New Music reBlog

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September 30, 2005

The Friday Informer: Brought to you by [See Your Corporate Logo Here!]

Experimental writers (just like us), rock stars (too tame for us), and public intellectuals (snub us).

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 30, 2005 at 07:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Live From the Fallout Shelter

Well, it's not the MacArthur award but we're not complaining. Rumor has it that Sequenza21 will be getting an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for website excellence at Rose Hall on December 15. This comes as something of a surprise since we didn't apply but our

Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 30, 2005 at 07:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

What Has the Symphony Done for Me Lately?

Originally from ionarts, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 30, 2005 at 02:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sounds and surprises in SF

Last night was the Other Minds BRINK show at the Hemlock Tavern in San Francisco. It was a great show and very well attended. Thanks to everyone who came out. One thing stuck out during my portion of the show--namely that the Hemlock Tavern is indeed a tavern. And being a tavern in a hip part of San Francisco means having a cool jukebox that plays all night and many wonderful talkative patrons. Translation: maybe not the best place to perform a work by Alvin Lucier! All kidding aside, it is brilliant Charles Amirkhanian and the folks at Other Minds were bold enough and brave enough to present a new music series in a bar. Nobody can blame them for not trying to reach out to new audiences. That's exactly the type of thinking and action that will do our cause some good. And I'm honored that I was able to take part in a venture like that in a small way.

Sharing the bill with me was sound artist Dorsey Dunn, who is, in fact, himself also a saxophonist. While he didn't bring his saxophone to the show, Dorsey played his set on laptop, which mainly included saxophone samples. So it was an all saxophone night at Hemlock in a way. And maybe it was the saxophone connection--an instant bond of friendship?--that prompted him to let me crash at his apartment for the night since I didn't have a place to stay (or it could also be that he's just a very nice guy!). Honesly, it didn't seem worth it to get a hotel for the night since I've got an early flight. $100+ for 4-5 hours in a hotel? I was just going to head to the airport after the show and wait for my plane. But BART doesn't run that late. And by the time everything was packed and people were talked to and thanked, it was too late. So I'm lucky to have a place to stay tonight that isn't on benches in the airport terminal.

Anyhow, so there were two surprises last night--one pleasant surprise and one completely unexpected surprise. The former was that Heather came out to the show. It was nice to finally put a face with the words I'd been reading on the screen. It's too bad that she happens to be amazingly busy and needed to get up early and that I was desperately trying to sort out how to get the airport. Otherwise I'm sure we would have had a really nice chat.

The big surprise was that someone I hadn't seen in 10 years, since high school, made an appearance. Sam Pomeroy. It was great to see him. And I wish we had longer to catch up. But as he told me as he took his leave, "Ten years is a lot to catch up on in one night." True but I'm glad we made contact again. I'm still not certain how he found out about the gig. Usually, if I'll be in the SF area, I'll post on the forum, which Sam's been known to lurk around, giving him a heads up. But this time I forgot to post, something I remembered only as we were landing at SFO. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Sam was there and it was cool. So Hemlock, BRINK, new music, and unexpected surprises make for a good night. Goodnight.

Originally posted by Brian Sacawa from Brian Sacawa: Sounds Like Now, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 30, 2005 at 02:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Mark Dresser Interview

Dresser is interviewed at the UC San Diego paper.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 30, 2005 at 02:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Texas: Lone Star Premiere

East Texas Symphony Orchestra premieres a new piece by Kenji Bunch.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 30, 2005 at 02:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Relevance

I’m curious to know what S21 readers think of this quote: “I regard all popular music as irrelevant in the sense that people in 200 years won't be listening to what is being written and played today. I think they will be listening to Beethoven. That's on

Originally posted by Lawrence Dillon from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 30, 2005 at 02:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

HAL: I am sorry, Dave. I am afraid.

PART ONE – IT’S ALIVE! (tip o’ the hat to Steve Layton) Why are people so quick to dismiss electronic music as not “human?” Are acoustic instruments “human?” I listen to a lot of electronic music, and there is plenty of bad electronic music out there (

Originally posted by Corey Dargel from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 30, 2005 at 02:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Doctor Atomic tonic

Leonard Bernstein wrote his music for J.M.Barrie's play Peter Pan in 1949. The new production starred Jean Arthur and Boris Karloff as Peter and Captain Hook respectively, and Bernstein was commissioned to write the incidental music. Lennie was larger tha

Originally posted by Pliable from Sequenza21, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 30, 2005 at 02:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Fire Next Time

Just got a note from Robert Jordahl, one of our regulars, who was chased out of his home by Hurricane Rita. He and his family are fine and staying in Austin. His home back in Lake Charles, Lousiana was destroyed. Our sympathies, Bob. Alan Theisen and E

Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 30, 2005 at 02:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 29, 2005

Countdown to Doctor Atomic

As we all knew he would, Alex Ross has written an excellent article for The New Yorker about the making of John Adams and Peter Sellars's new opera, Doctor Atomic. It includes conversations with Adams and especially with Sellars, who is not only directing the production but put together the text of the libretto after Alice Goodman withdrew. Sadly, but perhaps not surprisingly, this lengthy piece (a feature article in "Onward and Upward with the Arts," instead of at the back with "The Critics") has not been made available online. Sellars describes this new opera with the sentence "This is 'Götterdämmerung' for our generation":

"This whole night is about the atomic bomb," Sellars said, "and I want actually to begin with the most important words--that, at the end of the day, yes, it's wrong, and everyone knows it. Yes, it's wrong. When you say 'terrible,' terrible is"--Sellars paused--"terrible. Look at it in the eye."

"Terrible"? "Wrong"? As a New Yorker who thinks regularly about the possibility of a stray nuclear bomb wiping out not only my life but everything I love, I didn't doubt him for a moment. But I wondered whether the director was politically stacking the deck. He was, however, merely setting up one pole of the debate.

When I read about the article on Alex's blog, The Rest Is Noise, before the magazine arrived in my mailbox, I found this excellent post about Alex's trip to Los Alamos, the Trinity test site, and San Francisco, where the opera will receive its premiere this Saturday, complete with great photographs from Alex's digital camera. Sadly, that post has disappeared this evening, although I imagine that it will reappear after being altered for whatever reason. You may want to supplement Alex's work with a few other articles. Matthew Gurewitsch had an article (Setting the nuclear myth to music, September 27) for the New York Times and republished by the International Herald Tribune:

"To me, the Los Alamos story and the bomb in particular is the ultimate American myth," Adams said. "It constellates so many of the defining themes of our American consciousness: industry and invention leading to a 'triumph' of science over nature; the presumption of military dominance on behalf of what we perceive as the 'right' values; the newfound power to bring about annihilation of life; and the moral and ethical conundrums that the possession of such an instrument of destruction force upon us."

I also recommend the interview (Doctor Atomic to Premier in San Francisco, September 1) that John Adams gave to Mark Wilson for Physics Today earlier this month, the audience of which makes the interview rather interesting and different. There have been so many major cast changes in this production that I have lost count (actually, it's three, I think). Still, we are sad not to be in San Francisco this weekend.

UPDATE:
See also Mark Swed's article (Peter Sellars: Explosively original, September 11) for the Los Angeles Times.

Originally from ionarts, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 29, 2005 at 01:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sounds and surprises in SF

Last night was the Other Minds BRINK show at the Hemlock Tavern in San Francisco. It was a great show and very well attended. Thanks to everyone who came out. One thing stuck out during my portion of the show--namely that the Hemlock Tavern is indeed a tavern. And being a tavern in a hip part of San Francisco means having a cool jukebox that plays all night and many wonderful talkative patrons. Translation: maybe not the best place to perform a work by Alvin Lucier! All kidding aside, it is brilliant Charles Amirkhanian and the folks at Other Minds were bold enough and brave enough to present a new music series in a bar. Nobody can blame them for not trying to reach out to new audiences. That's exactly the type of thinking and action that will do our cause some good. And I'm honored that I was able to take part in a venture like that in a small way.

Sharing the bill with me was sound artist Dorsey Dunn, who is, in fact, himself also a saxophonist. While he didn't bring his saxophone to the show, Dorsey played his set on laptop, which mainly included saxophone samples. So it was an all saxophone night at Hemlock in a way. And maybe it was the saxophone connection--an instant bond of friendship?--that prompted him to let me crash at his apartment for the night since I didn't have a place to stay (or it could also be that he's just a very nice guy!). Honesly, it didn't seem worth it to get a hotel for the night since I've got an early flight. $100+ for 4-5 hours in a hotel? I was just going to head to the airport after the show and wait for my plane. But BART doesn't run that late. And by the time everything was packed and people were talked to and thanked, it was too late. So I'm lucky to have a place to stay tonight that isn't on benches in the airport terminal.

