March 31, 2007

Do You Know This Man?

If you know this gentleman or his work and have some original thoughts about same,

and you want to write (for real, now) a decent sized post about said mystery person and work,

and you are not Frank J. Oteri or Samuel Vriezen,

leave your reasons for wanting to write said post below with your mailing address (or if you’re squemish about the internets, send me an e-mail.

Winner will get in the mail about three pounds of CDs of said person’s work.

Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 31, 2007 at 08:01 PM | Comments (0)

In 1973 my mother bought me my first toy piano at Harvey’s Department Store in Nashville. This is not quite the heartwarming tale of a little tyke that it might at first seem to be, since I was at the time a student at New England Conservatory, and she was getting it for me so I could play the Cage Suite for Toy Piano in a concert in Jordan Hall. It turned out that, completely inadvertently (only operating according to her generosity), she had got me the Steinway of toy pianos, a Schoenhut. I’ve continued to play the Cage over the years, and last summer my toy piano more or less just fell apart.

As I thought about buying a new one, it occurred to me that I should do an inaugural concert on it. I began to ask people to write pieces for me, and mostly they agreed to do.

The concert is on Sunday, April 8 at 8:00pm in the Marshall Room in the Music Building at Boston University (855 Commonwealth Avenue).

The concert includes–in addition to the Cage–pre-existing pieces by Kyle Gann, Eve Beglarian, Richard Whalley, and Dai Fujikura (for toy piano and violin pizzicato–the violinist will be Peter Zazofsky). There are new pieces, which will be having their first performances, by Lyle Davidson, Pozzi Escot, Stephen Feigenbaum, Michael Finnissy, Philip Grange, John Heiss, Derek Hurst (with electronic sounds–i.e. on my boombox), Matthew McConnell, Matthew Mendez, Nico Muhly, Ketty Nez (for toy piano and piano–Ketty will be the pianist), Dave Smith, Jeremy Woodruff, William Zuckerman, and me (for clavichord and toy piano–the clavichord player will be Peter Sykes). (I’m pretty sure that’s everybody.) The pieces are all really good and all really different from each other.

I hope you can come to this (what can only be described as an) unusual concert.

Originally posted by John Rodney Lister from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 31, 2007 at 08:01 PM | Comments (0)

Mouths/Haptic - IV2E/Danjon Scale

Entracte E37 Now, if Tarantino and Rodriguez were really cool, theyd have used the music from this split LP for their split flick, Grindhouse. But no, this marvelous set is relegated to a 200 copy printing, to languish in...

Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 31, 2007 at 08:01 PM | Comments (0)

Helena Gough - with what remains

Entracte E38 with what remains is the first release by Helena Gough, a sound artist based out of Birmingham, England. Often the work of sound installation creators doesnt translate particularly well to disc, the spatial aspect turning out to...

Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 31, 2007 at 08:01 PM | Comments (0)

The Seven Last Words

My photograph was taken at the Anglican Shrine at Walsingham, Norfolk, and celebrates both the birth of Joseph Haydn 275 years ago, on March 31st 1732, and the start of Holy Week.

Now playing – Emerson Quartet performing Haydn’s ‘The Seven Last Words’. The cathedral in Cádiz commissioned Haydn, who was a devout Catholic, to write orchestral interludes for performance between the spoken parts of the service in the great Spanish Baroque church during Holy Week. The composer wrote seven adagios for the cathedral, and transcribed these for string quartet in the year of their first performance, 1787, and later made a choral version. The Emerson’s recorded ‘The Seven Last Words’ in New York in 2002 as part of their complete Haydn project.

Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Lower Austria, and ranks as one of the most important composers of all time. However, unlike Mozart's, today's important anniversary of his birth has passed virtually unnoticed. He was the first great Viennese composer, and is known as both the "Father of the Symphony" and the "Father of the String Quartet" in whose footsteps Mozart and Beethoven followed.

Meanwhile back in Cádiz, Manuel de Falla was buried in the crypt of the cathedral in 1946.

Now enjoy Easter at Aldeburgh
Photograph by Pliable. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included for "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 31, 2007 at 06:38 PM | Comments (0)

Tonic Closes

Not surprising given the history, but New York’s Tonic will close in 2 weeks. High rents are the main culprit but with any luck the music will move to Brooklyn or similar place in the NY scene where the rents are more reasonable and to where the music is fleeing.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 31, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

2 Foot Yard Previewed

2 Foot Yard’s New Bedford performance is previewed.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 31, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

Harry Partch BBC Documentary on Youtube

The first of six parts is linked here and you can easily find the rest from there.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 31, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

Avant Garde Project 54: Sylvano Bussotti, The Rara Requiem

From AGP:

The Avant Garde Project is a series of 20th-century classical-experimental- electroacoustic torrents digitized from LPs whose music has in most cases never been released on CD, and so is effectively inaccessible to the vast majority of music listeners today. This is wild stuff, so check it out if you’ve never heard this sort of music before. The analog rig used to extract the sound from the grooves is near state-of-the-art, producing almost none of the tracking distortion or surface noise normally associated with LPs.

AGP1-50 are now available for direct download in the archive at www.avantgardeproject.org

AGP51-53 are available at http://thepiratebay.org/user/loudav

=======================================

AGP54 is the second of three dedicated to the Italian composer Sylvano Bussotti. Born in 1931, he is one of the major Italian composers of his generation and while many of his works were recorded and released on LPs, few have found their way onto CD. AGP53-55 include a number of Bussotti’s major works, only two of which appear to have been released on CD and none of which is currently available. This is surprising because Bussotti’s works were of consistently high quality. They often remind me of Ligeti’s works of the 1970’s in making effective use of classical harmonies and tonally meaningful chromaticism in the context of the advanced compositional tools of his generation.

The second Bussotti installment includes his magnificent Rara Requiem and two shorter works. The Rara Requiem was composed in 1969-70 and is scored for voices, guitar and cello, winds, piano, harp, and percussion. This work features some of the finest late 20th-century vocal music I have heard–not as dense as Ligeti’s Requiem or as extreme as Nono’s “y entonces comprendio” from the same years, with darker harmonies than Berio’s Sinfonia. The instrumentalists punctuate the vocal textures nicely. Frammento is a scoring of Voix de Femme from Pieces de Chair II (1958-59) with Cathy Berberian singing soprano and her husband Luciano Berio playing piano. Fragmentations (1962) is a work for one performer playing two harps.

All tracks but Frammento were transcribed from European pressings in excellent condition and very little tracking distortion. Frammento is from the Time Records series organized by Earle Brown. The LP used for the transcription is in excellent condition, but it was recorded in the early 1960s and so has a somewhat leaner, harder sound. The torrent includes a text file with liner notes from two of the three LPs from which these recordings were transcribed, as well as an image of the front cover of the Rara Requiem LP.

Equipment used for A/D conversion: Lyra Helikon phono cartridge, Linn LP12/Lingo turntable, Linn Ittok tonearm, Audioquest LeoPard tonearm cable, PS Audio PS2 preamplifier, Kimber PBJ interconnect, M-Audio Audiophile USB A/D converter.

01 - Rara Requiem, side A [28:23]
02 - Rara Requiem, side B [27:50]
03 - Frammento [9:28]
04 - Fragmentations [10:39]

NOTE: To the best of my knowledge, these recordings are currently out of print. If you know otherwise, please let me know ASAP, as I do not wish any artists to be deprived of the royalties that they so richly deserve.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 31, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

Third crusade.

I have a strong memory from years gone by of an episode of The Muppet Show in which Rudolf Nureyev was the featured guest star. Naturally, YouTube has the episode's famous pas de deux. But what I specifically remember is beleaguered company aesthete Sam the Eagle announcing the dancer's presence in reverent tones, anticipating artistic salvation from the show's tawdry norm:

"RU-dolf nu-REY-ev."

It's surely a sign of my inner geekdom that this crossed my mind following a telephone interview I recently conducted. Afterward, I wandered around the office in a state of blissed-out delirium provoked by the subject at the other end of the line: the man who, intentionally or not, basically invented heavy metal. Solemnly, I intoned his name to those within earshot:

"TO-ny i-O-mmi."

The occasion that prompted my interview with Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, for a "Backstage with..." featurette in Time Out New York, was the then-impending concert by Heaven and Hell, which took place at Radio City Music Hall tonight (March 30).

In all but name, this would be a show by Black Sabbath, specifically the lineup that recorded Mob Rules in 1981: guitarist Tony Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler, both founding members, plus singer Ronnie James Dio (who'd joined the group for the previous year's Heaven and Hell) and drummer Vinny Appice. Those two discs restored luster to a band that had coasted at best through its last two albums with original singer Ozzy Osbourne. This version of Black Sabbath broke up in 1983, reunited in 1992 for the album Dehumanizer and an attendant tour, and hasn't been seen since.

One reason for the name change was an exclusive focus on material created with Dio: the three albums mentioned, plus new tracks recorded for The Dio Years, a single-disc anthology due out next Tuesday. No "Iron Man," no "Paranoid," no "War Pigs." Another reason, Iommi explained, was out of respect for Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. The notion of a new Black Sabbath studio album with Ozzy continues to be floated out there as if it's likely to happen, even though the Heaven and Hell lineup cut three new songs for their anthology, whereas the reconvened original quartet with Osbourne and drummer Bill Ward only managed to wax a pair to tack onto Reunion, a 1998 live set.

The current strategy prompted me to ask Iommi, in an unpublished exchange, whether there might now exist the potential for a future tour fronted by Ian Gillan, the Deep Purple vocalist who briefly fronted a post-Dio Black Sabbath, under the name "Born Again." No, he replied, no such notions were being pondered -- although I wasn't the first to ask. In my opinion, it's not a bad idea at all. I'd also be open to a tour with Glenn Hughes, another former Deep Purple and (ersatz) Black Sabbath frontman, under the name "Seventh Star." This could also include material from Iommi's rock-solid solo and joint projects recorded with Hughes during various Sabbath interstices...

Anyway, I'm meandering. Tonight, ~~Black Sabbath~~ Heaven and Hell arrived at Radio City Music Hall for a show that sold out in less than an hour. The set list, played in during a preliminary Canadian tour, varied little from what the band played in its opening date in Vancouver on March 11; one new song, "Ear in the Wall," was dropped, and one older song, "Lonely Is the Word," was added to the encore.

What was clear from the very beginning was that this particular band's appeal has as much to do with the personal charisma of Dio, arguably America's foremost metal frontman, as with the Black Sabbath legacy -- which is precisely why it succeeded sans Ozzy-era warhorses. The singer worked the front rows relentlessly, shaking hands and touching extended fingertip devil horns tip-to-tip. "I wish I could touch you all," he exclaimed after "The Sign of the Southern Cross," eliciting a theater-shaking chant of "Dio! Dio! Dio!"

Dio is truly a marvel: his voice inviolate despite decades of filling arenas, his spirit generosity personified. He's also perhaps the only man in the world who could pull off a line like "One fine day in hell..." (at the beginning of "The Devil Cried") without embalming it in winking irony.

Butler provided his customarily fleet-fingered bass lines; the hulking Appice laid down appropriately huge beats, occasionally pummelling enormous tom-toms at either end of his kit mounted on stands that wobbled precariously by design. Iommi, the picture of stoic elegance, alternated between crunching riffs and languid, bluesy solos. Continuing the Sabbath tradition of relegating the necessary keyboardist offstage, Scott Warren, a member of Dio's current band, provided his vital contributions unseen.

When "Heaven and Hell" finally arrived at the end of the set, the audience sang the signature theme without prompting -- which only urged Dio to stoke the temperature still hotter. Small wonder: tonight's show was being filmed for future release on DVD.

The "Heaven and Hell" chant continued through the lobby and out onto the street, ringing out toward Times Square. I overheard one fellow traveller waxing enthusiastic to a couple of others about the Dehumanizer tracks that had been included in the set -- only he couldn't remember the name of the first one. I chimed in with the answer. It turned out this guy had flown up from Florida to see the show, even though he faces serious surgery next week.

I dug into my bag and handed him my copy of The Dio Years. "You deserve this more than I do," I told him. In return, I received a grateful hug from a complete stranger. It was that kind of night.

Setlist: E5150 / After All (The Dead) / The Mob Rules / Children of the Sea / Lady Evil / I / Sign of the Southern Cross / Voodoo / The Devil Cried / Vinny Appice drum solo / Computer God / Falling Off the Edge of the World / Shadow of the Wind / Die Young / Heaven and Hell // Encore: Lonely Is the Word / Neon Knights

Playlist:

brakesbrakesbrakes - The Beatific Visions (Rough Trade/World's Fair, due May 8)

Blood Tsunami - Thrash Metal (Candlelight)

Black Sabbath - The Dio Years (Warner Bros./Rhino, due April 3); Los Angeles 1994 (Live Storm bootleg); and Reunion (Epic)

Originally posted by NightAfterNight from Night After Night, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 31, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

links for 2007-03-31

Originally from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 31, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

Peter Paul Fuchs - one path ends

Hello Pliable, No sooner than we speak of Weigl and a few of his students than I see this today:

In Wednesday’s (3/28/2007) Greensboro News & Record (NC), Dawn Decwikiel-Kane reports: “Peter Paul Fuchs, longtime conductor of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra and artistic director of the Greensboro Opera Company, died Monday night after a long illness. Fuchs, 90, died at Friends Home Guilford after a 17-year battle with Alzheimer's disease (follow this link for more on music and Alzheimer's - Pliable). The Vienna-born Fuchs brought his vast musical experience and pleasant temperament to the symphony and opera company from the mid-1970s through the early 1990s. Their leaders praised him Tuesday for his role in sculpting both organizations. ‘His expertise and talents led the orchestra to achieve the professional status and artistic excellence it enjoys today,’ said Dmitry Sitkovetsky, the symphony's current music director. Before arriving in Greensboro, Fuchs conducted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, directed the opera and orchestra at Louisiana State University and had led the Baton Rouge Symphony. Fuchs served as the Greensboro Symphony's music director from 1975-87, then retired and became its conductor laureate.”

He was a talented man that I was honored to meet once and speak to at length. I still have a score or two of his in my library, though I was unable to convince anyone to perform them at the time. That was no reflection upon his music. Best, John McLaughlin Williams

* Now playing - Bach's Goldberg Variations transcribed for strings by current Greensboro Symphony music director Dmitry Sitkovetsky (below), and played by NES Chamber Orchestra. The sleeve notes of this 1995 Nonesuch CD are by none other than John Adams, and say: 'The opportunity to experience a new view of a familiar work such as the Goldberg Variations should not be grounds for a skeptical raising of critical eyebrows, but rather a cause for celebration. Arranging the Goldberg Variations is risky business, however. One is working here not with a melodic fragment of single song, but rather with one of the summas of Western music, specifically a work which is a compendium of all the principal developments in European keyboard up to and including Bach's time. ... John Cage, in his lecture "Composition as Process," defines form as "the morphology of continuity." The morphology of the Goldberg Variations' continuity is one of a perfectly shaped and harmonious continuity. Symmetry and unpredictability coexist in an environment of impertuable serenity. ' Nice CD as well.

Now read about a year at the symphony.
Photo of Greensboro, NC southern railway station from ePodunk. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 31, 2007 at 08:56 AM | Comments (0)

Steve Reich Talking Music: Technology and Influence

The Steve Reich Ensemble, in a 2006 dress rehearsal of “The Cave” by Mr. Reich and Beryl Korot at John Jay College in New York. The piece uses both video and live performance. (Photo: Richard Termine for The New York Times) In this final audio installment of Steve Reich’s interview for The Score, the composer discusses [...]

Originally posted by The Score from The Score, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 31, 2007 at 05:01 AM | Comments (0)

Not-so-Motley Crews

I'd like to pick a little more at the question of the link between what orchestras look like and what they sound like. Let's back up. Nearly a month ago, I wrote a column in Newsday claiming that the Vienna Philharmonic's de facto reluctance to admit women was, besides being reprehensible on the face of it, a symptom of an intellectually moribund, radically preservationist mentality that also permeates the ensemble's music-making. Alex agreed (in the last paragraph). The writers of the most vitriolic e-mails I received did not. Missing the aesthetic argument completely, they suggested that if I was so hot for orchestral justice, I should look at just how diverse American orchestras are, which I did. Among the responses I got for that story was one published in The American Spectator, which opens ingratiatingly: "If there were a Moonbat award for the worst solution to a non-existent problem, Aaron Dworkin would win the prize hands down." Now the reason that Dworkin, the founding president of the Sphinx Organization and an agitator for more minority representation in orchestras, elicited that reaction was that I quoted him as saying, among other things: "We should look again at the current standard of screened auditions. I believe that more information about the candidate should be incorporated, in the same way that institutions of higher learning take cultural and racial background into account."

For the record, I don't agree with Dworkin on this point at all, for reasons encapsulated by 27-year-old flutist in the New World Symphony, Ebonee Thomas, who told me: "Sometimes, people assume I got where I got because I'm black. One thing that drew me to classical music was that most of the time, people really just want to know how you play." Screened auditions have been enormously successful in reducing the effects of prejudice; the fact that they're not a panacea is not a reason to scrap them.

But orchestras should be doing a better job developing minority apprenticeships, extending educational activities, forging more meaningful ties with community organizations, fundraising for subsidized instrument programs, and loudly advocating more music in public schools, starting in kindergarten. While they're busy doing that, the rest of us might give a little more thought to what drawing on a large, varied pool of musicians has already meant for American music, and what drawing on a larger, more varied pool could portend. It's got nothing really to do with race: Black flutists don't sound black any more than female violinist sound female, so let's leave that preposterous debate alone.

However, if American orchestras are especially versatile, stylistically eclectic and quick to learn new music, that's partly because so many of their musicians arrive at their jobs with an arsenal of musical experiences that audition committees aren't generally interested in hearing about. Bluegrass fiddlers, salsa-playing trombonists, percussionists who double as drummers in rock bands, violists who improvise in Hungarian avant-folk groups — these are some of the people who populate and enrich today's Philharmonics. And that's in a system that attracts its members from a relatively restricted segment of the population.

Widening the embrace of the symphonic world to include not just the perpetually yearned-for younger audiences but also a greater range of musicians would give orchestras access to that much more flexibility, that many more flavors of talent. Pursuing this goal has nothing to do with social justice or political correctness: it's pure self-interest.

— Justin Davidson

I second the above. It's amusing to see The American Spectator, a magazine that generally ignores classical music, rushing to the defense of high musical standards. Try spelling Juilliard correctly for a start. I also laughed out loud at the line "the San Francisco Symphony and the U.S. Marines are beyond compare." Let's hope no one tells them MTT is gay. — Alex

Originally posted by JustinDavidson from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 31, 2007 at 02:10 AM | Comments (0)

Mechanical Instruments 2

Continued Notes from Stemra 6818.072:

F. Nicole cylinderspeeldoos, Il barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini) 2:50
P.V.F. .Plerodienique' cylinderspeeldoos, Grande Valse Brillante (Chopin) 4:52
Polyphon M5 platenspeeldoos, Oh, Susanna! (Foster) 1:58
Regina platenspeeldoos, Old folks at home (Hisch) 2:12

Four comb-playing instruments have been recorded. The first is a F. Nicole overture-box, made in Geneva around 1835. The fine one-piece comb has 230 musical teeth. The 'Plerodienique' musical box, ( ± 1880), like the Haydn clock, has a helicoidal notation and is, consequently, capable of uninterrupted play for over five minutes.

The Polyphon and Regina are both disc musical boxes, produced around 1900 in Germany and America respectively. The great period of the disc-playing musical boxes lays between 1890 and 1914. Much as 19th century Switzerland was the incontestible centre of the production of cylinder musical boxes, Leipzig in East-Germany was the great producer of hundreds of thousands of disc-playing instruments. Hupfeld's 'Violin player' was one of the marvels at the World Exhibition of 1910 in Brussels. The Hupfeld Phonoliszt Violina is a combination of a player-piano plus three mechanically operated violins, using perforated paper music rolls. The Belgian 'Tingel-Tangel' ( ± 1930) offers a choice of ten pieces of dance-music, arranged with thousands of steel pins on a large wooden barrel. The spring-wound instrument plays after the insertion of a coin.

Originally posted by jodru from ANABlog, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 31, 2007 at 02:07 AM | Comments (0)

Ethnic Heritage Ensemble Hot N Heavy

Delmark 574 Rhythm is the baseline for every Kahil El'Zabar project and the relationship is particularly pronounced in the case of the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble. Thirty years on and a half-century and change to his name, El'Zabar is still...

Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 31, 2007 at 02:01 AM | Comments (0)

March 30, 2007

Cornelius Cardew's Treatise pages 41-44 performed by the Seattle Improv Meeting

Cornelius Cardew's Treatise pages 41-44 performed by the Seattle Improv Meeting
Cornelius Cardew's Treatise pages 41-44 performed by the Seattle Improv Meeting March 13th 2007. Meeting participants were Andrew Woods, Eric Peacock, Robert j Kirkpatrick. More info at: http://www.spiralcage.com/improvMeeting/index.html

Originally posted by jeff from cacophonous.org, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)

The Myth of Pop Hatred

One thread of the pop-influenced-classical-music argument is becoming clearer to me from the comments to my previous post. A recurring...

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

NYC’s CANTATAS IN CONTEXT Spring 2007 Season at St. Barts

WHAT: 2007 Spring Season of Cantatas in Context

WHEN: Thursday, May 10^th @ 7:30pm

WHERE: St. Bartholomew’s Church (Park Avenue & 51^st St. NYC) Train: 6/E/V Lexington Ave.

HOW: Tickets - $35, $25, and $15 (for students/seniors). For more information or to purchase tickets, contact St. Bart’s at (212) 378-0248 or visit www.stbarts.org.

CANTATAS IN CONTEXT CELEBRATES THE MUSIC OF JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH FEATURING THE ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S AND ALTO SOLOIST BRENDA PATTERSON

“Bach, in tune with the times” New York Times

New York City— As part of the St. Bartholomew’s Church “Great Music” series, Cantatas in Context showcases some of Johann Sebastian Bach’s 200 rarely-performed sacred vocal works. Conductor Mary Dalton Greer, a Bach specialist, leads the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and mezzo-soprano Brenda Patterson, in an evening performance of Bach’s transcendent alto solo cantatas, including one of the most beautiful slumber songs ever written.

BWV 82: Ich habe genung (It is enough)
BWV 169, Gott soll allein mein Herze haben (God alone shall have my heart)
BWV 170: Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust (Contented rest, beloved inner joy)

Conceived and organized by Artistic Director Mary Dalton Greer, the Cantatas in Context series debuted in 2001 in collaboration with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Now in its 7^th season, Cantatas in Context offers the public a deeper appreciation for the choral works of the Baroque era’s greatest composer. Each performance begins with a short introduction illuminating aspects of the text and highlighting features of Bach’s musical setting. All works are performed in their original German (English translations are provided). The musicians of St. Luke’s and Mary Dalton Greer are a ˜deeply committed ensemble,” (New York Sun). According to the New York Times, “[the performance] was finely coordinated, from its robust introduction to the resounding echo of its concluding sung chord.” Mezzo-Soprano Brenda Patterson is the 2004 Winner of the prestigious Alice Tully Vocal Arts Debut Recital Competition. She has been described by The New York Times as “a voice you want to hear, and, even more, an artist you want to follow.” For more information about Cantatas in Context visit www.AnimaMusic.org.

# # #

Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 08:02 PM | Comments (0)

Contender

Although it's relatively early in 2007, recently the New York Philharmonic pulled out a strong candidate for "Concert of the Year." Maestro Gilbert, we're keeping an eye on you.

[Photo of Alan Gilbert by Mats Lundquist]

Originally posted by bhodgesnyc from Monotonous Forest, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 08:01 PM | Comments (0)

Musique Machine Reviews

From Musique Machine:

Starving Weirdos - Shrine Of The Post- Hypnotic
Shrine of the post- Hypnotic finds the Starving Weirdos in a more primal, metallic, fiery almost ritual mood. This Also feels like one long trip through their strange sound world, instead of several separate ones that usual make up their albums; this seems to be telling a story, with real thought gone into the track sequencing.

Religious Knives - Remains
Religious Knives conjure up expansive and dense soundworlds, mixing b-movie like or low grade Tangerine dream synth throb and pierce, slow looped percussive matches, twanging and muddling guitar elements, chanted/mumbled male/female vocals and eastern edges. Coming up with a rather original and distinctive sound like a lost soundtrack to some late 70’s or early 80’s surreal horror movie or bizarre easter influence art-house movie.

Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - The Garden of Forked Paths
The Garden of forked paths is san-Francisco sound and drone artists’ first full length solo album, though he has released stuff with post-rock/psychedelic project Tarentel and the mainman behind the excellent Root Strata label.

Vanishing Voice - Stone Tablet
Stone Tablet is a strange tripped-out and psychedelic trip into groove locked, muilt layered kraut rock. Mixing in discordant and bent elements, battered guitar heroics, synth drug hazes and all manner of audio freak-out and sound psychedelics.

Tarwater - Spider Smile
Spider Smile finds this German electronic experimental duo bending their sound into more pop like angles, also adding in more organic and acoustic elements like mouth organ, Obe and banjo. All to make an album that on the surface is more approachable and tuneful, but still having an avant ear for sound use and repeated plays unveil more quirky and odd edges to the songs.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)

Montani semper liberi (with a Capital M)

Next to the Mountaineers winning the NIT (okay, so it’s the tournament of losers…we won), the most exciting news in the world today is that our lil’ buddy Ian Moss is having his second annual Capital M world premiere extravaganza at Tonic next Wednesday. The concert will feature new works by Ian Dicke, Mike Gamble, Caroline Mallonée, Ian Moss, Edward RosenBerg III, Jonathan Russell, and Kyle Sanna. Noted provocateurs and ne’er-do-wells Anti-Social Music will follow with their particular brand of “punk classical” madness.

Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)

The Friday Informer: Oh, The Places You'll Go

If you can't beat 'em...

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

Mechanical Instruments

Notes from Stemra 6818.072:

Van Speelklok Tot Pierement

Side 1:
Trompetenuhr - Réveil 0:28
Harfenuhr - Freut euch des Lebens 1:08
Haydn-speelklok - Menuet uit Don Giovanni met varieties (Mozart) 2:28
Bryceson kerkdraaiorgel - The old hundredth psalm 1:33
Geneva Psalter - Robin Adair (Scotch Song) 1:32

The collection of the National Museum from Musical Clock to Street Organ contains some 600 musical automata from the 18th to 20th centuries. In the 18th century Handel, Haydn and Mozart composed music especially for musical clocks, clocks with a small barrel organ. The German Black Forest produced its thousands of musical clocks with bells, strings, flutes or reeds, and it seemed a good idea to begin this record with one of the rarest 'Schwarzwalder': a so-called trumpeter-clock. Almost a century earlier, around 1790, the 'Harfenuhren' were quite popular. Small wooden
hammers, actuated by pins on the musical cylinder, play upon a set of strings, thereby producing the sound of a miniature square piano.

Amsterdam is not only famous for its 17th century carillons, it also produced many fine musical long case clocks and bracket clocks. The Dutch Haydn clock is a flute-playing long case clock with a small barrel organ in its base. The many interchangeable cylinders provide an extensive musical library of the 1800-period.

Due to the helicoidal music-notation on the cylinders the duration of the pieces may last up to five minutes. In England the barrel organ was a success even in the church. The 19th century saw literally hundreds of British churches well-equipped with a 4-stop barrel organ, thus doing away with the competent organist and requiring only some muscular effort. The old hundredth as played on the neo-gothic Bryceson barrel organ provides a good example.

Originally posted by jodru from ANABlog, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)

Forbes Graham Quartet in Hyde Park, MA
Jazz-Quad, Belarus - 31 minutes ago
Forbes Graham has appeared on over 30 recordings, ranging in style from contemporary classical, metal, and jazz. His compositions are extremely mathematical ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:56 PM | Comments (0)

L. Ron Hubbard, "March of the Psychlo"

More...

Originally posted by jodru from ANABlog, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:56 PM | Comments (0)

Quintet of the Americas in Performance at California State University at Fresno New Music Festival on March 31

The Quintet of the Americas will be in concert at the California State University at Fresno New Music Festival on Saturday, March 31 – 8 PM at the Wahlberg Recital Hall on the campus of California State University, 5241 N. Maple Ave. in Fresno, California. This performance is part of the 4-day festival dedicated to the performance of new and original compositions by living composers.

Selections for this program will include Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Quintette en forme de choros, Peteris Vasks’s Music for a Deceased Friend, Victoria Bond’s ShenBlu for solo flute, Elliott Schwartz’s Bird Bath, Neil Rolnick’s Ambos mundos, Louis W. Ballard’s The Soul, Matt Sullivan’s OBoy!, Carl MaultsBy’s Still Rockin’ in Jerusalem and Paquito D’Rivera’s Wapango.

