides an alternate way to present years of work as a “real world” phenomenon.

I think there is a common perception that science and art shall not mix. Having been involved in the culture of both, it seems to me that the general attitude is that the other is incomprehensible mumbo jumbo. Dance Your Ph.D., however, flies in the face of that idea. The winning entry from 2011 uses a stylized video technique created by stitching together thousands of still images. Perhaps it works for me because although it is literally interpretative dance, it is derived from a thoroughly explored concept. The concept is intimately familiar to the artist, if not the audience.

Art and science have a longstanding relationship, and it does a disservice to both to pretend that isolation from one another is the best approach. For example, there is a long history of illustration in biology. Chemistry uses pictograms with specific rules to convey structures and arrangements of atoms and molecules. Many of these traditional methods have specific rules to most accurately represent ideas, or particular aspects of an idea. These methods of visualization are developed to work within the scientific community, frequently to the exclusion of the lay person. But interesting things begin to happen once those strict rules of representation are relaxed. Most specifically, in Dance Your Ph.D. we see scientists imagine their works through dance.

It is my firm belief that art can be an aid to science. One may often find that a concept cannot be understood clearly until that concept can be communicated. Not only do others benefit from the dissemination of knowledge, but working out how to discuss and communicate an idea can solidify it for oneself. Explaining the concepts in a Ph.D. thesis through dance may actually be of great benefit, not only to people who may become interested in the topics danced, but also to the scientist who is finding a new avenue to communicate her idea.

I think that one of the most significant scientific projects currently in progress is in desperate need of such communication. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the most extensive and expensive scientific project in history. It is close to answering a problem that has been at the heart of particle physics research for the past 50 years. It seems to me that the magnitude of the project and the public funds dedicated to this international facility demand that its importance be recognized, if not understood.

Since the conception of the Standard Model of physics, physicists have been trying to find every particle and force it predicts, and the Higgs boson is the missing piece of the puzzle. The Higgs boson is incredibly important because it is the particle that (theoretically) gives matter mass, and the Large Hadron Collider is trying to find it. But how often does one encounter references to the LHC in arts writing? The LHC is not a breakthrough technology. It is one more step along a path that started with the first particle collider in the 1950s. Alongside other scientific achievements like atomic energy, space travel, or even relativity (and its time travel implications), the LHC seems like a little ‘c’ concept. The closest the LHC has come to stirring the collective interest of the world was the discovery of time-traveling neutrinos, which turned out to be an error in data caused by a loose cable.

Despite the relative obscurity of the LHC in popular culture, it has managed to capture the imagination of some artists. Kate Findlay has created a series of quilts based on photographs of the Large Hadron Collider. The development of her project appears to be based on images released in 2008, and the article indicates that she is working towards projects that incorporate aspects of the LHC beyond recreating photographs in quilts. I find this rather poignant. The images of the object inspired her to learn more about it, and as she’s developed her quilts, she’s developed an interest not simply in the imagery, but in the concepts the LHC is exploring. I believe this is important. The interest is not drawn by the fact that it is science, or physics, or technology, but instead starts from imagery.

I feel that science can provide inspiration for art, as the above example demonstrates. I also believe that science shouldn’t be afraid to get involved with art. The Collide@CERN project gives me hope that scientists can engage in the development of artwork. The project is a partnership between CERN (the organization behind the LHC) and Ars Electronica, which is an international festival celebrating art, science and technology. This should be a fantastic partnership because CERN is at the forefront of science, and Ars Electronica is a forum for science-based art. The project involves a two-month residency at CERN followed by a one month residency at Ars Electronica Linz. Throughout the residency, the artist (Julius von Bismark) will have mentors from both CERN and Ars Electronica. The goal is to develop and create works in the second half of the residency.

It seems rare, indeed, for science to seek out the arts. Projects like Dance Your Ph.D. and Collide@CERN are the exception, not the rule. To me this seems like a failure of both art and science, as there is ample opportunity for each to enrich the other.