Anyhow, so there were two surprises last night--one pleasant surprise and one completely unexpected surprise. The former was that Heather came out to the show. It was nice to finally put a face with the words I'd been reading on the screen. It's too bad that she happens to be amazingly busy and needed to get up early and that I was desperately trying to sort out how to get the airport. Otherwise I'm sure we would have had a really nice chat.

The big surprise was that someone I hadn't seen in 10 years, since high school, made an appearance. Sam Pomeroy. It was great to see him. And I wish we had longer to catch up. But as he told me as he took his leave, "Ten years is a lot to catch up on in one night." True but I'm glad we made contact again. I'm still not certain how he found out about the gig. Usually, if I'll be in the SF area, I'll post on the forum, which Sam's been known to lurk around, giving him a heads up. But this time I forgot to post, something I remembered only as we were landing at SFO. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Sam was there and it was cool. So Hemlock, BRINK, new music, and unexpected surprises make for a good night. Goodnight.

Originally posted by Brian Sacawa from Brian Sacawa: Sounds Like Now, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 29, 2005 at 01:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

It’s the Ticket Price, Stupid

A blog entry argues that ticket prices, not programming or culture, could be what is keeping people away from classical music.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 29, 2005 at 01:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Just Out on New World Records

A couple of new ones from New World Records: Alvin Lucier Wind Shadows The Barton Workshop: John Anderson, clarinet; Frank Denyer, piano; James Fulkerson, trombone; Marieke Keser, violin; Judith van Swaay, cello; Jos Tieman, double bass Martin Bresnick My Twentieth Century Robert van Sice, marimba I; Kunihiko Komori, marimba II; Izumi Sinfonietta Osaka, Norichika Iimori, conductor; Taimur Sullivan, saxophones; Maya Beiser, cello; [...]

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 29, 2005 at 01:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Atomic photojournal

My article on John Adams and Peter Sellars's Doctor Atomic — in The New Yorker this week, but not online — begins with a description of Trinity, the site of the first atomic explosion, which is also the setting for all but the first two scenes of Adams's opera. I visited Trinity on August 1st, and was given an expert tour by Jim Eckles, the affable public-relations officer for the White Sands Missile Range. Unless you provide some special reason to visit, the site is open to the public only twice a year. As it happens, the next Trinity Open House is this Saturday, the same day as the Atomic premiere. There's still time to arrange a live feed of the opera in the middle of the desert. The photograph above (click to enlarge) shows the site from a couple of miles away. The central blast circle, which can still be perceived because of a change in vegetation, is above and to the left of the apparent end of the road, which goes off to the right.

The White Sands mailboxes:

An instrument bunker, restored to 1945 condition:

Jumbo, a two-hundred-ton cement-and-steel monstrosity, was designed to stop the bomb’s plutonium core from being tossed all over the desert in the event that the explosion failed to achieve critical mass. Oppenheimer, confident in the end that his Gadget would work, elected not to use it. It survived the atomic blast, and, although Army engineers later blew off its ends, it has proved generally indestructible. A replica of it will appear on the Doctor Atomic stage.

I hold a piece of trinitite, the glassy-green mineral that covered the ground after the blast. It is no longer radioactive — or, at least, no more so than a granite countertop.

All that remains of the tower that held the bomb aloft:

Music critic standing next to the obelisk at Ground Zero:

The sixtieth anniversary of Trinity took place a couple of weeks before my visit. White Sands opened up the site for a special open house and brought down an extra original-edition bomb casing from Los Alamos. The drivers hadn't yet shown up to bring it back, so it was still sitting there. 

The MacDonald ranch, originally the Schmidt ranch, served as the final assembly site for the Gadget. Inside, a placard hangs from a bare light-bulb, reading "Plutonium Assembly Room."

At the northern edge of the site is LINEAR, the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research project, which scans the skies for objects that might cause a regrettable Extinction Event.

On the way to Los Alamos from Santa Fe, you pass several Tewa Pueblo communities. A Tewa servant figures in Peter Sellars's spiritually charged version of the atomic story. Highway overpasses are decorated with boldly colored motifs, transforming infrastructure into art:

Grass Mountain is where Oppenheimer had his cabin (Perro Caliente, or "hot dog," which is what he said when he saw the view). It's in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, northeast of Santa Fe. On the eve of the Trinity test, New York Times reporter William Laurence wrote multiple advance stories, which were held in readiness for unforeseen events. Acknowledging the possibility of a total catastrophe at Trinity, Laurence prepared an obituary-style piece for all the major participants and observers, himself included. This story would have claimed that twenty celebrity physicists, General Leslie R. Groves, and a New York Times reporter were killed in a "freak accident" at Perro Caliente.

A hard-to-find plaque commemorates 109 East Palace Avenue, the front office of the Manhattan Project, where Dorothy McKibbin gave physicists and other personnel their marching orders. The plaque is surrounded by various handmade art objects, including a sort of death's-head shrine to the Beatles.

Fuller Lodge was part of the original laboratory at Los Alamos. One great trivium of the atomic story is that this complex of buildings originally housed the Los Alamos Ranch School, which was founded by one of Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders. It was intended as a kind of boot camp for effete Eastern boys, who needed macho values knocked into them. The mission met with only fitful success: John Crosby, the founder of the Santa Fe Opera, was one graduate, and two others were Gore Vidal and William S. Burroughs. The headmaster was often observed lingering around the boys' shower room. He died shortly after the Manhattan Project took his school away.

Music is everywhere:

The view from Oppenheimer's old Berkeley home, on Eagle Hill:

There is, needless to say, quite a bit about the Bomb on the Internet. White Sands Missile Range has a library of information on its Trinity page, including eighty photos (the Trinity polo team is a particularly odd image). Reams of documentation can be found at the Atomic Archive. The San Francisco Opera has set up an extensive site for the opera, containing interviews with the creative team, images of the set and costume design, and musical excerpts in the form of MIDI mock-ups (which give only the faintest inkling of the richness of Adams's orchestration). You can also watch some footage from Jon Else's forthcoming documentary about the opera; Else made The Day After Trinity, the classic documentary about the test itself. Various Atomic-related events, including a film series at the Pacific Film Archive, will take place around the Bay Area over the next few weeks. The Exploratorium, which was founded by Robert Oppenheimer's brother Frank, has its own tie-in site. The San Francisco Opera will give ten performances of Doctor Atomic in all; later it will travel to the Holland Festival (June 2007), the English National Opera (March 2008), the Chicago Lyric Opera (April 2008), and, on an unannounced date, the Metropolitan Opera. Yes, things move fast in classical music. Presumably, Nonesuch Records will release a recording; the opera is dedicated to the enlightened head of that label ("for Bob Hurwitz — dear friend, reader of history").

Two excellent rival pieces on Doctor Atomic: Mark Swed's, in the Los Angeles Times, which follows Sellars as he goes on a tour of Los Alamos; and Matthew Gurewitsch's, in the New York Times, which reports on the flap that Adams caused among physicists after he set to music the partially obsolete laws of conservation of energy and mass. "Wagner didn't have these problems," Adams told me. (Yesterday, by the way, was the hundredth birthday of E=mc2.) I wrote a profile of Adams back in 2000. Please read my new piece before all these others, though, or you'll want to hear no more on the subject. Now all we need is for some snarky young composer to write an opera about the making of Doctor Atomic.

As ever, ardent thanks to Danny and Hilary Goldstine.

Originally posted by Alex Ross from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 29, 2005 at 01:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Another One

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 29, 2005 at 01:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Do-It-Yourself School

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 29, 2005 at 01:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

We'll Meet Again, Don't Know Where, Don't Know When

It was so quiet you could hear a paradigm shift. Charles Downey has a piece today about Alex Ross's great article in this week's New Yorker about the making of Dr. Atomic. The New Yorker piece is not online but buy a copy; you'll see why Alex gets the bi

Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 29, 2005 at 01:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Last Night in L.A. - Channeling Carlos Chávez

The Southwest Chamber Music ensemble offers our favorite music in the summer, with four Sunday evening concerts outdoors at the Huntington, adjacent to the gardens in San Marino. During the season they offer concerts at the Norton Simon in Pasadena and a

Originally posted by Jerry Zinser from Sequenza21, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 29, 2005 at 01:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 28, 2005

Make it cheap

Drew McManus directed me toward some startling statistics on orchestra ticket prices, which appeared in a recent piece by Peter Dobrin of the Philadelphia Inquirer. To quote:

If interest in classical in waning, why then, when BBC Radio 3 offered Beethoven symphonies online a few months ago, did Beethoven draw an astonishing 1,369,893 downloads? How can we downgrade classical to esoteric when the Philadelphia Orchestra drew an estimated 8,000 listeners for its neighborhood concert at Montgomery County Community College in July? That's three times the capacity of Verizon Hall. What these two happy events have in common is a characteristic that's inconvenient for classical music presenters to consider: Both were free....