Tickets for the March 31 concert are $10. For more information, please call 559-278-2654 or visit http://www.csufresno.edu/music/.

Visit the Quintet online at http://www.quintet.org.

Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:54 PM | Comments (0)

March 31st, Chris Becker residency and concert with Racoco Productions

March 31, 2007
Composer Chris Becker
In Residency with Racoco Productions (http://www.racoco.org/)
March 31, 3:30 PM to 5:30 pm OPEN REHEARSAL
Stagger Lee (with guest Sharrif Simmons)
and Cornell Box
Choreography by Rachel Cohen
Music by Chris Becker

March 31, 7:00 PM PRE-CONCERT TALK
Chris Becker and Rachel Cohen discuss Cornell Box

March 31, 7:30 PM CONCERT
The program:
Cornell Box (with members of Racoco Productions)
Bone Moon (March)
Stagger Lee (with guest Sharrif Simmons)
Thrown (with members of Racoco Productions

ALL EVENTS TAKE PLACE AT STUDIO 111
111 Conselyea Street btwn Leonard and Manhattan

L to Lorimer/Metropolitan
$5 suggested donation

Open rehearsals and concert performance feature:
Chris Becker - Laptop
Lewis ‘Flip’ Barnes - Trumpet
Lynn Wright - Electric Guitar
Special Guest Sharrif Simmons - Poetry
and members of Racoco Productions

More information http://beckermusic.blogspot.com/index.html

Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:54 PM | Comments (0)

N.ROTA - 2 Piano Concertos

Nino Rota (1911-1979)

He is particularly remembered for his work on film scores, especially The Godfather series and a number of films by Federico Fellini.

Rota was born into a musical family in Milan, and studied at the conservatory there under Ildebrando Pizzetti . Later, the conductor Arturo Toscanini encouraged him to go to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to study. This he did, where he worked under Fritz Reiner, amongst others. He later returned to Milan, where he wrote a thesis on the renaissance composer Gioseffo Zarlino.

Rota wrote his first film score in 1944 for Zazà, a film directed by Renato Castellani . He later met the director Federico Fellini while the latter was working on his first film, Lo Sceicco Bianco . The two collaborated on many occasions, with Rota's score for 8½ often cited as one of the main factors which makes the film more cohesive.

The scores for which Rota is probably best known publicly are Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet and Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather and The Godfather, Part II.

Although best known for his work in films, Rota also composed ten operas, five ballets and many other instrumental works.

(original link at this page: http://nino-rota.biography.ms/)

on this recording:
The composer of many scores for the films of director and fellow Italian Federico Fellini, Nino Rota did not have airs about his forays into classical composition. He once said that he wanted to be remembered with, "a little bit of nostalgia, a lot of optimism, and good humor."
These qualities in fact are more in evidence on the soundtracks to 'La Strada' and 'Juliet of the Spirits' than they are in these concertos, though it's apparent that Rota bore considerable nostalgia himself for the approach of 19th-century Romantics and, to a lesser degree, Classicists. You may hear similarities to Franck or Brahms in the arpeggiations of the "Allegro tranquillo" of Rota's 'Concerto in E minor', or Rachmaninoff in the grand piano posturings. This concerto will be something of a revelation to the composer's film fans and is admirably accomplished here by Massimo Palumbo, especially in that work's final section.
The 'Concerto in C major' is somewhat more modern and less Romantic in its building of passion into complex harmonics, and you might perceive an echo of Rota's main theme for 'The Godfather' in the "Arietta con variazioni." The "Allegro" movement also suggests his fellow classical-cum-film composers, Shostakovich and Prokofiev, at their lustiest.

tracklist:
1-3: Concerto for Piano in e minor "Piccolo mondo antico"
4-6: Concerto for Piano in C major

piano: Massimo Palumbo
conductor: Marco Boni
I VIRTUOSI ITALIANI

label: Chandos

links:
PART I
PART II

Originally from Le Roi s'amuse, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:09 PM | Comments (0)

Boston Symphony Postpones World Premiere of Gunther Schuller's Where the Word Ends

Matthew Westphal , PlaybillArts, 3/29/2007

Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:08 PM | Comments (0)

Who said anything about genres?

New spin. Time Out Chicago, March 28, 2006. The New Millennium Orchestra is one of the best additions to the city's scene, bringing dj culture and classical music together. Some aren't crazy about it, as one listener went on to write a displeased letter to conductor Francesco Milioto after a Mozart symphony performed with digital video projections, but the group is starting to attract a following.

Originally posted by MarcGeelhoed from Marc Geelhoed: Deceptively Simple, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:08 PM | Comments (0)

On Shrugging Of The Conflict Between Modernists And Historicists That Absurdly Still Defines So Much Debate Over Contemporary Culture

"Three decades after his Pompidou Center in Paris turned the architecture world upside down and brought him global fame, the British architect Richard Rogers has been named the 2007 winner of the Pritzker Prize, the profession’s highest honor.

In the citation accompanying its decision, to be announced today, the Pritzker jury saluted Mr. Rogers for his “unique interpretation of the Modern Movement’s fascination with the building as machine, an interest in architectural clarity and transparency, the integration of public and private spaces, and a commitment to flexible floor plans that respond to the ever-changing demands of users.” ...

Mr. Rogers earned a reputation as a high-tech iconoclast with the completion of the 1977 Pompidou Center, with its exposed skeleton of brightly colored tubes for mechanical systems. The Pompidou “revolutionized museums,” the Pritzker jury said, “transforming what had once been elite monuments into popular places of social and cultural exchange, woven into the heart of the city.” Similarly, his 1986 Lloyd’s office building in the heart of the London financial district features a inside-out design, with a soaring atrium surrounded by external escalators and elevators.

Asked to describe his own stylistic signature, Mr. Rogers said he was recognized for “celebrating the components and the structure.”

“That’s how we get rhythm and poetry out of it,” he said. He added that he would like to be known for “buildings which are full of light, which are light in weight, which are flexible, which have low energy, which are what we call legible — you can read how the building is put together.”

Other high-profile projects by Mr. Rogers include the sprawling Millennium Dome in Greenwich, England, suspended from steel masts and secured by steel cable (1999), and the law courts in Bordeaux, France (1998) — seven “pods” clad in cedar wood surrounded by glass walls under an undulating copper roof.

Mr. Rogers’ most recent major undertaking was the $2.2 billion new terminal at Barajas International Airport in Madrid (2005), featuring waves formed by wings of prefabricated steel and a roof covered in bamboo strips. ...

While he had been largely absent from New York, Mr. Rogers now has four projects under way in the city: an expanded the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on the Far West Side of Manhattan; a tower at the World Trade Center site; a complex at Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, Queens; and a redesign of the East River waterfront.

Not all of these designs have been well received. Appraising Mr. Rogers’s vision for the Javits Center in The New York Times, Nicolai Ouroussoff said its boxy design was “a decent but not particularly dazzling work of architecture.”

But he offered glowing praise for Mr. Rogers’s reimagination of the East Side waterfront, designed in collaboration with Gregg Pasquarelli of SHoP Architects and the landscape architect Ken Smith.

“The idea is to create a seamless, contemplative environment along the waterfront that embraces both the fine-grained scale of the surrounding communities and the monumental scale of the freeway,” Mr. Ouroussoff wrote. “In doing so, the architects shrug off the conflict between Modernists and historicists that absurdly still defines so many urban planning debates in New York.”

Mr. Rogers said he was gratified by his New York commissions. He described the Javits project as “the most complex, but also the most exciting potentially — as a public space that could create the regeneration of a large area which is very depressed.”

Over the years he has become well known for his philosophy as well as for his buildings." ...

Robin Pogrebin "Top Prize for Rogers, Iconoclastic Architect" New York Times March 29, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/arts/design/
29prit.html?pagewanted=all

Richard Rodgers designed the Barajas International Airport in Madrid, Spain, European Union (2005).

Richard Rogers designed National Assembly for Wales, Cardiff, UK, European Union.

Photo credits: (c) OAS Travel Information www.oag.com and M.J.N.Colston Building Services Engineering mjncolston.co.uk With thanks.

Originally from Renaissance Research, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:08 PM | Comments (0)

A Bevy Of Classical And Popular Composers From Japan, Europe, And America Help The Nation's Capital To Usher In The Spring Holiday Festivities

Chanoyu: Japanese Tea Ceremony
Saturday, March 31, 2007, 12 to 2 pm, Meyer Auditorium, Freer Gallery of Art

Join masters and students from Nakamura Gakuen University in Japan for a demonstration of chanoyu, the Japanese tea ceremony. Curator of Ceramics Louise Cort provides commentary.

*

Slavic Cultural Festival
Saturday, March 31, 2007, noon to 6 pm
The George Washington University, University Yard, 21st and H St NW, Washington, DC.

A day of traditional Slavic cuisine, dance, and folk music from Belarus, Croatia, Czech Republic, Macedonia, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine.
The feature performance will be by the 2004 winner of Eurovision Song Contest, Ruslana Lyzhichko, from Lviv and Kyiv.

*

New Chamber Music from Japan: Ruckus, with Retsuzan Tanabe, shakuhachi
Sunday, April 1, 2007, 1 pm, Meyer Auditorium, Freer Gallery of Art
Pre-concert tour, Arts of Japan, 12:15 pm

Three leading Japanese composers are on hand for the Washington premiere of their works for shakuhachi (bamboo flute), flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion, and piano. Composers Hiroyuki Itoh, Hiroyuki Yamamoto, and Shirotomo Aizawa participate in a discussion after the concert, which concludes the Music of Japan 2007 conference at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

*

Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (4th Street and Michigan Avenue NE), a short walk from the Brookland/CUA Metro stop (Red Line).

PALM SUNDAY (April 1, 12 noon)
Archbishop Pietro Sambi, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, celebrant

Thomas Weelkes, Hosanna to the Son of David
Felice Anerio, Christus factus est
Tomás Luis de Victoria, Vere languores nostros

HOLY THURSDAY (April 5, 5:30 pm)
Archbishop Pietro Sambi, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, celebrant

Roland de Lassus, Gustate et videte
Juan de Lienas, Coenantibus autem illis
Michalenagelo Grancini, Suspirat anima mea and Dulcis Christe
Robert Powell, Anima Christi
David Hurd, Love Bade Me Welcome
Maurice Duruflé, Tantum ergo and Ubi caritas
William Byrd, Ave verum corpus
Giovanni da Palestrina, Sicut cervus
João Rebola, Panis angelicus

GOOD FRIDAY (April 6, 2:30 pm)
Monsignor Walter Rossi, celebrant

Gregorio Allegri, Miserere mei
Palestrina, Stabat mater and Super flumina Babylonis
Victoria, O vos omnes
Giovanni Nanino, Adoramus te Christe
Antonio Lotti, Crucifixus à 8
Carlo Gesualdo, Tenebrae factae sunt

Source: ionarts.org

[Click on image for enlargement.]

The Museum of Folk Architecture in Strochitsy, Minsk region, Belarus. The building of the museum is also an example of folk Belarusian architecture.

Photo credit (c) Ira, Volcovysk, Belarus (2001) and www.studentsoftheworld.info. [Students of the World / Etudiants du Monde]. With thanks.

Originally from Renaissance Research, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:08 PM | Comments (0)

Physical modeling synthesis

I freely admit that I'm so far behind the curve on electronic music that the road looks straight to me. Logic? Max/MSP? I don't know what you people are talking about.

My experience with the wires and dials was forever tainted by my first experience, in a closet at my high school that happened to have an old ARP 2600. That thing was fun—hands on, unpredictable, and everything that came out was worthy of Forbidden Planet. Once I got to college, though, everything had gone digital; I found that I missed the patch cords and the touchy sliders, and I lost interest.

These days, of course, analog synthesizers are retro cool, or whatever the current term for "retro cool" is. (In honor of Phil, maybe it should be "cop pension show.") I once looked into configuring my computer to run emulators of all the old machines, but it involved a lot more software than I was interested in buying, and again—no patch cords. And I certainly don't have the money to pick up the real thing (EBay has an ARP 2600 for auction at the moment that's already way out of my price range, and the reserve hasn't even been met).

So until those commissions start rolling in faster than I can turn them down, I'll just have to resign myself to building my dream studio on paper. Literally.

Astro Boy and monkey with papercraft instruments

Astro Boy there has himself a fine "Moog Modular V" (no such beast actually ever existed, but it looks pretty cool) courtesy of this PDF download. (He's joined by special guest DJ Monkey on turntables.) In the meantime, I'm debating whether to plunk down a few euros for some more elaborate paper synth kits from this place. I may have to: one of the models is, you guessed it, a cardboard ARP 2600.

(Luddite? Build yourself an ocarina.)

Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:07 PM | Comments (0)

Over and Under

Just published by www.prbmusic.com. An early music group in England, the Palladian Ensemble, wanted a piece to follow their arrangement of a Bach trio sonata, and I happily obliged. It's a chaconne with alto recorder, violin, baroque guitar and bass gamba.

Originally from Reflection Field, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:07 PM | Comments (0)

Crescendo and decrescendo

Listen here:

Subscribe here:

This is a work in progress...

I've finally added crescendo and decrescendo ability to my macro preprocessor to Csound. Now, after I've generated the wave file, I run it through Csound again to modulate the overall amplitude. I can't believe I relied on the volume of each note making the increase or decrease in loudness. How cumbersome it was! Every note had to be hand set to the desired volume, and the envelopes changed to implement an increase in sound.

Originally from Podcast Bumper Music, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:06 PM | Comments (0)

More on the US amateur music scene

Last month, inposting about my appointment as Music Director of the Chamber Music Conference of the East in Vermont, I wrote of the significance of the amateur music community relative to the larger issues of thestate of classical music in this country. Now this week, Blair Tindall (remember her?) has written an extensive profile for the Los AngelesTimeson Don and Eve Cohen, two longtime stalwarts of the CMC, and the amateur chamber music scene in the LA area.

Originally posted by Phillip from Mostly Music in the Midlands, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:06 PM | Comments (0)

Mp3 Blog #64: "Inner Music"

Originally from Jacob Sudol, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:06 PM | Comments (0)

CAGE(D)-in at Peabody - Examiner.com

CAGE(D)-in at Peabody
Examiner.com - Mar 27, 2007
The acronym CAGE is a tribute to composer and music philosopher John Cage, who, according to Kang, is often referred to as the father of avant-garde music. ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:04 PM | Comments (0)

Frode Haltli, Passing Images - Guardian Unlimited

Guardian Unlimited

Frode Haltli, Passing Images
Guardian Unlimited, UK - 17 hours ago
Norwegian composer and accordionist Frode Haltli came up through folk forms, but crossed into jazz and contemporary classical music. ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:04 PM | Comments (0)

Curating The Stone - Downtown Express

Curating The Stone
Downtown Express - 11 hours ago
Two years ago, John Zorn, 2006 winner of a MacArthur “genius grant” and longtime veteran of the Downtown music avant-garde, opened The Stone at Avenue C and ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:04 PM | Comments (0)

Music Review: Ornette Coleman - Sound Grammar - Blogcritics.org

Music Review: Ornette Coleman - Sound Grammar
Blogcritics.org, OH - 3 hours ago
In fact, with the abundance of "freer" free jazz, avant-garde, and experimental jazz that's come and gone since the late '60s, much of Coleman's catalog may ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:04 PM | Comments (0)

Curating the Stone

Alicia Svigals talks about her month of concert planning at the Stone.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:02 PM | Comments (0)

Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog at Tonic New York

A review of this show has been posted.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:02 PM | Comments (0)

Twin peaks.

Back to the Jazz Standard tonight, where Jeff Gauthier's "Cryptonights" series continued with Nels Cline's Andrew Hill project. I caught the second set in the company of TONY colleague (and Dark Forces Swing blogger) Hank Shteamer and our brave, bold editor in chief, Brian Farnham, who has charged himself with the duty of accompanying every writer and editor on his staff to a representative event. (Brian was Hank's guest tonight; I still haven't decided what I'll be taking him to hear. His interest and effort, I must say, are incredibly inspiring.)

Most of the music in Cline's late set tonight was drawn from his recent Cryptogramophone CD, New Monastery. (You can read Hank's brief review of the disc here.) As on the disc, the band included veteran cornetist Bobby Bradford, Bay Area clarinetist Ben Goldberg, New Yorker Andrea Parkins on accordion and electronic effects, bassist Devin Hoff and drummer Scott Amendola. The last two are the guitarist's regular partners in his excellent current trio, the Nels Cline Singers.

The set opened with "Dedication," its stealthy free-time splatter slightly marred by persistent microphone feedback, despite which Goldberg provided some gorgeously tawny work on what I assumed to be a contrabass clarinet. (Although much of his playing was in a range I associate with the bass clarinet, this was a paperclip-configuration metal instrument with an endpin.) A medley of "Yokada Yokada" and "The Rumproller" featured waggishly bluesy playing from Bradford and a barnburning solo from Goldberg, backed by Hoff's rumbling pulse and Amendola's light, lithe swing, then shifted gears into a surf-rock blowout punctuated by sputtering noise interludes and crushing groans from Parkins's squeezebox.

"Yomo," a track from Hill's Mosaic Select anthology of mostly unreleased tracks from his Blue Note tenure, opened with Amendola's electronically tweaked mbira and a high-pitched drone from Hoff, with occasional spoken interjections from Bradford. Early on, the piece rippled and surged like the surface of a lake; later, Cline and the rhythm section surged into something of a bebop apocalypse.

Cline, Hoff and Amendola opened a medley of "Reconciliation" and "New Monastery" with a relaxed, understated swing that proved the guitarist hasn't forgotten a lick or trick during his later alt-rock adventures with the Geraldine Fibbers and Wilco. Is he a jazzer with a ornery maverick streak? A rocker with unusually musicianly tendencies? Both, and more besides. I'd be hard pressed to name a musician more versatile than Cline, or one more capable of playing so naturally and convincingly in any conceivable setting.

The set's finale, "Compulsion," offered a full-blown punk-rock rave-up between its happily loping open and close. Parkins seemed to be exorcising demons -- or perhaps taking revenge on whatever relative consigned her to youthful accordion lessons -- with every furious pump of her bellows. One of New York's most consistently inventive and satisfying players, Parkins doesn't receive nearly as much recognition as she should, mainly because her artistry is so protean that it can be hard to draw a bead on how to define and describe it. Here, for once, I had no such problem: plain and simple -- and not for the first time -- Andrea Parkins was my favorite rock star.

As I mentioned briefly in my first "Cryptonights" post, Andrew Hill himself played with a trio at Trinity Church earlier in the afternoon. Hank actually trekked downtown to catch the performance live, as did New York Times scribe Nate Chinen, whose double review of the Hill matinee and Cline's first set tonight will presumably run on Saturday. I contented myself with the webcast, knowing that Trinity Church does these exceptionally well.

The hourlong performance featured loosely knit, slightly diffuse music with more than a hint of gospel to it. To my ears, there was also something else: a hint of the same air that haunts Duke Ellington's And His Mother Called Him Bill. A feeling of poignance, melancholy, finality. Hill's serious health issues are no secret, and he looked thin and gaunt on camera. It was a testament to the man's spirit that he could still fill a church so large with so much sound and feeling. Drummer Eric McPherson provided tasteful, restrained accompaniment; bassist John Hebert was simply magnificent, alert to every direction and possibility provided by the music. But you don't have to take my word for it -- the entire show is already archived and ready for streaming.

===

A postscript to yesterday's lament for Tonic: Ted Reichman has posted some thoughts about the club's impending demise on his blog, Surviving the Crunch. A clever, compelling musician and composer, Reichman was the original music wrangler at Tonic in its earliest weeks, before John Zorn came a'knocking and the place blew up big time.

Playlist:

Cor Fuhler - Stengam (Potlatch)

Michael Brecker - Pilgrimage (Heads Up, due May 22)

Amanda Monaco 4 - Intention (Innova)

brakesbrakesbrakes - The Beatific Visions (Rough Trade/World's Fair, due May 8)

Black Sabbath - The Dio Years (Warner Bros./Rhino, due April 3)

Terry Riley - Les Yeux Fermés & Lifespan (Elision Fields)

Nels Cline - New Monastery (Cryptogramophone)

Originally posted by NightAfterNight from Night After Night, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

Digital master.

Marc-André Hamelin at the 92nd Street Y
The New York Times, March 30, 2007

Originally posted by NightAfterNight from Night After Night, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

AAJ Reviews

From AAJ:

30-Mar-07 Paul Motian
Time and Time Again (ECM Records)

30-Mar-07 Electric Masada
At the Mountains of Madness (Tzadik)

28-Mar-07 John Abercrombie
The Third Quartet (ECM Records)

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

DMG Newsletter March 30th 2007

From DMG:

TAYLOR HO BYNUM SEXTET! BRAXTON IRIDIUM BOX!

TEN NEW ‘CLEAN FEED’ TITLES: ROB BROWN TRIO, BARRETTO/SCLAVIS, 4 CORNERS w/VANDERMARK, ALVIN FIELDER/DENNIS GONZALEZ, SCOTT FIELDS/JOHN HOLLENBECK, WALLY SHOUP, REUBEN RADDING et al

FIVE EMANEM TITLES incl. PHIL MINTON, LOL COXHILL, JOHN RUSSELL…

CHADBOURNE DVD, FEDERICO UGHI/DANIEL CARTER, MERZBOW, HORACE TAPSCOTT, MOTIAN/FRISELL/LOVANO, METROPOLITAN KLEZMER…

SIX NEW CADENCE/CIMP TITLES including STEVE SWELL/DAVID TAYLOR, ODEAN POPE QUARTET

THE COL LEGNO CONTEMPORARY COMPOSER LABEL, AND THE ‘441/TEST OF TIME’ LABEL WITH ANDREW HILL et al..

AND SO MUCH MORE!!!

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

Bagatellen Reviews

From Bagatellen:

The Dixie Stompers - At Westminster College - 29 Mar 07
Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson - Kidney Stew is Fine - 29 Mar 07
Robert Jr. Lockwood - Steady Rollin’ Man - 29 Mar 07
Joe Henderson - Power to the People - 28 Mar 07
Three from emd.pl (Nowak, Menche, Charles/Piotrowicz) - 28 Mar 07

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

links for 2007-03-30

Originally from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

The art of the mosque

No two modes of architecture could be more different from one another than the Muslim and the West Christian. West Christian architecture in its early phase is filled with the craving for weight and massiveness; and in its second phase, the Gothic, in that for a spectacular liberation from that weight in a skyward ascent ... Moslem architecture is quite the opposite. A mosque is to be a court, a square, a market-place, lightly built to hold a large concourse of people. Allah is so great that nothing human can vie with Him in strength or endurance ... Even the Moslem castles, large though they are, give the effect of being light and insubstantial. But a Mosque is also a place for the contemplation of the Oneness of Allah. How can this better be done than by giving the eyes a maze of geometric patterns to brood over? The state aimed at is a sort of semi-trance. (Pliable - See my reference to the Mevelevi Order below). The mind contemplates the patterns, knows that they can be unravelled and yet does not unravel them. It rests therefore on what it sees, and the delicate colour, the variations of light and shade add a sensuous tinge to the pleasure of cetainty made visible.

Gerald Brenan writes above in his 1950 book The Face of Spain about the art of the Mosque. This photo essay celebrates a sublime example of that art, the Rüstem Pasa Camii in Istanbul.

The mosque was built by Rüstem Pasa, son-in-law and grand vezir of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent (1520-1566). Although Rüstem Pasa was one of the wealthiest nobles in the Ottoman Empire at the peak of its power he had to reflect his role as a servant of the Sultan by building a mosque that was subordinate in size, if not in beauty, to the sultan’s great mosque.

Mimar Sinan was the architect of the Rüstem Pasa Camii. Born a Christian in Anatolia, from either a Greek or Armenian background, Sinan was conscripted into Ottoman service in 1511, and converted to Islam. He was the chief Ottoman architect to four sultans, and his most famous buildings are the great Süleyman Mosque in Istanbul, and the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne. Sinan worked in seismic, as well as political, fault zones, and his buildings are famous for their earthquake resistance. His extraordinary output included 146 mosques and 57 universities, a track record that even Norman Foster can’t beat, although Mimar Sinan doesn’t have any airports in his portfolio

Rüstem Pasa chose a site alongside the Golden Horn in the Eminönü district of Constantinople, and at the foot of the hill crowned by Süleyman’s great mosque. Compact in size, but beautifully proportioned, Rüstem Pasa Camii is decorated with exquisite Iznik faience tiles which are notable for the use of red pigments, seen in my photo above, as well as the famous blue. Although in the popular spice bazaar area the mosque is not on the main tourist routes, and it takes some determination to find the entrance.

Rüstem Pasa Camii is one of the finest examples of the art of the mosque, and it was built at the peak of the Ottoman Empire. But sadly Rüstem Pasa was involved in the political intrique and murder that resulted in Selim the Sot - or drunkard (1566-1574) ascending to the throne on Sultan Süleyman’s death in 1566. Selim’s priorities were carnal rather than cultural, and his reign was the start of the long decline of the Ottoman Empire. We are very fortunate that many fine examples of the work of Mimar Sinan and other great Ottoman visionaries survive to remind us of this glorious period of Islamic art.

Now playing - Mevlevi Müzigi, the music of whirling dervishes. Mimar Sinan’s design for Rüstem Pasa Mosque follows the Ahaadith, and makes no provision for figurative art or the performance of music. But the exact position of the Qu’ran on this is not precise, and there are many

fine examples of the creative arts from Ottoman culture. The Mevlevi is a Sufi Order founded by the followers of Mevlana Celalleddin-i Rum (left) in 1273 in the Konya province of Turkey. The Mevlevi Order is also known as the Whirling Dervishes due to their practice of whirling to celebrate Allah. During the peak of the Ottoman Empire the Mevlevi Order produced many musicians and poets, and much of the stereotypical “oriental” Turkish music heard in the West originated from the order. Islam is usually perceived to be repressive of women’s rights, but this period saw the emergence of women in the creative sector, with Ayat Sweid identified as the first female artist.

In 1925 the Mevlevi Order was outlawed at the start of the secular revolution in Turkey. But in the 1950s the government realised the cultural and tourist value of the Whirling Dervishes, and performances in Turkey and overseas were reintated. The Istanbul Music and Sema (Whirling Ceremony) Group was founded to bring traditional music and spiritual ceremonies to a wider audience. They perform Turkish classical music, Tasavvuf (mystical) music, and Sema ceremonies (Whirling Dervish rituals) in historically authentic performances. In striking contrast to the doctrines of Islamic fundamentalism these Mevlevi rituals are centred on "human love", "brotherhood" and "tolerance" as advocated by their founder 750 ago. Follow this link link for music and video samples from the Istanbul Music and Sema Group. Also recommended is Laleh Bakhtiar's book Sufi, Expressions of the Mystic Quest (Thames and Hudson ISBN 050081015).

Now read how music and books reflect the crisis in Islam
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included for "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 08:26 AM | Comments (0)

Bringing in the Noise

The composer looks skyward for sonic inspiration. (Photo: Josh Gosfield) Some call it noise, I call it inspiration. It’s all raw material to me: the random banging of the radiator, a wildly oscillating car alarm, or the hypnotic churn of a cement truck. Other kids may have loved sing alongs and nursery rhymes, but my [...]

Originally posted by Annie Gosfield from The Score, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 08:01 AM | Comments (0)

Twin peaks.

Back to the Jazz Standard tonight, where Jeff Gauther's "Cryptonights" series continued with Nels Cline's Andrew Hill project. I caught the second set in the company of TONY colleague (and Dark Forces Swing blogger) Hank Shteamer and our brave, bold editor in chief, Brian Farnham, who has charged himself with the duty of accompanying every writer and editor on his staff to a representative event. (Brian was Hank's guest tonight; I still haven't decided what I'll be taking him to hear. His interest and effort, I must say, are incredibly inspiring.)

===

Playlist:

Cor Fuhler - Stengam (Potlatch)

Michael Brecker - Pilgrimage (Heads Up, due May 22)

Amanda Monaco 4 - Intention (Innova)

brakesbrakesbrakes - The Beatific Visions (Rough Trade/World's Fair, due May 8)

Black Sabbath - The Dio Years (Warner Bros./Rhino, due April 3)

Terry Riley - Les Yeux Fermés & Lifespan (Elision Fields)

Nels Cline - New Monastery (Cryptogramophone)

Originally posted by NightAfterNight from Night After Night, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 08:00 AM | Comments (0)

The Unapproachable Sacredness of Pop

An introvert, in Jung's view, was someone who not only is focused on his own thoughts and perceptions, but considers...