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Public Art and the Challenge of Evaluation

Art and politics

Live from GIA: Day III – The Art of Change

reBlogged from: Createquity.

on May 17, 2012 at 05:00 AM

Dancers of Ubud

In May and June 2010, I visited the island of Bali in Indonesia for 17 days, mostly the cultural center of Ubud, where I went to amazing art museums, galleries, shops and restaurants by day, and attended performances every night featuring gamelan music and dances such as the Baris, Barong, Fire, Jauk, Kecak, Legong, Mekepung, Tari Belibis, Taruna Jaya and Oleg Tambulilingan. Balinese dancers are among the most beautiful ever, with their delicately painted faces, intricately patterned costumes and mesmerizing movements. Now cue up some Balinese gamelan music and enjoy the Dancers of Ubud slide show over on Flickr! (For the best results, click the full screen icon in the bottom right corner on the Flickr slide show.)

reBlogged from: Arcane Candy

on May 17, 2012 at 04:00 AM

May 2nd, 2012 playlist

Lee Hyla ~ At Suma Beach ~ BMOP
Ingram Marshall ~ Woodstone
Lisa Bielawa ~ A Collective Cleansing
Alarm Will Sound ~ Mt. Saint Michel
Morris Knight ~ The Origin of the Prophesy
Steven Gorbos ~ Plunge
Nico Muhly ~ The Egg
Maestro Subgum and the Whole ~ Rubber Hose
Syzygys ~ Badol Bashimu
Frank Zappa ~ Secular Humanism
William Bolcom ~ Scherzino ~ Prism Quartet
Beata Moon ~ Piano Sonata
Adrian Knight ~ Världens Undergång

reBlogged from: Music For Internets

April 11th, 2012 playlist

This is only a partial playlist of the first hour.

Dylan Mattingly ~ Lighthouse (Refuge Music by a Pacific Expatriate) ~ Contemporaneous
Alvin Curran ~ For Mg
John Halle ~ Spheres ~ Ethel
Sam Pluta ~ Tile Mosaic (after Chagall) ~ Yarn/Wire
Music for Homemade Instruments ~ Some Bang Goin' On
Aaron Siegel ~ A Diminished Thing

reBlogged from: Music For Internets

April 18th, 2012 playlist

Also a partial playlist, this time of the first two hours.

Molly Heron ~ Pretty Machines ~ West Fourth New Music Collective
ensemble, et al. ~ In a Crowded Room With Nothing to Think About
Julia Wolfe ~ Early That Summer ~ Ethel
Alex Mincek ~ To Nowhere From Nowhere ~ Wet Ink Ensemble
Art Jarvinen ~ Edges ~ Some Over History
Aaron Siegel ~ Science Is Only A Sometimes Friend
Zack Browning ~ String Quartet ~ JACK Quartet

reBlogged from: Music For Internets

April 25th, 2012 playlist

Dylan Mattingly ~ Atlas of Somewhere (On The Way To Howland Island) ~ Contemporaneous
Nicholas Vasallo ~ The Fifth World
Marcelo Zarvos ~ Rounds ~ Ethel
Gabriel Prokofiev ~ Concerto for Turntable and Orchestra
Eric Wubbels ~ alphabeta ~ Yarn/Wire
Alvin Curran ~ In Hora Mortis
John Cage ~ 24x24 ~ So Percussion
John Cage ~ Child of Tree ~ So Percussion
Harrison Birtwistle ~ Chronometer ~ realized by Peter Zinovieff

reBlogged from: Music For Internets

May 16th, 2012 playlist

Alvin Curran ~ Music Is Not Music
David Brynyar Franzson ~ The Negotiation of Context - B ~ Yarn/Wire
Scott Brickman ~ Knotty Pines ~ Duo 46
Nico Muhly ~ Drones & Piano ~ Bruce Brubaker
Tim Hansen ~ Goldbrick Oilslick ~ West Fourth New Music Collective
Evan Ziporyn ~ Big Grenadilla ~ BMOP
Music Of Our Time 1967
Ingram Marshall ~ Peaceable Kingdom
Martin Bresnick ~ Caprichos Enfaticos ~ Lisa Moore and So Percussion

reBlogged from: Music For Internets

309 :: 18 May 2012 :: Improvisers

On Friday’s program, guest host Harry Bernstein explores improvised music.

Roscoe Mitchell

Muhal Richard Abrams: Panorama, from the album, Sightsong, 1976 on Black Saint

Leroy Jenkens: Um Cha Chi Chum, from the album, Leroy Jenkins Solo, 1977, on Lovely Music, LTD

George Lewis: Untitled Dream Sequence, from the album, The Solo Trombone, 1976, on Sackville

Roscoe Mitchell: Eeltwo Part 2, from the album, The Solo Concert, 2009, on AECO

Star Night, from the album, Duets and Solos, 1990, on Black Saint

Anthony Braxton: Opus 77E, from the album, Alto Saxophone Improvisations, 1979, on Arista

Composition 998, from the album, Compositions, 1989, on Hat Hut Records

reBlogged from: Music From Other Minds