Given the escalation of ticket prices for orchestral concerts in the last few decades, plus the expanding number of entertainment options, the mystery in classical music is why times aren't even tougher than they are. Quite by accident a couple of months ago, I came across a routine Philadelphia Orchestra press release from Nov. 23, 1975, announcing a subscription program. Tickets were listed at $2, $3.50, $4, $4.50, $5, $7, $7.50, $8 - with the top ticket price a big $8.50. A complete listing for the season shows the highest ticket for a regular subscription concert was $10.50. Converted into 2005 dollars, that would mean the top ticket price to hear the Philadelphia Orchestra today should be $39.33.

Of course, it's not. The highest ticket price next season will be $122 - an escalation three times the inflation rate.

The whole piece is worth reading. Dobrin acknowledges the difficulty of bringing ticket prices back down, but urges that something be done to make concerts more affordable. Expensive marketing ventures might turn out to be utterly unnecessary if people had to pay less. See Marc Geelhoed for broader thoughts on current orchestra issues.

Originally posted by Alex Ross from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 28, 2005 at 01:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Doctor Atomic (2005). John Adams /quotes/

In the making of 'Doctor Atomic' Sellars and Adams have adopted a working method similar to that for 'El Nino'. soundgenerator

There is a truly fascinating article written by John Adams on the NewMusicBox website about preparations for the premiere of his new opera, Doctor Atomic, in which the composer outlines his hopes, fears and excitement about the production. Timothy Munro

Berkeley physicist Marvin Cohen, by his own account only a "sporadic" operagoer, finds himself these days passionately interested in John Adams's Doctor Atomic — the opening lines of which, he says, misrepresent the physics of bomb making. Cathy Cockrell

As Einstein stated, matter can be converted into energy; this is the insight that produced the bomb. Matthew Gurewitsch

And it examines that history very seriously: a working version of the script, not intended for public consumption, cites the source of every line. Matthew Gurewitsch

The bomb, Adams said, "was really one of the overarching themes of my childhood. Jesse Hamlin

The company announced on Friday that the role of Robert Wilson will be sung by tenor Thomas Glenn, and not Tom Randle as had been previously announced. Opera News

Steve Pyke's accompanying image of Gerald Finley in front of the bomb is worth the price of admission. Alex Ross

Having played some of Adams' earlier compositions, I can relate to his comment that the orchestration "is like a great big ukulele...[t]he musical interest is in the chord changes, the breathless energy, the pulse." Matt Heller

Originally posted by Robert Gable from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 28, 2005 at 01:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 27, 2005

...to invent something better

I recently finished Chuck Palahniuk’s novel “Choke”. The concluding lines of this dark satire are oddly optimistic, with a twist of anarchy. Significantly, as I read the conclusion, I found myself thinking about my views on composition and contemporary music...

Originally posted by Alan Theisen from Alan Theisen, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 27, 2005 at 07:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Out There (1960). Eric Dolphy

I listened to a large amount of jazz and then in my mid-twenties, for no apparent reason, I just stopped. Two years ago, I heard some Dexter Gordon which reminded me of what I was missing and ever since, I've been trying to fill in the gaps of classic jazz I hadn't heard. One artist I listened to this weekend was Bill Evans, but maybe I'm still not ready for him. On the other hand, I just heard Eric Dolphy's Out There for the first time and it's a good song, has some great soloing (Ron Carter on cello!) and provides an overall sound and aesthetic that still sounds new 45 years after it was recorded.  This BBC review points out that unlike Ornette Coleman, Dolphy managed to push the "envelope" of bebop without overthrowing its basic conventions. It also describes Dolphy's solo as a series of variations as if Philip Glass arranged a Charlie Parker solo. Now that would be interesting.

In another interesting intersection with minimalism, La Monte Young beat out Eric Dolphy for the second-alto chair in a Los Angeles City College dance band. Young:

I had to compete for the second alto saxaphone chair with Eric Dolphy. I ended up getting the chair, although I thought Eric really sounded great and I was surprised that I beat him out. However, people who heard me play at the time said I just sounded like an explosion. In the orchestra Eric and I played together and he played first clarinet and I played second.

Originally posted by Robert Gable from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 27, 2005 at 07:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

TRIBUTE TO STEVE LACY 10/6/05

Originally from NetNewMusic Contemporary Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 27, 2005 at 07:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

640/1240 Conolrad

With Dr. Atomic opening this week in San Francisco and Philip Glass’ Symphony N. 6 “Plutonian Ode”, based on the Allen Ginsberg poem, scheduled for November, Elodie Lauten wonders if we're entering some sort of Cold War time warp. Are those mushroom cloud

Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 27, 2005 at 07:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Composer and Other News

Originally from ionarts, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 27, 2005 at 01:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Unanswered Question (1908). Charles Ives /kfjc/

A review of an Ives album, from the KFJC (Los Altos Hills!) website including this succinct description of The Unanswered Question:

over a slowly shifting bed of strictly diatonic strings, a trumpet asks a 5-note question, and a woodwind quartet answers. Repeat 5 times, woodwinds getting more and more atonal and crazed. Existential burning consumes you.

In my previous Unanswered Question post, M. Keiser of Music in a Suburban Scene comments that it still sounds as if it could have been written last year. Timeless indeed.

Cujo, the KFJC reviewer, also points out Decoration Day is what we now call Memorial Day.

rgable: aworks wwi/prohibition era ives: aworks del.icio.us wikipedia google news google blog yahoo audio  memorial day: wikipedia

Originally posted by Robert Gable from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 27, 2005 at 01:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Court forces RIAA to dismiss case against mother & child

…but not before the RIAA tried to sue the child. Hopefully this is the first of many losses for the RIAA in order to get them to be more reasonable.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 27, 2005 at 01:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Hustling For Attention: Future of Music Coalition's 5th Annual Policy Summit

A quick summary of impressions from a composer who was in attendance and links to panel highlights...

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 27, 2005 at 01:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Chicago: Summertime Blues

A look at the 2005 Grant Park Music Festival.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 27, 2005 at 01:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Faking It

A discussion arose in the comments section for the "Is the Symphony Dead?" posting on the front page around my suggestion that synthesized orchestras will soon be indistinguishable from real orchestras in recordings, and that the future of the Symphonic t

Originally posted by Galen H. Brown from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 27, 2005 at 01:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Is Classical Music Too Fast?

A lot of people are starting to think that classical music needs slowing down, and some of them are putting their money where their mouth is. Longplayer is a 1000 year long piece of music which started to play on the 1st January 2000 and will continue, w

Originally posted by Pliable from Sequenza21, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 27, 2005 at 01:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 26, 2005

The Observable Universe

Well, it's mid-September, and the concert season has begun, as has the academic year and--in certain religions--its New Year's time. Sorry to start the year with another dark and gloomy blog, and anticipating any number of different points of view in the

Originally posted by Arnold Rosner from Arnold Rosner, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 26, 2005 at 09:46 PM | TrackBack

Miller Theater Attracts the Ambitious

A brief overview of the Miller Theater has been posted. The Miller Theater has been a haven for offbeat musical performances for a long time.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 26, 2005 at 07:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

new version of textbook available

Originally from david's waste of bandwidth..., ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 26, 2005 at 07:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Jenny Lin, piano / NYC

Originally from NetNewMusic Contemporary Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 26, 2005 at 07:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Dr. Atomic Countdown - T Minus 5

Is the universe of composed music expanding too fast for its own damned good? Arnold Rosner thinks the sheer quantity of new music means that most of it will inevitably disappear into a black hole from which it never emerges...Everette Minchew has a funn

Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 26, 2005 at 07:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Hans Werner Henze's L'Upupa

Hans Werner Henze, L'Upupa und der Triumph der Sohnesliebe, Matthias Goerne, Laura Aikin, Salzburg Festival, 2003 (released on DVD in March 2005)

After a long career in operatic theaters, German composer Hans Werner Henze reportedly created his final opera, in the summer of 2003, for the Salzburg Festival: L'Upupa und der Triumph der Sohnesliebe (Upupa, or the triumph of filial love). This summer, that opera was produced at the Opéra de Lyon from June 24 to July 2. Last March, a DVD of the original Salzburg production was released, which arrived last week from Netflix in the Ionarts mail box. After spending some time watching it, I can say with great confidence that I want to go to the Salzburg Festival one of these years, because it's a beautiful production. Also, Matthias Goerne has a wonderful voice, as Jens has written in his assessments of his recordings (Schumann songs and Beethoven/Schubert).