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 05:00 AM | Comments (0)

ANALOG @ Galapagos, 4/25

Originally posted by jodru from ANABlog, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 04:12 AM | Comments (0)

Pianist and Composer Haskell Small in Concert at Trinity Episcopal Church in Bayonne, New Jersey on April 1

Pianist and composer Haskell Small will be in concert on Sunday, April 1 at 3 PM at Trinity Episcopal Church, 141 Broadway in Bayonne, New Jersey.

Mr. Small will perform Alberto Ginastera’s Rondo on Argentine Children’s Folk Tunes, Federico Mompou’s Musica Callada (book one), his own composition Scraps (12 very short pieces of blues and jazz), Alf Hurum’s Daughters of the Northern Lights (from Eventyrland), Harald Saeverud’s Thor the Hammerer and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. The latter piece has been recorded along with the composer’s Renoir’s Feast for the Museum Music label. More about it at http://www.museummusic.com/.

For more information about the April 1 concert, please call Trinity Episcopal Church at 201-858-4460.

For more information about Haskell Small, visit him at his website – http://www.jamesarts.com/h-small/.

Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:02 AM | Comments (0)

Eddie Cleanhead Vinson - Kidney Stew is Fine

Delmark 631 Not to be confused with the younger "Fathead" who also buttered his first slices of musical bread with the palate-pleasing spread of early R&B, "Cleanhead" came from an earlier era, initially plying his booting Texas-tinted sax in...

Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:01 AM | Comments (0)

Robert Jr. Lockwood - Steady Rollin Man

Delmark 630 Robert Johnson has legions of disciples, but few were as openly devoted and derivative as Robert Jr. Lockwood, who had the added familial advantage of having the man for his stepfather. This 1970 album, Lockwood's first as...

Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:01 AM | Comments (0)

The Dixie Stompers - At Westminster College

Delmark 204 Another aural time capsule from Delmark guru Bob Koester's bottomless Dixieland tape trove, At Westminster College presents the racially integrated Dixie Stompers in a variety of settings ranging from the intimate to the surreal. Koester's affection for...

Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 30, 2007 at 02:01 AM | Comments (0)

March 29, 2007

Belgian Tango by Beth Anderson to Be Performed by Pianists Bonnie Anderson and Donna Gross Javel on April 1 in Chelmsford, Massachusetts

American composer Beth Anderson’s Belgian Tango will be performed by four-hand pianists Bonnie Anderson and Donna Gross Javel on Sunday, April 1 – 2:30 PM at the Chelmsford Public Library, 25 Boston Road in Chelmsford, Massachusetts.

Other four-hand selections on the program will include works by Mozart, Debussy, Donna Gross Javel, Poulenc, José Joaquín Vargas Calvo and Edson Zampronha.

The April 1 concert is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Chelmsford Library at 978-256-5521. More about the concert online at http://www.chelmsfordlibrary.org/programs/programs/four_hand_piano_duo.html.

An essay by Ms. Anderson about her music for American Music Center’s NewMusicBox web magazine can be read at http://www.newmusicbox.org/page.nmbx?id=53hf02. Her new newsletter is online at http://www.jamesarts.com/releases/march07/BA_nws_031907.htm.

For more information about composer Beth Anderson, including a bio, list of works, discography and much more, please visit http://www.beand.com.

Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 08:01 PM | Comments (0)

Fireworks

Normally an all-Liszt evening (OK, OK: mostly Liszt) would not grab my attention, unless it was delivered by Marc-André Hamelin, who gave a fairly astounding recital last night at the 92nd Street Y. Going far beyond mere athleticism, the second half showed Hamelin finding nuance and poetry in the three Sonetti del Petrarca (Petrarch Sonnets) and Venezia e Napoli, three virtuoso evocations of Venice. In hands like these, I concede that Liszt may have more to offer than I had imagined.

After the first encore, Hamelin's mesmerizing arrangement (for the left hand) of Tchaikovsky's Lullaby, he ended it all by pulling out Debussy's Feux d'artifice, that several of us thought was worth the entire evening, all by itself.

[Photo by Tina Foster]

Originally posted by bhodgesnyc from Monotonous Forest, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 08:01 PM | Comments (0)

Falling Between the Cracks

After hearing pieces in just intonation and the beauty of 7th, 11th, and yes, even 13th partials, how could I constrain myself to a system that ignores them completely?

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)

Elitism on the world's great orchestral stages

A reader wrote yesterday and asked whether I agreed with everything I post here. The answer is an emphatic no. But I do try to provide food for thought. Which is why I offer an excerpt from, and link to this article in the current American Spectator:

So what should orchestras do to increase the numbers of minority violists? Perhaps they should follow Nazi Germany's lead which set quotas on the number of Jews who could attend medical or law school in order to allow more goyim to become doctors and lawyers? Orchestras could limit the number of white male and female Asian-American orchestra members, and instead of calling it a quota system, they could call it "diversity."

Or orchestras could follow the lead of the professional athletic associations which 50 years ago stopped excluding athletes on account of skin color and now simply hire the best. Does any one really want to see boxing or the NBA adopt a quota system?

Traditionally government and academia have been the testing grounds where theories of social engineering are put into practice. Social engineers, however, have been less successful making inroads into professional sports, the arts and the military. Perhaps that is why our government and schools run like an Edsel, while the San Francisco Symphony and the U.S. Marines are beyond compare.

Certainly a good case can be made that black and Latino students should be exposed to classical music. I'm all for it. But a similar argument can be made for poor and middle class white kids in rural schools, and yet I do not hear Aaron Dworkin pushing for more hillbilly cellists.

If ever there was a case for elitism it should be made on the world's great orchestral stages, where perfection should never be held hostage to political correctness. If you want mediocrity, look to the government and the public schools. Plenty there to go round.

Now read an alternative view.
Thanks to Bernard T form the heads-up. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 07:24 PM | Comments (0)

He was in every sense a good man

Cormac Rigby (second from left above), who has died aged 67 of cancer, had two distinct careers: as a BBC radio announcer, and later as a Roman Catholic priest. Both called for an easy mastery of the spoken word, and to both he brought a naturally cultivated talent.

As presentation editor of Radio 3 from 1972 to 1985, Cormac set the tone of the channel, supervising the work of established announcers such as Patricia Hughes and Tom Crowe, engaging younger ones (among them Tony Scotland) and himself taking a full share of the announcing and presenting load. After leaving the BBC in 1985, he trained for the priesthood, served first in Ruislip, Middlesex, and then in Stanmore, north London, where he was specially happy and very well liked.

He was born in Watford, Hertfordshire; his mother had been born Grace McCormack, and his first name was a conscious recollection of her Irish maiden name. Baptised on May 21 1939, he was to be ordained on the very same day, 49 years later, by Cardinal Basil Hume in Westminster Cathedral. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' school, Northwood, Middlesex, and read history at St John's College, Oxford.

But the church beckoned, and in 1961 he went to the English College, in Rome, to train for the priesthood. There, however, he found the regime unacceptably narrow-minded, and returned to Oxford to complete a doctoral thesis on Edward Thring, the 19th-century preacher and headmaster of Uppingham. In 1965, he became an all-purpose announcer at the BBC, working for the Home Service and the Music Programme, which then preceded the evening Third Programme.

In due course he was permitted to announce for the Third Programme, and by 1968 Cormac was also engaged as a planner for that network. Here, he first tasted blood when an internal conflict arose over the relative artistic and financial merits of Solti's Die Meistersinger, from Covent Garden, and Goodall's The Mastersingers, from the Coliseum. Cormac's championship of the latter won the day and he confessed himself "jubilant". (All of us who were privileged to attend Goodall's Mastersingers can only confirm how right Cormac was - Pliable)

In 1969 the BBC published Broadcasting in the Seventies, a document that heralded the "dumbing-down" of the Third Programme. Early the following year, 134 BBC staff members - all in breach of their contract - signed a letter of protest to the Times, and Cormac's name was, characteristically, among them. In 1972, he was nevertheless appointed presentation editor of Radio 3, where his regime was distinguished.

Cormac expected his colleagues to be cultivated personalities, at ease with musical terminology and correct pronunciation in whatever language was called for. He asked that their delivery be measured and accurately stressed. And he set an admirably urbane example.

He was also fiercely loyal to his staff and, as I discovered during the musicians' strike over the BBC plans, eventually dropped, to disband five orchestras in 1980, heart-warmingly supportive of those in conflict with the Philistine tendency. In 1985, he introduced his last Last Night of the Proms for television, on which he was seen regularly, then left the BBC and began, for the second time, to train as a priest.

Apart from his faith and his skills as a broadcaster, Cormac had a passion for ballet, in which he was knowledgable and discriminating. During the 1970s he devised and presented a Radio 3 programme, Royal Repertoire, which complemented the current programmes of the Royal Ballet. He also wrote for Dance and Dancers, using the pen-name John Cowan. Even after his ordination he contributed to Dance Now, and he was always glad, a friend remarked, "to get his dog collar off and go to the ballet".

In three attractive books of sermons, The Lord Be With You (2003), Lift Up Your Hearts (2004) and Let Us Give Thanks (2005), he related without self-pity how his prostate cancer had spread and he felt obliged to give up his Stanmore parish. During a longer-than-expected remission, he went to Ireland and enjoyed "the most beautiful reprise of some of my happiest journeys up and down the Irish fjords". He was in every sense a good man.

A wonderful obituary, by Robert Ponsonby in today's Guardian, of a truly wonderful man. Cormac Rigby was an inspiration to all of us involved in broadcasting - paragraph 6 says it all. Read an interview with Father Cormac here. The header photograph, with Cormac Rigby second left, was taken in the Broadcasting House control room at Christmas 1971. (There is a less flattering photo of me on the same site, taken a few weeks later just after I joined the BBC.)

Robert Ponsonby became Controller of Music at the BBC in 1959. He transformed the BBC's musical output, and among his visionary moves was the appointment of Pierre Boulez as Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Now listen to Cormac Rigby's 'easy mastery of the spoken word', this is what radio can be -

Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 06:06 PM | Comments (0)

Fireworks

Normally an all-Liszt evening would not grab my attention, unless it was delivered by Marc-André Hamelin, who gave a fairly astounding recital last night at the 92nd Street Y. Going far beyond mere athleticism, the second half showed Hamelin finding nuance and poetry in the three Sonetti del Petrarca (Petrarch Sonnets) and Venezia e Napoli, three virtuoso evocations of Venice. In hands like these, I concede that Liszt may have more to offer than I had imagined.

[Photo by Tina Foster]

Originally posted by bhodgesnyc from Monotonous Forest, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 05:02 PM | Comments (0)

Blowing in the Wind

The esteemed Andrew Berger writes in:

Flutes are the earliest musical instruments created by man, some dating from over 35,000 ago, made of mammoth tusks and swan bones. The outward simplicity of the modern flute — after all, it’s just a metal pipe with a few holes and keys — belies the difficult technique, as anyone who ever has picked one up and tried to produce a clear tone knows. In this week’s master class led by one of the great flutists of our time, Ransom Wilson, we learned why this is so. As with singing, breath control and support are crucial, and therefore posture and the proper use of the face and body also come into play. An interesting corollary of this, which Wilson demonstrated with the talented young students participating, is that a player’s natural inclination is to respond to the expressivity of the music with the facial muscles. But if you get sad or excited along with the music, the face muscles follow and the tone becomes distorted. The answer, my friend, is that everything must be relaxed and channeled into making the musical phrases themselves expressive — without extraneous body language. We also learned valuable lessons about vibrato, the distinctions between French and German phrasing, and much more. As one audience member wrote, “What an amazing opportunity to hear talented young musicians with fascinating background information and instruction in such an intimate setting. Your master class series is terrific and I’ve already marked my calendar for next season.” You may want to mark your own calendars…

Wednesday, Oct. 10: Ralph Kirschbaum, cello

Tuesday, Dec. 11: Kenneth Cooper, harpsichord

Thursday, Feb. 14: Stephanie Blythe, mezzo-soprano

Tuesday, March 18: Menahem Pressler, piano

All at 11 AM in the Rose Studio. Admission is free, but reservations are required by calling (212) 875-5788 or emailing info@chambermusicsociety.org.

—Andrew Berger

Originally posted by Ronen from Intermission: Impossible, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

Merde sur la Mere - Pure Clasic

I’ve come to the conclusion that there is some pretty crazy shit coming out of Eastern Europe. First there was Rational Diet, then Ne Zhdali, and now Merde sur le Mere. From the name of this Croatian band and its album cover, my conclusion could be taken literally. Once you get past Merde sur le Mere’s brashness, you end up with some of the wildest experimental / free jazz sounds on the far side of John Zorn.

Pure Clasic is a unrelenting barrage of sounds . In describing the music, it is tempting to use the analogy of throwing enough of something against the wall to make it stick. However, there are plenty of times in which chaos turned into moments of structured beauty. Merde Sul le Mere often strolls the balancing line between free jazz and post-modern classicism much like the music you may hear from the third stream ECM label or Chicago’s AACM. While there are five tracks, I urge the listener to especially concentrate on the first and last. “Zoo Melancholic ftc Anus 2″ is a seven minute free jazz romp reminiscent of the wildest from Albert Ayler or The Art Ensemble of Chicago. “Live in Sezana” is electronic industrial overload that manage to mesmerize of 17 minutes. However I really love “Beautifuly Piece of Depression”, a swampy piece of music with a tortured vocal backed by jazz tinted trumpet, bass, percussion and guitar. The free online album is released by the Benekkea netlabel who calls it “probably the best experimental net album of the year”. I could argue with that statement but it wouldn’t be easy.

The album is available by separate tracks or album zip in 320kbps MP3.

Download

Originally posted by freealbums from Free Albums Galore, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 01:54 PM | Comments (0)

Minimalist Weekend in Rochester

Two events of note over the next few days:

Robert Fink presents a talk called Flowing and Zapping: Minimalism as Television, 1965-1995. I suspect it'll be a condensed version of Repeating Ourselves (a thoughtful, entertaining, and recommended read). If he's as funny in person as he is in print, it'll probably be a good hour and a half.
OMG STEVE RECICH.

Originally from Form/Content, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 01:54 PM | Comments (0)

Awash in contemporary programming

David Patrick Stearns, Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/28/2007

Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)

In the pipeline

American Voices is currently in production. Official announcements to follow. Stay tuned.

Originally posted by brian from brian sacawa | sounds like now, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)

MATA notes

The 2007 MATA Festival has come and gone and SLN has been delinquent in posting about the event. I performed Alexandra Gardner’s Tourmaline on the Tuesday night’s “Solitary Confinement V” concert at the Brooklyn Lyceum, which featured works for solo performers w/ or w/o electronics. I had quite a journey that day, flying in from Dallas extremely early that morning, heading straight to the venue, sound checking, and then playing the show. Rather than making me tired, the day’s journey had more of a romanticizing effect and the performance went wonderfully. A comment was made to me to the effect of, “It’s been a while since I’ve been to a new music concert where all the pieces were great.” Indeed. It was a splendidly enchanting evening, made a just little sweeter by the review in the Times.

Originally posted by brian from brian sacawa | sounds like now, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)

Mr Cogito's Heart Is Suddenly Gripped By Terror As He Studies Closely A Link To The New York Philharmonic's Upcoming Performance Of Shostakovich

'New York Philharmonic
& Peter Schickele Takes You Inside Shostakovich's 1st Violin Concerto'

ntphil.org

[VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED]

Peter Schickele

*

Saner notes on The Program (Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor Opus 99; and Symphony No. 10 in E minor Opus 93) are expertly provided by James M. Keller, Program Annotator for the New York Philharmonic.

Georg BASELITZ, Les Jeunes filles d'Olmo II, 1981,
huile sur toile, 249 x 250 cm,
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France, European Union.

Image credit: (c) Georg Baselitz. All rights reserved. Via EcuNet Arts Plastiques, Amiens, France, European Union. With thanks.

Originally from Renaissance Research, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)

Evil Villagers Go Digital

The august firm of Austrian piano-makers, Börsendorfer, are now making a digital instrument. While it's fine to have a Börsendorfer keyboard and action fronting for an otherwise electronic instrument, and the Vienna Symphonic Library-made samples are very good, it's still basically playing a set of samples, and even with increases in memory size and computing speed, a sample set is still going to do a poor job with a number of subtle but still characteristic physical interactions that go into a complex instrument like the piano (sympathetic resonances, cancellations, interference beating etc.). On the other hand, there may very well be an aesthetic which looks kindly on instruments without such pronounced secondary effects, in which case this instrument can certainly be used.

Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 01:52 PM | Comments (0)

Quotas

Fred Himebaugh observes:

Just as we expect 5 percent of all music sales to be classical, it seems nowdays we expect 5 percent of each movie soundtrack to be classical as well.

Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 01:52 PM | Comments (0)

Words, Work, War and Song

I haven't made as much vocal music as I'd like, and the problem usually lies with finding the right text. And finding a text that welcomes a musical setting is often more a problem of managing abundance than of scarcity. There are simply too many words that invite a link to music, and music usually prefers a few excellent words to many good ones.

Blogger Patrick Swanson did me a great favor recently, suggesting that I set some of Virgil's Georgics. He did an even greater favor and selected a passage to get me started:

Scilicet et tempus veniet, cum finibus illis
agricola incurvo terram molitus aratro
exesa inveniet scabra robigine pila
aut gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanis
grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris.

(Be sure of this: the time will come when in those fields,
the farmer working the earth with curved plough,
will unearth rough weapons eaten by rust,
or strike the side of an empty helmet with his heavy hoe,
and wonder at the bones of great ones now untombed.)

This is clearly my kind of text -- with words that mean a lot in both the long and short-haul -- and finally a chance not to shy away from saying something about the war. Scanning the Latin meter was a pleasure and I set it right away as a little song (3'15" or so) for unison voices, harp, and optional percussion (bamboo clappers and metal things).

N.O. Brown, my teacher wrote his own Georgics, a text in praise of work, both earth- and handwork, as in Virgil's great poem about agriculture, and work of the imagination. I'd now like to do a couple more songs like this, a kind of cantata, if one can use that word anymore.

Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 01:52 PM | Comments (0)

Creating unutterable longing…

This press release just in for a concert sponsored by the American Composers Forum of LA. I’m not sure who does her copy, but I’ll have whatever she’s having.

Soprano Kerry Walsh’s voice conveys joy, pathos, and pain in a way that creates unutterable longing. Hearing Ms. Walsh sing this range of material in a small intimate setting is a rare and exciting experience. Her repertoire ranges from early through modern in chamber music, theatre, and concert, and encompasses standard classical and romantic operatic literature. She has brought numerous roles to life, and is greatly sought after as an interpreter of new works.

Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 01:52 PM | Comments (0)

The Flying Dutchman Moors

Hamburg - that's the Free and Hanseatic City, not Hamburg, NY - is getting a dramatic new concert hall, which will look like a glass galleon that has foundered on a warehouse. The design, by the Swiss firm Herzog & De Meuron incorporates a number of current architectural gambits. It invokes nautical imagery, as do Frank Gehry's new IAC headquarters on the West Side of Manhattan and Santiago Calatrava's Milwaukee Musem addition. It anchors (sorry, boating words are hard to avoid) a new harborfront district, as does Diller Scofidio + Renfro's new Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. And it recycles an Industrial Age relic - in this case a disused 1960s warehouse - into a cultural showcase, as does Herzog & De Meuron's own Tate Modern in London.

I have to admit to some queasiness about the current enthusiasm for fitting out power plants, factories and warehouses as postindustrial pleasure domes. Isn't there something inherently decadent about taking the means of production and transforming into the means of consumption for the bourgeoisie?

Dime store liberal scruples aside, Hamburgers will enter the maw of the brutalist brick warehouse from the long pier that juts into the harbor. They will then be wafted up through the structure to a vast window that offers a glimpse of the view to come, then turn a corner and ascend to a vast public plaza that sprawls across the warehouse roof or beneath the new structure's bottom, depending on how you choose to look at it. The hall itself is just a kernel of the complex, which includes an apartment building and a hotel, all sheathed in milky glass.

The auditorium merits a picture of its own:

In a press conference at Carnegie Hall today, Jacques Herzog remarked that he and his associates had learned more about designing symphonic spaces from the stadiums they've done (notably the Beijing Olympic bird's nest) than they had from the whole history of concert halls. Here, the stage, like a soccer field, is in the middle, rather than at one end, and the seats rise up along a bowl's precipitous walls. That enormous ceiling navel is apparently an acoustical feature. (The hole on top gives the hall a tent shape, which in turn suggests the canopied look of the exterior.) To me it looks perfect for sucking up sound swirling it around the cupola and then dropping it back down in an echoey cascade, but the record of Disney Hall suggests that acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota knows what he's hearing about. Christoph von Dohnanyi, chief conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra, which will make is home in the Elbphilharmonie, was there, too, and he made the most honest official statement about musical architecture I have heard in a long time: "Acoustics is like psychiatry - it's a starting science, and you have to be very lucky. But if it looks great, it sounds good, too."

Justin Davidson (click the link to send me an e-mail)

Update: Daniel Beckmann, from Toyota's firm Nagata Acoustics, writes to point out that the navel in the ceiling of the auditorium "is an outie, not an innie." Which is to say, that a giant sound-reflecting disc will hang from the ceiling, suggesting (here comes a radical metaphor switch) a flying saucer full of Beethoven-loving aliens. Anyone planning a trip to Hamburg, think about going in 2010.

Originally posted by JustinDavidson from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 01:51 PM | Comments (0)

Experiment in modern music

I obtained the track below from a service called IODA, which supplies select indie-label MP3s to bloggers (no money changes hands). The composer Alexandra Gardner is presenting a concert tomorrow night (3/29) at Greenwich House Music School. This piece, Luminoso, for guitar and sampled sounds, will be on the program. The guitarist is Enrique Malo Lop.

Download "Luminoso" (mp3)
by Alexandra Gardner
Innova Recordings

Romancing The Stone - New York Jewish Week

Romancing The Stone
New York Jewish Week, NY - 9 hours ago
The Stone is Zorn’s not-for-profit performance space “dedicated to the EXPERIMENTAL and AVANT-GARDE,” as it says on the venue’s Web site, and Svigals has ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 01:50 PM | Comments (0)

Tim Berne’s Paraphrase @ The Vortex, 27th March 2007

A recent Berne show is reviewed.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

Cuneiform Artists on Tour

The latest tour info from Cuneiform:

AHLEUCHATISTAS
Saturday, May 12 - Orion Sound - 2903 Whittington Ave Suite C - Baltimore, MD 21230 - with Alec K. Redfearn and the Eyesores (410) 646-7334

July 14 - 21 Grand - Oakland, CA

July 20 - The Rendezvous - Seattle, WA

July 22 - Le Voyeur - Olympia, WA

July 23 - The Tube - Portland, OR

Ocotber 12 - Nexus -Saalfelden, Austria

DEUS EX MACHINA
May 18th - AltrOck Festival - Teatro Rondinella - Sesto San Giovanni, Milan, Italy - with Yugen

FAR CORNER
May 19 - Lake Mills High School Auditoriu - Lake Mills High School - 615 Catlin Drive - Lake Mills, WI ALL AGES
Tickets: $5.00 - with Strange Land

GUAPO
April 13th, 14th & 15th - Rock In Opposition - French Event - Maison de la Musique -Cap’Découverte - 81450 LE GARRIC (Carmaux) - France

HUGH HOPPER
June 7 - with Colorphone (Hugh, Denis Colin, Francois Verly, Regis Huby) - Le Triton, Paris, France

June 8 - with Brainville (Daevid Allen/Hugh Hopper/Chris Cutler) - Le Triton, Paris, France

June 9 - with Brainville (Daevid Allen/Hugh Hopper/Chris Cutler) - Musiques Innovatrices Festival - St. Etienne, France

June 10 - with Brainville - Nevers, France

June tour of Japan (tbc) - with Brainville - Japan

THE MAHAVISHNU PROJECT
Thursday, April 19 - SPECIAL CLINIC: “THE RHYTHMS OF MAHAVISHNU” - featuring Gregg Bendian, Glenn Alexander & Dave Johnsen - Drummer’s Collective - 541 Avenue of The Americas - New York NY (212) 741-0091

Friday, April 20 - RECORD RELEASE EVENT FOR “RETURN TO THE EMERALD BEYOND” - FULL 11-PIECE BAND PLAYING COMPLETE “VISIONS OF THE EMERALD BEYOND” - IMAC Theatre - 370 New York Avenue - Huntington, NY 11743 (631) 549-9666 - 8:00 pm

Saturday, April 21 - RECORD RELEASE EVENT FOR “RETURN TO THE EMERALD BEYOND” - FULL 11-PIECE BAND PLAYING COMPLETE “VISIONS OF THE EMERALD BEYOND” - Makor - (Green Apple Music Festival) 35 West 67th Street - New York NY (212) 601-1000 - 9:00 pm

Saturday, April 28 - RECORD RELEASE EVENT FOR “RETURN TO THE EMERALD BEYOND” - FULL 11-PIECE BAND PLAYING COMPLETE “VISIONS OF THE EMERALD BEYOND” - NJ PROGHOUSE SERIES at The Forum Theater - 314 Main St. - Metuchen NJ 7:30 pm

Friday, June 8 - Milford Music Festival - Milford, PA

Tuesday, June 19 - MoonJune’s Progressive Jazz-Rock Fusion Evening - BB King’s - 237 West 42nd Street - NYC, NY (212) 997 - 4144 (with Allan Holdsworth Trio!) 8:00 PM

Wednesday, June 20 - MoonJune’s Progressive Jazz-Rock Fusion Evening - BB King’s - 237 West 42nd Street - NYC, NY (212) 997 - 4144 (with Allan Holdsworth Trio!) 8:00 PM

Thursday, June 21 - double bill with Jean-Luc Ponty - Clifford Brown Jazz Festival - Wilmington, DE (apparently a free gig!!)

MATS/MORGAN BAND
April 13th, 14th & 15th - Rock In Opposition - French Event - Maison de la Musique -Cap’Découverte - 81450 LE GARRIC (Carmaux) - France

MIRIODOR
Saturday, September 15 - Le Festival des Musiques Progressive de Montréal - Salle Mercure, Pierre Péladeau Center - 300 De Maisonneuve Blvd. East - Montreal, Quebec H2X 3X6 Canada (514) 987-4691

NeBeLNeST
April 13th, 14th & 15th - Rock In Opposition - French Event - Maison de la Musique -Cap’Découverte - 81450 LE GARRIC (Carmaux) - France

Saturday, June 23 - NEARFest - Bethelehem, PA

RICHARD PINHAS with Jerome Schmidt and Antoine Paganotti
June 5 - Montreal Jazz Festival - Montreal, Quebec, Canada (free show)

PRESENT
April 13th, 14th & 15th - Rock In Opposition - French Event - Maison de la Musique -Cap’Découverte - 81450 LE GARRIC (Carmaux) - France

RADIO MASSACRE INTERNATIONAL
Saturday, November 17 - The Gatherings Concert Series - church sanctuary of St. Mary’s Hamilton Village - 3916 Locust Walk (east of 40th & Locust) on the Penn campus) - West Philadelphia, PA

Sunday, November 18 - Orion Sound - 2903 Whittington Ave Suite C - Baltimore, MD 21230

ALEC K. REDFEARN and the EYESORES
Sunday, April 8 - Middle East Upstairs - Cambridge, MA (with Estradasphere)

April 12 - venue tbc - Liege, Belgium

April 14 - Le Petit Theatre -Verviers, Belgium

April 15 - Oettinger Villa - Darmstadt, Germany

April 18 - Raymond’s Bar - Clermont-Ferrand, France

April 25 -VPRO (radio) Amsterdam, The Netherlands 8:00 PM

Sunday, April 29 - AS220 - Providence, RI (record release party for “The Blind Spot”)

Saturday, May 12 - Orion Sound - 2903 Whittington Ave Suite C - Baltimore, MD 21230 - with Ahleuchatistas (410) 646-7334

UNIVERS ZERO
Wednesday, May 30 - Le Triton - 11 bis rue du Cocq Français - 93260 Les Lilas (Paris) - France (33) 1 49 728313

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

Upcoming at the Bohemian National Home

From the Bohemian National Home:

UPCOMING AT BOHEMIAN NATIONAL HOME

Saturday, March 24: The Magik Markers with Bad Thoughts
The new front-line of No-Wave derived sonic experimentation. The Magik Markers hail from Hartford, Conn. Their releases on Apostasy and Ecstatic Peace display a range of influences or fortuitous similarities that stretch from DNA to 1/2 Japanese to Bad Brains. Detroit/Ann Arbor’s Bad Thoughts mine some of the same angular guitar and disco/punk drumming resources, with a dose of Pere Ubu thrown in. Brainy music for the dance floor.
Doors at 9pm; $7.