Also on Ionarts: Summer Opera: Henze's L'Upupa (July 22, 2005) From Goerne to His Distant Beloved (July 18, 2005) Matthias Goerne in Schumann Songs (February 20, 2005) Philip Glass World Premiere and Matthias Goerne (January 21, 2005)

The libretto, written by the composer himself, is a strange story synthesized from Arabic tales and other sources. The huppoe, the mysterious golden bird of the title, is the source of all the trouble. (The hoopoe's place in mythology is well established. King Solomon discovered the existence of the Queen of Sheba through the hoopoe and communicated with her by tying messages to its wing.) When the bird suddenly stops visiting Al Radshi, the Grand Vizier of Manda, his obsession with the bird leads him to send his three sons on a voyage of initiation. The worthiest of them, Al Kasim (Matthias Goerne), meets his demon, the spirit who will guide, transport, and protect him. Although he complains a lot, the Demon (played by tenor John Mark Ainsley, although Henze designed the role for English tenor Ian Bostridge) sticks by Al Kasim through each successive test.

The score is intricate and gorgeous, calling for a large ensemble heavy on winds and tinkling sounds, including two harps, two pianos, celesta, five percussionists on bells and Chinese instruments. The orchestration is mostly quite delicate, however, focusing more on transparent color than on thickness of sound. Henze also uses taped sounds of beating wings and bird calls, which evoke the mythological bird much better than the mechanized one in a cage used in this production.

Henze may be out of the opera business, but he continues to compose, having recently premiered a new work for orchestra, Cinq messages pour la Reine de Saba, commissioned by Radio France. That piece recycles some unused fragments for L'Upupa. Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra will premiere another new orchestral work, Sebastian im Traum (based on the poem of the same name by Georg Trakl), this December.

Originally from ionarts, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 26, 2005 at 01:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Doctor Atomic

John Adams and Peter Sellars's Doctor Atomic has its premiere at the San Francisco Opera on Saturday night. My big article on the making of the opera is in The New Yorker this week. I have no link, because it's not on the website. A $52 subscription isn't such a bad deal — there's my sales push for the year. Steve Pyke's accompanying image of Gerald Finley in front of the bomb is worth the price of admission. Soon I'll put up some purely amateur photographs to accompany the piece.

Originally posted by Alex Ross from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 26, 2005 at 01:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

music update

Originally from david's waste of bandwidth..., ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 26, 2005 at 01:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Last Night in L.A. - Hooray for Bollywood

The evening was billed as “Kronos Quartet the site also includes an essay worth reading by her daughter. While this was interesting, and fun, for me the highlight of the concert was the first half and the performance of Terry Riley’s new work, The Cusp

Originally posted by Jerry Zinser from Sequenza21, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 26, 2005 at 01:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 25, 2005

Symphonic relief

As mentioned previously, I've been in Miami all week with the New World Symphony. This Saturday's concert, a benefit for the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, will be broadcast on NPR. It's quite a program for the saxophone, featuring Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story as well as Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, Suites 1 & 2. (For the record, the tenor saxophone entrance in the Second Suite's "Montagues and Capulets" is as close to fear a saxophonist will ever feel in orchestral literature--sit for the whole movement and then come in "cold" on a piano low C#.) Kenji Bunch's Lichtenstein Triptych rounds out an exciting program. If you're intersted in listening to the concert, click here for a list of NPR affiliates carrying the concert. If your local affiliate isn't carrying the show and you still want to listen, visit WLRN 91.3 and click on "listen live" to stream the broadcast. Downbeat is 8pm EST.

Originally posted by Brian Sacawa from Brian Sacawa: Sounds Like Now, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 25, 2005 at 01:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Newsbits

Jenny Lin is playing some interesting stuff at Symphony Space, label Sachimay Interventions has another new release, Monika H will be at the Roulette, and the London Chamber Group has a gathering on Oct. 9.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 25, 2005 at 01:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Future of Music Policy Summit

The recently held Future of Music Policy Summit iscovered. The focus is on how independent artists can make ends meet without sacrificing control of their catalog.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 25, 2005 at 01:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I am the Lyric Suite

Tears of a Clownsilly has created a quiz to answer the pressing question, "Which major work of Alban Berg are you?"

Originally posted by Alex Ross from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 25, 2005 at 01:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

My teachers

The first week after school began (again), a sophomore student asked me from whom I learned composition. I told her that I had studied with many people: Bach, Haydn, etc. She rolled her eyes at me, but I wasn’t being facetious. I have gained powerful...

Originally posted by Alan Theisen from Alan Theisen, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 25, 2005 at 01:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

METAL MACHINE MUSIC: An Electronic Instrumental Composition - Lou Reed

Originally from NetNewMusic Contemporary Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 25, 2005 at 01:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

CIM ORCHESTRA, Cleveland

Originally from NetNewMusic Contemporary Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 25, 2005 at 01:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Adolphe and Katrina

The New World Symphony is doing a Hurricane Katrina benefit concert tonight which will be broadcast over NPR. In addition to its worthy cause, the concert is notable to S21 readers for Kenji Bunch's Lichtenstein Triptych and a couple of bravura saxophone

Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 25, 2005 at 01:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Evan Johnson On the Record: At the Exactest Point

At the Exactest Point Stephen Jones Chicago Symphony Orchestra, cond. Sir Andrew Davis Tantara TCD-0404STJ Stephen Jones is a professor of music at Brigham Young University and Dean of their College of Fine Arts and Communications. He is also, the pa

Originally posted by Evan Johnson from Sequenza21, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 25, 2005 at 01:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 24, 2005

Blink

Imagination is funny. It can make a cloudy day sunny. But, do composers really need it? And, if so, which kind? Lawrence Dillon, as always, raises some provocative questions that require your immediate attention. In the news: Judith Lang Zaimont has

Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 24, 2005 at 12:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 23, 2005

Philadelphia Sounds: Orchestra 2001 Does Dun and Crumb

When you write a piece in memory of John Cage, how can you resist basing it on the notes C-A-G-E? Tan Dun did not resist, and Orchestra 2001 performed the Philadelphia premiere of the 1995 Concerto for Pizzicato Piano and Ten Instruments...

Originally posted by Deborah Kravetz from Sequenza21, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 23, 2005 at 06:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Minimal agenda

La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass are the four horsemen of American minimalism. Three of them will be active in New York in the next few days. On Saturday night, at La Monte Young's Dream House downtown, a group of string players will give an exceedingly rare performance of Young's hour-long Trio for Strings, which is often considered the first minimalist work — a 1958 piece in which notes are sustained for gaspingly long periods of time. Anyone expecting something comfortably tonal and hypnotic is in for a shock; Young was still under the spell of Webern when he wrote this, and the harmonies are harsh. But a new kind of musical space opens up. The trio will be performed in a new version, for sextet, in just intonation tuning. The presenters say, "We recommend that you wear light clothing." I. e., bring extra oxygen. Then, on Tuesday, the Film-Makers' Cooperative will give a benefit at Angel Orensanz, at which both Reich and Glass will be performing. Relations between the two masters of repetitive music have been cool over the last couple of decades, to say the least, so it will be a bit thrilling to see them in the same room. The concert also features Elliott Sharp, Todd Reynolds, Mark Stewart, Sue Garner, Patrick Watson, and a trio of Tim Barnes, Alan Licht and Lee Ranaldo, together with short films by Ken Jacobs, Michael Snow, Harry Smith, Jenn Reeves, Donna Cameron, Emily Hubley, Ron Rice, and Bill Morrison.

Originally posted by Alex Ross from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 23, 2005 at 06:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The music genome project

Originally from The Rambler, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 23, 2005 at 03:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Transcension EP Available as Torrent

By using the Prodigem Bit Torrent seeding/hosting service I've made available one of my most popular albums, the 4 song EP, Transcension.

Transcension Torrent

BitTorrents can allow artists to distribute extremely, large files through a form of file-based multi-casting. I'll be getting all of my albums up as torrents shortly as part of this experiment.

Originally posted by jeff from The Music of Jeff Harrington, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 23, 2005 at 03:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Rewriting the Past and Calling it History at What Price?

Stravinsky, Zappa, NWA, and possibly Ives, all had second thoughts about works that are considered landmarks of musical history. But, if the second thought happened after the historical fact, can the revision still be a landmark in history?

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 23, 2005 at 03:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Unanswered Question (1908). Charles Ives /tonality/

Rajarshi Chaudhuri wrote about Ives' The Unanswered Question:

So, is tonality seemingly everlasting - could be so - but the disturbing question - like a specter - still floats in the air and of course there is no answer other than silence and confusion!

In other Ives news, singer Bruce Hornsby incorporates Ives' Study No. 22 into one of his songs. And Cheryl Gibbs reviews a concert of American music in Richmond, IN and calls The Unanswered Question one of Ives' less approachable works. Well, for me, I heard it once and was instantly ensnared.

rgable: aworks wwi/prohibition era ives: aworks del.icio.us wikipedia google news google blog yahoo audio word for the day: polytonality apple stores, mormon temples, and where ives bought his ipod

Originally posted by Robert Gable from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 23, 2005 at 01:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

60th Anniversary of Bartok’s Death

To commemorate the composer an article provide biographical information, as well as some upcoming events.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 23, 2005 at 01:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 22, 2005

Carnival of Music: Ashes Edition

Originally from The Rambler, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 22, 2005 at 06:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Metaphysical Musings in San Francisco

Here's something to put in your calendar book. On Saturday, December 3, the innovative folks at Other Minds are presenting what they are calling--and who are we to doubt it--America's first-ever New Music Séance in the appropriately intimate candlelit...

Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 22, 2005 at 06:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Classroom Notes

Originally from Form/Content, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 22, 2005 at 06:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Robert Ashley

Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 22, 2005 at 06:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A Stochastic Composer by Any Other Name...

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 22, 2005 at 06:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

New On Tzadik (Again)

As reported earlier the following releases are out on Tzadik. Apparently they were held up at the pressing plant due to the aftermath of the recent Hurricane. Davka : Davka Live An exciting live set of new material from one of the most consistent and creative bands in the Jewish Music scene. Combining a deep knowledge [...]

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 22, 2005 at 01:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Other Minds Season 2005-2006

This year’s Other Minds season has been announced. The Other Minds festival will take place December 7-8.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 22, 2005 at 01:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Barbarians at the gates....

"....sampling and synthesis technology gets better all the time -- we're on the cusp of an age when artificial orchestras will be indistinguishable in recordings from real ones, and of course be substantially cheaper to use. I suspect that the future of new orchestral music lies in this technology, and will thus remain healthy -- although the orchestra performance jobs will suffer." from a comment by Galen H. Brown on my post Is the Symphony Dead? on Sequenza21.

If you enjoyed this post take an overgrown path to Tallis' Forty Loudspeaker Motet

Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 22, 2005 at 01:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Musical Geniuses?

Originally from Musical Perceptions, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 22, 2005 at 01:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 21, 2005

Youth without Revolution

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 21, 2005 at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Contemporary Music Forum at the Corcoran

The Corcoran Gallery of Art hosts a couple of interesting series of concerts, and Ionarts is particularly fond of the one presented by the gallery's resident ensemble, the Contemporary Music Forum. So, on Sunday at the first concert of this group, which presents examples of new music four times per year, Ionarts was there in the front row. When I plugged this concert in my weekly column at DCist, it was largely out of interest in hearing a piece by George Perle, who is 90 years old this year. Critical Moments, from 1996, is a set of six movements for piano, violin, cello, flute (doubling on piccolo), clarinet (doubling on E-flat clarinet), and percussion. Due to a shortage of copies of the program, we had very interesting verbal introductions from the performers before each piece. No sooner had violinist Lina Bahn told us that the players had decided that the movements were humorous that a baby in the audience started crying. "That's mine," Ms. Bahn let us know.

Other Reviews: Tim Page, Contemporary Music Forum, Squeezing Plenty In (Washington Post, September 20)

By the third movement, another small child in the gallery's semicircular Hammer Auditorium was loudly announcing, "I don't like the drum!" Far be it from me to dislike music because it makes children cry: Perle's pointillistic textures did not disappoint, especially the shrill tone of the high winds. It was also very entertaining to see the single percussion player manage the considerable battery, even at one point rubbing the edge of a cymbal with what looked like a double-bass bow. However, the Perle was not the best piece on the program. I much preferred the Toccata that followed it, by Rice University composer Pierre Jalbert, with its constant barrage of running notes and quasi-minimalistic sound managed skillfully by pianist Audrey Andrist. The first half concluded with Donald Erb's Three Poems for Violin and Piano, from 1987, a work originally commissioned by the Library of Congress McKim Commission. The most interesting movement was the middle one, also called Toccata, which attempts to describe the sound of "rats' feet over broken glass," a line quoted from the first part of T. S. Eliot's Hollow Men:

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

The violin creates all sort of high rat-like sounds, while the pianist strikes the keyboard with flat palm or even the entire arm. Duct tape applied over the piano's upper strings created a hollow, percussive sound that was eerily appropriate. The most impressive performance was of Derek Bermel's Turning, a marvelous set of variations on an invented Protestant-style hymn tune, which bears an uncanny likeness to "Jesus loves me, this I know" (as pianist Lura Johnson explained before her spot-on performance). Lastly, something special happens when a composer creates a piece of music especially for a specific performer. In this case, that was Jeffrey Mumford, who wrote an expanding distance of multiple voices, based on the perfect fifths of the violin's open strings, for the group's excellent violinist, Lina Bahn. (Both are shown in the photograph above.) All in all, it was an entertaining afternoon of new music at the Corcoran.

Originally from ionarts, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 21, 2005 at 02:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Granted Geniuses

The MacArthur Foundation announced their 2005 grant winners. Another year and I'm not an acknowledged genius, outside of my home anyway. It’s a wonderful thing to see so much money given to people doing great things. Wonderful indeed to see so much creativity and passion when our senses are inundated with war, disaster, and incompetence.

A surprise to readers of the Baltimore Sun this morning was the grant to Marin Alsop (who is a frequent topic at Ionarts), the new conductor of the Baltimore Symphony. Alsop was not well received when she was chosen by the board of directors this past summer: you go, gurl!

Among the 25 recipients are biologists, planners, fisheries managers, musicians, and artists. Representing the artists are painter Julie Mehretu (shown at left), who was part of the last Whitney Biennial, and sculptor Teresita Fernandez (work shown at right). I am new to her work, but what I have seen on her gallery Web site I like. For a complete list, go here.

Originally from ionarts, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 21, 2005 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Danzón Cubano (1942). Aaron Copland

You probably scoff at classical music adaptations like techno remixes, jazz arrangements, weird electric guitar improvisations etc. Well, I'll suggest an instance where the remix improves on the original, namely the Baker Bros' Copland Died on December 4th, a remix of Aaron Copland's Danzón Cubano combined with Jay-Z's December 4th from The Black Album. MP3 page here (Soundclick registration required).

After listening to the remix, the original sounds lifeless and bland. But when Copland's melody and orchestration is combined with spirited (and sometimes reflective) vocals, the track is more than the sum of its parts. The effect is compounded when comparing it to the tediously slow recording conducted by Copland himself.

Note that Aaron Copland actually died on a December 2nd. I remember reading about it in the next day's NY Times while waiting for Caltrain on a cold morning in Palo Alto. From his obituary by John Rockwell:

Of many notable achievements, Mr. Copland's greatest gift was his ability to be both serious and popular, to adhere to the formal integrity and moral earnestness of modernism and also to espouse the generous accessibility of the dominant political mores of the 1930's and 40's.

rgable: aworks great depression/wwii era copland: copland house aworks del.icio.us wikipedia google news yahoo audio singingfish john adams on copland baker bros: U of M interview of half the Baker Bros December 4th lyrics

Originally posted by Robert Gable from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 21, 2005 at 01:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Is the Symphony Dead?

may seem like a pretentious headline. But this is a true story about the vicissitudes of contemporary composing, and the 'heartbreaking' struggle to achieve recognition for Sir Malcolm Arnold's 9th Symphony. (Portrait of Arnold by June Mendoza to right).

Originally posted by Pliable from Sequenza21, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 21, 2005 at 01:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Flying the Coop With Steve and Phil

Steve Reich and Philip Glass on the same stage? You heard right. Next Tuesday night at 8:00 p.m. at Angel Orensanz, 172 Norfolk St, an amazing lineup of downtown filmmakers and musicians (including the aforementioned) will participate in the Second Annu

Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 21, 2005 at 01:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Other Minds 2005-2006 Season

We've announced the next season of events for Other Minds!

There's a New Music Séance featuring five hours of solo piano music performed by Sarah Cahill, with additional performances by Kate Stenberg, violin, and Swiss pianist Eva-Maria Zimmermann. This will be at the little Swedenborian Church in S.F. on December 3rd, with performances at 2pm, 5.30pm, and 8pm.

And then the Del Sol String Quartet reunites with Daniel Bernard Roumain to perform all four of his quartets, with electric violin, laptop, and Hip Hop turntablist. That will happen at the Jewish Community Center in S.F. on March 6, 2006.

The OTHER MINDS 12 Festival is still being planned and under wraps right now. It will be in December of 2006 and at the Jewish Community Center this time. Stay tuned.

AND, there's the Brink series at the Hemlock Tavern on the last Wednesday of every month! Coming up next Wednesday: saxophonist Brian Sacawa with Dorsey Dunn. Next month (Oct 26) Bonnie Barnett returns to the Bay Area. And in November (Nov. 30) Fred Frith is featured.

Very exciting stuff.