JUST ADDED! Saturday, March 31: Mike Khoury and Leyya Tawil
Violinst Mike Khoury is the man behind Stereo Entropy Recordings and one of the forces behind Hamtramck’s much missed free improv venue Entropy Studios. He has been collaborating with Oakland based dancer Leyya Tawil on duo improvisations, a format that Khoury has favored for the past few years. More performers TBA. Doors at 8:30; sliding scale $5-10.

4/6: Butterfly Explosion with Freer and Zoos of Berlin
This show is brought to you courtesy of Bohouse family member Kim Paris’ Sinister/Foxy Productions. Butterfly Explosion is from Dublin and was a big hit last year at SXSW. They get compared to an absurd mixture of bands on the internet; more info on them to come. Freer is rock band that’s notable for dramatic, slightly tortured pop gems. Formerly based in Detroit, it’s now more Chicago-centric. Still totally Detroit based, Zoos of Berlin plays music that is full of changes without being convolouted.

Just Added! 4/9: Gunda Gottchalk
Gunda is an improvising violinist/violist from Germany. Her early background was in classical violin, but for last 20 years or so, she has collaborated with noted New Music musicians, including Peter Kowald, William Parker, Assif Tsahar, Fred Frith, Oliver Lake and many others. Doors at 8 pm; sliding scale $5-10.

4/13: Gerald Cleaver with Andrew Bishop, Tim Flood and Ryan Macstaller
Detroit raised drummer Gerald Cleaver played with some of the cities most adventurous musicians, like A. Spencer Barefield, Marcus Belgrave, Donald Walden and Wendell Harrison, before leaving to make good in NYC. His career there has included playing with Peter Kowald, Assif Tsahar, Roscoe Mitchell, Toots Thielman, Andrea Parkins, Bob James, Joe Morris and many others. He’ll be joined by some great Detroit/NYC talent. Doors at 9pm; $10 suggested.

4/15 Taylor Ho Bynum, Mary Halvorson, Tomas Fujiwara plus Jason Stein and Kevin Davis
These Brookly based Anthony Braxton alumni can walk the line between free improvisation and pretty avant-folk songwriting. Leader Taylor Ho Bynum plays cornet with Braxton and in Cecil Taylor’s large band, as well as with many hybrid music groups . Mary Halvorson is a flat-out amazing guitarist who uses a very original vocabulary. Percussionist Tomas Fujiwara has played with many creative music greats, including Butch Morris, William Parker, Roy Campbell and Daniel Carter. Opening is bass clarinetist Jason Stein, previously seen at the Bohemian with Ken Vandermark and company in the group Bridge 61, and Kevin Davis, a Chicago cellist.
Doors at 8 pm; sliding scale $5-10.

4/25 The Thing
Some of northern Europe’s finest improvisers. Free jazz, energy-music and covers of Lightning Bolt and The White Stripes!
Mats Gustafsson (Sweden):REEDS
Ingebrigt H. Flaten (Norway): BASS
Paal Nilsen-Love (Norway): DRUMS

Just added! 4/28: CD release for Frank Pahl’s “Songs of War and Peace”
Some of you may know the side of composer/inventor Frank Pahl that has a weak spot for protest songs from a few of his recent, frenetic acoustic performances. His new CD “Songs of War and Peace” features some of this material, but in settings that bear a closer resemblance to the pretty and challenging music he’s best known for. With a couple great send-ups of patriotic songs opening and closing the record, you’ll be all set for this year’s Fourth of July. Doors at 9 pm; $5-10.

Coming Soon:
Just Added! 5/5: Willowz
Just Added! 5/8: Sightings
5/18 The Old Haunts

6/3 Rob Brown 3tet with William Parker and Gerald Cleaver

June 8th & 9th: 2nd Annual Festival of Improvised Music
Currently confirmed: Noah Howard, Hakim Jami and Salim Washington, Thollem McDonas, Lotte Anker with Craig Taborn and Gerald Cleaver, Engines (Dave Rempis, Nate McBride, Tim Daisy), Kyle Bruckmann’s Wrack, Keenan Lawler. More TBA.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

Winter & Winter New Releases

A bunch of new efforts on Winter & Winter:

New in 2007

Teodoro Anzellotti
»Chanson discrète«
910 124-2 [1 CD]

The art of Teodoro Anzellotti inspired numerous contemporary composers (Mauricio Kagel, Fumio Yasuda, Heinz Holliger, Hans Zender and Michael Jarrell among them) to write for the accordion and discover its unique sound quality as a solo instrument. Anzellotti has established the accordion on the classical music stage by premièring over 300 compositions that have been written for him, also pioneering in the field of sound development.
First performed in 1995 “Sequenza XIII” is one of the key works in Anzellotti’s career. Luciano Berio dedicated this gently nuanced piece to him with the intention of expressing his own relationship to the accordion, which seemed to Berio, besides the instrument’s Tango and folk music history, in a permanent and interesting process of growing. The second piece in this recording dedicated to Anzellotti is Toshio Hosokawa’s “Slow Motion”. After seeing a Gagaku-dance in Tokyo (Gagaku is the name for the Japanese court music) Hosokawa envisions an imaginary dance scene under the moonlight.
Salvatore Sciarrino’s “Vagabonde blu” is the composer’s hommage to the accordion, comparing its mechanism to the human lungs and borrowing the title from astronomy.
Johann Jakob Froberger’s baroque pieces interwoven in the programme complete this extraordinary selection of musical gems.

New in 2007

Paul Motian Trio 2000 + 2
»Live at the Village Vanguard«
910 133-2 [1 CD]

Paul Motian [drums]
Chris Potter [tenor saxophone]
Larry Grenadier [bass]
+
Greg Osby [alto saxophone]
Masabumi Kikuchi [piano]

Music is always connected with the time and the place of its origin. And extraordinary times like the 17th century and special locations like Venice inspire art like a wonderful muse. Exciting and unmistakable baroque music would not exist without this extraordinary combination of that time and that place. New York City and the 20th century are the muse for jazz. And the Village Vangard – in the heart of this city – is one of the most important organs of this music. Today the Vanguard is owned and ruled by Ms. Lorraine Gordon – Max Gordon’s wife who founded this club – her first husband was Alfred Lion the founder of Blue Note Records. Lorraine is the guarantor for great music. And that makes it almost normal that Winter & Winter records Paul Motian with the Trio 2000 + Two live at the Village Vanguard. The place, the time, the musicians and the repertoire are in total harmony. The 75 year old drummer creates the most beautiful music in this jazz club. Paul Motian live at the Village Vanguard is a document of an unforgettable week which happened in December 2006. The musicians of Paul Motian’s Trio 2000 are Chris Potter on tenor sax and Larry Grenadier on bass plus Greg Osby on alto sax and the pianist Masabumi Kikuchi.

New in 2007

Barbara Sukowa, Schönberg Ensemble
Reinbert de Leeuw
»Im wunderschönen Monat Mai«
910 132-2 [1 CD]
Dreimal sieben Lieder nach Schumann und Schubert
Three times seven Songs after Schumann and Schubert

Barbara Sukowa [voice]
Reinbert de Leeuw [piano]
Schönberg Ensemble

»Im wunderschönen Monat Mai« [»In the Lovely Month of May«] is a composition of conductor and pianist Reinbert de Leeuw based on German romantic songs by Schubert and Schumann. Barbara Sukowa and Reinbert de Leeuw have created the sequence of this new song cycle. This one-hour piece, consisting of seven songs in three parts, is performed by Barbara Sukowa and the Schönberg Ensemble. The lyrics were written by Heine, Eichendorff and Goethe.

New in 2007

Ernst Reijseger with Larissa Groeneveld
and Frank van de Laar
»Do you still«
910 136-2 [1 CD]

Ernste Reijseger [cello|
Larissa Groeneveld [cello]
Frank van de Laar [piano|

“This set of pieces represents a part of my upbringing, curiousity and dreams. My present state of mind is to be at ease with my confusing identity as a non-repertoire cellist with and non-traditional development. From when I was very young, music from all over the world inspired me. I intuitively played in a way that I later found out is called improvisation. Although I was always interested in the traditional cello technique and aware of the cello repertoire, my development led to a personal way of playing and composing. Complementary to the written music for Larissa Groeneveld and Frank van de Laar, I feel best when my role is subject to change. I think of myself as the ‘libero’ on the football field, who can determine his own position.
»Gretchen am Spinnrade« was originally made for the opera »Kastanienball« and in this instrumentation adopted by Werner Herzog for his film »Rescue Dawn«. Also »Do you still« is part of that same movie. Other pieces have travelled a longer way before they landed in this trio. The oldest arrangements for this trio, Martin Koeman’s compositions, »Veils« and »Douze«, date back to when we were twenty years old.”
– Ernst Reijseger

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

ICP composes and improvises its way through all sorts of jazz forms

ICP’s current tour garners another review.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

Dusted Reviews

From Dusted:

Artist: R. Stevie Moore
Album: Overactivity or Tabitha Soren
Label: Forty-Seven
Review date: Mar. 29, 2007

Artist: Huntsville
Album: For the Middle Classes
Label: Rune Grammofon
Review date: Mar. 28, 2007

Artist: Rhys Chatham
Album: A Crimson Grail (For 400 Guitars)
Label: Table of the Elements
Review date: Mar. 27, 2007

Artist: Koch / Schütz / Studer
Album: Tales From 30 Unintentional Nights
Label: Intakt
Review date: Mar. 26, 2007

Artist: El-P
Album: I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead
Label: Def Jux
Review date: Mar. 22, 2007

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

Sylvan Winds present World Premiere of Robert Dick’s “Startling Stories”

AT TENRI CULTURAL INSTITUTE

(43A West 13^th Street)

THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 2007 at 7:30 PM

The Sylvan Winds
Svjetlana Kabalin, flute; Alexandra Knoll, oboe; Amy Zoloto, clarinet;
Thomas Sefcovic, bassoon; Zohar Schondorf, horn

Hailed by the New York Times for “its venturesome programming and stylishness of performance,” the ensemble presents

Protest and Passion

            Henry Cowell (1897-1965)                     Ballad
            Robert Dick (b.1950)                           Startling Stories (2007) **
            Robert Martin (b.1952)                         Summer Quiescence & From the Green Mountains

            Dimitri Shostakovich (1903-1963)      String Quartet No.8 in c minor, Op.110
            (arr. by M. Popkin)

Ticket prices: $20 for adults & $15 for students and seniors.

For further program information and reservations, please call or fax 212 / 222-3569.
This program marks the world première** of Robert Dick’s Startling Stories, made possible by a consortium commission grant from Meet the Composer. The work will also be performed by Vento Chiaro in Boston and the Sierra Winds in Nevada later this year.
Henry Cowell (1897-1965) Born in California, Cowell was an energetic, eclectic and innovative composer, exploring and incorporating unusual and exotic instruments in traditional and non-traditional forms. An ardent supporter of new music, he was the first American composer to tour the USSR in 1929 and was a friend and champion of Charles Ives. Also an author, he founded the New Music Edition to disseminate modern music. A member of the faculty at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and Columbia University in New York City, John Cage, Lou Harrison and George Gershwin were among his pupils.
Robert Dick (b. 1950) Startling Stories was commissioned by a Meet the Composer consortium grant. Robert Dick is internationally recognized as a composer, performer and improvisor. The acknowledged master of the contemporary flute, he has revolutionized the soundworld of the instrument. His book, THE OTHER FLUTE, is used by composers and performers worldwide. He has performed solo recitals of his music throughout the Americas, Europe, Japan and Australia.
Professionally composing since 1973, he has earned wide recognition and is one of only two Americans ever to be awarded both Composers Fellowships (twice) and a Solo Recitalist Grant by the N.E.A. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and commissions from the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the Fromm Music Foundation, the Mary Flagler Cary Trust, the city of Zurich, and the Philharmonie in Cologne among others. His chamber music has been performed by the New York New Music Ensemble, Flute Force, New Winds, the A.D.D. Trio, Tambastics and other ensembles in the United States and Europe.
Robert Martin (b. 1952) Born in Hagerstown, MD, Robert Martin began composing at age 10 and wrote his first works for orchestra and concert band in high school. A student of Robert Hall Lewis, he received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in composition from the Peabody Conservatory of Music. In 1976, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him the Charles Ives Scholarship for outstanding music composition and in 1979 he received a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Vienna. His travels took him to Istanbul and to Israel where he lived in a Kibbutz outside Nahariyha. Returning to New York in 1980, he turned his attention to Wall Street, becoming a Senior Vice President in a leading investment firm, and serving as a financial advisor to the City of New York. His office was on the 100^th floor of the World Trade Center. In his career in finance, he worked primarily on financing structures for hospitals and universities. He continued to compose, particularly on long trips and after his retirement in the early nineties, he traveled extensively to Asia. In 1999 he was a recipient of the Japan-U.S. Creative Artist Fellowship and spent six months living and traveling throughout Japan. Robert Martin’s music is published by the Theodore Presser Company and is recorded on the Furious Artisans and CRI record labels.
Dimitri Shostakovich (1903-1963) Perhaps the quartet most often performed, it was composed in 1960 after a visit to the completely devastated city of Dresden. There are many personal allusions and programmatic elements in the music of his 8^th String Quartet. The signature motive opening the work is created from the composer’s own initials ascribed to German pitch names (d –c^b-c-b), that are used imitatively and to close the work. There are no separate movements, but the fourth section is based on a political prisoners’ song, “Tortured by Hard Misfortunes” and uses the dreaded triple knocks at the door by the Soviet secret police, the KGB. There are also quotations from Shostakovich’ other works: the opera Lady Macbeth of Mzensk District, the First and Fifth Symphonies, while the melody appearing in the second section is a Jewish theme also used in his 1944 Piano Trio. In the composer’s own words, “I think, if we speak of musical impressions, that Jewish folk music has made a most powerful impression on me. I never tire of delighting in it, it’s multifaceted, it can appear to be happy while it is tragic. It’s always laughter through tears…..This quality of Jewish folk music is close to my ideas of what music should be.” This version was arranged for wind quintet by Mark Popkin, a member of Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra and professor of bassoon at the North Carolina School of the Arts.
                             —————————————————————
The Sylvan Winds has established a reputation as one of the city’s most versatile chamber music ensembles and was invited to perform at the New York Governor’s Arts Awards. Dedicated to exploring the entire body of literature for wind instruments, the ensemble has consistently earned audience and critical acclaim. In a concert at Weill Recital Hall, The New York Times wrote, “The work was beautifully executed … throughout the evening the musicians showed themselves able to think, breathe and enter as one.”
—————————————————————

Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 05:02 AM | Comments (0)

Come get lost in an evening of found sounds in Brooklyn

Originally from ANALOG Arts Ensemble news, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 02:02 AM | Comments (0)

Joe Henderson - Power to the People

Milestone 30130 Inexplicably ignored for years, Joe Henderson's populist-minded classic finally receives the royal reissue treatment with this 24-bit remastered edition. The disc is part of the newly launched Keepnews Collection, kindred to Concord's RVG series in inviting an...

Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 02:01 AM | Comments (0)

Three from emd.pl (Nowak, Menche, Charles/Piotrowicz)

Artur Nowak Guitar Granulizer emd.pl 003 Fifty one-minute guitar solos. I admit, presented with such an eventuality, its going to be a severe uphill climb to get this listener to sustain interest. Didnt happen here. Nowak comes out...

Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 02:01 AM | Comments (0)

a nice afternoon symphony orchestra

This Sunday, April 1 at TELIC ARTS EXCHANGE in Chinatown, violinist/composer Marc Sabat curates an all-day event of musical performances, sound and visual projections.

The first performance is scheduled at 11am. Come on down to Chinatown !

Click here for the set list of works being performed and musicians involved.

Originally posted by ECHO from ANABlog, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 29, 2007 at 12:49 AM | Comments (0)

March 28, 2007

A Karl Weigl photo album

Preparing articles about composers such as Elizabeth Maconchy, Elisabeth Lutyens and Karl Weigl is difficult bcause there are very few photographs of them in existence. After he read my Karl Weigl article today John McLaughlin Williams kindly obtained permission from the composer's grandson to make available the family photographs here. John explains: 'Weigl was a good athlete. I saw other pictures at his daughter-n-law's house that showed him to be quite muscular in the manner of a wrestler.The lovely portrait above is with his wife Vally.'

Now here is an exclusive picture of a very different kind.
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 11:02 PM | Comments (0)

Shows at Roulette this week: James Rouvelle/Blithe Riley, Lynn Book/Katharina Klement & Elliott Sharp

ROULETTE presents
20 Greene St (between Canal and Grand St)
8:30 PM Admission $15 Students $10 MEMBERS FREE
TICKETS/RSVP: 212.219.8242

contact: press@roulette.org http://www.roulette.org/

Thursday, March 29th
Blithe Riley/James Rouvelle

*Blithe Riley*
Blithe Riley works with video, performance & installation, combining narrative elements with systemic based structures and exploring the operations of spectatorship in various contexts. Incisive and uncomfortable, her works reveal us to ourselves and turn the audience-performer relationship on its head. She has screened nationally & internationally at the Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, The Warhol Museum and The European Media Arts Festival.

*James Rouvelle*
James Rouvelle is an intermedia wizard, a guru of electronics & programming and a genre-defying creator. His current efforts can be described as shared, de-centralized, perhaps even aimless events, unfocussed by design. He makes devices and situations that investigate collective intelligence, enhance social relationships and foster empathy through the practice of listening and dialogue. Tonight, he presents “Collaborative, Synchronous Oscillation”, an interactive work for participating audience and his own sound-making, artifically intelligent sculptures.

Friday, March 30th
Lynn Book / Katharina Klement

*Lynn Book*
Lynn Book’s adventurous, physical, visceral performing includes a broad range of vocal activities ranging from textual play and DaDa scores to more free-form musical and extended territories. Her exploratory practice contributes to her far-reaching approach to discovering, teaching & performing the vitality of the voice as it engages with body, mind & world.

*Katharina Klement*
Austrian composer/pianist/sound artist Klement makes instrumental & electronic compositions, crossover music-video-text projects, works for mechanically & electronically customized piano and sound installations. As an improviser, she explodes the figure of “composer-performer” and melds the mysterious dichotomies of notated/improvised and instrumental/electronic. www.katharinaklement.com (With the support of the Austrian Cultural Forum New York.)

Saturday, March 31st
*Elliott Sharp: BINIBON*

Composed/directed by Sharp w. text by sci-fi author Jack Womack, BINIBON is a work of music theater and alternative history based on a 1981 murder at the East Village’s bohemian Binibon cafe. The music draws on Sharp’s own compositional and performance language from that time and reveals ties to punk, No Wave, electronic dance music, noise & industrial sounds.

Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 11:02 PM | Comments (0)

Tonic, 1998-2007

Another New York City venue will soon be history, and this one's especially painful to new-music lovers of many persuasions. After surviving near-certain disaster in early 2005 through sheer determination and a series of fund-raisers, the Lower East Side nightclub Tonic will close its doors for good on Friday, April 13. Details are sketchy, but Time Out New York music editor Mike Wolf has the few facts that have been confirmed firsthand over on the TONY Blog.

It's not all bad news: owners John Scott and Melissa Caruso Scott, two of the sweetest, most level-headed people ever to dive into New York City clubland, will continue to book shows elsewhere. And they recently welcomed a new addition to the family, lending more than a bit of silver lining to whatever dark clouds may be floating by.

Originally posted by NightAfterNight from Night After Night, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)

To Publish or Not to Publish

As part of New Music Box's series on new-music economics, Vivien Schweitzer does a good job of succinctly summing up...

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

Member News: Save the date for Rawles Balls on April 14th

Originally from ANALOG Arts Ensemble news, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 07:27 PM | Comments (0)

Conductor Daniel Boico to Lead Cosmopolitan Symphony Orchestra in Music by Tchaikovsky and New York Composer Steven R. Gerber on April 1

New York, NY - On Sunday April 1^st, 2007 at 2:00 PM, Daniel Boico will lead the Cosmopolitan Symphony Orchestra in an afternoon of music by Peter I. Tchaikovsky and New York composer Steven R. Gerber. This concert will take place in the Great Hall of The Cooper Union, located at Seventh Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan.

Steven R. Gerber’s Ode for String Orchestra will be the first work performed. The piece is an arrangement of the first movement from his 1990 work Serenade for Strings. The complete work has been recorded for Koch International Classics by Piotr Gajewski and the National Chamber Orchestra.

Other works on the program include Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, Valse-Scherzo for violin and orchestra and the Tchaikovsky/Glazunov Souvenir D’un Lieu Cher, op. 42 for violin and orchestra, both with violin soloist Eric Silberger.

Tickets for the concert are $20 for general admission and $10 for students and seniors. For tickets and more information call 212-873-7784.

Steven R. Gerber is the subject of an Electronic Dialogue interview in Sequenza 21 web magazine, which can be read at http://www.sequenza21.com/gerber.html. Visit his website at http://www.stevengerber.com.

Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 07:26 PM | Comments (0)

Steve’s click picks #23

(A little early this week, as I might be out on the weekend) …Our regular listen to and look at compositions and performances that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since folks are nice enough to offer so much good listening online. Time to sit in on a few “first moments” in musical history:

George Gershwin & Paul Whiteman : Rhapsody in Blue - Original 78rpm Acoustic Recording (1924)

Gerswhin / Whiteman Made shortly after the premiere performance, and a year before the electric microphone came into use. The two sides of the record are on different pages: Side One is here, and Side two here. I can’t do any better than give B. Stockwell’s commentary from the Archive.org site:

“This is an edited performance, with cuts made to fit the 15-minute work onto two 78-RPM discs. Total time is under 9 minutes, but the cuts are pretty smart ones. This work was originally written for a large dance band, the way you hear it here. This isn’t ‘Symphonic Jazz’. It’s authentic 1920’s style — completely different from the bloated ‘violins and cellos’ versions that we’re used to hearing. You can hear the banjos in this version. Gershwin plays the piano part and the performance is fast fast fast. The opening clarinet glissando wails and breaks off into reedy laughter. This is SO different from the the syrupy swooning you now hear. The sound isn’t spectacular — the microphone wasn’t invented until the next year, 1925 — but these 78s are still pretty well transfered. The recording of Rhapsody in Blue was a hit. In 1927 the same group — again with Gershwin but now with a microphone — made another recording. Paul Whiteman had a quarrel of some sort and walked out of the recording session. They recorded anyway, with another conductor — Nathaniel Shilkret, I think — taking over. Whiteman was happy to promote the recording as his own, nonetheless. The electric version is better recorded but it lacks, well, electricity. Everyone, including Gershwin, just punches it harder in 1924.”

———————–

Percussion Music from Lou Harrison’s Collection of 78rpm Acetate Records

John Cage's percussion ensemble An absolutely fascinating audio document, this 1971 KPFA broadcast by Charles Amirkhanian presented extremely rare recordings of percussion music from the composer Lou Harrison’s (1917-2003) personal collection. Especially important are the acetate disks of a concert given by John Cage’s percussion ensemble at the Cornish School in Seattle on May 19th, 1939.

Cornish (still there and going strong; as a college student in 1978 I caught Cage himself at a tribute concert in the same hall, performing some of his Sonatas and Interludes) was where Cage found a job accompanying dancers, and it was there that he founded his first percussion ensemble and experimented with the prepared piano. (The stage in the Cornish performance hall was too small to accommodate all his percussion during a dance performance, so Cage came up with the idea of turning a single piano into its own percussion “ensemble”.) The performers heard include Cage himself, his then-wife Xenia, and the dancer Doris Dennison (there has to be at least one more, quite possibly Lou Harrison himself).

The pieces on these recordings represent the core of the West-Coast experimentalist group (I know, I know, Harry Partch; but he was off on his own very different journey): Lou Harrison’s Counterdance in Spring, Henry Cowell’s Pulse, two movements from Cage’s own Trio, Johanna M. Beyer’s Tactless and Endless, William Russell’s Three Cuban Studies, and again Harrison with his Fifth Simfony. You just can’t get much closer to the sitting in on the roots of this exciting period.

The remainder of the broadcast features a 33rpm disk that captures a 1948 performance of Harrison’s Canticle #3, introduced and conducted by Leopold Stokowski during a concert at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

———————-

On a personal note, I’ll mention the release of my own new CD, The Composer Plays IV: Works for Imaginary Piano, on the NiwoSound label. Along with my performance of Stravinsky’s Piano-Rag Music, the CD collects a number of my works that feature piano: either solo, doubled, or with recorded sound.

Jumping into the first wave of what I’m sure is to become common practice, no physical copy of the CD will be offered for sale in stores; it will only be available to subscribers at both eMusic and iTunes (the link is to eMusic; the CD is not “live” on iTunes yet, but will be soon — not only in the US, but iTunes Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia as well. iTunes folks can simply search “Steve Layton” to find the complete list of my available CDs in their country). For those who want something in their hand to read, complete liner notes for the CD can be had as a free downloadable PDF file (300 kb) from my own website. Enjoy!

Originally posted by Steve Layton from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 07:26 PM | Comments (0)

Alessandro Bosetti Interview

Alessandro Bosetti is interviewed about his music and latest release.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 07:25 PM | Comments (0)

First Cryptonight in NY

Night After Night reviews the first Cryptonight in New York.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 07:25 PM | Comments (0)

The Dixon Society Interviews Taylor Ho Bynum

Taylor Ho Bynum gets to talk about learning from Anthony Braxton as well as his thoughts on Bill Dixon.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 07:25 PM | Comments (0)

Mahler's forgotten assistant

John McLaughlin Williams has just added this comment to my post Young composers sit at their computers: How woefully true about what supposedly can and cannot be done on the pro conducting circuit. I had a meeting with a well-known manager at a premiere New York management agency. Said manager inquired about my predilections, to which I answered a number of composers including Karl Weigl. He responded matter-of-factly "you can't do Weigl". The incredulous look upon my naive visage probably explains the subsequent course of my musical life!

Karl Weigl (below) can't be done on the pro conducting circuit, but he can be done On An Overgrown Path - here is his story. Gustav Mahler was appointed director of the Vienna Court Opera in 1897, and in ten years there he transformed both the repertoire and performances. He brought a new focus on the classical repertoire including Gluck and Mozart, and in collaboration with Alfred Roller created revolutionary productions of Fidelio, Tristan und Isolde, and Der Ring des Nibelungen.

In 1904 Mahler appointed as his rehearsal conductor, Karl Weigl, the 23 year old son of a prominent Viennese Jewish family. Weigl’s teachers included Alexander von Zemlinsky and Guido Adler, and his circle included Webern and Schönberg. In 1903 the Vereinigung scaffender Tonkunstler was founded by Zemlinsky, Schönberg and Weigl under the patronage of Mahler, and was programmed much ‘new’ music, including works by Mahler, Richard Strauss, Zemlinsky, Schönberg , Pfitzner, Reger and Bruno Walter, as well Weigl’s own compositions.

In 1906 Weigl left the Vienna Opera to concentrate on composing, and his chromatic harmonies and imaginative orchestration, which did not follow the musical path of his friend Schönberg, achieved considerable success. His Phantastisches Intermezzo, was performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under Furtwängler, and the Rose Quartet premiered several of his chamber works. Other champions of his work included George Szell and the Busch Quartet. In 1929 joined the music department of the University of Vienna, and his students included Hanns Eisler, Erich Korngold and Kurt Adler.

In 1933 the political, and cultural, map of Europe started to change. The rise to power of the Nazis saw the start of discrimination against non-Aryan musicians and music. After Hitler annexed Austria in March 1938 Weigl’s music was removed from publisher’s catalogues, and exile became inevitable. In October 1938 he arrived in New York with the conductor Kurt Adler and the cellist Emanuel Feuerman. His letters of recommendation from Schönberg, Richard Strauss and Bruno Walter cut little ice in America, and Weigl struggled to survive giving private lessons. Later he held several teaching posts on the East Coast, but these were a far cry from the post in Vienna that he had left. Karl Weigl died after a prolonged illness in August 1949, eleven years after he had arrived in New York.

After this denouement it would be pleasing to report a revival of interest in Weigl’s music, but sadly this has not been the case. Stokowski gave the premiere of the Fifth Symphony Apokalyptische in New York, and other performers including Richard Goode have performed his compositions. Admirably BIS have recorded his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies together with the Phantastisches Intermezzo. Both the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies were composed by Karl Weigl in America, and the poignant sub-title of the Fifth says it all - Apocalyptic.

* Follow this link to the website of the Jewish Music Institute

Now playing – Karl Weigl’s String Quartets No 1 and No 5. Nimbus has done a wonderful job championing forgotten and suppressed music. This highly recommended 1999 recording by the Artis Quartett Wien is only the second recording of these two quartets. Schönberg urged Arnold Rosé to perform them, praising their “extraordinary qualities and inventiveness”.

Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Now take An Overgrown Path to Holocaust opera's rare performance

Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 07:10 PM | Comments (0)

Young composers sit at their computers ...

Mahler 9. Circuit training’ll be a dawdle after this. What a play. What a play-fest. Ilan (Volkov) (above left) skippered us through it in Glasgow and Leeds last week. The last time the band played it was 1976 – that’s the year Ilan was born. Christopher Adey conducted that time. It was one of his last gigs with us during his tenure as ‘Assistant Conductor’. He was desperate to do the piece, the producer couldn’t really budget for it, so they agreed (i.e. they forgot to discuss it with us down at the coal face) to do it on half the rehearsal time.

The next ‘Assistant Conductor’ was Simon Rattle, and he tried the same trick with Mahler 7, but he programmed two studio recordings instead of the quick bash for one. Surprise, surprise: when we got to the first recording he announced that we weren’t ready and cancelled the recording in favour of a day more rehearsal before the second session. And they docked his pay! Which didn’t leave much, considering the pay those assistants got. In his two year tenure, Simon introduced us to a number of the big expensive orchestral showpieces – fantastic times.

The Assistant Conductor post has disappeared now. It was a good enough institution for the likes of Simon, Alex Gibson, Bryden Thompson, Christopher Seaman, Andrew Davis and many others. As young conductors they got to do a whole load of stuff that wouldn’t be available to them on the open commercial conductor circuit. Can you imagine the auditions for the post? We had a day in which six hopefuls would turn up with the same repertory excerpts and an hour in which to prove their worth.

There’s a grim side to any audition process, but if the hopeful can’t keep his cool under that pressure, then he’d best find that out quickly. ‘Lesson one’ would be: can they beat through a series of complicated time-signature changes, e.g. the slow movement of Stravinsky’s Symphony in C? We knew the answer by the second bar, but we had to be very professional for the rest of the hour!

Nowadays, many young composers sit at their computers, having left their brain in the bathroom, and unthinkingly use the computer to churn out the most ridiculously complicated sequences of time-signatures, further complicated by speed changes at every bar and notation within those individual bars that contradict the time-signature anyway. We have to take this in our stride now, though you will have gathered from my tone that we might get a tad irritated. But a conductor who can’t take this in his stride – he’s a no no.

When do conductors get to ‘practise’ their instrument – which is a skilled professional band that can actually play the piece? Bear in mind that we, the players, don’t want to appear in public as cannon fodder for inexperienced or weak conductors. What’s the answer?

Cellist Anthony Sayer tells it like it is on the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra blog, and as I've said here several times before, they are a band on a roll, after a near-death experience.

My header photo, from NMC. shows Ilan Volkov, composer Stuart MacRae and violinist Christian Tetzlaff at the recording sessions in Glasgow City Halls in 2006 for MacRae's Violin Concerto, which was a BBC Proms commission. I hasten to add I am sure Anthony Sayer's comments about young composers don't apply to Stuart MacRae, it just happened to be a nice shot that fits the story!
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 05:20 PM | Comments (0)

My Double Deep (2002; 2007 perf.) by Steve Layton

My Double Deep (2002; 2007 perf.) by Steve Layton
Written just like my usual works for traditional orchestra, but freely using "imaginary" instruments.

Originally posted by jeff from cacophonous.org, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

New Music Economics (Part 3): Keeping Up With the Rent

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

Final frontiers

Reviewing Collage New Music.
Boston Globe, March 27, 2007.

Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 04:41 PM | Comments (0)

Cattle Call

Time to limber up your rhymes for "Alamagordo": the New Mexico House of Representatives passed a nonbinding memorial a couple of weeks ago asking the New Mexico Music Commission to sponsor a competition to compose a "State Cowboy Song."

Now, New Mexico already has one of the better state songs, "O Fair New Mexico," written by Elizabeth Garrett, the blind daughter of the guy who killed Billy the Kid. They also have a Spanish state song, Amadeo Lucero's "Así a Nuevo Méjico" (which was adopted after the then-Lieutenant Governor sang it to the legislature in 1971). Then there's the bilingual state song, "Mi Lindo Nuevo Mexico," by Pablo Mores. Oh yeah, there's also the state ballad, "Land of Enchantment,", co-written by Michael Martin Murphey. But apparently, there's a need for a cowboy song as well.

The language of the bill, introduced by Gloria Vaughn, is actually quite pragmatic:

WHEREAS, the members may be able to agree on declaring an official state cowboy song so long as the process for selecting such a song is less arbitrary than by a vote of a majority of the members of the legislature, whose tastes and musical abilities may vary....

Entries, though, will be limited to composers who either were born in the state or have lived there consecutively for twenty years. I'd consider that a prohibitively high entrance fee. Plus, it means I can't nominate Doctor Atomic, about New Mexico's wildest cowboy ever.

(Peruse the rest of "The Cowboy Rag.")

Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 04:40 PM | Comments (0)

Gladys Bentley on “You Bet Your Life”

You gotta be tough to put up with Groucho Marks’ introductions. Nurturing? Try skeptical. But mmm mmmm! Listen to Ms Bentley. I wanna learn to play this. Do you suppose there is a notation of it somewhere? I can just smell the cigar smoke and feel those hot studio lights.

Gladys Bentley on" You Bet Your Life"
Uploaded by redhotjazz

Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 04:39 PM | Comments (0)

Korn: Throw me away

Jason Moskovitz sent this in. “I’m the “light-skinned” guy on the big drum.” [on the left] I’ve gotta admit that this is one of the coolest orchestrations I’ve heard/seen is quite some time. The quivery instrument is a bowed saw, the percussion ensemble are members of the Taiko group Jason belongs to. Very cool. It’s like early 21st century chamber orchestra.

Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 04:38 PM | Comments (0)

Swed on Rouse’s Requiem

Mark Swed wrote a brilliant review for Christopher Rouse’s new REQUIEM which I didn’t get to hear because of my own concert at the same time. I don’t normally think CHORUS when I think of Christopher Rouse, but Swed’s review was so exciting, I can’t wait to hear it.

Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 04:37 PM | Comments (0)

During Hardship Of American War In Iraq, Christopher Rouse, The Los Angeles Master Chorale, and Soli Deo Gloria Celebrate American Classical Music

Christopher Rouse's notes on his new Requiem, premiered on Sunday, March 25, 2007 in Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, California, United States

"Completed in Aspen, Colorado on July 12, 2002, my Requiem was commissioned by the Chicago-based organization Soli Deo Gloria in honor of the 2003 bicentenary of Hector Berlioz’ birth.

Berlioz is a composer whose music has always held an especially profound power over me, and his own mighty Requiem remains one of the most stupendous and imaginative of all such works, a unique example of the genre. While I chose not to make use of actual musical quotations from Berlioz’ works, I decided to reflect my love of his music by setting the Latin text with the same cuts, emendations, and reshufflings that he had chosen for his own Requiem. It would seem, however, that since Benjamin Britten composed his War Requiem in 1962 with interpolated poems by Wilfred Owen few composers have been able to resist the temptation to similarly “trope” the traditional Latin Requiem text with texts from other sources, and I was no exception. My goal was to use the chorus, restricted to the Latin liturgical text, to express the enormity of “death” in its deepest context; the role of the bassbaritone soloist would then be to make the experience of death more personal by adopting the classic figure of the “Everyman” whose life is marked by the deaths of loved ones around him.

The work begins with the soloist singing alone the lines of Seamus Heaney’s Mid-Term Break, in which a boy leaves school to attend the funeral of his younger brother, struck by a car. Before the Tuba Mirum come lines from Siegfried Sassoon’s Suicide in the Trenches, in which the poet describes the self-destruction of a shell-shocked comrade. The Rex Tremendae is succeeded by excerpts from Michelangelo’s ode on the death of his father, and the Sanctus is preceded by Ben Jonson’s On My First Sonne, a heartbreaking contemplation of the death of his child. Before the Agnus Dei comes John Milton’s Sonnet 23, in which he dreams that his dead wife has returned to him. Finally, Michelangelo’s On Immortality (set, like the earlier Michelangelo poem, in the original Italian), sung near the very end of the score, speaks of the “Everyman” figure’s own death.

September 11, 2001 found me in New York City. After the initial shock of the day’s events began to wear off, it became obvious to me that this Requiem of which I had completed about half should be completed in and dedicated to the remembrance of those who perished. However, further reflection led me to change my mind; I had come to feel that some tragedies were too enormous to consecrate with anything more than deep but silent grieving and that to turn this piece into a “9/11 work” might even smack a bit of opportunism. There is a small, symbolic reference in the score to September 11, but beyond that I have elected to attempt, in my own inadequate way, a remembrance of all who have died as well as those who have survived and grieved for them. It is my hope that my Requiem will, in the end, provide some sort of solace, and for this reason I have interspersed near the conclusion verses from the Anglican hymn “Now the Laborer’s Task is O’er” (death) with lines from “Es ist ein’ Ros’ entsprungen” (i.e., “Lo! How a Rose e’er Blooming” — birth).

The works lasts approximately ninety minutes.

-— Christopher Rouse

Source: Los Angeles Master Chorale, Grant Gershon, Music Director

And with thanks to Jerry Z. at Jerry Bowles's Sequenza21, the vital Portal of the Contemporary Classical Music Community.

Additional thanks to Soli Deo Gloria, in Chicago, Illinois, for earlier promotional materials on this major new work of American classical music.

A living musical culture is often elsewhere.

Photo credit: (c) flickr.com. All rights reserved. 2007. Via Carpet Blog: Caustic Commentary from Constantinople. With many thanks.

*

"Talking about cultural shock: I have never experienced it. But it was interesting to learn something new from an experienced traveller. Cultural shock is a quite normal feeling when you're getting to another society with its specific culture. I think people's mentality is a very important factor, because for example Ukrainians and Americans have different patterns of behaviour (stereotypes) and sometimes we may not understand each other in daily interaction. I'm studying ethnic psychology this term, so I have an idea to write an essay about it..."

Y. of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Kyiv, Ukraine, Greater Europe (With thanks.)

Originally from Renaissance Research, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 04:37 PM | Comments (0)

Incredibly, That Crank Mr Cogito Lets Loose With Another So-called Editorial On The Sad State Of The Current Classical WETA-FM In The Nation's Capital

"If the new Classical WETA-FM were properly connected to American classical music as well as to Mr Jim Allison’s favorite European classical music — and additionally connected to the diverse audiences of Greater Washington which WETA [Washington Educational Television Association] once professed to serve — then it would, in my opinion, find a way to program, now, from these 8 NAXOS CDs conducted by the outstanding American classical music conductor — and Washington, D.C. native — John McLaughlin Williams. Could my membership contribution for this year be dedicated to purchasing some of these 8 NAXOS CDs of American classical music conducted by this outstanding younger American classical conductor?

American Classical Artist John McLaughlin Williams Conducting American Classical Music

AMERICAN CLASSICS SAMPLER 8.559118
CARPENTER: Adventures in a Perambulator / Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2 8.559065
EXPLORE AMERICA 8.559187
FLAGELLO: Piano Concerto No. 1 / Dante’s Farewell / Concerto Sinfonico 8.559296
HADLEY: Symphony No. 4 / The Ocean / The Culprit Fay 8.559064
MCKAY: From a Moonlit Ceremony / Harbor Narrative 8.559052
MCKAY: Violin Concerto / Sinfonietta No. 4 / Song Over the Great Plains 8.559225
STORY OF AMERICAN CLASSICAL MUSIC (THE) 8.558164-65

PROBABLY OVER 500 MINUTES OF WONDERFUL, LITTLE KNOWN, PROFESSIONALLY PRE-SCREENED, RECORDED, PRODUCED, AND INTERNATIONALLY DISTRIBUTED AMERICAN CLASSICAL MUSIC, AS CHAMPIONED BY AN AMERICAN CLASSICAL MUSICIAN WHO SHOULD BE A “WETA HOME-TOWN HERO”!!!

Those non-WGMS refugees here may also remember Mr Williams championing American classical music on a former WETA-FM classical music show, “Performance Today;” a show which highlighted American classical music, as well as European, and some Asian, classical music.

And because the new, culturally unconnected Classical WETA-FM Lite, in the Nation’s Capital, does not offer broadcast exposure to outstanding emerging American classical artists such as John McLaughlin Williams, Mr Williams will not receive the guest conducting invitations - (or, the horror; the horror!) — the permanent guest conductor or permanent music director positions with a major American orchestra such as the National Symphony Orchestra. It is one thing to be a woman conductor of privileged background in America; another to be an ambitious American classical musician of African-American ancestry from the Nation’s Capital. Look what professional, prize, and monetary awards Ms Marin Alsop’s recordings of European AND American classical music on the NAXOS label led to!!

Here is a link to Ms Marin Alsop conducting both European and American classical music on the inexpensive NAXOS label:

European and American Classical Music

And here is a link in case the next Music Director at Classical WETA-FM wants to celebrate Cherry Blossom time by programming from the riches of NAXOS’S inexpensive catalogue of outstanding and sensitive Japanese Classical Music:

Japanese Classical Music

And who says that it would be impossible to curate Classical WETA-FM, in the Nation’s Capital, as thoughtfully as the classical art and music curating at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian American Art Museums, the Smithsonian Freer-Sackler Galleries, and the National Gallery of Art’s European and American Classical Galleries?"

Source: Classical WETA-FM The Blog For Classical Music Lovers March 28, 2007

Cherry Blossoms on the Tidal Basin in Washington, D. C.

Photo credit: The Official Web Site of the National Cherry Blossom Festival via the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., United States. With thanks.

Originally from Renaissance Research, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 04:37 PM | Comments (0)

John Adams Leads Detroit Symphony - HULIQ

John Adams Leads Detroit Symphony
HULIQ, NC - 4 hours ago
John Adams has produced both operatic and symphonic works that stand out among all contemporary classical music for the depth of their expression, ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 04:36 PM | Comments (0)

Composer Chris Becker Residency and Concert

Chris Becker

cy with Racoco Productions

Composer Chris Becker residency and concert
Presented by Racoco Productions
Funded in part through Meet The Composer’s Creative Connections program

All events take place at:
Studio 111, 111 Conselyea Street, No. 2L, Brooklyn, NY
Cost: $5 suggested donation for all dates

Featured performers:
Chris Becker - Laptop computer running Ableton Live and AudioMulch, kalimba
Lewis ‘Flip’ Barnes - Trumpet, Effects
Lynn Wright - Electric Guitar, Effects
Sharrif Simmons - Poetry
Leighton Edmondson - Video
and members of Racoco Productions (Rachel Cohen director)

03/29/2007 06:30 PM
Description: An open rehearsal. Chris Becker and Rachel Cohen describe the process of creating their latest collaborative work Thrown.

03/31/2007 03:30 PM
Description: An open rehearsal. Chris Becker describes his compositional process and techniques and directs his ensemble in a newly realized arrangement of the classic song Stagger Lee.

03/31/2007 07:00 PM
A pre-concert talk with Chris Becker and Rachel Cohen about their collaborative work Cornell Box - a mixed media piece dedicated to artist Joseph Cornell.

03/31/2007 07:30 PM
Description: A concert of original music, improvisations and music for dance. The program includes Cornell Box, Stagger Lee (with guest poet Sharrif Simmons), Thrown (choreography by Rachel Cohen, video by Leighton Edmondson) and a set of improvised music by Becker, Barnes and Wright.

ary to document the creative processes leading up to the March residency and concert is up at http://beckermusic.blogspot.com/index.html Please feel free to leave comments – you don’t have to register to do so.

Thank you everyone for your support for independent music. Take care.

Chris Becker
www.beckermusic.com

Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 04:28 PM | Comments (0)

Musique Machine Review

From Musique Machine:

Napalm Death - Scum
This is a double sided 20th anniversary edition of this classic album. On the first side theres the untouched original album and the other side is a 50 min documentary about the albums making and its influence.

Steve Roden - Transmissions(voices of objects and Skies)
With Transmissions(voices of objects and Skies) Roden creates this beautiful soothing and subtle developing drone soundworld, which akin to floating in some strange star system. Where objects and sounds rotate towards you from the quiet blackness.

Majdanek Waltz - O Proishozhdenii Mira (About World’s Birth)
Majdanek Waltz are a Russian language mix of beautiful/chilling dark folk, bleak sawing and lush classical air, gloomy drone tendency, ragged industrial noise elements and the odd hints at more rocking moments. O proishozhdenii mira (About World’s Birth)is their 4th full length album and is quite satisfying mix of sounds.

Half Makeshift - Aphotic Leech
Deep rumblings open Aphotic Leech, Nathan Michael’s debut cd. It’s a preparation for a trip through dark spaces.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)

New Releases From Leo Records

From Leo Records:

CD LR 480
Sainkho Namchylak / Roy Carroll
Tuva-irish Live Music Project

CD LR 481
Joachim Gies / Lauren Newton
Tenderness Of Stones

CD LR 482
Sainkho Namchylak
Nomad

ffr 5005
Melissa Stott
The Picture

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)

Hoop Dreams

As a composer of intimidating-looking music, what compromises, if any, do I need to make in order to break into the realm of symphonic writing?

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)

I am merely a rumble of the holy voice, yo

Let me briefly invade Justin's turf — Newsday critic and New Yorker contributor Justin Davidson is guest-hosting this week — is to say that I've written something for the blog of the 92nd Street Y. Next Sunday I'm appearing in the Y's Poetry Center series, where I will look at the poetic roots of two works that forever altered the musical landscape: Debussy’s Prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun" and Schoenberg’s Second Quartet. In Debussy’s case inspiration came from Mallarmé’s gloriously enigmatic long poem “The Afternoon of a Faun" — “the motionless and weary swoon / Of stifling heat" — and in Schoenberg's case it was Stefan George's "Rapture": "I feel the wind of another planet.... I dissolve in sounds, circling, weaving...." I’ll discuss how conventional harmony crumbled underfoot as the composers chased these elusive images. In addition to a lecture-plus-brunch deal, the Y is offering $10 for people under 35. One day I'll have a real photo. (Speaking of which, Steve Pyke, who's supplied some brilliant portraits to accompany my pieces, including this one of Ian Bostridge, has a show at Flowers gallery from March 29 to May 5.) — Alex

Originally posted by Alex Ross from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 02:09 PM | Comments (0)

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Don't be fooled by the professorial mien: Christopher Rouse likes his music as loud as any teenage headbanger does. He's the sort of composer who wouldn't trust a battalion of trombones to play out enough without some encouragement — half a dozen or more ƒs, say. Judging from Mark Swed's eloquent review, Rouse's cloud-stirring Requiem, which had its premiere in Los Angeles over the weekend, sounds like it doesn't just honor the dead: it wakes them.

Rouse descends from a proud lineage of cacophonizers. The first episode of Michael Tilson Thomas's forthcoming public radio show, "The MTT Files" proposes that the ever-increasing noise factor in music comes from the need to compete with an ever more deafening urban environment. (More about DJ MTT anon.) Rouse writes for a generation reared on stadium concerts, but he does so in the spirit of the late 19th century. Even when he emerged from the morbid mode that occupied him through the 1980s, he remained one of our loftiest, most passionate and most anachronistically sincere composers. Not for him the finely wrought irony of postmodernism, or its ethnic potpourris. He means what he screams.

I'm looking forward to the day when Rouse's monster of a piece finally slouches towards New York.

Justin Davidson

Originally posted by JustinDavidson from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 02:09 PM | Comments (0)

Remnants

The following images document two most unusual sightings here in Los Angeles:

1. LA soaked and windy-swept, in an abrupt 30 minute rain-burst.

2. A half-burnt, thawing upright piano sitting in the street outside the Dangerous Curve Gallery, as part of Parris Patton's Because I Can't be Beethoven installation.

I was not able to attend the event last Saturday, which was the delivery of the ice block/sculpture, followed by a viewing and BBQ. The day's festivities culminated in the smashing of the sculpture and the burning of the piano.

I bumped into gallery director Tim Quinn arounod noon today. He explained that the frozen piano resisted repeated attempts at burning. Well as you can see, Parris got off to a fairly decent start, with much work still to be done.

The sculpture will sit for at least the rest of today and some of tomorrow outside Dangerous Curve's 1020 E Fourth Place address to completely thaw out.

Originally posted by ECHO from ANABlog, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 02:05 PM | Comments (0)

Cold Storage celebrates Failure! on March 30 @ 9:30pm

Celebrate FAILURE!
**We hope it rains**

Friday, March 30 at 9:30pm

We will ring the bells, turn on the lights, spin a few tunes on the street of Cold Storage. As part of its ongoing mission to open up the possibilities of and the potential for failure, Cold Storage will be hosting a book release party for the first release from the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest Press, Failure! Experiments in Aesthetic and Social Practices.

Music provided by DJ's Jugg Thugg and Sweaty T. And did we mention one pot of soup will also be served? So bring your favorite bowl/mug/spoon. Oh yeah, also bring lots of your favorite beverages for brown bagging.

The book release party will be on the street in front of 1129 E. 5th Street at the corner of Colyton.

For more info click here

Failure! Experiments in Aesthetic and Social Practices is a collection of essays and interviews that looks squarely at the implications of the perceived personal, public and ideological wreckages that ceaselessly pile up, hurl at our feet and choke our wings (to paraphrase Walter Benjamin). Contents include a look at the afterlife of Valerie Solanas and her Scum Manifesto, connections between Frank Gehry and the 3 Stooges, an exploration of the Digger inspired Morningstar Commune in Northern California which was deeded to God, a consideration of the finality of death and its implication for AIDS activism, and a series of interviews with contemporary artists. Contributors include: Catherine Lord, Doug Harvey, Sam Green, Sam Durant, Yoshua Okon, Eduardo Abaroa, William Pope.L, Temporary Services, Assume Vivid Astro Focus, Catherine Hollander, Zoe Trodd, David Schafer, Richard Dedomenici, Alex Juhasz, Sarah Kanouse, Lisa Anne Auerbach, Sarah Lewison, John Conley, and Tommy Williford.

(oh yeah, books will be on sale!)

-----------------------------------------------
In other RoutesAndMethods news:

1) Sound Camp is coming up May 5 & 6. For more info on the weekend and on how to register please visit:

http://routesandmethods.org/high_desert_test_sites/sound_camp.html

2) Feel the Love @ Machine Project went incredibly well. Thanks go to the seven guest presenters and 24 participants.

3) Our hats go off to the 700 AMR employees who get laid off March 31st. This weekend is a Failure Fiesta!

----------------------------------------

www.RoutesAndMethods.org

the only i have to add is good luck on the rain-wish.
fat chance.

Originally posted by ECHO from ANABlog, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 02:05 PM | Comments (0)

Brouwer piece premieres this week Margaret Brouwe...

Brouwer piece premieres this week

Margaret Brouwer's new violin concerto is being premiered in a series of free concerts in the Cleveland area. I interviewed Brouwer for an article about the concert which ran in FunCoast, the Sandusky Register's weekly arts magazine. The article is available here.

Originally from Modernclassical, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

What Kind of People Hate Minimalism?

An excess of spicy food last night got me up extra early this morning, and I ended up where I...

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

In search of the lost score

Hello, I have read with interest your posts about Russian composers and Stalin. Your blog is highly informative and entertaining as well, and on an amazingly wide array of topics. I've been trying to find scores by and information about Vavera Gaigerova and Valery Zhelobinski (Jelobinsky). These tantalizing figures have proven completely elusive, yet they were published by the Soviet houses during their lives. Do you know of any resources that I might consult that may lead to performance material? I've been asking folks around the world to no avail. What did the Soviets do with music by composers who fell out of favor? Did they destroy it or bury it within archives? If I can find material I am reasonably sure that I can get recordings made.

My apologies for bothering you out of the blue. Thanks for any info you might offer. Regards, John McLaughlin Williams.

Can anyone help John? Add Comments below, or email to me at overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk and I'll pass it on.
And while we are on the subject of lost scores read about Furtwängler and the forgotten new music.
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 12:21 PM | Comments (0)

Cryptology.

A little more than ten years ago, during a period of semi-self-(un)employment between P.R. gigs, I found myself spending a beautiful late-summer (or early autumn) afternoon at The Grey Dog's Coffee on Carmine Street in Greenwich Village with Jeff Gauthier and G.E. Stinson, two Los Angeles-based musicians. I can't recall the specifics of what we discussed that day, although I'm sure it had to do with strategizing ways in which these grossly overlooked west coast players might attract more attention here in New York City.

What I do remember, vividly, is the sound of a gunning engine and screeching brakes -- over and over. Finally, we got up and peeked outside, where we saw Danny Aiello racing a sexy little convertible up the tiny length of Carmine, then skidding around the corner onto Bleecker, repeatedly. Then we saw the cameras. At the time, Aiello was starring in Dellaventura, a short-lived television detective series on CBS, and apparently, it was shooting on Carmine Street that day. Somehow, it seemed an altogether appropriate accompaniment to a meeting with two musicians from L.A.

That I was sitting there with Gauthier and Stinson had everything to do with Vinny Golia. Back in college, the radio station I worked at received a handful of LPs issued by maverick reedist Golia's label, 9 Winds. That seminal left-coast imprint documented California's unsung creative-music underground, issuing records by countless artists whose work hardly subscribed to the presumed west-coast ethic of cool, easy-listening jazz.

I latched onto a number of these players and followed them elsewhere. Eventually, from my office at Koch International circa 1993, I struck up a correspondence with guitarist Nels Cline, whose first few albums as a bandleader appeared on the Koch-distributed Enja label. Contact with Nels eventually led to my being in touch with his twin brother, drummer Alex Cline, who'd played on Tim Berne's Fulton Street Maul and made a gorgeous record of his own for ECM. Later came contact with Gauthier, who played in a group called Quartet Music with the Clines and bassist-pianist Eric von Essen, and Stinson, a renegade from the pioneering Windham Hill world-fusion band Shadowfax.

It was a heady time, to say the least. Whether Gauthier was already laying plans for a label of his own at the time of that meeting, I can't say for certain. He probably was: less than two years later came the first two releases on Cryptogramophone, by Alex Cline and Jeanette Wrate.

Gauthier's new imprint featured some of the same players previously heard on 9 Winds. But where that label had been run on the proverbial shoestring, Gauthier invested in top-notch sound, beautiful packaging and a serious Internet presence from the start. Impressive records from Gauthier, both Clines, Alan Pasqua, Mark Dresser, Erik Friedlander, Don Preston and others followed, as did a valuable and deeply moving three-disc series in which artists interpreted the compositions of von Essen, who died prematurely in 1997.

This week, Gauthier and a sizeable portion of his Cryptogramophone stable have taken over the Jazz Standard on East 27th Street for "Cryptonights," an eighth-anniversary blowout. Gauthier opened the series tonight (March 26) with his Goatette, augmented by guest cellist Friedlander. Drummer Scott Amendola plays with Nels Cline, violinist Jenny Scheinman and bassist John Shifflett on Tuesday night. The following night, pianist Myra Melford leads her quintet, Be Bread, with trumpeter Cuong Vu, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, bassist Stomu Takeishi and drummer Elliot Humberto Kavee. On Thursday and Friday nights, Nels Cline presents his Andrew Hill project with a sextet that includes Goldberg, Amendola, cornetist Bobby Bradford, accordionist Andrea Parkins and bassist Devin Hoff. Rounding out the series on Saturday and Sunday nights is reedist Bennie Maupin, who leads a quartet with bassist Darek Oles, drummer Michael Stephans and percussionist Munyungo Jackson.

(Small irony number one: You can actually catch Andrew Hill himself leading a trio at Trinity Church on Thursday afternoon at 1pm Eastern Standard Time for a mere two bucks -- or view a live webcast for free -- then hear Nels Cline play Hill's music the same evening. Small irony number two: The only time I've previously caught Bennie Maupin live was at the Knitting Factory in 1996, when he was a sideman in a quartet led by... Andrew Hill.)

Tonight, Jeff Gauthier and his Goatette (with keyboardist David Witham, bassist Joel Hamilton and Los Bros. Cline) kicked off the first set of "Cryptonights" with "Ahfulat," the breezy opening track from Gauthier's latest CD, One and the Same. Proving, perhaps, that intensity doesn't necessarily depend upon violence, Nels snapped his high E with his opening strums, and played the duration with five strings. He ducked off to change strings during a spacy keyboard solo, which led to a splattered free-time section over which Gauthier pulled broad, patient strokes. Nels returned with a manic solo of bleeps, burps and swirls, controlled as much with his right hand on a small effects box as by anything he did on his instrument.

Nels managed to snap the same string in the opening bars of the following tune, Ornette Coleman's "L'Enfant," which opened with a rollicking head, simmered down to a slow rhapsody and regained steam after a series of slow-motion trades between Hamilton and Alex Cline. As Nels retreated to replace his string yet again, the remaining quartet played an older Gauthier tune, "Astor," which evoked the romantic side of titular tango master Astor Piazzolla's oeuvre without overt mimicry, and included a majestic solo from Hamilton. During Witham's solo, the music combined a cinematic scope with working-band concision. Another Piazzolla tribute, "That Little Tango," was sharper and harder: all elbows and knuckles to the preceding tune's waist and hips. Nels joined midway through, plucking manic 16th-note runs in which his strings somehow miraculously remained intact.

Erik Friedlander joined the group for the set closer, "Olivier's Nightmare," dedicated to Messiaen. The piece opened with the cellist's fleet-fingered runs over Alex Cline's rolling gongs and cymbals; a writhing melody led to a lengthy electric-Miles percolation on a single chord and a cataclysmic, effect-laden solo from Nels that simultaneously evoked Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo and Sonny Sharrock before climaxing in a theremin orgasm. On a Sunday night at Tonic, this would have earned intense nods; on a Friday night at the Lion's Den it would have driven the 'heads into a frenzy. Here, the response was reasonably hearty, if perhaps shellshocked. All told, it was an intense, lively introduction to what should prove an enlightening, energizing week.

Playlist:

Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson - String Quartet No. 1, "Calvary" - New Black Repertory Ensemble String Quartet (Cedille)

Jody Redhage - All Summer in a Day (New Amsterdam)

Missy Mazzoli - Shy Girl Shouting Music; These Worlds in Us; Orizzonte; Lies You Can Believe In; Between Heaven and Headlights; In Spite of All This (MP3 streams)

Bethany & Rufus - 900 Miles (Hyena)

David Toop - Sound Body (Samadhi Sound)

Rush - Hold Your Fire (Mercury)

Yes - Tales from Topographic Oceans (Elektra/Rhino)

Grateful Dead - Dick's Picks, Vol. 3: Pembroke Pines, FL, May 22, 1977 (Grateful Dead)

Electric Light Orchestra - Flashback (Epic/Legacy)

Fred Frith and Chris Cutler - The Stone, Issue Two (Tzadik)

Dept of Good and Evil feat. Rachel Z - Dept of Good and Evil feat. Rachel Z (Savoy Jazz)

Amy Winehouse - Back to Black (Island)

Grateful Dead - Dick's Picks, Vol. 5: Oakland, CA, Dec. 26, 1979 (Grateful Dead) and Live at the Cow Palace - New Year's Eve 1976 (Grateful Dead/Rhino)

Quartet Music - Summer Night (Delos)

Jeff Gauthier Goatette - One and the Same (Cryptogramophone)

Originally posted by NightAfterNight from Night After Night, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

Amazonas dot com.

Florencia_en_el_amazonas_3 Mexican composer Daniel Catán is not yet a household name, but his three operas have garnered widespread admiration. Foremost among these is the second, Florencia en el Amazonas, a lyrical, richly orchestrated gloss on themes from Gabriel García Márquez's ineffably beautiful Love in the Time of Cholera. The libretto, in Spanish, is by Marcela Fuentes-Berain, the novelist's protégé.

Commissioned by Houston Grand Opera (naturally), which presented the world premiere in 1996 and issued a recording on Albany in 2002, Florencia has since been presented in Los Angeles, Seattle and Mexico City. The music breaks little new ground from a compositional perspective; Catán is content to pursue methods proven effective by Debussy and Puccini (and in one brief instance, to my ears, Stravinsky's Petrouchka). But there's no denying that Florencia is an effective, engaging work.

This weekend, the opera receives its university premiere when the MSU College of Music Opera Theatre at Michigan State University mounts a new production on Friday, March 30 and Saturday, March 31 at 8pm, and Sunday, April 1 at 3pm. While this is unlikely to draw massive hordes to East Lansing, the fact remains that this production could bring Catán's work to its largest audience ever. That's because the Sunday matinee will be webcast -- both audio and video -- via WMSU.org. The webcast begins at 2pm Eastern Standard Time, with interviews with Catán, director Melanie Helton and conductor Raphael Jimenez.

Neither the libretto nor a translation is available online. But publisher G. Schirmer, Inc. provides a concise synopsis, and Macondo, a comprehensive García Márquez website, offers an excellent summary of the opera's connection to its source, as well as other salient details.

What's more, the MSU cast and crew are blogging about the experience of putting this production together. Don't miss the plainspoken yet vivid March 26 contribution from Iris Fogderud, alterations supervisor at Macy's in Fargo, North Dakota, and costumer for the Fargo-Moorhead Opera, who is dressing these brave kids -- including her daughter Marla, who will sing the title role.

Playlist:

Vital Remains - Icons of Evil (Century Media, due Apr. 3)

King Crimson - Greek Theatre, Berkeley, CA, Aug. 13, 1982 and Shepherd's Bush Empire, London, England, July 1, 1996 (DGMlive.com downloads)

Daniel Catán - Florencia en el Amazonas - Patricia Schuman, Ana Maria Martinez, Suzanna Guzmán, Chad Shelton, Mark S. Doss, Oren Gradus, Houston Grand Opera/Patrick Summers (Albany)

Originally posted by NightAfterNight from Night After Night, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

Berlin March 28th 1933

Berlin was thrown into great excitement last night by two fires - the one at the Reichstag building (the German Parliament) and the other at the former Imperial Palace. Fire broke out at the Reichstag shortly after 9 p.m., and burned so fiercely that within an hour the main hall in which representatives of the German people meet when Parliament is in session was completely destroyed. Flames leaping from the great glass dome surmounting the building could be seen for miles around, and attracted huge crowds to the scene.

Police in full force on horseback and on foot kept the crowd back, while all the fire brigades in Berlin poured water on to the flames. The building was surrounded by the fire-fighting appliances, and high ladders were run up the walls and illuminated by searchlights. Firemen directed streams of water into the burning building, and hoses were run in through the numerous entrances to the seat of the fire, in the main session hall. It is believed (says an Exchange Berlin telegram) that the fire was due to arson, as it commenced at five or six different points simultaneously. A man was arrested in the building . He was found clad only in his trousers.

A Reuter telegram says that the fire was started by heaps of documents which were set alight in six different places. The police assert that Communists are responsible, and apart from the man who was arrested there were several other people in the building, although the Reichstag is not in session. The wildest rumours were circulating in Berlin last night, adds Reuter. One was to the effect that secret orders had been issued to the Nazi Storm Troopers to create a Bartholomew night on Saturday, when all political opponents of renown were to be "disposed of." Although the police asserted the Communists are responsible, some people think that the fire might have bee started by irresponsible Nazis with the object of provoking trouble.

The fires were extinguished at 10.45 p.m. The session hall presents a scene of desolation with all the deputies' seats, diplomats', public, and press galleries destroyed, and all the iron pillars supporting the dome twisted out of shape. The fire brigade state that the fire must have started at several points. It developed with extraordinary rapidity and began to find its way downstairs to the rooms below.

The police, "suspecting the conflagration to be the first of a series of Communist acts of terrorism," have arrested a number of Communist leaders "in order to forestall any attempt to cover up tracks." The man who was discovered in the Reichstag building and

arrested is stated to be a Dutchman named Van der Luebbe, aged 24 (photo left). He is said to have confessed that he started the fire, but denied that he was acting as anyone's agent. It is added that he said he used his shirt as firing material. The police found a rag steeped in petrol as they entered the building, and the arrested man's cap was found close to other firing material. He has been conducted to police headquarters, where he is being subjected to a thorough examination. His manner had been extremely calm and self-possessed throughout.

Herr Hitler, Herr Göring, Herr von Papen, and other prominent persons including Prince August Wilhelm, entered the building whilst it was still burning, and Herr Goring, President of the Reichstag and "Commissarial" Minister for the Interior in Prussia, took command of the police and issued orders to keep the crowds at a distance. If the new Reichstag is summoned after next Sunday's elections it is unlikely to be able to meet in the Reichstag building owing to the extensive damage done by the fire. The fire at the former Imperial Palace broke out earlier in the day in an attic, and was quickly subdued by the fire brigade before any damage had been done. The police suspect arson, as burnt matches were found in the attic.

Report from the Guardian. Now visit the rebuilt Reichstag.
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 09:24 AM | Comments (0)

ACO at Zankel

It’s funny how our own personal preferences can make it so difficult to review concerts objectively. Take Monday night’s American Composer’s Orchestra concert, at Zankel Hall in New York – all seven pieces were good, often impressive, sometimes subtle and complex. But the things I want to rave about were not, I suspect, the things that most of the audience would have raved about when they got home.

Min Xiao-Fen’s Blue Pipa, for voice and the lute-like Chinese instrument named in the title, opened the concert effectively. Min performed the piece herself in a pool of light on an otherwise dark stage, and the combined vocal acrobatics and impressively virtuosic pipa playing made for a lovely and exciting piece. One audience member told me during intermission that it could have gone on for another five minutes and still been exciting.

Tania León’s Indigena combined the Cuban carnival music of her youth with quasi-tonal modernism in her trademark style. Her great skill lies in making this marriage organic—not so much seamless as deeply integrated, and never condescending to either tradition.

Speaking of integrative skill, Harold Meltzer’s Virginal performed the same feat with Renaissance stylings in a similarly modernist, quasi-tonal context. The contrapuntal music felt deliberate and rigorous in the same way that a 17^th century fugue or an early 20^th century serialist piece does.

But for all their virtues, and in spite of how well the audience liked them, none of the first three pieces excited me in the way that two sections of Vijay Iyer’s Interventions did. Perhaps a third of the way in, the orchestra drops out and Iyer, who was playing the largely improvised piano part, lets loose with a set of rippling riffs while pre-processed drum and hi-hat loops bounce back and forth in the speakers. I’m not convinced that the section really fit with the rest of the piece, but I have difficulty really minding. The piece’s long, static denouement was, for me, the heart of the piece. Most of the orchestra starts snapping their fingers in a steady slow rhythm, while the piano and strings give a long, droning, steady chord. It’s funny at first—you expect them to break into “boy, boy, crazy boy”–but as it continues the snaps reclaim their independence and provide an unusual sounding grid while the percussionist plays a slow pattern on a suspended cymbal. The cymbal patter sounds regular, but out of sync with the snaps, but if it was truly regular I couldn’t figure out the pattern. The overall effect was gorgeous and entrancing, and I didn’t want it to stop.

After intermission, Andrew McKenna Lee played his solo guitar piece Arabescata, which weaves together rock and classical language. It worked very well as a compliment to Blue Pipa from the first half—again sometimes pretty and sometimes impressively virtuosic. Kurt Rohde’s White Boy/Man Invisible was the least memorable segment of the concert for me, but as I recall the audience response was one of the most enthusiastic of the evening.

Rounding out the theme of integration of different musics, Steven Mackey played guitar for his Deal, a concerto of sorts for electric guitar and orchestra. Much of the first half of the piece didn’t engage me, although Mackey did a remarkably skillful job of combining the guitar with the orchestra in an organic way. As with Vijay Iyer’s piece, however, the final sections made the whole concert worthwhile. Most of the orchestra drops out, and Mackey sets up some looping grooves with his effects pedals against, surprisingly enough, recordings of what sounded to me like chickens, playing slowly evolving chords and countermelodies over it, building gradually over several minutes. By the time the orchestra came back, I was sold, but again it was some of the least spectacular music that did it. Maybe I just like the wrong things.

Originally posted by Galen H. Brown from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 05:03 AM | Comments (0)

Oh Brass on the Grass Alas

This article was written with Susan Levenstein. The composer and his 300-plus member band of German musicians ready to break into controlled chaos. (Photo: Susan Levenstein) One gray November Sunday morning in 1953 I was marching down Dorrance Street in Providence, R.I., playing the “Colonel Bogey March” (a tune later heard in “Bridge on the River Kwai”) [...]

Originally posted by Alvin Curran from The Score, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 28, 2007 at 05:02 AM | Comments (0)

March 27, 2007

Secret Society @ The Jazz Gallery, 5 April 2007

Originally from Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)

There is No Them

While it is extremely convenient to simplify ideas through binaries and compartmentalization, art (and indeed human nature) is rarely so clear cut.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

Special Feature - Alarm Will Sound

The new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound wraps up its residency at Dickinson College this spring, and their "farewell" performance is this Saturday, March 31st at 7:00pm in Rubendall Hall on the Carlisle, PA campus.

On the program are a couple of world premieres -

one by John Orfe, the pianist of Alarm Will Sound and he's been filling in this year for Jennifer Blythe who is on sabbatical. I spoke to John about his new Chamber Symphony.
Part 1 [mp3 file]
Part 2 [mp3 file]
Part 3 [mp3 file]

Also, composer and conductor Robert Pound has written a new work for the concert as well. He spoke with host John Clare about his new piece, Plays Well With Others, and about Alarm Will Sound's stay at Dickinson.

Part 1 [mp3 file]
Part 2 [mp3 file]

Find out more about Central PA concerts and events online at WITF's This Week in Central PA.

Originally from Composing Thoughts, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 08:02 PM | Comments (0)

Spring Awakening

CMS hosted its 2007 Spring Gala at The University Club on Wednesday, March 14th. This grand, elegant evening honored Itzhak Perlman, one of the greatest violinists of our time, and celebrated his commitment to the future of classical music. Performing with him were graduates of The Perlman Music Program, which trains young string players, and members of Chamber Music Society Two, the nation’s foremost professional residency for chamber musicians. Following a pre-concert reception, guests enjoyedDvorák’s Terzetto in C major with CMS Two musicians Arnaud Sussmann, Erin Keefe, and Beth Guterman, followed by the two final movements of the String Sextet in G major by Brahms with Itzhak Perlman, Arnaud Sussmann, Beth Guterman, Jessica Oudin, Jacqueline Choi, and Andrew Janss. After the music Chairman of the Board, Peter Frelinghuysen, introduced the evening’s Chairs and long-time supporters of CMS Barbara and Harry Kamen.

A glamorous crowd gathered for the evening including many members of the CMS board. Guests included Christina Lang Assael, James and Melissa O’Shaughnessy, Mary and Howdy Phipps, Daniel and Joanna S. Rose, Charles and Carol Hamilton, Marnie and Don Pillsbury, Herbert Schlosser, Lise Scott and D. Ronald Daniel, Andrea Walton de Vogel, Bob and Barbara Erskine, Helmut N. Friedlaender, Mary and Paul Lambert, Mr. William M. Lese, Annette Urso Rickel, Mr. and Mrs. Christopher C. Warren, Elizabeth de Cuevas, Donald Schnabel and XiaoWei Sun, Artistic Director Wu Han, Executive Director Norma Hurlburt, and more.

Musicians from CMS Two and The Perlman Music Program with Itzhak Perlman.

CMS Artistic Director Wu Han with Itzhak Perlman.

CMS Executive Director Norma Hurlburt with board member Chuck Hamilton and his wife Carol.

CMS board member Paul Lambert with his wife Mary.

Chairman of the Board Peter Frelinghuysen with newly inducted board member James O’Shaughnessy, board member Annette Rickel, and her guest Linda Hoffman.

A post-event photo with members of the CMS staff.

Originally posted by Ronen from Intermission: Impossible, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)

Violin Hunting

Intrepid violinist and CMS Two member Erin Keefe writes in:

When I started playing at CMS in the fall, it was obvious to me and others that my violin just didn’t stand up to some of the other artists’ instruments. I am playing alongside people like Ani Kavafian and Danny Philips, who have Strads, and Ida Kavafian, who has a Guadagnini, and I was still playing on a violin that was fine, but not nearly at the same level. When my parents came to the Brandenburg concert in December they decided that they would give me the money that my grandmother left them last year to put toward a new instrument. I was completely surprised and extremely excited and last month I started going violin hunting.

I called every violin shop in New York (there are about seven), plus ones in Albuquerque, Boston, and Philadelphia, and I probably tried about 40 or 50 violins in all. Arnaud Sussmann came with me to almost all of them in New York, which was so helpful since he could hear the instruments from farther away and share his opinion…plus at one point he was housing about ten violins in his centrally located apartment for me! After trying so many violins I found about four that I was interested in, but none of them had everything that I was looking for. In the past I have always known right away when one is the perfect instrument for me, so that’s what I was hoping for this time as well.

About three weeks ago, at the end of my search, I made a trip down to Philadelphia to go to Moennig & Son’s violins. They had about ten instruments laid out for me to try and I went down the line playing about 30 seconds on each. I liked some of them a lot, but when I picked up the last violin of the bunch, I fell in love with it immediately and knew it was the violin I had to have. Ida Kavafian came to join me at the store during her teaching break from Curtis and without telling her which one I liked, I played them all for her. When we got to my favorite, she said, “Put the rest away!” The violin I chose is a Nicolo Gagliano from 1752. I took it back to New York and played it for a lot of the artists at CMS, and when comparing it to the others I had from various shops, they all agreed that the Gagliano was the best. I love this instrument because it has a beautiful warm tone that projects incredibly well, and I feel I can get a much larger range of colors than I could on my last instrument. I have played a few concerts already on the violin already, and I’m constantly getting so many compliments on it. I’ll miss my old instrument since I’ve had it for about seven years, but I’m so happy that I was able to find this Gagliano that I look forward to playing for a long time.

—Erin Keefe

Originally posted by Ronen from Intermission: Impossible, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)

The essence of the music itself is there

When does a recording become a forgery? How much can be added that wasn't created by the musicians on the label before it is a fake? My post on a 'recreation' of Glenn Goulds 1955 Goldbergs raises some interesting questions, and so does the following story.

By chance I bought last week the excellent transcriptions of Handel's recorder sonatas for cello and harpsichord played by Tatty Theo (cello) and Carolyn Gibley (harpsichord). The girls are part of the local baroque ensemble, The Brook Street Band. The recording was made a few miles from here in Raveningham Church in Norfolk, the label is Avie, and the producer and engineer is Simon Fox-Gál.

Now here is the first interesting point. The sleeve contains the following message: 'Reverberation included in this recording from Classical Reverberations Impulses produced by Ernest Cholakis for Numerical Sound'.

Research reveals the Toronto based Numerical Sound: 'develops low level manipulations of sound's primary elements. Essentially, we deconstruct, analyze and separate sound by recognizing individual events, elements, or spectral properties, and depending on the situation use the resulting components to modify existing sounds or reconstruct new ones. For example, we might separate a tone into its harmonic or partials or percussive components, and then rebuild those elements into something new.'

A number of high profile classical recordings use Numerical Sound's technology, which shapes sounds to pre-determined profiles in a similar way to the Loft Recordings Tournemire project that I wrote about here. The Numerical Sound website includes some musical examples before and after reprocessing.

I don't want this to get out of proportion. Artificial reverberation has been added to recordings for decades (although why it is needed in the acoustics of a church is a puzzle). On the Handel sonatas disc we are told the sound shaping technology has been used for the reverberation only. But this technology can also reshape instrumental sounds, and this is where the story gets very interesting.

Producer and engineer Simon Fox-Gál of the Handel disc is the grandson of the Viennese born composer Hans Gál (photo below), and he has created recordings of his grandfather's

orchestral scores using another technology that has featured here before - Vienna Symphonic Library - which synthesizes music using digital samples of real instruments. Here are Fox-Gal's words about the Hans Gál project: ' It's not a real orchestra, but the essence of the music itself is there, time and our imagination being the only limits to the extent to which we can achieve perfection in the smallest of musical details.' You can listen to the 'not a real orchestra' playing Hans Gál's Symphony No 2 here.

Yes, all perfectly above board, and just the wonders of technology. But let's not forget these words - 'He thinks he began editing “ambience” in the late 1980s.'

Now wonder How much is Stravinsky, and how much is Craft?
Fractal sampled from Jing-reed with many thanks. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 07:53 PM | Comments (0)

Dresden 13th February 2007

Nazi numbers were down to 1,600 – among them extremists from Hungary, the UK, Austria and France – for the 2007 annual fascist commemoration of the Allied air raids on Dresden in February 1945. For several years the event has been a key date in the German and international nazi calendar. Two years ago more than 7,000 fascists attended.

As usual the nazis marched with the slogan “No bombing Holocaust ever again”, ridiculing the victims of the real Holocaust, Hitler’s industrialised mass murder of Jews, Roma and Sinti. This year the demonstration was accompanied by an “action week” organised by an alliance of all Dresden’s rightwing extremists outside the National Democratic Party (NPD) under the leadership of “Free Nationalist”. The NPD’s leaders attended the march.

The nazis were faced with a strong protest from 1,000 mostly young anti-fascists who repeatedly blocked their path, delaying them and finally forcing them to shorten their demonstration. Some of the more militant nazis tried violently to break out of their own demonstration but ran into conflict with the police and anti-fascists. To some extent they succeeded but ended up fighting with police and anti-fascists.

Scandalously, however, the police this time allowed those nazis who had not already gone home in frustration at the anti-fascist blockade to demonstrate directly opposite the New Synagogue. Nevertheless, anti-fascists, encouraged by their success in ruining the nazi’s evening, are optimistic about preventing next year’s demonstration.

Frank Buschmann reports from Dresden via Antifaschistisches Infoblatt, Antifa-Net , and International Searchlight.

Now read about, and see, Dresden, 13th February 1945.
Picture credit International Searchlight. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included for "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 07:06 PM | Comments (0)

Into the Counterstream

The nice folks at the American Music Center had a launch party for their latest cool initiative–Counterstream Radio–last night. If you haven’t checked it out yet, click on the toilet seat icon in the right column and some incredibly fine and varied music will follow you around the internets all day. Some members of the Counterstream team above, foreground: AMC president Joanne Hubbard Cossa, with Trevor Hunter, Lyn Liston, Lisa Taliano and Molly Sheridan. Sorry for the crummy picture, guys, and apologies to Frank J. Oteri and Randy Norchow whose picture didn’t work out at all.

Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 05:02 PM | Comments (0)

Andersen...

Please follow this link and read this exquisite story by Hans Christian Andersen. Tomorrow I'll explain why.

Originally from Jessica Duchen's classical music blog, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)

French News and Violin Scores Finished

I'm writing a piece for Naccara a French ensemble comprising 6 harps, contrabass and percussion. The group has been around since the late '90's and they incorporate a real sense of the dramatic in their stage presentation. I love writing for the harp and having 6 of them is like a dream come true! Paris-based New Zealand composer/violist Nigel Keay informs me that my Adagio tenebroso for String Quartet has been picked up by the new members of his quartet and they plan to perform and record it this year. Their recording of it and premiere at 'La Cave' was of my fondest memories ot 2006. The scores and parts for all of my new violin and piano pieces, the 2nd Sonata and the Sonatina are finished. Score for Sonata #2 for Violin and Piano Violin Part for Sonata #2 for Violin and Piano Sonata for Violin and Piano #2 - Realization Score for Sonatina for Violin and Piano Violin Part for Sonatina for Violin and Piano Sonatina for Violin and Piano - Realization...

Originally posted by jeff from The Music of Jeff Harrington, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)

Philling up the Coliseum

If you fancy going to see Philip Glass's opera about Mahatma Ghandi, Satyagraha, free of charge at the London Coliseum on 5 April, Sky-Arts-sponsored bloggers ArtsWOM have some comps to give their readers. Have a look at their post & email them direct for more details & tix.

More info about the opera & the ENO production here. It's the opera's London stage premiere and the composer's supposed to be there in person. ArtsWOM tells me that their only condition is that anyone taking up the tickets should please talk about the show on their own blogs/outlets/forums.

So, will Glass generally induce a glacial glare, or gleaming gladness? Either way, it should be an event...and I may have to give it a go, too, having (blush) never heard any Glass live in concert, at least not since a CD launch in a converted cavern somewhere in Docklands, back in the days when CDs still had launches like that. Maybe it's time to face the music and reflect...

Originally from Jessica Duchen's classical music blog, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 02:01 PM | Comments (0)

Braxton: A Lesson From the Jazzmatician

Braxton’s upcoming performances in NY are previewed.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

AAJ Reviews

From AAJ:

27-Mar-07 Arve Henriksen
Strjon (Rune Grammofon)

27-Mar-07 Kali Z. Fasteau/Kidd Jordan
People of the Ninth: New Orleans and the Hurricane 2005 (Flying Note Records)

27-Mar-07 Oliver Lake Quartet
Live (Passin’ Thru Records)

26-Mar-07 Andrew Hill
Mosaic Select 23: Andrew Hill - Solo (Mosaic Records)

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

Bagatellen Reviews

From Bagatellen:

Mitsuhiro Yoshimura - And So On - 26 Mar 07
Eisenbeil/Kugel/Robinson/Evans/Greene - Carnival Skin - 26 Mar 07

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

Umbrella Music Through April 4th

The latest from Chicago’s Umbrella Music:

Tuesday, 27 March 2007

Martyr’s, 3855 N Lincoln
9:00 PM | ICP Orchestra
ICP Orchestra 40th Anniversary Tour

Misha Mengelberg - piano
Han Bennink - drums
Ab Baars - tenor sax, clarinet
Tobias Delius - tenor sax, clarinet
Ernst Glerum - double bass
Thomas Heberer - trumpet
Tristan Honsinger - cello
Michael Moore - alto sax, clarinet
Mary Oliver - violin
Wolter Weirbos - trombone

$12 cover

Wednesday, 28 March 2007

The Hideout
10:00PM | Proliferation Quartet
Greg Ward - alto sax
Tim Haldeman - tenor sax
Jason Roebke - bass
Mike Reed - drums

two sets
$6 cover
PLUS | DJ Sets: Ken Vandermark presents Soundclash
The Orchestra As Instrument - late Duke Ellington and early Sun Ra

Thursday, 29 March 2007

Elastic
10:00PM | The Lay All Over Its
Jason Ajemian - bass
Nori Tanaka - drums
11:00PM | Jeb Bishop Group
Jeb Bishop - trombone
Dave Reminick - alto saxophone
Jason Roebke - bass

$7 requested donation

Sunday, 01 April 2007

The Hungry Brain
10:00PM | Johnson/Sclar/Rumback Trio
Keith Johnson - piano
Josh Sclar - tenor saxophone
Charles Rumback - drums
11:00PM | Remington 2 2
Ron Miles - cornet
Josh Berman - cornet
Jason Steele - guitar
Bill MacKay - guitar

Monday, 02 April 2007

Gallery 37
7:00PM | Karl Seigfried Quartet
Carmel Raz - violin, viola
Greg Ward - reeds
Karl E H Seigfried - bass, guitar
Chris Avgerin - percussion

Wednesday, 04 April 2007

The Hideout
9:30PM | Tim Daisy Solo
Tim Daisy - drums
10:15PM | Dave Rempis Solo
Dave Rempis - saxophones
11:00PM | Rempis/Daisy Duo
Dave Rempis - saxophones
Tim Daisy - drums

$6 cover
PLUS | DJ Sets: Mitch Cocanig Serves Up Some Funky Soul Stew

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

A must-read

Those of a political bent should hasten to read the excellent essay posted on Greekworks reflecting on the assassination of the journalist and author Hrant Dink. (It is especially timely in light of the news that a right-wing Turkish politician has been held for questioning in relation to this killing.)

While they reference such seemingly disparate historical threads in this article as Malcolm X's rejection of the Nation of Islam, the founding of Pakistan, and the "autonomous communities" of contemporary Spain, the jaded might think that of course a site with a Greek focus would condemn the assassination of an ethnic Armenian in Turkey. But I am happy to say that the thoughtful and incisive editors of the site, as ever, do not bend to the mindless tropes of nationalism, jingoism, and, as they write in this current piece, "facile identit[y]." (Frankly, if they did, I would never have written for them myself.) A sample:

"It is one of the sadder truths of the history of nations (invariably the history of mass murder) that those who openly reject facile identities are the least understood by—and, therefore, the most conspicuous scapegoats for whatever ails—the particular nation. Ironically, of course, these defenders of historical humility (and, so, of historical integrity) are—and this is where the irony swerves into tragedy—the truest and most unwavering patriots."

Not to mention this:

"We will only add that we know something about founding myths since the defining event of the Greek national psyche in the twentieth century, the Asia Minor Disaster, was the catastrophic (and arrogant) consequence of that psyche’s egotistical compulsion in the nineteenth century: the Megalê Idea. It is one of many historical ironies in the intimate (and intimately entwined), centuries-long relationship binding Turks and Greeks that the latter’s ruin eighty-five years ago was the foundation of the former’s modern rebirth. We fear that that historical lesson of decline and rise (and decline yet again) has been lost on most of the elites in Turkey today."

Originally posted by Anastasia Tsioulcas from Cafe Aman, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 08:01 AM | Comments (0)

Cryptology.

Gauthier's new imprint featured some of the same players previously heard on 9 Winds. But where that label had been run on the proverbial shoestring, Gauthier invested in top-notch sound, beautiful packaging and a serious Internet presence from the start. Impressive records from Gauthier, Nels Cline, Alan Pasqua, Mark Dresser, Erik Friedlander, Don Preston and others followed, as did a valuable and deeply moving three-disc series in which artists interpreted the compositions of von Essen, who died prematurely in 1997.

Tonight, Jeff Gauthier and his Goatette (with keyboardist David Witham, bassist Joel Hamilton and Los Bros. Cline) kicked off the first set of "Cryptonights" with "Ahfulat," the breezy opening track from Gauthier's latest CD, One and the Same. Proving, perhaps, that intensity doesn't necessarily depend upon violence, Nels snapped his high E with his opening strums, and played the duration with five strings. He ducked off to change strings during a spacy keyboard solo, which led to a splattered free-time section over which Gauthier pulled broad, patient strokes. Nels returned with a manic solo of bleeps, burps and swirls, controlled as much with his left hand on a small effects box as by anything he did on his instrument.

Playlist:

Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson - String Quartet No. 1, "Calvary" - New Black Repertory Ensemble String Quartet (Cedille)

Jody Redhage - All Summer in a Day (New Amsterdam)

Missy Mazzoli - Shy Girl Shouting Music; These Worlds in Us; Orizzonte; Lies You Can Believe In; Between Heaven and Headlights; In Spite of All This (MP3 streams)

Bethany & Rufus - 900 Miles (Hyena)

David Toop - Sound Body (Samadhi Sound)

Rush - Hold Your Fire (Mercury)

Yes - Tales from Topographic Oceans (Elektra/Rhino)

Grateful Dead - Dick's Picks, Vol. 3: Pembroke Pines, FL, May 22, 1977 (Grateful Dead)

Electric Light Orchestra - Flashback (Epic/Legacy)

Fred Frith and Chris Cutler - The Stone, Issue Two (Tzadik)

Dept of Good and Evil feat. Rachel Z - Dept of Good and Evil feat. Rachel Z (Savoy Jazz)

Amy Winehouse - Back to Black (Island)

Grateful Dead - Dick's Picks, Vol. 5: Oakland, CA, Dec. 26, 1979 (Grateful Dead) and Live at the Cow Palace - New Year's Eve 1976 (Grateful Dead/Rhino)

Quartet Music - Summer Night (Delos)

Jeff Gauthier Goatette - One and the Same (Cryptogramophone)

Originally posted by NightAfterNight from Night After Night, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 08:00 AM | Comments (0)

TBD (2007). Celeste Hutchins /insert title here/

Originally from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 08:00 AM | Comments (0)

Eisenbeil/Kugel/Robinson/Evans/Greene - Carnival Skin

Nemu 003 Carnival Skin (Nemu) presents a strong inside-outside date featuring guards young and new, and American and European, on six original compositions. The ensemble consists of veteran clarinetist Perry Robinson, trumpeter Peter Evans (whose unaccompanied disc on Psi,...

Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 05:03 AM | Comments (0)

Eisenbeil/Kugel/Robinson/Evans/Greene - Carnival Skin

Carnival Skin (Nemu) presents a strong inside-outside date featuring guards young and new, and American and European, on six original compositions. The ensemble consists of veteran clarinetist Perry Robinson, trumpeter Peter Evans (whose unaccompanied disc on Psi, More is More,...

Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 02:01 AM | Comments (0)

Experimental thinking, colors and sound, and the new "post-copyright era"

Originally from The Hollow Tree Experimental Music Report, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 27, 2007 at 02:01 AM | Comments (0)

March 26, 2007

Palisades Virtuosi Presents South (& North!) of the Border on March 31, Featuring World Premiere of New Work by Eric Ewazen

The critically-acclaimed Palisades Virtuosi will present “South (& North!) of the Border”, a program of chamber masterworks on Saturday, March 31 - 8:00 p.m. at the Unitarian Society of Ridgewood, 113 Cottage Place in Ridgewood, New Jersey.

This 2006-07 season concert will feature the World Premiere of another Virtuosi commissioned work - Eric Ewazen’s Palisades Suite. The Virtuosi will also present a newly commissioned arrangement of Michael Colina’s Habanera, as well as Trio from Rio by Donald Draganski and works by Ginastera and Villa-Lobos. For program notes and composer information, please visit http://www.palisadesvirtuosi.org/programnotes.html. Every concert by the Palisades Virtuosi includes a work commissioned by the ensemble.

Tickets for the March 31 concert are $20 and $15 for students and seniors. For reservations or other information, please call 201-488-1149.

The Palisades Virtuosi, consisting of flutist Margaret Swinchoski, clarinetist Donald Mokrynski and pianist Ron Levy, is a 501 (c)(3) organization that was established to promote and enrich the repertoire for flute, clarinet and piano and present concerts that include existing and newly-commissioned repertoire for this configuration, supplemented by solos, duos and larger works featuring guest artists. Volume One of their New American Masters CD series has been released by Albany Records. They are currently recording Volume Two. Read their latest From the Palisades newsletter at http://www.jamesarts.com/releases/jan07/PV_nws_011907.htm. Visit them online at http://www.palisadesvirtuosi.org/.

Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 26, 2007 at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)

Happy Birthday, Pierre

[Photo: opening bars of Piano Sonata No. 1 by Pierre Boulez, written in 1946, when he was twenty-one years old.]

Originally posted by bhodgesnyc from Monotonous Forest, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 26, 2007 at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)

Eisenbeil/Kugel/Robinson/Evans/Greene - Carnival Skin

Carnival Skin presents a strong inside-outside date featuring guards young and new, and American and European, on six original compositions. The ensemble consists of veteran clarinetist Perry Robinson, trumpeter Peter Evans (whose unaccompanied disc on Psi, More is More, is...

Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 26, 2007 at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)

Mitsuhiro Yoshimura - And So On

(h)earrings HR-01 Mitsuhiro Yoshimura raises all sorts of problems vis a vis performance and intentionality. His customary mode of operation involves a microphone, a mixer and a pair of headphones, recording the sounds of the room in which he...

Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 26, 2007 at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)

Those Who Do and Teach

Why do so many composers shy away from declaring themselves pedagogues; do we actually believe that "those who can't do, teach?"

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 26, 2007 at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

Last Night in L.A.: The Rouse “Requiem”

Last night the Los Angeles Master Chorale gave the premiere of Requiem by Christopher Rouse. This is an excellent work. It is beautiful. It is emotional. It is powerful. It is dramatic, and it is peaceful. This is a Requiem that sets a standard for composers of the future while holding its own against compositions of the past.

Jerry Bowles gave us the link to the video recorded by Grant Gershon as summarized the work for his Board; it’s worth hearing again, so here’s the link. David Salvage reported Thursday on his interview with Rouse, so scroll down and re-read that. Rouse provided notes on the work for inclusion in the program; those notes are here. In addition, the program included these notes by Victoria Looseleaf. I encourage you to read them all.

Instead of trying to paraphrase what others have written so well, let me tell you what impressed me, just a set of individual thoughts and feelings without trying to bridge among them. Rouse gave us an exhilarating range of colors, tones and emotions. He found an emotional core within each section of the requiem, and he used his choral forces (and his percussion) to help the audience feel the content. He included his audience in the feelings and beliefs so that we were not merely sitting there listening to a ritual. I was grateful for the pause after the emotional power of the “Lacrymosa”. The demands on the chorus are huge; the work demands extremely good singers, and it provides compensation for the work. We could see the expressions on the faces of the members of the Master Chorale (101 last night) and the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus (57, I think). What focus and concentration. What joy, and pleasure, and relief as they stood there and had the waves of applause surround them. Sanford Sylvan was the excellent baritone soloist, handling the range of pitch Rouse asked of him while letting us understand the words. While the music Rouse gave him was less inherently interesting to me than his choral work, he was used to remind us of loss and the need for requiem. I really liked Rouse’s ending, in which the threads of the Everyman soloist and the choruses intertwine and, for the first time, the soloist sings the church verse while the chorus becomes the person dealing with loss and recovery. Gershon did a great job as conductor. Oh, I wish that last night’s performance was recorded. (There is word that KUSC-FM will broadcast the performance, and when I find out when the broadcast will be, I’ll submit a posting so that you can listen.)

Some final comments. If I were in New York, I’d make sure I have tickets for Thursday’s premiere of Rouse’s Wolf Rounds at Carnegie Hall. I don’t have enough Rouse recordings on my iPod; how could I forget what a good composer he is? If Requiem doesn’t win Christopher Rouse his second Pulitzer, there is one great piece out there still waiting to be heard. I thank Soli Deo Gloria and John Nelson for commissioning this work.

The Master Chorale and Grant Gershon really did a good job in communicating that this would be an important evening of music.

Originally posted by JerryZ from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 26, 2007 at 08:02 PM | Comments (0)

Classical music flowers in springtime Britain

Academy of Ancient Music, Chief Executive - £na
The Conservatoire, Director of Music - £32k
Scottish Ballet, Head of Development - £32 - 38k
Music at Oxford, General Manager - £na
London Symphony Orchestra, Head of LSO Discovery - £38 - 43k
Britten Sinfonia, Marketing Director - £na
London Sinfonietta, Development & Marketing Managers - £na

It's a beautiful spring day here, and the header photo was taken five minutes ago in our garden. On BBC Radio 3 this afternoon was a stunning performance by Martyn Brabbins and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra of that British masterpiece, Elgar's Symphony No 2 in E flat major. Today's Media Guardian lists the music vacancies above. Last Saturday we heard the Pergolesi Stabat Mater and Rachmaninov Vespers in Norwich Cathedral. On Friday it's Prokofiev and Stravinsky at Snape, and on Saturday Schütz and Pärt in Blythburgh Church.

But it's all a mirage. Read here about the death of live classical music, and here about the death of the recording industry.
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included for "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 26, 2007 at 05:47 PM | Comments (0)

Australians at Harvard - New Music for cello performed by Jason Calloway, April 7

John Knowles Paine Concert Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge MA
Saturday, April 7 / 8pm / Free admission / Reception to follow

Program:
Barry Conyngham: Preview (1982)
Elliott Gyger: Shifting (2007)*
Andrew Robbie: The Language of Birds (2004)*
Peter Sculthorpe: Requiem for ‘Cello Alone (1979)
Jane Stanley: Deep Turn (2007)*
Nicholas Vines: Terminus In Time (2000), A Queen’s Paranoia (2007)*
* Premiere Performance

Australians at Harvard celebrates the brief convergence of four of Sydney’s most distinctive young composers as Harvard students and faculty. With all four being graduates of the now defunct Sydney University Music Department, this community in exile represents the last flowering of a distinctive branch of Australian composition. Contemporary music specialist and Julliard graduate Jason Calloway will perform their solo cello works, as well as pieces by fellow Sydney University alumnus and 2000-1 Harvard Chair of Australian Studies Barry Conyngham, and preeminent Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe, from whom all five composers have learned.

This concert is presented by the Frank Knox Memorial Fellows. Knox Fellowships support the studies of select Commonwealth students — including two of the concert’s featured composers — across Harvard’s graduate schools, promoting international synergies through cross-cultural exchange.

Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 26, 2007 at 05:02 PM | Comments (0)

Crystal visions.

Winter_fragments

CD review: Tristan Murail - Winter Fragments
Erin Lesser, flutist; Argento Chamber Ensemble, conducted by Michel Galante
Aeon AECD 0746; CD
The New York Times, March 25, 2007
(Amazon.fr, FNAC.com)

Prior to filing this review, I ascertained from the Aeon label's American distributor that there were no plans to release this disc here, which is why the last line refers interested potential consumers to Amazon.fr and FNAC.com. Such details are always subject to change, however: Winter Fragments will be available through British e-tailers Amazon.co.uk and Crotchet on April 2, and ArkivMusic now lists it as an April 10 release. A subsequent U.S. release through the usual channels may well follow.

Update: Michel Galante has pointed out an advance listing for an April 10 release on Barnes & Noble, as well.

Originally posted by NightAfterNight from Night After Night, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 26, 2007 at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)

Noisy Electroacoustic Improvisations in the Bay

DSS (LA) on tour with The Pink Canoes (OAK)

DSS
Pink Canoes

March 28 - 31 - San Francisco, Oakland and Davis

3.28.07 - g3 - San Francisco - 10PM - Corner of Geary and 3rd - 3910
Geary Boulevard

3.29.07 - Luggage Store - 8PM - San Francisco - 1007 Market Street
(website)

3.30.07 - Delta of Venus - 10PM - Davis -122 B Street
(website)

3.31.07 - The Revolution Cafe - 9PM - Oakland - 1610 7th St.

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DSS is a delightfully refreshing viola flavored beverage with just the right blend of no-input mixer fortified with enhanced FM transmitters. Just a glass a day and you'll be on your way! The secret is a carefully crafted combination of Cassia Streb Strings, Aaron Drake Feedback and Phillip Stearns Fizzle-Crack. The kind folk at Improvidrink Beverages guarantee an energizing experience in every glass. 9 of 10 agree that DSS will turn you on your ear!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

“The Pink Canoes are an electro-acoustic improvisation quintet from Oakland, California. Their vocabulary is as varied as the instruments they play, which includes, but is not limited to prepared guitars, saxophones and laptops to homemade analog synthesizers, circuit bent
toys and other salvaged electronics. As an ensemble, they run the gamut of texture and volume, turning on a dime from chunks of abrasive noise to moments of barely audible sound inspection.
Oftentimes they strive for the seamless integration of instruments, electronics and electronic instruments. Other times the disjunction between the aforementioned instruments is so severe that it can only be described as a chaotic splattering of electronics amidst a backdrop of sonic depravity. In many cases, these extremes occur just mere seconds apart, which only adds to the quirky, unpredictable intrigue of each performance. With any luck, they’ll tie your
synapses in knots.

The Pink Canoes are, in no particular order: Noah Phillips (guitar, electronics), Zachary Watkins (laptop, circuit bent electronics), Travis Johns (bass, laptop, electronics), Ava Mendoza (guitar, electronics) and Aram Shelton (saxophone, laptop).

Originally posted by ECHO from ANABlog, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 26, 2007 at 02:55 PM | Comments (0)

Tom Waits - Small Change (Elektra)

Hes a poser, and it makes me uncomfortable, one man said from behind the record store counter. I think he found a market, cornered it and has fostered this image very well, kind of like blackface, or parody at...

Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 26, 2007 at 02:01 PM | Comments (0)

DMG Newsletter March 23rd 2007

From DMG:

A FEISTY LIST OF GEMS: JOHN ZORN’S “SIX LITANIES FOR HELIOGABALUS”, PAUL DUNMALL ALL-STARS w/ DANIEL CARTER, ROY CAMPBELL, PHILIP GIBBS, WILLIAM PARKER, PAUL ROGERS & HAMID DRAKE(!),EVELYN GLENNIE [w/ FRED FRITH], FRANK LONDON, ZMF TRIO,

ERIK FRIEDLANDER’S EIGER, MAKIGAMI’S HIKASHU BAND, WILLEM BREUKER KOLLEKTIEF, 2 from LUIGI NONO, DAVID TUDOR, PHILIP CORNER, IANNIS XENAKIS, ALVIN LUCIER, PHILIP GLASS, TETUZI AKIYAMA & JOZEF VAN WISSEM, VIKTOR KRAUSS II, ADAM SIMMONS QT,

ARCHIVAL RECORDINGS from TAKAYANAGI MASAYUKI’S NEW DIRECTIONS UNIT, DASHIELL HEDAYAT [w/ DAEVID ALLEN & GILLIE SMYTH], RED CRAYOLA’S ‘SOLDIER TALK’ GEM, RAT AT RAT R, T.P ORCHESTRE POLY-RHYTHMO & EVEN MORE…!

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 26, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

Ethnic Heritage Ensemble Reivewed

A recent Ethnic Heritage Ensemble DVD is reviewed.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 26, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

links for 2007-03-26

Originally from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 26, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

The Museum of Modern Music Philharmonic

Most modern artists don’t have a problem with museums. I don’t either. I love MOMA. I don’t think that many composers would have a problem with a Museum of Modern Music Philharmonic. But in his interview here on TimesSelect Steve Reich says that “the orchestra is a museum” and he clearly means this in [...]

Originally posted by The Score from The Score, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 26, 2007 at 05:02 AM | Comments (0)

A Little Light Music

On the Verge
Chamber Music by Sebastian Currier
Music From Copland House
Koch International

With last year’s magnificent New World release Quartetset and this equally outstanding recording of four fairly recent chamber pieces (including the Grawemeyer-awarding winning Static), Sebastian Currier has elbowed himself into the honorary “little music” seat at the big table where the Glasses, Adamses, and Reichs go to chew the fat. So he’s a minaturist, but would Vermeer have been Vermeer on a Frank Stella-sized canvas?

Currier is something of a music jokester, with performance directions like “almost too fast,” “almost too much,” “almost too little” and “bipolar” but it is his uncanny ability to re-imagine music you think you’ve heard before that most frequently draws a smile and a sense of good companionship. Nobody since Stravinsky has done it better.

Debut
Lowell Libermann
Trio Fedele
Artek

There is more than hint of powered wigs and petticoats in Lowell Libermann’s gracious, stately chamber music for ladies and gentlemen of quality. No 20th century angst here. Dvorak sounds like a wild man by comparison. The flute, cello and piano pieces are pleasant enough and expertly played by the Trio Fedele but I couldn’t help imagining a live performance where Borat would wander in with a plastic bag filled with poop and ask the cello player what to do with it.

Chamber Musics III, IV, V
Aulis Sallinen
Virtuosi de Khlmo
CPO

Another music jokester but more in the William Bolcom tradition, relentlessly tonal and melodic, drawing mirth and drama out of genre references to tango and jazz. Easy listening? Sure. Nobody writing “classical” music today writes better hooks. That’s not necessarily a criticism in my book.

Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 26, 2007 at 02:01 AM | Comments (0)

March 25, 2007

Naima (1959). John Coltrane /classic jazz and classic rock meet on the internet/

Originally from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 25, 2007 at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

Arve Henriksen’s Strjon Released

Rune Grammofon has put out this new effort.

RCD 2061 - Arve Henriksen: Strjon

On his third and quite brilliant new album, ”Strjon”, Arve Henriksen is joined by his Supersilent colleagues Helge Sten and Ståle Storløkken. Sten has also produced the album. ”Strjon” brings together the various sides of Henriksen, from the zen-like solo pieces of his debut album ”Sakuteiki” to the open-ended melancholia of ”Chiaroscuro” and dark, brooding lyricism of Supersilent. ”Strjon” is the mediaeval name of Arve´s hometown Stryn on the westcoast of Norway, referring to a streaming river or water. The nature around Stryn is fantastic and the changes between winter and summer are quite drastic, from crashing avalanches in steep mountains to calm beauty and majestic tranquility. Some of the music dates back to sketches made by a young Arve Henriksen in these surroundings, later worked on by both Arve himself and Helge Sten.

Release: 26.02.07

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 25, 2007 at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)

Albert Baez, scientist, pacifist and parent

Albert Baez (left) has died age 94. A remarkable scientist and pacifist, he was also father of folk singers Joan Baez and Mimi Fariña. Follow this link to the San Francisco Chronicle for an excellent celebration of a remarkable life.

Now read why we aren't marching in the streets anymore.
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 25, 2007 at 05:26 PM | Comments (0)

Now that's what I call music blogging ...

So much quality music had been unfairly forgotten and so much tat put on a pedestal. Top of my tat-list is Dmitri Shostakovich. I personally can't wait for his flatulent 'sarcastic' bubble to burst. A close second and third on the tat-list are two more po-faced Soviet gits, Alfred Schnittke and Sofia Gubaidulina (left). When will that old witchy bore Gubaidulina shut up? When, EH? And when will the quieter craftsmen composers, Edison Denisov, Valentin Silvestrov and Dmitri Smirnov, get their dues?

Igor Toronyi-Lalic reminds us what music blogging should be about on the Telegraph website. And he links to my Elizabeth Maconchy article. Priceless, but I'm not so sure about Silvestrov.

Now read how Soviet blacklist fatigue sets in.
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 25, 2007 at 05:25 PM | Comments (0)

Crystal visions.

Winter_fragments

Originally posted by NightAfterNight from Night After Night, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 25, 2007 at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)

Where the Downtown Sound Remains the Same

The DMG guys are profiled.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 25, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

Andrea Centazzo at the Rubin Museum

A review of this recent performance is available.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 25, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

Two New on Tzadik

Tzadik has a pair of new releases.

Fred Frith / Chris Cutler
The Stone: Issue Two

John Zorn
Six Litanies for Heliogabalus

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 25, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

May at the Stone

The Stone has posted its May schedule.

May 2007 at the Stone curated by Fred Frith

May 1—3
Northern Lights I
Three exciting groups from Scandinavia performing in New York for the first time!

5/1 Tuesday (KT)
8 pm
Art Directors
Guro Moe (double bass and vocals) Håvard Skaset (electric guitar) Jacob Willersrud (drums and electronics)
Intense improvisations from the vibrant Oslo music scene

10 pm
Little Red Suitcase
Johanna Borchert (piano and others) Elena Setien (voice and others)
Songs and others from Copenhagen

5/2 Wednesday
8 and 10 pm
The Peärls Before Swïne Experience
Sara Hammarström (flutes) George Kentros (violin) Mats Olofsson (cello) Mårten Landström (piano)
New music from Stockholm, including works by David Lang,Tristan Murail, Maja Ratkje, Annie Gosfield, and Anders Hillborg www.swinepearl.com

5/3 Thursday
8 pm
Little Red Suitcase
Johanna Borchert (piano and others) Elena Setien (voice and others)
More songs and others from Copenhagen

10 pm
Art Directors
Guro Moe (double bass and vocals) Håvard Skaset (electric guitar) Jacob Willersrud (drums and electronics)
More intense improvisations from the vibrant Oslo music scene

May 4—5
Drunken Forest
Death Ambient’s first ever New York concerts, celebrating the release of their 3rd Tzadik CD Drunken Forest

5/4 Friday (SBTD)
8 and 10 pm
Death Ambient
Fred Frith (guitar) Ikue Mori (electronics) Kato Hideki (bass)
“evil, decadent…amoral, intoxicated, and uncontrolled”

5/5 Saturday (GG)
8 and 10 pm
Death Ambient
Fred Frith (guitar) Ikue Mori (electronics) Kato Hideki (bass)
“playful and enchanting…beautiful and absorbing”

5/6 Sunday (CB)
8 and 10 pm
The Chaddom-Blechbourne Experience
Kevin Blechdom (banjo) Eugene Chadbourne (banjo) featuring Lumberob and Ching Chong Song
A double banjo performance from two extraordinary contemporary icons clearly made for each other - beyond mayhem

5/8 Tuesday
8 pm
MaryClare Brzytwa solo
MaryClare Brzytwa (flute, electronics)
Punk virtuosity with no holds barred

10 pm
Theresa Wong solo
Theresa Wong (video, cello, voice)
Delicate, disturbing, canny

5/9 Wednesday (SK)
8 pm
Moe!kestra!
Shelley Burgon (harp) Jean Cook (violin) Meredith Yayanos (violin) Theresa Wong (cello) Alee Karim (guitar) Brian Turner (guitar) Ava Mendoza (guitar) Bethany Ryker (french horn) Andrea Parkins (piano) Steven Silverstein (analogs) Matthew Ostrowski (electronics) Michael Evans (percussion) Matt Schulz (percussion) Moe Staiano (composition, direction)
One of the Bay Area’s most unpredictable institutions in a New York version, control teetering on the edge of chaos

10 pm
Moe Staiano and Michael Evans
Moe Staiano (percussion) Michael Evans (drums, found objects)
(ex Sleepytime Gorilla Museum meets ex God is My Co-Pilot)

5/10 Thursday (KJ)
8 pm
Ava Mendoza, MaryClare Brzytwa and Theresa Wong
Ava Mendoza (solo guitar) MaryClare Brzytwa (guitar, flute, voice, electronics) Theresa Wong (cello, voice)
Oakland’s guitar wizard – first NY appearance, solo and group improvisations

10 pm
Bolivar Zoar
Ava Mendoza (guitar, electronics, voice) MaryClare Brzytwa (guitar, flute, voice, electronics) Theresa Wong (cello, voice)
Folk rock country trio. Kind of.

5/11 Friday
8 and 10 pm
EKG
Ernst Karel (valve/slide trumpet, pocket trumpet, contact mic, etc)
Kyle Bruckmann (oboe, english horn, suona, etc)
“powerful statements for a new kind of improvisation…far removed from the traditionally melodic, call-and-response moves of free jazz”

5/12 Saturday
8 pm
Cenk Ergün
Mary Jo Stilp (violin) Beth Meyers (viola) Adam Sliwinski (piano e-bow) Josh Quillen (piano e-bow) Jason Treuting (percussion) Lawson White (percussion) Cenk Ergün (laptop, phonograph)
Three new pieces from stellar Turkish composer Cenk Ergün, with members of SoPercussion and others

10 pm
Pauline Oliveros and Else Olsen Storesund
Pauline Oliveros (accordion) Else Olsen Storesund (prepared piano)
The legendary improvisation pioneer performs with a rising star of the Oslo scene

5/13 Sunday (GG)
8 pm
Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros and Else Olsen
Fred Frith (acoustic guitar) Pauline Oliveros (accordion) Else Olsen Storesund (prepared piano)

10 pm
Eve Beglarian, Anne Bourne and Fred Frith
Eve Beglarian (piano) Anne Bourne (cello) Fred Frith (electric guitar)
Two trios featuring some of new music’s most distinctive voices

5/15 Tuesday (HHC)
8 pm
Fred Frith and John Zorn
Fred Frith (electric guitar) John Zorn (alto sax)
“The degree to which they listen to each other is truly astonishing and borders on telepathy¬–the interplay is simply amazing” TWENTY DOLLARS

10 pm
Fred Frith and Zeena Parkins
Fred Frith (electric guitar) Zeena Parkins (electric harp)
“a sound machine of limitless capacity”

5/16 Wednesday
8 and 10 pm
Stevie Wishart, Christoph Kurzmann and Werner Dafeldecker
Stevie Wishart (hurdy gurdy, violin) Christoph Kurzmann (lloopp, clarinet) Werner Dafeldecker (bass, tape delay)
Scintillating sounds from Australian and Austrian icons of contemporary improvisation

5/17 Thursday
8 pm
Audible Means
Larry Ochs (saxophones) Trevor Dunn (acoustic bass) Lisle Ellis (bass &
Lisle Ellis (bass & circuitry) Ellery Eskelin (saxophone) Erik Deutsch (keyboards)
Performing compositions by Lisle Ellis circuitry) with special guest Gerry Hemingway (drums)

10 pm
ODE
Larry Ochs (saxophones) Trevor Dunn (bass) Lisle Ellis (bass & circuitry)
New works by Ochs and Ellis

5/18 Friday
8 pm
ODE
Larry Ochs (saxophones) Trevor Dunn (acoustic bass) Lisle Ellis (bass & circuitry) with special guest Gerry Hemingway (drums)

10 pm
Audible Means
Lisle Ellis (double bass & electronics) Ellery Eskelin (sax) Erik Deutsch (keyboards) with special guests Gustavo Aguilar (drums) and Larry Ochs (saxophones)
Performing Lisle Ellis’ Frames for Improvisation

5/19 Saturday (RK)
8 and 10 pm
Improv Night—a Stone Benefit
John Zorn (alto sax) Ikue Mori (electronics) Larry Ochs (tenor sax) Lisle Ellis (bass) Fred Frith (guitar) Zeena Parkins (electric harp)
Come and support the Stone in 2007. TWENTY DOLLARS.

May 20—23
Western Civilization II

5/20 Sunday (GG)
8 pm
Normal and MyrMyr
Fred Frith & Sudhu Tewari (home-made instruments) / Agnes Szelag (cello, electronics) & Marielle Jakobsons (violin, electronics)

10 pm
Normal
Fred Frith & Sudhu Tewari (home-made instruments) and Agnes Szelag (cello, electronics)
Lo-tech meets hi-tech, featuring the San Francisco Municipal Dump’s one time resident artist and the next level of computer musicianship

5/22 Tuesday (OL)
8 and 10 pm
Cutter Heads
Fred Frith (acoustic guitar) Chris Brown (piano & electronics)
Mills College colleagues celebrating their new CD on the Intakt label

5/23 Wednesday
8 and 10 pm
CDB TRIO
Chris Brown (piano & electronics) Don Robinson (drums) Biggi Vinkeloe (alto sax, flute)
Rare NY appearance of this classic trio

5/24 Thursday (OL)
8 pm
Faded Music
Mike Lowenstern (bass clarinet, body percussion and electricity)
“the pre-eminent bass clarinetist of his generation and one of this country’s leading producers of creative electro-acoustic music”

10 pm
Saadet Türqöz and Elliot Sharp
Saadet Türqöz (voice) Elliot Sharp (guitar)
“Our music is a mosaic and we are the guardians thereof”

May 25—27 and May 30
Northern Lights II
Three evenings of music from Ambiances Magnétiques of Montréal, featuring movers and shakers from the vibrant Quebec scene.

5/25 Friday (BLG)
8 pm
SuperMusique Ensemble
Nicolas Caloia (double bass) Isaiah Cecceralli (drums) Jean Derome (saxophones, flutes, objects) Lori Freedman (clarinets) Joane Hétu (alto saxophone, voice) Danielle Palardy Roger (percussion)
Game pieces and shape-shifting improvisation developed over twenty years of practice.

10 pm
Jean Derome Trio
Jean Derome (saxophones, flutes, objects) Nicolas Caloia (double bass) Isaiah Cecceralli (drums)
“irresistible swing”

5/26 Saturday (RK)
8 pm
FReC
Nicolas Caloia (double bass) Lori Freedman (clarinets)
Danielle Palardy Roger (percussion)
“rattles and inventions”

10 pm
Nous perçons les oreilles
Jean Derome (saxophones, flutes, objects) Joane Hétu (alto saxophone, voice)
“a secular incantation, a banquet of sound”

5/27 Sunday (MM)
8 pm
WONDEUR Quartet
Charity Chan (piano) Lori Freedman (clarinets) Joane Hétu (alto saxophone, voice) Danielle Palardy Roger (percussion)
New manifestation of this legendary group

10 pm
SuperMusique Ensemble
Charity Chan (piano) Nicolas Caloia (double bass) Isaiah Cecceralli (drums) Jean Derome (saxophones, flutes, objects) Lori Freedman (clarinets) Joane Hétu (alto saxophone, voice) Danielle Palardy Roger (percussion)

May 29—31
Western Civilization III

5/29 Tuesday
8 pm
Son of Gunnar, Ton of Shel
Steini Gunnarsson (Iceland) (guitar, processing) Aram Shelton (Chicago) (reeds, processing)
“answers to questions you hadn’t asked yet”

10 pm
Son of Gunnar, Ton of Shel
Aram Shelton (sax) Matt Bauder (sax) Steini Gunnarsson (guitar) Jordan Glenn (drums)
“answers to questions you hadn’t asked yet”

5/30 Wednesday
8 pm
Slow, Children
MaryClare Brzytwa (guitar, flute, electronics, voice) Kanoko Nishi (koto, voice) Shayna Dunkelman (percussion, voice)
“as grotesque as they are adorable..”

10 pm
BeBe Donkey
MaryClare Brzytwa (flute, electronics) Antoine Berthiaume (guitar)
Antoine is celebrating his new release on Ambiances Magnétiques The last of six Stone appearances in May for the awesome MC

5/31 Thursday (CW)
8 pm
Anantha Krishnan
Anantha Krishnan (mridangam, tabla) Jordan Glenn (drums) Andy Strain (trombone)
Indian Mridangam prodigy Anantha Krishnan with two of the hottest players of the younger generation: improvisation outside the box

10 pm
Andrea Parkins and Alex Waterman
Andrea Parkins (electronically processed accordion, MaxMSP-processed samples) Alex Waterman (cello and electronics)
The renowned sound artist, composer, and improvisor meets a founding member of the Plus Minus Ensemble for unpredictable high jinks

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 25, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

First Half of April at the Tonic

The Tonic’s early April schedule:

Sun, Apr 01
8pm Honee Wells plus Raphael Wintersberger plus Rebecca Smith plus Air Waves plus The Naked Heroes

Mon, Apr 02
8pm The Instruments plus Louis plus Ben Crum (of Great Lakes)

Tue, Apr 03
8pm Adachi Tomomi plus kiiiii

Wed, Apr 04
8pm Capital M plus Anti-Social Music
8:30pm Pure Fire

Thu, Apr 05
8pm & 9:30pm Celebrating 40 Years of Excellence (and Fun): ICP Orchestra

Fri, Apr 06
8pm & 9:30pm Celebrating 40 Years of Excellence (and Fun): ICP Orchestra
10pm The Bunker

Sat, Apr 07
8pm Owl plus Fast Fourier (of Grizzly Bear) plus Endless Boogie

Sun, Apr 08
8pm A Night of Dub with: Jah Division plus Blind Idiot God

Mon, Apr 09
8pm Jerseyband plus Estradasphere

Tue, Apr 10
8pm Floriculture plus Sylvie Courvoisier & Mark Feldman Duo

Wed, Apr 11
8pm Peter Brotzmann, Marino Pliakas & Michael Wertmueller
10pm Charles Curtis & Raha Raissnia
8:30pm Pure Fire

Thu, Apr 12
8pm Suphala
9:30pm Alex Delivery plus Other Passengers

Fri, Apr 13
10pm The Bunker

Sat, Apr 14
8pm Hazmat Modine
8pm Tonic presents at Abrons Arts Center: Jandek
10pm Vorcza

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 25, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

New From Edition RZ

Two new releases from Edition RZ:

ed. RZ 1018-19 2CD
David Tudor: Music for Piano
2-CD set with recordings by the legendary 20th century avantgarde pianist. With compositions by Sylvano Bussotti, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff. more…

ed. RZ 4006 CD
20 Jahre Inventionen V: Luigi Nono
Audio CD with three compositions by Luigi Nono, recorded at the Berlin festival “Inventionen”. To be released in February. more…

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 25, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

On the Transmigration of Souls (1992) /compositional process/

Originally from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 25, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

Happy Birthday Maestro Toscanini!

Arturo Toscanini was born on 25th March 1867 in Parma, Italy. My photograph shows him celebrating while on tour in the US in May, 1950. The photograph was taken at Sun Valley, Idaho, where the maestro conducted an impromptu band of toy guitars, wash-tubs, and a clarinet for a refreshingly multi-cultural audience.

Now listen as the maestro conducts a real orchestra (after a brief Finnish introduction) in the complete Prelude to the third act of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg in November 1951. The orchestra is Toscanini's own NBC Symphony, and the recording was made in Carnegie Hall, where the orchestra and the maestro can be seen in my picture below -

Toscanini's Wagner may have been sublime, but his opposition to fascism was trenchant, read about it here. And for another Toscanini download take An Overgrown Path to Schoenberg on Toscanini Audio file credit YLE Radio 1, NBC Symphony from Wikipedia/NBC TV . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 25, 2007 at 03:34 PM | Comments (0)

links for 2007-03-25

Originally from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 25, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

Click here for a Glenn Gould forgery

Or is it a forgery? Read here how digital technology helps build a virtual concert hall.
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 25, 2007 at 10:42 AM | Comments (0)

Purely by chance...

...MMFCC stumbled upon a radio treat this evening: An absolutely blazing performance of a couple of movements from the Schulhoff Five Pieces for String Quartet on Chris O'Riley's radio show, From the Top . As it happens, the sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds from the Tarantella Quartet who played (and who also discussed with Chris their love of salsa dancing, talking philosophy, and tea-drinking--oh, those crazy kids!) hail from my alma mater. I'm just so proud. Sniff.

Originally posted by Anastasia Tsioulcas from Cafe Aman, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 25, 2007 at 05:03 AM | Comments (0)

March 24, 2007

Outside the dining room window

Originally from Dolf Kämper, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 24, 2007 at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)

Argento Chamber Ensemble: Winter Fragments

Argento Chamber Ensemble
Winter Fragments
Aeon
Argento Chamber Ensemble - Winter Fragments

Undoubtedly, the Argento Chamber Ensemble titled their new CD (a collection of pieces by Tristan Murail) Winter Fragments because it contains a piece of the same name. It would’ve made an appropriate title regardless. In the five works presented on the disc, Murail’s music evokes a uniquely icy beauty. A lot like a barely frozen lake, Murail’s sound world is lovely to admire, but it keeps you at a distance. There’s nothing inaccessible about his writing (or Argento’s lucid performance), but an undercurrent of mystery and fragility keeps listeners sharply attuned.

The disc, appropriately, begins with the titular Winter Fragments, and it’s this piece that best represents the analogy. In fact, Murail attributes some of his inspiration here to his experience of winter living “north of New York” in a “land of lakes and hills.” This experience is rendered in the work as an eerie, stark stillness regularly interrupted by chilly, swirling gusts of varying intensity. Murail achieves this landscape by deftly using electronics to augment a quintet (flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano). The acoustic and electronic elements are blended remarkably successfully.

The second track, Unanswered Questions for solo flute, only deepens the mystery (especially since if there’s an Ives reference in there, I can’t find it). A slow, thoughtful melody wanders – perhaps lost, but resigned to that fact. The performer here is Erin Lesser, and she delivers a fine, subtle performance. Clocking in at about four and a half minutes, it leaves me wanting more. Fortunately, Lesser returns in the next piece, Ethers. Here, though, she’s immersed in the ensemble, playing several different flutes, and performing extended techniques like singing one pitch while playing another. As you might suspect, it’s quite a contrast from Unanswered Question. The rest of the ensemble is similarly busy with extremely fluctuating tempi (climaxing with a frenetic section about two-thirds in) and unorthodox techniques of their own to realize. Murail provides a good description of what exactly underlies all the joyful noise here.

The next work, Feuilles à travers les clolches, gives listeners a bit of a breather. I reviewed Argento’s live performance of the work at Merkin in February, and further listening confirmed that description for me. I will say, though, that the piece sounds much less still when extracted from that concert’s Expressionist context.

The CD concludes with Murail’s Le Lac, which calls for the largest ensemble of the five pieces and also lasts the longest. As the title (“The Lake,” in translation) suggests, we again see Murail deriving inspiration from nature, and in many ways the piece does resemble Winter Fragments. The mystery and fragility certainly remain, though it’s apparent that the weather has warmed up a little bit. Ultimately though, Le Lac doesn’t come off as program music. It’s not about the lake; it’s just from there. That’s a good thing, because it frees listeners up to appreciate Murail’s skilled writing (in particular, his orchestrational talents, which are best represented here), rather than to play spot-the-reference.

As a final note, Argento deserve commendation for delivering a CD that matches fine performance with fine recording and mixing. Murail’s works live in the details, and Argento have rendered them richly. It’s really one of the best recorded classical discs I’ve heard. Murail worked intimately with Argento, so perhaps the quality is due to his composerly input. But, conductor Michel Galante and fellow artistic supervisors Michael Klingbeil and Joshua Fineberg certainly deserve a hand.

Originally posted by Lanier Sammons from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 24, 2007 at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)

International Noisefest Nation

Originally from The Hollow Tree Experimental Music Report, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 24, 2007 at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

Piano Music of Judith Lang Zaimont to Be Performed by Young Ah Tak at Fulbright Concerto Competition in Fayetteville, Arkansas on March 29

American composer Judith Lang Zaimont’s Wizards – Three Magic Masters will be performed by pianist Young-Ah Tak as part of her semi-finalist recital to be given on March 29 - 3 PM at the Starr Theatre of the Walton Arts Center on the campus of the Fulbright College of Arts & Sciences, 525 Old Main, University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. The competition is presented by the North Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, the City of Fayetteville, and the J.W. Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

Wizards, an 8 minute 30 second piece for solo piano in three movements, was commissioned for the November 2003 San Antonio International Piano Competition and was a required work for that competition, where it was given 12 premiere performances. It is published by Vivace Press, Inc. and was recorded to great critical acclaim by Young-Ah Tak for Albany Records - http://www.albanyrecords.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=AR&Product_Code=TROY785.

The March 29 performance is free and open to the public. Tickets are required for the concerto round of the competition later that week. For more information about this concert and competition, contact the Walton Arts Center box office at 479-443-5600 or visit the Fulbright Concerto Competition online at http://www.fulbrightconcertocompetition.org.

More information about Ms. Zaimont, including sound clips of many of her compositions, is available at her website http://www.jzaimont.com/.

Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 24, 2007 at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)

Spring Forward San Francisco

Everybody likes to grouse about the weather, and East Coasters, who’ve moved to California, may expect sun 24/7. And though that’s never the case here in San Francisco, the climate, and especially the cultural climate on both coasts, does have one very definite thing in common — the dearth of welcome homes for new music, plus a congenial band to spread the word.

New York has the long-running American Composers Orchestra, the S.E.M. Ensemble, and Bang On A Can, and the Bay Area, the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra, which has been in operation for three years. Its March 10th concert at San Francisco’s Old First Church showed it going from strength to strength. A Springtime Romance fairly blossomed under music director and co-founder Mark Alburger’s careful, and for him, very relaxed guidance.

Katie Wreede’s 4 poem suite, from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Childrens’ Garden, began its life as a viola / soprano duo for the composer, and Lisa Scola Prosek, and joining them here was pianist Alexis Alrich as the third member of their Serafina Trio. Wreede’s settings suggested a kind of childrens’ candor, which Scola Prosek made irresistibly charming with her superlative diction and strong projection; Wreede and Alrich added their simple, flowing parts to the whole. Scola Prosek was represented with another section, Wedding Scene, from her to be performed at San Francisco’s Thick House opera, Belfagor, based on Machiavelli’s comic novella of the same name. SFCCO presented its overture, which features a big bass clarinet solo for Rachel Condry, last December; Condry beguiled with her tone as well as her mastery of her part’s manifold challenges.

The challenge for any theatre or film composer is to make whatever world they enter come alive convincingly as sound, and Scola Prosek’s instincts seem right on the money, whether that world is Periclean Athens, Imperial Rome, or Renaissance Italy, which she conjured “simply” yet effectively with rich sustained harmonies for her vocal quintet — sopranos Maria Mikheyenko and Eliza O’Malley; alto Gar Wai Lee; tenor Aurelio Viscarra; and bass bartone Micah Epps — and her orchestra, which launched the scene with a bright snappy fanfare. Loren Jones’ Dancing On The Brink of the World, San Francisco — 1600 to The Present–was effective–he obviously knows how deliver standard styles — but much less imaginative, while the middle, slow movement, of Alexis Alrich’s Marimba Concerto, which soloist Matthew Cannon played with polish and point, though not baldly eclectic, lacked an overriding sense of personal style.

Chris Carrasco’s The Mind Suite fortunately had one, though its Glassian homages, especially in the inner part writing for strings, were easy to spot and not that interesting, though he may develop — he’s very young — in surprising ways. The big surprise in fact was Erling Wold’s way tongue in cheek Baron Ochs, which despite a veritable melange of styles, still seemed to hang together, unlike his opera Sub Pontio Pilato, which stylewise seemed like a mad dash out the door in mismatched socks. He also seems to have gotten the knack of how to orchestrate effectively for every choir. The two seats I sat in — “stage left” aisle 6 — and the first row of the Old First’s balcony — seemed to offer the same sonic picture: warm music/ audience friendly balances when the scoring was chamber refined, and harsh congealed climaxes when it wasn’t.

Originally posted by Michael McDonagh from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 24, 2007 at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)

a bit of fun...

Matthew/Sohothedog has some fun for the weekend with this unusual quiz! Here goes:

1. Name an opera you love for the libretto, even though you don't particularly like the music.
Tosca. I'm not kidding.
2. Name a piece you wish Glenn Gould had played.
Michael Nyman's music for The Piano.

3. If you had to choose: Charles Ives or Carl Ruggles?
Would compromise and go to The Ivy for lunch instead.

4. Name a piece you're glad Glenn Gould never played.
Debussy, La plus que lente.

5. What's your favorite unlikely solo passage in the repertoire?
The tweetybird unaccompanied violin passage in Enescu's Impressions d'enfance.The cuckoo ain't bad either.

6. What's a Euro-trash high-concept opera production you'd love to see? (No Mortier-haters get to duck this one, either—be creative.)
Wagner's Ring performed according to the composer's instructions with designs taken from Arthur Rackham's drawings. Wild!

7. Name an instance of non-standard concert dress you wish you hadn't seen.
Jean-Yves Thibaudet's red socks.

8. What aging rock-and-roll star do you wish had tried composing large-scale chorus and orchestra works instead of Paul McCartney?
Whatstheirnames from Abba.

9. If you had to choose: Carl Nielsen or Jean Sibelius?
Sibelius, but my husband might kill me for that.

10. If it was scientifically proven that Beethoven's 9th Symphony caused irreversible brain damage, would you still listen to it?
Yesdht3icbeutnaoehfgbnauedw278r&!*

Originally from Jessica Duchen's classical music blog, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 24, 2007 at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)

Avant Garde Project 53: Sylvano Bussotti orchestral works

From AGP:

The Avant Garde Project is a series of 20th-century classical-experimental- electroacoustic torrents digitized from LPs whose music has in most cases never been released on CD, and so is effectively inaccessible to the vast majority of music listeners today. This is wild stuff, so check it out if you’ve never heard this sort of music before. The analog rig used to extract the sound from the grooves is near state-of-the-art, producing almost none of the tracking distortion or surface noise normally associated with LPs.

AGP1-50 are now available for direct download in the archive at www.avantgardeproject.org

AGP51-52 are available at http://thepiratebay.org/user/loudav

=======================================

AGP53 is the first of three dedicated to the Italian composer Sylvano Bussotti. Born in 1931, he is one of the major Italian composers of his generation and while many of his works were recorded and released on LPs, few have found their way onto CD. AGP53-55 include a number of Bussotti’s major works, only two of which appear to have been released on CD and none of which is currently available. This is surprising because Bussotti’s works were of consistently high quality. They often remind me of Ligeti’s works of the 1970’s in making effective use of classical harmonies and tonally meaningful chromaticism in the context of the advanced compositional tools of his generation.

The first Bussotti installment consists of works for orchestra. Bussotti’s orchestral tone palette is a real treat, mixing dense string textures with glittering percussion, producing an effect that has been described as delicate and pointillistic. Bergkristall (1973) is a ballet in seven parts for large orchestra. Lorenzaccio-Symphony (1973) consists of excerpts from the 3rd and 4th acts of a stage drama of the same name. La Bal Miro’ (1981), first suite — Antologie per Orchestra is a pantomime ballet. AGP53 is filled out with O Atti Vocali, an excerpt from La Passion Selon Sade (1979), sung by Cathy Berberian with Bruno Canino on piano.

All tracks but one in AGP53-55 were transcribed from European pressings in excellent condition and almost no tracking distortion. Le Bal Miro’ is from a 1986 live recording. The torrent includes a text file with liner notes from two of the three LPs from which these recordings were transcribed, as well as images of the front cover of one LP (Bussotti is the guy on the left) and the Argument and Programme Note in Italian in Bussotti’s own hand.

Equipment used for A/D conversion: Lyra Helikon phono cartridge, Linn LP12/Lingo turntable, Linn Ittok tonearm, Audioquest LeoPard tonearm cable, PS Audio PS2 preamplifier, Kimber PBJ interconnect, M-Audio Audiophile USB A/D converter.

01 - Bergkristall, I-VI [23:43]
02 - Bergkristall, VII [6:07]
03 - Lorenzaccio Symphony [12:51]
04 - La Bal Miro’ [27:24]
05 - O Atti Vocali [8:55]

NOTE: To the best of my knowledge, these recordings are currently out of print. If you know otherwise, please let me know ASAP, as I do not wish any artists to be deprived of the royalties that they so richly deserve.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 24, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

Musique Machine Reviews

From Musique Machine:

Celestiial - Desolate North
Desolate North is an impressive heady, dense and mysterious forest bound mix of funeral doom, clear almost post rock guitar work, folk elements, bird and woodland sounds, and moss covered ambience. This is Celestiial first full length with a self releashed cdr back in 2004, & for a debut it surprisingly focused and enjoyable though out.

Testsuo/Brondie - Love For Debbie
This is a rather bizarre split 3” cdr, with one track from improvised noise cum- jazz drumming chaos from uk project Testsuo. Follwed by three noisy and nearly falling apart Blondie Covers from Japanese Blondie tribute band Brondie.

Beip - I Like Penis
I think Beip’s guitar, drums, noise and vocal overload tribute to the male member. Will have most men crossing their legs in fear as to what she wants to do to our bits. As she squeal, shouts and bellows over the thundering and seething stop-start noise construction.

Carlos Giffoni/ Prurient - Heavy Rain Returns
Heavy Rain Returns is a gruelling, electro buzzing, doom laded, limb-ripping vocal extreme trip into vein barring and sweat ‘n’ Blood spiting noise. That managers to sound extreme, dangerous and full of grimy atmospherics.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 24, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

Sivan Silver & Gil Garburg - Piano Duo

Young Israeli pianists Sivan Silver and Gil Garburg makes up this outstanding piano duo. They present three classical works and a contemporary piece on their demo CD from The Jerusalem Music Centre web site.

First up is the “Sonata in D major for two pianos k.448 (k.375A)” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It is in three movements and is one of the composer’s most high spirited works. The Allmusic guide tells me that this was the composition that was used in the testing that spawned The Mozart Effect.

Franz Schubert’s “Fantasia for piano, 4 hands in F minor, D. 940″ is considered his finest work for piano. It’s a surprisingly melancholy piece but eventually breaks out in pyrotechnics later in its four continuous movements. Claude Debussy is represented by “En Blanc et Noir”. Again according to Allmusic, this 1915 work cause the composer Saint-Saens to acclaim at its premiere, “One must at all costs bar the doors of the Institute to a gentleman capable of such atrocities!”. Finally, the piano duo ends with a contemporary work by Sergiu Natra written especially for Silver & Garburg.

The album is available as separate tracks in 128kbps MP3.

Download

Originally posted by freealbums from Free Albums Galore, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 24, 2007 at 12:55 PM | Comments (0)

Reality check

Nothing like a baby bear for bringing back a sense of perspective. This is Knut, the polar bear cub that is being hand-reared at Berlin Zoo after his mum rejected him, despite "animal rights" activists saying he should be killed rather than let a hellable horralump of a human anywhere near him. The pic (photo by Franka Bruns/AP) can be found at The Guardian, which, if you're friendly towards bears, has ten more. Have a nice weekend.

Originally from Jessica Duchen's classical music blog, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 24, 2007 at 11:01 AM | Comments (0)

PAULINE VIARDOT: ESSENTIAL LISTENING

If you haven't yet sampled the enchanting songs of Pauline Viardot - or even if you have - just try these gems from Cecilia Bartoli, accompanied by Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Nuff said.

'HAI LULI'

'HAVANAISE'

Originally from Jessica Duchen's classical music blog, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 24, 2007 at 11:01 AM | Comments (0)

links for 2007-03-24

Originally from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 24, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

This Saturday in New Orleans: N.O.I.S.E.

Originally from The Hollow Tree Experimental Music Report, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 24, 2007 at 08:00 AM | Comments (0)

This Week's Music From Other Minds Program

MUSIC FROM OTHER MINDS 100! - March 23, 2007 - OUR 100th PROGRAM
Revisiting our first programs from early 2005, featuring music by Gavin Bryars, John Luther Adams, Jim Fox, and Peter Garland
Listen Again
KALW FM 91.7 San Francisco - Friday nights at 11pm

Originally from MUSIC FROM OTHER MINDS - KALW 91.7 San Francisco, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 24, 2007 at 08:00 AM | Comments (0)

Steve Reich Talking Music: ‘The Orchestra Is a Museum’

This is the second installment of excerpts from an interview conducted with Steve Reich in February for The Score. A performance of ‘Drumming’ by Steve Reich and Musicians. (Photo: Stephanie Berger for The New York Times) Before the interview took place, Glenn Branca offered the following to question to be asked of Mr. Reich: Do you [...]

Originally posted by The Score from The Score, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 24, 2007 at 05:02 AM | Comments (0)

The strange marriage of ICM and cricket

Putting aside, if just for one moment, the most shocking news to come today from the world of cricket...I believe that Shashi Tharoor may be the first person to draw an analogy between performing Indian classical music and playing cricket.

All I have to say is that I still neither comprehend the game nor understand its appeal.

Originally posted by Anastasia Tsioulcas from Cafe Aman, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 24, 2007 at 02:01 AM | Comments (0)

March 23, 2007

Finley and Drake (not a law firm)

Among the many musical offerings around town tonight, I'm going for Gerald Finley singing Barber, Rorem, Schumann and Ives at Zankel Hall, with the superb pianist Julius Drake. The all-Ives CD that these two released in 2005 (titled A Song for Anything) has become one of my favorite vocal recordings, and the chance to hear some of those tracks live has had me anticipating this concert for months.

[Photo: Gerald Finley by Sim Canetty-Clarke.]

Originally posted by bhodgesnyc from Monotonous Forest, ReBlogged by jeff on Mar 23, 2007 at 11:02 PM | Comments (0)

Five of Jazz’s Most Surprising Albums

A few unexpected results from well and not

New Music reBlog

March 31, 2007

Do You Know This Man?

Me and My Toy Piano

Mouths/Haptic - IV2E/Danjon Scale

Helena Gough - with what remains

The Seven Last Words

Tonic Closes

2 Foot Yard Previewed

Harry Partch BBC Documentary on Youtube

Avant Garde Project 54: Sylvano Bussotti, The Rara Requiem

Third crusade.

links for 2007-03-31

Peter Paul Fuchs - one path ends

Steve Reich Talking Music: Technology and Influence

Not-so-Motley Crews

Mechanical Instruments 2

Ethnic Heritage Ensemble  Hot N Heavy

March 30, 2007

Cornelius Cardew's Treatise pages 41-44 performed by the Seattle Improv Meeting

The Myth of Pop Hatred

NYC’s CANTATAS IN CONTEXT Spring 2007 Season at St. Barts

Contender

Musique Machine Reviews

Montani semper liberi (with a Capital M)

The Friday Informer: Oh, The Places You'll Go

Mechanical Instruments

That Quiz

Reactions to the Record: Perspectives on Historical Performance

Forbes Graham Quartet in Hyde Park, MA - Jazz-Quad

L. Ron Hubbard, "March of the Psychlo"

Quintet of the Americas in Performance at California State University at Fresno New Music Festival on March 31

March 31st, Chris Becker residency and concert with Racoco Productions

N.ROTA - 2 Piano Concertos

Boston Symphony Postpones World Premiere of Gunther Schuller's Where the Word Ends

Who said anything about genres?

On Shrugging Of The Conflict Between Modernists And Historicists That Absurdly Still Defines So Much Debate Over Contemporary Culture

A Bevy Of Classical And Popular Composers From Japan, Europe, And America Help The Nation's Capital To Usher In The Spring Holiday Festivities

Physical modeling synthesis

Over and Under

Crescendo and decrescendo

More on the US amateur music scene

Mp3 Blog #64: "Inner Music"

CAGE(D)-in at Peabody - Examiner.com

Frode Haltli, Passing Images - Guardian Unlimited

Curating The Stone - Downtown Express

Music Review: Ornette Coleman - Sound Grammar - Blogcritics.org

Curating the Stone

Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog at Tonic New York

Twin peaks.

Digital master.

AAJ Reviews

DMG Newsletter March 30th 2007

Bagatellen Reviews

links for 2007-03-30

The art of the mosque

Bringing in the Noise

Twin peaks.

The Unapproachable Sacredness of Pop

ANALOG @ Galapagos, 4/25

Pianist and Composer Haskell Small in Concert at Trinity Episcopal Church in Bayonne, New Jersey on April 1

Eddie Cleanhead Vinson - Kidney Stew is Fine

Robert Jr. Lockwood - Steady Rollin Man

The Dixie Stompers - At Westminster College

March 29, 2007

Belgian Tango by Beth Anderson to Be Performed by Pianists Bonnie Anderson and Donna Gross Javel on April 1 in Chelmsford, Massachusetts

Fireworks

Falling Between the Cracks

Elitism on the world's great orchestral stages

He was in every sense a good man

Fireworks

Blowing in the Wind

Merde sur la Mere - Pure Clasic

Minimalist Weekend in Rochester

Awash in contemporary programming

In the pipeline

MATA notes

Mr Cogito's Heart Is Suddenly Gripped By Terror As He Studies Closely A Link To The New York Philharmonic's Upcoming Performance Of Shostakovich

Evil Villagers Go Digital

Quotas

Ethnic Heritage Ensemble Hot N Heavy

Eddie Cleanhead Vinson - Kidney Stew is Fine

Robert Jr. Lockwood - Steady Rollin Man

(43A West 13^th Street)