Originally from All I Know, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 21, 2005 at 01:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 20, 2005

Making The I-Hop

Setting out to establish one's music in another country can feel overwhelming; it's often problematic enough getting your music played in your own town! But overseas performances don't have to remain a distant fantasy.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 20, 2005 at 06:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Atlanta: Breaking Out New Cello Music

Composer competition decided American Idol style.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 20, 2005 at 06:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

2005 MacArthur Fellows Announced

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 20, 2005 at 06:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Oscar Bianchi Wins Gaudeamus Prize

Columbia University doctorial student wins prize for young composers.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 20, 2005 at 06:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Life in the Post-Prohibitive Zone

Many readers of Kyle Gann's "When Does the Post-Prohibitive Age Arrive?" and the subsequent discussions in this space, on Kyle's page, and, doubtless, around watercoolers in hip offices around the nation, may be thinking "gosh, that sounds awful, but it's

Originally posted by Galen H. Brown from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 20, 2005 at 06:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

What's your take?

"The necessity of rejecting and destroying some things that are beautiful is the deepest curse of existence." - George Santayana True? False? Relevant? Irrelevant?

Originally posted by Lawrence Dillon from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 20, 2005 at 06:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Life in the Post-Prohibitive Zone

Many readers of Kyle Gann's "When Does the Post-Prohibitive Age Arrive?" and the subsequent discussions in this space, on Kyle's page, and, doubtles, around watercoolers in hip offices around the nation, may be thinking "gosh, that sounds awful, but it's...

Originally posted by Galen H. Brown from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 20, 2005 at 01:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Half Millionaire

I regret to report that I did not get a surprise phone call yesterday from the MacArthur Foundation informing me that an unexpected check for $500,000 was in the mail. However, the news is considerably brighter this morning at Marin Alsop's house...

Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 20, 2005 at 01:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Music and Emotion

Originally from Musical Perceptions, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 20, 2005 at 01:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

iPod-worthy music

I've been listening to a lot of new stuff lately. Given that I have tons of GB left on my new iPod, the more music, the better. Here are some things I've taken a fancy to lately, all of which I highly recommend for any MP3 player:
* Phil Kline:...

Originally from david's waste of bandwidth..., ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 20, 2005 at 01:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I Take It All Back

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 20, 2005 at 01:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 19, 2005

Center of the Universe

If you happen to be near the center of the universe--roughly 66th Street and Broadway--this evening at 7 p.m., you'll want to drop into Barnes and Noble for a CD signing and discussion by composer William Bolcom, singer Carole Farley and her husband, the...

Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 19, 2005 at 07:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

polluting the Web, now the airwaves

Originally from david's waste of bandwidth..., ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 19, 2005 at 06:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

More People Fighting the RIAA

A few more people are not going to pay off the RIAA for alleged copy-protection violations. The article has a few interesting points including that no one out of the 14,000 individuals sued has ever been proven guilty in court, and that a number of studies find the link between file sharing and [...]

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 19, 2005 at 01:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Blitzstein in Berkeley

The UC Berkeley drama department will be presenting Marc Blitzstein's THE CRADLE WILL ROCK October 7-16. More information is here. Other Minds featured Marc Blitzstein's music last year on his 100th anniversary. This performance at UC Berkeley will feature Alexander F. and May T. Morrison Professor of American History, Leon Litwack, as Professor Scoot.

Originally from All I Know, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 19, 2005 at 01:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots -- LEMUR

Robots playing music? LEMUR is a group of robotics engineers who are also musicians. And they've designed the most intriguing musical instruments that play themselves. (Video) (See also Trimpin)

This is really amazing stuff.

Originally from All I Know, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 19, 2005 at 01:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 18, 2005

Sound Ideas

An article explores the Washington DC experimental music scene.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 18, 2005 at 10:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Slipped One By Me

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 18, 2005 at 01:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Fall Music Highlights

CHAMBER MUSIC:
One of Jens's favorites, the Takács Quartet, in its first season with new violist Geraldine Walther, will be coming to our area this fall. First, they will perform a program of Mozart, Chopin, and Brahms with pianist Garrick Ohlsson, at Shriver Hall, on the campus of Johns Hopkins University up in Baltimore on October 2. If you don't hear enough then or can't make it to Baltimore, they will perform quartets by Haydn, Borodin, and Beethoven, as part of the free concert series at the National Gallery of Art on October 23.

The Borodin Quartet will play a concert of Borodin and Beethoven on the excellent free series at the Library of Congress's Coolidge Auditorium, on October 19. This is part of their 60th Anniversary Tour. How about chamber music with big-name soloists? On October 23, violinist Midori will play a recital with pianist Charles Abramovic. Washington Performing Arts Society hosts this concert at the Music Center at Strathmore. WPAS also brings us violinist Hilary Hahn, in a recital on November 13, in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, as well as pianist Mitsuko Uchida in recital on November 15, back at Strathmore. We also look forward to the chance to hear Messiaen's exalted and transforming Quartet for the End of Time on November 3, given by the Jerusalem Trio with clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein, at the Library of Congress.

Also worth noting: a performance of the chamber music of Tōru Takemitsu, on October 8, at the Library of Congress; the Beaux Arts Trio at the National Gallery of Art on October 9; the Orion String Quartet with pianist Peter Serkin at the Kennedy Center on October 12; the Pacifica String Quartet at the National Gallery of Art, East Building Auditorium, on December 11; the Jupiter String Quartet at the Library of Congress on December 16; and the Emerson String Quartet with Colin Carr, at the National Museum of Natural History's Baird Auditorium on December 17.

Continue reading Highlights of the Concert Season, Fall 2005.

Originally from ionarts, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 18, 2005 at 01:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Else Marie Pade Article

An article has been posted on Else Marie Pade, an earlier pioneer of electronic music.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 18, 2005 at 01:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

So Much for Schools

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 18, 2005 at 01:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 17, 2005

The Clarinets

Vinny Golia's new album, "Music for Like Instruments", is an ongoing project that brings together instruments from subgroups of the various familes of woodwind instruments.

The lead track, Clown Car Syndrone is "dedicated to all the great comedians and especially to the timing genius of Mr. Laurel and his associate, Mr. Hardy".

["Music for Like Instruments; The Clarinets" is a recent addition to the Nine Winds label, NWCD0279. There are 2 volumes already available, the Eb saxophones NWCD0249 and the Flutes NWCD0269.]

Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 17, 2005 at 12:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Friday Informer: Reich (Not That One), Sonic Lasers (Non-Lethal), and Bass Clarinets (Record Breaking)

Meet Ezra Reich. Influenced more by '80s pop than dad, his band includes a guy named Elliot Glass, and it just gets weirder from there. More...

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 17, 2005 at 12:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Are You Brave? Festival, Michigan & Canada

Originally from NetNewMusic Contemporary Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 17, 2005 at 12:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 16, 2005

Asko Ensemble & Schonberg Ensemble Performances

As usual, these ensembles have a busy schedule. The next couple of months feature Rihm, Kurtag, Turnage, Gubaidulina, Kagel, Hindemith, van Vlijmen, Xenakis, Varese, Ligeti and more.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 16, 2005 at 05:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

And the Winner Is... Drew McManus!

I recently looked at Drew McManus’s 2005 Orchestra Website Review. I thought I’d check out one of the orchestra websites at random. I picked the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra. Its URL is www.nmso.org, but I didn’t know that, so I just typed in...

Originally posted by Corey Dargel from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 16, 2005 at 02:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

"die reihe" at ACF

I know a place where Webern song recitals sell out. All right, so their hall is small and their concerts are free, but that certainly doesn’t make the Austrian Cultural Forum any less cool. Last night a dedicated crowd listened to the intense musician...

Originally posted by David Salvage from Sequenza21, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 16, 2005 at 02:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

UbuWeb is Back

If you have a lot of time, UbuWeb has a massive MP3 archive of hard to find weird music. Worth a listen or two…or three… After a long summer of rebuilding, UbuWeb is back. Thanks to all our viewers who kindly encouraged our return. We’d also like to thank our new partners for making it [...]

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 16, 2005 at 02:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Seven Jazz Greats Are Named NEA Jazz Masters

National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Dana Gioia announced seven new NEA Jazz Masters today.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 16, 2005 at 01:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 15, 2005

Maple Manytet (2005). Bill Sethares

I've been playing around with the new Google blog search. Due to various quirks, aworks shows up, for now, as the top related blog for "classical music" along with the very active LJ's 1st Classical Music Community's Journal, which I read, and I am still loving CLASSICAL MUSIC*, which is empty. Clearly, the related blogs list depends on blog title. For "music," only Music (for Robots) is listed.

Other finds from searching include John Coltrane News (is this an auto-blog?), composer Matthew Dallman's The Daily Goose, Byzantium's Shores, singer Anne-Carolyn's The Concert, Dicky Bahto's bleak house of mirth (where you can find, amidst lots of other provocative comment, a lack of enthusiasm for John Adams and the upcoming Doctor Atomic), Fred Sampson's Radio Weblog (which points to the fact that the Philip Glass movie trilogy will be at Davies Symphony Hall next year), and Prent Rogers' (he of micro-tonality podcast fame) Podcast Bumper Music.   

Speaking of Prent Rogers, I'm glad he is back after an absence. A recent podcast got my attention -- Bill Sethares' Maple Manytet. The composer says "all of the 'notes' are squished down to one big harmonic sound." It wasn't obvious to me but the source material is Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag and it's an interesting effect. Another memorable podcast via Prent Rogers is Dave Seidel's Symmetrical Melodic Variation on La Monte Young's Romantic Symmetry. I'd recommend the latter primarily to La Monte Young fanatics and people who listened to the buzz of power lines as children (e.g. La Monte Young)...

Originally posted by Robert Gable from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 15, 2005 at 01:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Classical Media Roundup

For day-to-day updates on what the media thinks is going on in the world of Classical music (and other fields, too) ArtsJournal.com can't be beat. But if you don't make it over there consistently, or need some analysis, or just enjoy the occasional cheap...

Originally posted by Galen H. Brown from Sequenza21, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 15, 2005 at 01:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Miau

Justin Davidson: "The Metropolitan Opera commissions new works with the cautiousness of a cat on the edge of a bathtub."

Originally posted by Alex Ross from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 15, 2005 at 01:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The End of the Bazaar: Kalvos & Damian Cease Broadcasting New Music After a Decade

Composer Beata Moon celebrates the personalities who created a valuable resource for the new music community.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 15, 2005 at 01:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

professing

The dialogue David Toub and I had below headed off in a number of valuable directions, but his argument is based on one assertion that I find mistaken. David argues that teachers should deal in facts, like the names of the brachial nerves, or e=mc2. But

Originally posted by Lawrence Dillon from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 15, 2005 at 01:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 14, 2005

Figuring Out Today's Students

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 14, 2005 at 01:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Visual Music - Musical Vision

Known more to pianists and piano music aficionados in this country, Håkon Austbø is a musician who has received an enviable slew of prizes and awards for his performances and recordings. With Pierre-Laurent Aimard, he is among the foremost Messiaen interpreters of our day. (Incidentally, he studied with Messiaen and was a piano student of Messiaen’s wife, Yvonne Loriod.) As the sparing but informative program notes revealed to me, he is also one of the founding members of the LUCE Foundation, which – among other things – aims to “provide a platform for further preparations and management of Scriabin’s Prometheus.” (More about that in Charles’s article on the discussion with Håkon Austbø that followed the concert and his review for DCist.) The concert was the concluding event of the Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art’s Visual Music exhibition and with works by Scriabin and Messiaen included two composers who creatively tapped into (or suffered from) their pronounced synesthetic disposition.

After the 6th sonata that Scriabin thought so dark and threatening that he never performed it publicly himself, he may have had to write the 7th, a light-flooded work he dubbed “White Mass” and enjoyed playing. It’s far from being light, though; even when bright rays trickle into the work from above it is over a robust, shifting body where various sounds reciprocate like a slick of oil on a puddle. It is music that the well-behaved five-year-old in front of me must have thought the adults around her crazy for liking… and not so many years ago I would have sided with her. Now the music and the complete and passionate involvement of Mr. Austbø had me completely enchanted. With such gusto flung the performer the finale of the sonata into the room that all notions of cool and austere Scandinavians flew out of the – admittedly windowless – Ring Auditorium of the Hirshhorn. Sonata no. 10 – sometimes known as the “Trill Sonata” is calmer, earthbound like a hovering morning fog would be. It has a few very rousing climaxes before it descends into its primordial slumber again. Scriabin himself called it a “sonata of insects” which were “born from the sun” – alas such notions were not on my mind when listening spellbound.

O. Messiaen, Petites esquisses d'oiseaux / Catalogue d'oiseaux, H. Austbø

A. Scriabin, Complete Piano Sonatas, H. Austbø

If you understand Scriabin’s musical language (and I mean ‘understand’ in the loose sense of being able to derive pleasure from listening to it), then you are only one step away from ‘understanding’ Messiaen. I’ve listened to Messiaen for much longer than Scriabin, but my reaction had long been a sort of peripheral enjoyment at best. (That excludes his accessible and darkly delightful Quatuor pour la fin du temps.) Not having heard Messiaen piano works live before, I could have not asked for someone better than Håkon Austbø as my first.

Like a good deal of modern classical music, Messiaen benefits invaluably from the live experience. (If perhaps not so much as to have won over the still impeccably behaving girl in the first row who gave a curious and doubt-ridden look towards Austbø before snuggling against her father’s arm.) The works that Håkon Austbø continued to shake out of his hands with seeming ease and complete sovereignty were Regard du Silence and Noël from Vingt Regards sue l'Enfant-Jésus and La Bouscarle from the Catalogue d’oiseaux. If I say that it sounded a bit like watching Pollock paint one of his canvases might, you will be able to decide for yourself whether you would have loved or loathed it. Intriguing it should have been to anyone present.

Håkon Austbø’s appearance was kindly supported by the Royal Norwegian Embassy as one of the first events of their Centennial Anniversary celebrations that will include many appearances of Norway’s finest artists all over Washington.

Originally from ionarts, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 14, 2005 at 01:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Philip Glass, Waiting for the Barbarians

J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians

Perhaps flying under the radar a bit because of the überhype surrounding Dr. Atomic, Philip Glass has just premiered a new opera, too. Performances of Waiting for the Barbarians, based on Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee's book of the same name, began at the Theater Erfurt in Erfurt, Germany, on September 10 and continue through October 26. Shirley Apthorp published a preview article (Philip Glass Talks About 'Barbarians' Premiere, War, Music, September 9) with Bloomberg News:

Unlike so many modern composers, who slowly write works that quickly disappear after a first hearing, Glass, 68, is prolific and popular. This is his 21st opera, adapted for the stage by Christopher Hampton ("Sunset Boulevard," "Dangerous Liaisons") who worked closely with South African novelist John M. Coetzee. Set in a fictitious frontier town, whose magistrate is driven by his conscience to a quixotic act of rebellion, the story takes place after a nameless state has waged an imperialistic war based on lies. "Barbarians" is a political allegory, a love story, a tragedy and a wake-up call.

Apthorp: What made you decide to write this opera?

Glass: I read John Coetzee's book some time ago. And I was amazingly interested in the story. It's about social change and society, about violence and non-violence. The book is very much like Orwell's 1984. It was a fantasy. But since it was written, we have lived to see it become reality.

You should, as they say, read the whole thing. Catherine Hickey then reviewed the opera (Philip Glass's New Opera Evokes Abu Ghraib in Tale of Torture, September 13) for Bloomberg News:

Colonel Joll arrives from the capital intent on finding prisoners to give him information on the "barbarians," who, he says, are planning to attack the Empire. He describes his methods of extracting confessions to the unlikely hero of the piece -- the world-weary, womanizing Magistrate (sensitively played by Richard Salter) -- with the argument that "pain is truth." Joll and his henchmen use the fabricated outside threat --the barbarians never arrive -- to inflict their own brand of terror on the people. "Normally speaking we would never approve of torture, but I think it's generally understood that this is an emergency," says Joll. (Unfortunately, Eugene Perry's voice is much too weak to make him sufficiently intimidating in the role.)

Staged by Guy Montavon with Dennis Russell Davies as musical director, the production borrows heavily from the media photos of Abu Ghraib that shocked the world: prisoners are hooded, leashed and stripped to the waist. It's an effective device: The images revive the sense of revulsion provoked by Abu Ghraib, at the same time bringing the opera right into the present day. Glass's score works almost like a movie soundtrack: It creates atmosphere and helps tell the story without commanding center stage. The use of a choir in the orchestra pit -- voices off-stage singing wordless vowels -- adds to the filmic feel.

This reviewer found that "the scenes of violence are unconvincing." The capsule piece on the premiere (Philip Glass opera gets ovation, September 12) from BBC News reports that Glass received a 15-minute ovation at the premiere:

The "Barbarians" of the title are nomadic people deemed by the "civilised" whites to be socially and racially inferior. Glass previously said he saw the opera as a critique of President Bush's administration and its war against Iraq. However, its sets and costumes remain timeless, underlining the universality of Glass' themes. Its music contains all the characteristics of the "minimalist" style that made him famous.

There are plans to take this production to Amsterdam and then to Austin, Texas. The Theater Erfurt has put a beautiful set of production photos online.

Originally from ionarts, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 14, 2005 at 01:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Lincoln Portrait (1942). Aaron Copland

I see that Barak Obama, Senator from Illinois, narrated Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait in a Chicago 9/11 concert:

Obama brought an orator's skill without an actor's slick veneer to Copland's "Lincoln Portrait.'' The comforting quality of his voice gave added emotional resonance to Lincoln's words.

  This got me thinking about who else has narrated the work. I knew James Earl Jones and General Schwartzkopf had but a quick check on Amazon also reveals Henry Fonda, Carl Sandburg (who wrote the original text), Judy Collins and actor Melvyn Douglas from 1946. Spike Lee's He Got Game used the music without narration. And from an announcement of a recent rendition by the lieutenant governor of Missouri:

Copland wrote Lincoln Portrait shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, hoping that the piece would help to boost patriotic pride and morale at a time when the nation’s fortunes seemed at low ebb.

From the text:

"Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility." [Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862]

He was born in Kentucky, raised in Indiana, and lived in Illinois. And this is what he said. This is what Abe Lincoln said.

rgable: aworks great depression/wwii era copland: copland house aworks del.icio.us wikipedia google news yahoo audio singingfish asteroid named after the composer music used by dylan john adams on copland lincoln portrait: wikipedia npr with stream voice of america 1953 new york times article (including withdrawl from the eisenhower inauguration ceremony) boosey & hawkes review of the judy collins cd australian performance lebrecht on margaret thatcher

Originally posted by Robert Gable from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 14, 2005 at 01:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

waste of time

I suspected my comments about teaching composition would cause me issues with those who are, in fact, involved in teaching others how to write music. I was right...

Originally from david's waste of bandwidth..., ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 14, 2005 at 01:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Japanese Composers, Seattle

Originally from NetNewMusic Contemporary Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 14, 2005 at 01:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 13, 2005

teaching composition is a waste of time

I suspected that my comments on music composition teachers would not go over well with those who are, in fact, composition teachers

No disrespect was intended for anyone who is a composition teacher. However, I (and I suspect at least a few others) would...

Originally posted by David Toub from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 13, 2005 at 06:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wearing my Comp. Teacher's hat

Please, please do NOT tar everyone -- every composition teacher -- with erroneous absolutes ! (1) David Toub writes: "...the nature, I think, of what being a composition teacher seems to entail: molding students into your own way of thinking."

Originally posted by Judith Lang Zaimont from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 13, 2005 at 06:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Stalinists in Academia

I have to quote, in its near-entirety, this story that composer Jeff Harrington tells over at Sequenza 21, in a continuation of an ongoing argument, about professor pressure in composition grad school:

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 13, 2005 at 06:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Doctor Atomic (2005). John Adams /first listen/

NewMusicBox has an article where John Adams comments on listening to his opera being sung for the first time:

When I first heard the singers, it was in a relatively small rehearsal hall, with a piano accompaniment. I thought I'd written too high for all the men!

But no, it turned out fine. At the end of the article, the composer suggests he might write a symphony from the opera's material.

I remember Adams talking before the premiere of El Dorado (or was it The Death of Klinghoffer?) where he remarked that the perspective on hearing a new work of his being performed is like standing inches away from a new painting.

rgable: aworks culture wars era adams: official aworks del.icio.us wikipedia google news yahoo audio singingfish amazon doctor atomic: official iron tongue of midnight wikipedia: 2005 hindemith: wikipedia

Originally posted by Robert Gable from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 13, 2005 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Quiet City (1940). Aaron Copland /new york and new orleans/

For today, Copland's Quiet City sounds apt, and the play may have more depth than I realized. Harold Clurman wrote about Irwin Shaw's work:

It's theme, the recurrent one of the troubled conscience of the middle class that cannot quite reconcile itself to its life in a distraught world -- which, when it retains its honesty and sensitivity, it identifies with a life of sin -- was here given full orchestration.

A brief search indicates the play includes a character who abandons his artistic aspirations and his Jewishness in order to achieve material success, but is reminded of what he has done via his brother's trumpet playing.

rgable: aworks great depression/wwii era copland: aworks del.icio.us wikipedia google news yahoo audio singingfish copland's music as uniter after hurricane hugo

Originally posted by Robert Gable from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 13, 2005 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

New England, Late Summer (2003). John Prokop

John Prokop, on the Sequenza21 wiki, says his influences include Morton Feldman and Frank Zappa. Could there be another pair of composers whose music is more disparate than these two?

I suggest a combined recording: Shut up and play yer' "feature isolated, carefully chosen, predominantly quiet sounds."

Prokop also cites one of my favorite composers from the recent past -- Kevin Volans. I would blog more about Volans if I could find an American tie-in.

Originally posted by Robert Gable from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 13, 2005 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Truth Is Out There

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 13, 2005 at 01:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Everything Is Possible

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 13, 2005 at 01:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

strongarming

The point has been made lately a number of times, by Lawrence Dillon here and by Kyle Gann (with whom I had some email correspondence about it) on his blog, among others, that, in one way or another people were forced to write certain kinds of music by th

Originally posted by Rodney Lister from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 13, 2005 at 01:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

wither the cd

OK, enough rhetoric. I was speaking with an exec at a major corporation today at work and our conversation was about the new iPod (the conversation spurred by my walking in with my new 60 GB iPod) and downloads. I raised the point that as a kid, I could a

Originally posted by David Toub from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 13, 2005 at 01:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 12, 2005

Paris Transatlantic

Originally from The Rambler, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 12, 2005 at 06:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

nice feedback!

Originally from david's waste of bandwidth..., ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 12, 2005 at 06:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Look at Us, We're invisible!

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 12, 2005 at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

When Does the Post-Prohibitive Age Arrive?

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 12, 2005 at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

University Symphony, Berkeley

Originally from NetNewMusic Contemporary Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 12, 2005 at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sonic Art Meeting Group - 4th Meeting - Leeds UK

Originally from NetNewMusic Contemporary Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 12, 2005 at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

IFM Music Night, Cologne, October 22, 2005

Originally from NetNewMusic Contemporary Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 12, 2005 at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

"The Music of the Spheres: Cosmic Vibrations", NYC

Originally from NetNewMusic Contemporary Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 12, 2005 at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Yogyakarta Contemporary Music Festival 2005

Originally from NetNewMusic Contemporary Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 12, 2005 at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Avantgarde Tirol: 9th International Academy for New Composition and Audio-Art

Originally from NetNewMusic Contemporary Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 12, 2005 at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

CROSSOUNDS presents ECHOGRAPHY, Juneau

Originally from NetNewMusic Contemporary Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 12, 2005 at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Rhetorical Question

Rhetoric in music is perhaps the soul of narrative music – particularly where vocal music and texts are concerned. I believe it’s one of the reasons that much musical evolution takes place in vocal genres. Musical rhetoric derives originally from the or

Originally posted by Cary Boyce from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 12, 2005 at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Even in Arcadia there is death

Laws of Thermodynamics Energy exists in many forms, such as heat, light, chemical energy, and electrical energy. Energy is the ability to bring about change or to do work. Thermodynamics is the study of energy. First Law of Thermodynamics: Energy can be

Originally posted by Tom Myron from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 12, 2005 at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Dangers of Liberal Artist Groupthink

(Dammit, David, I was totally going to raise this issue yesterday, but you beat me to it. I was even going to call it "Art and Politics" too!) Around the time of the 2004 presidential election, some composer friends and I were trying to figure out if we

Originally posted by Ian Moss from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 12, 2005 at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Art and Politics

How many artists – composers, painters, film makers, etc. – do you know who would identify themselves as either Republican or politically right-wing? I personally know only one – and he keeps pretty quiet about it. (I hear, however, there’s one very e

Originally posted by David Salvage from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 12, 2005 at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Paws and Effect

It is 3 in the morning, and this, the middle of my best working hours, finds me beating perfectly innocent notes into submission so that Sibelius (the notation program, not the summoned muse) might cause them to appear even more worthy than they in fact m

Originally posted by Alex Shapiro from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 12, 2005 at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Perceived Legitimacy and the Media, or "If They Tell You They Don't Like It You Must Be Doing Something Right"

In paragraph two of his recent "All Women, All the Time (Almost)" posting, Kyle Gann remarks on the second anniversary of his blog: "I wrote a little fewer entries this year than last - I suspect that decline will continue. I'm not finding a blog to be

Originally posted by Galen H. Brown from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 12, 2005 at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

COMPOSERS AND THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE THEM

Check out my brand new podcast COMPOSERS AND THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE THEM. In this inaugural episode, Heebie McJeebie (TANDY Professor of Electronic Music at the Hotel Cadillac in Rochester, NY) interviews EVE BEGLARIAN in his specially designed Composer I

Originally posted by Corey Dargel from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 12, 2005 at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Nature or Nurture

[NOTE: I think we can all acknowledge that, when talking generally about genres, styles, and techniques, there are always exceptions to the rules, and there are always extraordinary people who do extraordinary work within a specific genre, style, or techn

Originally posted by Corey Dargel from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 12, 2005 at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack