May 19, 2007
Muta - Yesterday night you were sleeping at my place
Sofa 522 This is the first recording by the intriguing trio consisting of Alessandra Rombolá (conventional and prepared flutes), Rhodri Davies (amplified harp and electronics) and Ingar Zach (percussion and electronics devices) and is dedicated to Mazen Kerbaj, the...Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 19, 2007 at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)
Richard Pinhas News
From Richard Pinhas and Cuneiform Records:
Having released a new double CD on Cuneiform and completing a Japanese tour, Richard Pinhas, “Father of French Electronic Music”, sets his sights on performing in North America.
Ceaselessly innovative in a career spanning more than 30 years, Richard Pinhas is recognized as one of France’s major experimental musicians and is widely considered the father of French electronic music as the mastermind behind 1970s French psychedelic/electronic band Heldon. A composer, world-class guitarist and electronics innovator, Pinhas is a key figure in the international development of electronic rock music. His latest album, Metatron, represents his most realized and cohesive album to date, juxtaposing his original proto-industrial sound from 30 years ago (as leader of the band Heldon) with his later dark and brooding stylistic compositions. This music also incorporates deeper levels, as Pinhas integrates his passion for science fiction and his background in philosophy (Ph.D. from Sorbonne) to create a musical landscape that is simultaneously mysterious and beautiful.
Richard Pinhas’ Metatron is over 2 hours on two CDs of spacey and flowing music that doesn’t hesitate to also rock out. Pinhas uses a broader range of instrumentation with contributions from Didier Batard (splendid bass), Patrick Gauthier (minimoog), Chuck Oken Jr. (of Djam Karet, on synth), Antoine Paganotti (of Magma, on drums,) Alain Renaud (lead guitar), Jerome Schmidt (laptop and loops) and Philippe Simon (violin) and spoken work contributions by William S. Burroughs, Maurice Dantec, Philip K. Dick, and others. In addition to the music, there is a QuickTime video shot by Alain Bellaiche with footage from Richard and Jerome’s 2004 North American tour. A more in-depth description of Metatron can be found in the Cuneiform Records press release below:
Richard Pinhas “Metatron”“…Pinhas proves that he is still active, and vital to the future of electronic music … I only hope that the current crop of electronic musicians are listening to this. As artists like Moby have shown, the movement benefits creatively and commercially when the electronics are secondary to the emotions… Pinhas revels in yet another method of achieving this balance, and musicians and fans alike will do well to pay attention.” - Splendid
Pinhas has released approximately 20 solo and Heldon CDs, most of them released by or reissued on Cuneiform. Over the past decade, working solo and with other artists such as Pascal Comelade and Maurice Dantec (for Schizotrope), Pinhas has been developing a system of electronic processing to use in performing live solo guitar concerts. His recent music is an arresting sensory assault, a dense river of sound that is rich in detail and texture. Critics are calling Pinhas’ newest work his most mature and perhaps best solo guitar work to date.
Richard Pinhas has just returned from Japan, where he toured to promote Metatron as well as a limited edition, Japanese-only release of a boxed CD set of his Heldon music. (Released by Captain Trip/licensed by Cuneiform, the Heldon box included a small plastic figurine: the robotic head depicted on the cover of the Heldon album Interface.) To view a live video of one of his Japanese shows and slideshows of various Japanese concerts, please visit these websites:
Video from Japanese Tour
Japanese Tour SlideshowAfter a successful tour of Japan he will be returning to perform once again in Tokyo on October 20th. Visit our TOURS page for more information in the coming weeks about this show.
Richard Pinhas now looks to tour in North America. He will perform this summer at the 2007 Montreal Jazz Fest, the most acclaimed festival of jazz and new music on the western hemisphere, on July 5th.
Beyond the Montreal Jazz Fest, he is available to perform other shows in North America either before or after the Montreal dates. Pinhas has never previously performed on the U.S. West Coast.
Currently Pinhas has tentatively scheduled these dates:
* Saturday, June 23 - Cafe Metropol, Los Angeles, CA
* Sunday, June 24 - Santa Monica, CA
* Monday, June 25- open
* Tuesday, June 26 - open
* Wednesday, June 27 - G3 Club, San Francisco, CA (TBC)
* Thursday, June 28 - open
* Friday, June 29 - 21 Grand, Oakland/SF, CA
* Saturday, June 30 - open
* Sunday, July 1 - Rotture, Portland, Oregon
* Monday, Jul 2 or 3 - Seattle [venue TBA]
* Tuesday, July 3 - Horrist, Seattle
* Wednesday, July 4 - Travel to Montreal
* Thursday, July 5 - Montreal Jazz Festival
* Fri-Sun, July 6-11 - open dates for U.S.
* Thursday, July 12 - Velvet Lounge, Washington DC
* Friday, July 13 - Baltimore, MD
* TBC (July 7th-11th) : Detroit, Nyack, New Haven, PhiladelphiaIf you are interested in booking a West Coast premier performance by Pinhas or a date in between, or know of concert bookers, arts organizations, radio stations, upcoming music festival or venues who would be interested in helping to book a show in the US, please contact Jerome Schmidt. Schmidt is booking the tour from Paris, and would appreciate any North American help. Please email Schmidt at: Jerome@inculte.fr or contact joyce@cuneiformrecords.com.
Pinhas’ current live performances fuse electronic music with guitar, drums, samples, and visual/video projections. The tour lineup will include Richard Pinhas on guitar & loops, Antoine Paganoti on drums, and Jerome Schmidt on computers & samples. These spellbinding live performances should interest festivals, organizations, magazines, radio stations and/or venues that are interested in rock, electronic, experimental, avant progressive, industrial and ambient music; as well as those interested in new/digital media, science fiction, philosophy, and/or French culture.
For those who want to explore beneath the sonic surface, his music is infused with philosophical (A student and life-long friend of Gilles Deleuze, Pinhas currently runs the French philospher’s website, which you can visit at www.webdeleuze.com), sci-fi, and avant literary concepts exposed by both French and American authors.
An innovator in the development of industrial music and the fusion of electronics and guitar, Pinhas still continues to inspire and evolve with each album, continually presenting new conceptions of music, philosophy, technology, new media and sound. One new listener to Pinhas, a young university student who loves science fiction novels, commented, “with each song, or movement, or album that I listened to I painted a futuristic landscape with the music permeating throughout.” Pinhas’ music holds great attraction for young listeners familiar with such bands as God Speed you Black emperor and Sigur Ros, as well as older fans of Brian Eno, King Crimson and Robert Fripp.
Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 19, 2007 at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)
3 weeks, 3 new works at the ASO
For three weeks in a row, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is performing new works, all of which should be of interest to Atlanta composers.This week (which means tonight, SAT 5/19 @ 8pm is the final performance) ASO principal contrabassist Ralph Jones is soloist and Laura Jackson conducts the Concerto for Bass Viol (2006) by John Harbison.
This coming week (THU 5/24, FRI 5/25 & SAT 5/26 @ 8pm) features premiere performance of the "complete" The Garden of Cosmic Speculation by Michael Gandolfi, to be conducted by Robert Spano. I say "complete" in quotes with reason. (Yes, it is the complete work, but...) While many of you may have read my feature article in this week's Creative Loafing, 650 words hardly is room for the larger story about the work. (NOTE: I did not write either the article's published title nor the caption under the photo!) I had a 30-minute conversation with Gandolfi in preparation for that article, and I hope before the concerts take place to post more extensive excerpts from that conversation in this blog.
Finally, though the concerts at this writing appear to be almost sold out (THU 5/31 & SAT6/2 @ 8pm & SUN 6/3 @ 3pm - no FRI concert, and online tickets for THU seems sold out completely), the ASO & Spano with baritone Gregg Baker, perform the southeastern premiere of a work the ASO co-commisioned with the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and the African-American Cultural center of Greater Philadelphia: Pastime (2006) by Richard Danielpour. Pastime celebrates 3 historical baseball and civil rights greats: Josh Gibson (Negro League), Jackie Robinson & Hank Aaron (National League). Hank Aaron is scheduled to be present at the sold-out Thursday performance.
—Mark Gresham
[NOTE: This article can also be found on Mark Gresham's new EarRelevant blog, which is intended to delve far outside of "new music." So many of Gresham's posts involving Atlanta's new music scene will either appear here in the Atlanta Composers Blog at AtlantaComposers.com, or be crossposted/crosslinked to both blogs.]
Originally from Atlanta Composers Blog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 19, 2007 at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
New on Okka Disk
From Okka Disk:
Brötzmann / McPhee / Kessler / Zerang
GUTSPeter Brötzmann / Sonny Sharrock
FragmentsVandermark/ Karayorgis
Foreground Music
Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 19, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)
Burlington Discover Jazz Festival
A few shows of interest at this fest:
BassDrumBone
Bourassa/Tanguay/Derome
Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey
Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 19, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)
links for 2007-05-19
Originally from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 19, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)
Mingus’ Epitaph Reviewed
From Variety.com:
“Epitaph” is one of jazz’s greatest indulgences, a wildly diverse, multi-part, partly-open-ended suite for double big band that its creator Charles Mingus once called a symphony.
Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 19, 2007 at 05:00 AM | Comments (0)
Avant Garde Project 61: Wilhelm Killmayer, Luigi Nono
Wilhelm Killmayer, Luigi Nono (Avant Garde Project 61, FLAC) - The Pirate Bay
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.
AGP1-55 are now available for direct download in the archive at www.avantgardeproject.org
AGP56-59 and other recent AGP installments are available at http://thepiratebay.org/user/loudav
NOTE: AGP60 has been withdrawn because 4 of 5 tracks were found to be available on CD after the torrent was initially seeded. The remaining track can be downloaded directly from the AGP archive.
=======================================
AGP61 combines the three of four works by Wilhelm Killmayer on Wergo WER 60068 that are out of print. The remaining track, “fin al punto”, as well as the four tracks released on AGP60 can be purchased from the Schott Music Shop (http://www.schott-music.com/shop/3/show,93661.html). I am delighted to report that a few other CDs of Killmayer compositions are also available from Schott.
To fill out the CD, I have included the sole out-of-print work by Luigi Nono that I could find in my stacks. Nono is one of the major Italian composers of the late 20th century. He has produced some astonishing music that is really worth getting if you don’t already have it. Two collections that I highly recommend can be found here and here:
http://www.amazon.com/Luigi-Nono-sofferte-Contrapunto-dialettico/dp/B00000E3Z2/ref=sr_1_9/002-3572765-0240002?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1179524035&sr=1-9
http://www.amazon.com/Luigi-Nono-Complete-Works-Solo/dp/B000I8OIYI/ref=sr_1_2/002-3572765-0240002?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1179524035&sr=1-2
Both LPs transcribed in this installment are low-noise German pressings in excellent condition. There is some very slight tracking distortion here and there in the latter half of y entonces comprendio, but most of the distortion in that work is from the electronic processing of voice recordings. The torrent includes a PDF file with the liner notes from the two LPs from which these works were transcribed. Pages 1-4 are notes from Wergo WER 60068, and pages 5-6 are notes from Deutsche Grammophon 2530 436.
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.
06 - Killmayer, The woods so wilde [10:40]
07 - Killmayer, Schumann in Endenich [9:15]
08 - Killmayer, Paradies [15:42]
09 - Nono, y entonces comprendio [32:03]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 newmusicrebloggers on May 19, 2007 at 05:00 AM | Comments (0)
DMG Newsletter May 18th 2007
From DMG:
MISSSING THE VICTO FEST? TAKE HEART WITH:
SACO YASUMA With ROY CAMPBELL/ANDREW BEMKEY/KEN FILIANO/MICHAEL THOMPSON!
GROUND ZERO - 1992 !
FRANCOIS HOULE/EVAN PARKER/BENOIT DELBECQ!
FRED ANDERSON/HARRISON BANKHEAD - The Great Vision Concert 2003!
KEN VANDERMARK/PANDELIS KARAYORGIS - Foreground Music!
FRANCOIS HOULE/EVAN PARKER/BENOIT DELBECQ - La Lumiere De Pierres!AND SO MUCH MORE…INCLUDING A HAT CD SALE!!!
Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 19, 2007 at 05:00 AM | Comments (0)
Mood Indigo (1930). Duke Ellington/Barney Bigard/Irving Mills
Originally from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 19, 2007 at 05:00 AM | Comments (0)
The cruelest cut
Originally from Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 19, 2007 at 02:01 AM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2007
Songs of praise.
(Posted today on the TONY Blog)
In one of the mostly starkly dramatic moments of "I have some light: Songs of Spirit," the song recital presented by opera soprano Anne-Carolyn Bird and pianist Jocelyn Dueck on Thursday night (May 17) at Gallerie Icosahedron in Tribeca, no music was played at all. The program put it simply: quiet. For what seemed like a breathlessly long minute or so, Bird and Dueck sat back to back on the piano bench in silent meditation. Ambient noises in the gallery and the dull buzz outside the door were thrown into sharp relief.
We told you about Bird in "Net working," an article that appeared in the Classical & Opera section of this week's TONY, which discussed her swiftly rising career and the way she's been laying it all out for public scrutiny on her engaging, revealing blog, The Concert. (Naturally, Bird then blogged about the experience of being written about in TONY.) The article was timed to draw attention to Bird's recital, presented under the banner of the adventurous VIM: Tribeca concert series.
More than simply an attractive bunch of songs strung together, the recital was about an idea: the business of living life in contact with the divine. And Bird, a yoga practitioner, certainly knows a thing or two about the power of meditation. The pause separated the set of hymns that preceded it (including a decidedly earthy paean by Leonard Cohen, "Suzanne") from the more ecstatic visions that followed, including the world premiere of Hillula by Judd Greenstein.
Bird opened the recital with a gorgeous account of four of Samuel Barber's Hermit Songs, in which she demonstrated some of the mellower, darker aspects of her range. She followed with an unaccompanied hymn, "Mary, did you know?," and an a cappella quartet number, "Breathe on Me, Breath of God." The sanctified mood continued with a wry twist in the aforementioned Cohen staple, after which came William Bolcom's wistful "Waitin'" and that dramatic pause.
Still seated on the piano bench, Dueck recited French mystic Olivier Messiaen's "Action de grâce" in French, while Bird, at a slightly staggered interval, provided the English translation. This served as a suitably otherworldly preface for Hillula, a substantial new piece by Greenstein, the busy, inventive composer who co-curates the VIM: Tribeca series.
The verses used in the piece, taken from the Zohar, are a rabbi's final words upon death, which describe an impending union with the eternal in near-romantic terms. Hillula opened with an evocation of pealing bells and a slow vocal line of chant-like intensity. Actually, that's not a bad way to describe most of the music: slow, but intense. Parts of it suggested gospel music, which has turned up in other pieces by Greenstein; other sections had an affinity to sophisticated musical-theater writing. Greenstein took full advantage of Bird's entire vocal range. Seldom were the lines complex or ornate, but the shapes of certain melodic lines and the sustained intensity provided plenty of challenge to the performer. Bird sang the piece bravely and beautifully, with a commitment that must have been gratifying to Greenstein.
Another break followed: this one, indicated in the program as peace, was provided to allow the audience to mix and mingle like a Protestant congregation's mid-service greeting. When she returned to the stage, Bird revealed that Hillula remains a work-in-progress, and that the preceding account had been approximately two-thirds of the planned piece.
The spark that led to this recital, Bird explained in our interview, was her discovery of John Harbison's Mirabai Songs, a powerful, palpably erotic cycle. Her performance of four of these songs was a highlight of the recital, as she combined an exacting performance of the notes with an overwhelmingly physical inhabitation of the texts. Three gorgeous Russian spiritual songs by Rachmaninoff brought forth her most crystalline high notes of the evening—pretty overwhelming in such close quarters. An exceedingly warm ovation earned an encore performance of "Waitin.'"
If you missed this concert, you missed something far more personal and touching than your everyday lieder concert. Particularly in the Barber and Harbison selections, Bird proved herself a singer capable of not merely delivering the notes—although she certainly did—but also of getting under the skin of a piece, touching its inner passions and revealing them to a listener. It's going to be a thrill to revisit Hillula when she gets that deeply inside of it, and vice versa. Dueck was a sensitive, versatile accompanist, as well as a full partner in the drama Bird had constructed for her program.
Bird and Dueck plan to record this program for Greenstein's New Amsterdam record label, and they also want to take it on the road. Keep an eye on The Concert for future developments.
Originally posted by NightAfterNight from Night After Night, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)
AAJ Reviews
From AAJ:
18-May-07 Dino Saluzzi/Anja Lechner
Dino Saluzzi/Anja Lechner: Ojos Negros (ECM Records)17-May-07 Elton Dean & The Wrong Object
The Unbelievable Truth (Moonjune Records)17-May-07 David Torn
Prezens (ECM Records)17-May-07 Gov’t Mule
Live At Roseland Ballroom (Evil Teen Records)17-May-07 Russ Lossing / Mat Maneri / Mark Dresser
Metal Rat (Clean Feed Records)
Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)
Musique Machine Reviews
From Musique Machine:
Beta Cloud - Coptic Lament
Carl T. Place aka the Beta Cloud is a self described purveyor of “ambient/noise/doom/shoegaze” music out of New York (somewhere). It’s strange to even review this release because it is limited on the level of Organum’s early cassettes. The review copy that I received appears to be a part of the general release of a whopping twenty copies (mine is 13/20). There is also an even more limited edition release of ten, which includes six original photographs taken by Place and is wrapped in black cloth. It appears as though both editions are still available at the time of this review, if the Witchhouse Records website is up to date, so act yesterday if you want a copy.
The Vulture Club - Live Young, Die Fast and Leave An Exquisite Corpse
Sometimes an album comes out of nowhere that blows you away, and for me The Vulture Club’s Live Young, Die Fast and Leave an Exquisite Corpse is a prime example of such a sucker punch. I haven’t been able to wrench myself away from this disc since I first spun it a couple of weeks ago.
Elegi - Sistereis
Sistereis carves out an atmosphere that evokes ill fated ocean bound trips, faded photos of long dead loved ones pulled from sea salt depths, and eerier ghost ships cutting their way across dusk purpled skies. It mixes together slow dieing beautiful piano textures, sinister jazzy touches, doomy sea salt bass rumbles and sun bleached modern classical tones. All under washed by creaking, cull call and all maner of eerier noise matter.Gydja - Umbilicus Maris
Umbilicus Maris whisks the listener off into a vast abounded citadel situated on the deepest ocean floors, lit by fluorescents and sea bound aurora borealis. This is fine ambient craft rippled with watery rhythmic touches & subterranean choir voices to make vast meditative and mystically soundworld to lose ones self in.Sturmpercht - Stürm Ins Leben Wild Hinein
This is a reissue of the excellent Sturmpercht’s first album from 2004, never before released on cd, here it gets given a fine package treat with the cd housed in side a wooden slip. The album is wonderfully focused and full formed opening shot- Germanic tongued mixing together with quirky Apline Folk, Neo Classical, ambience, more thoughtful and emotional touched sound craft.
Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)
Jazz Listings - New York Times
From the New York Times:
RASHIED ALI QUINTET (Tuesday) Rashied Ali has had a substantial career in the jazz avant-garde, beginning with his role in the late-period bands of John Coltrane. His drumming drives a hard-bop quintet with a front line of Jumaane Smith on trumpet and Lawrence Clark on tenor saxophone. At 7:30 and 9:30 p.m., Jazz Standard, 116 East 27th Street, Manhattan, (212) 576-2232, jazzstandard.net; cover, $20. (Nate Chinen)
ANOTHER LIFETIME: A TRIBUTE TO TONY WILLIAMS (Thursday) A tip of the hat to Lifetime, the 1970s fusion powerhouse led by the drummer Tony Williams, who died a decade ago. Greg Osby plays alto saxophone, Doug Carn plays Hammond B-3 organ, and Cindy Blackman, a clear inheritor to the Williams style, plays drums. (Through May 25.) At 8:30 and 10:30 p.m., Iridium, 1650 Broadway, at 51st Street, (212) 582-2121, iridiumjazzclub.com; cover, $25 with a $10 minimum. (Chinen)
DARCY JAMES ARGUE’S SECRET SOCIETY (Tomorrow) Led by the composer and arranger Darcy James Argue, the Secret Society is a pointedly modernistic 18-piece big band stocked with top-shelf improvisers like the trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson. Kyle Saulnier’s Awakening Orchestra, which plays an opening slot, takes a more mainstream approach but packs a similar punch. At 6 p.m., Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery, near Bleecker Street, East Village, (212) 614-0505, bowerypoetry.com; cover, $12, with a one-drink minimum. (Chinen)
DAVID BINNEY’S BALANCE (Tuesday) The alto saxophonist David Binney pursues an avant-gardism that embraces harmony, melody and rhythm, along with amplification. In this band he works with some regular collaborators: the keyboardist Craig Taborn, the bassist Thomas Morgan and the drummer Dan Weiss. At 10 p.m., 55 Bar, 55 Christopher Street, near Seventh Avenue South, West Village, (212) 929-9883, 55bar.com; cover, $10. (Chinen)
EVAN CHRISTOPHER’S JAZZ TRADITIONS PROJECT/CYMINOLOGY (Tuesday) Evan Christopher, a gifted New Orleans clarinetist, formed his Jazz Traditions Project with several Parisian musicians during a residency in France last year. Cyminology, led by the singer Cymin Samawaite, is a Berlin-based group with a style informed by Middle Eastern and Asian folk music. At 9:30 p.m., Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place, East Village, (212) 539-8778, joespub.com; cover, $15, with a two-drink minimum. (Chinen)
FREESTYLE JAZZ (Sunday) This weekly experimental series presents two ensembles: a quartet consisting of the pianist Borah Bergman, the cellist Daniel Levin, the violinist Jason Hwang and the drummer Dee Pop; and the Victoria Day Trio, which includes the drummer Harris Eisenstadt, the bassist Mark Helias and the saxophonist Matt Bauder. At 7 and 9 p.m., Jimmy’s Restaurant, 43 East Seventh Street, East Village, (212) 982-3006, freestylejazz.com; cover, $10, with a one-drink minimum. (Chinen)
LOST JAZZ SHRINES: TIN PALACE (Tonight) The Tin Palace, a Bowery night spot that operated through much of the 1970s, receives a spirited tribute from Trio 3, an avant-garde supergroup consisting of Oliver Lake on alto saxophone, Reggie Workman on bass and Andrew Cyrille on drums. There will also be a preconcert interview at 7 with Paul Pines, the club’s former proprietor. At 8:30, TriBeCa Performing Arts Center, Borough of Manhattan Community College, 199 Chambers Street, (212) 220-1460, tribecapac.org; $25; $15 for students. (Chinen)
JOE LOVANO NONET WITH HANK JONES (Tonight through Sunday) Joe Lovano, a tenor saxophonist equally at home with balladry and bluster, has intermittently led this bop-flavored ensemble for many years. His guest, Hank Jones, is a venerable pianist who has a new album with Mr. Lovano, “Kids: Duets Live at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola” (Blue Note). At 7:30 and 9:30, with an 11:30 set tonight and tomorrow, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 60th Street and Broadway, (212) 258-9595, jalc.org; cover, $30, with a minimum of $10 at tables, $5 at the bar. (Chinen)
NIGHT OF THE RAVISHED LIMBS (Wednesday) This week’s edition of this adventurous series at Barbès showcases two quartets: Decoupage, led by the trombonist Curtis Hasselbring and featuring Matt Moran on vibraphone, Brandon Seabrook on guitar and Satoshi Takeishi on drums (at 8 p.m.); and a group led by the keyboardist James Carney, with the tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby, the bassist Chris Lightcap and the drummer Mark Ferber (at 10 p.m.). Barbès, 376 Ninth Street, at Sixth Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn, (718) 965-9177, barbesbrooklyn.com; cover, $10 per set. (Chinen)
ODE/AUDIBLE MEANS (Tonight) The bassist and composer Lisle Ellis serves as a bridge, or at least a point of overlap, between two adventurous ensembles: Ode, which includes the saxophonist Larry Ochs, the bassist Trevor Dunn and the drummer Gerry Hemingway; and Audible Means, with the saxophonist Ellery Eskelin, the guitarist Bruce Eisenbeil, the drummer Gustavo Aguilar and the keyboardist Erik Deutsch. At 8, the Stone, Avenue C and Second Street, East Village, thestonenyc.com; cover, $10. (Chinen)
NED ROTHENBERG (Tonight) Mr. Rothenberg, an exploratory multireedist, plays in several formats during this benefit for the experimental arts space Roulette: solo improvisation; duets with the saxophonist John Zorn; and a trio with Marcus Rojas on tuba and Brahim Fribgane on oud and percussion. At 8:30, Roulette, 20 Greene Street, at Grand Street, SoHo, (212) 219-8242, roulette.org; $15; $10 for students. (Chinen)
TODD SICKAFOOSE’S BLOOD ORANGE (Tuesday) A bassist and composer equally fond of rough edges and rounded forms, Todd Sickafoose performs here with two guitarists (Adam Levy and Mike Gamble), two drummers (Allison Miller and Simon Lott) and a front line of Shane Endsley on trumpet, Ben Wendel on saxophones and Alan Ferber on trombone. At 7 p.m., Barbès, 376 Ninth Street, at Sixth Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn, (718) 965-9177, barbesbrooklyn.com; cover, $10. (Chinen)
Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)
Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene
So there's this website called MyHeritage.com, and they've got this face recognition program, word of which has been going around the Internet. Basically, you're supposed to plug in your picture, and they'll tell you which celebrities you most resemble. I'm not sure how accurate it is—one of my top matches was Jacky Cheung. Flattering, but, um, no. Still, I figured I'd let it take a whack at casting the big-budget Hollywood musical about the Second Viennese School I've always dreamed of. Here's what it came up with. No fooling.Arnold Schwarzenegger as Arnold Schoenberg
Felicity Huffman as Alban Berg
Billie Joe Armstrong as Anton Webern
I'd definitely pay—what is it now? Nine-fifty?—to see that. I can't wait for the scene where, after the disastrous test screening of Pierrot Lunaire, Webern saves the day by coming up with the idea of having Berg dub Jean Hagen's vocals.
Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 08:20 PM | Comments (0)
Lots of duets
In their third quarter of music theory, my students have been working on their midterm. This time, instead of an exam, they were assigned to arrange or compose three duets (one had to have a transposing instrument). The combinations were: flute and oboe; clarinet and alto sax; trumpet and trombone (or euphonium); violin, viola, or cello (pick any two); and alto sax with jazz bass.
Today we went through half of the pieces today. I edited and made suggestions on all of the conductor’s scores (!) and went through those changes with the student in front of the two performers. I stationed the students who don’t have experience sitting in ensembles to sit behind the performers and watch them write-in the changes I suggest, and then watch them play the part. Most of the students conducted their own pieces–great practice as the players are their classmates and friends. The rest of the class sat behind composer/arranger/conductor/student and me and followed along with the score or just listened.
The feedback for this kind of exercise is invaluable. Instrumentation and orchestration is an important part of a core music education for young musicians. it should be included in music theory classes whenever possible. Out of the 26 students in this class, only 3 are composition majors/composers, so I was happy for all the others to be able to have this experience. I was also quite proud of the original compositions that these (mostly) courageous Freshmen composed.
[Painting: Picasso “Three Musicians” (1921)]
Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 08:20 PM | Comments (0)
Music Blogs of distinction
We bloggers need to update our bloglist from time to time and today is such a day. One of my retired colleagues teased me saying “one has to be retired just to keep up with Roger’s blog.” This is likely true for anyone who tries to keep up on any of these blogs. So even though I’m not retired, I am among the blessed group of academics that gets their summers off. Here is my updated list of music blogs of distinction:
About the Composer Michael Kaulkin writes about music.
Adaptistration Drew McManus’s smart blog on mostly orchestra business and management.
Alex Ross The ever effervescent music cricket of the New Yorker magazine.
Aworks Robert Gable offers bite-sized comments about contemporary Classical music.
Blognoggle Jerry Bowles’ labor of love; this RSS feed “Shadows the Top 100 Classical Music Blogs”
Deceptively Simple Critic, writer, trumpet playing musicologist Marc Geelhoed writes about music and Chicago. The city that is.
Dial “M” for Musicology A musicology group blog started by Jonathan Bellman, Phil Ford, and Richard Wattenbarger.
Eric Edberg Cellist, wise and witty, and old bud from Tanglewood, 1978.
ionarts Arts blog in Washington D.C.
Iron Tongue of Midnight Lisa Hirsch’s passionate blog about life in SF, opera and piano music (esp. S. Kovacevich).
Jessica Duchen’s classical music blog Says it all; she’s from the UK and writes about music in London.
Kenneth Woods Conductor; music, opinion, and life as a performing musician.
listen 101 Steve Hicken’s blog about life and 20th Century concert music.
Loose Poodle A wide ranging blog by composer, Peter Kaye. His links are a great resource for music and film music.
Musical Assumptions Elaine Fine writes about music and reviews books and CDs.
Musical Perception Scott Spiegelberg’s model blog on music, music theory and composerly stuff.
New Music Reblog Jeff Harrington’s terrific culling and reblogging of [classical and not] music blogs.
Night after Night Writer, music critic, drummer, and former radio host Steve Smith writes about NYC music scene.
Notes From the Kelp Alex Shapiro’s Malibu Camelot with her music.
OboeInsight Patty Mitchell’s popular music blog about the oboe, music and her life.
On and Overgrown Path The author is Pliable, and this is a popular and well written blog.
PostClassic Kyle Gann, professor, composer, writer, musicologist, and dude, writes brilliantly about music as he sees it.
Professor Heebie McJeebie World famous composer/professor/humorist dude.
Renewable Music Daniel Wolf’s thoughtful music blog.
rogerbourland.com That ever-witty writer of notes and words.
Sandow Composer, writer, lecturer Greg Sandow writes on the future of classical music.
Secret Society Darcy James Argue’s witty and full featured music blog.
Sequenza 21 Great resource for contemporary music community.
Sieglinde’s Diaries Witty writer on opera and NYC.
Soho the Dog Matthew Guerrieri: Boston composer, pianist and conductor.
Sounds & Fury A.C. Douglas writes about music and whatever else s/he feels like.
terminaldegree An amusing blog of an anonymous music professor (she).
The Rambler Tim Rutherford-Johnson is a long-time blogger who writes about contemporary music.
The Standing Room MC’s faabulous blog about music (all kinds) and San Francisco
The Well Tempered Blog The URL is actually pianophilia.com which say it all: Bart Collins LOVES piano
Think Denk Jeremy Denk’s blog.
Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 08:20 PM | Comments (0)
Piccolo Sonata
The piccolo used to be a large part of my life when I was in my 20s. I really enjoyed playing the piccolo parts various orchestras for the some of the big piccolo pieces, particularly Beethoven's 9th, Mahler 1st (and the 3rd and 4th), and Shostakovich 5th Symphonies.After spending a lot of time writing for the contrabassoon and the euphonium this year, I have been drawn towards the upper partials of the woodwind spectrum. I finally finished a sonata for piccolo and piano that I started early in April. For those piccololy-inclined (could that actually be a word?), I have put a PDF of the score and a computer-generated recording recording on my New Music Jukebox page.
Tags: piccolo music, classical music
Originally from Musical Assumptions, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 08:19 PM | Comments (0)
Did you hear?
Overheard conversation at the Chicago Symphony last night between two CSO administrators:
"I just talked to Osvaldo [Golijov], and he said the IU Jacobs School of Music commissioned a violin concerto from him. It's for their new violin prof."
"Really? Something for Josh Bell?"
"No, the other one, I think."
"No, no. They asked him to 'reflect the soloist's biography,' he said, something like that. I think he said it's going to be called Streets of Jaime Laredo."
Originally posted by MarcGeelhoed from Marc Geelhoed: Deceptively Simple, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 08:19 PM | Comments (0)
NSO, Higdon, and Lang Lang
Thursday evening’s concert by the National Symphony Orchestra began with the Second Romanian Rhapsody of Enescu. This straightforward work offered neo-folk tunes with ever-changing orchestration. While enjoying the lush string sound of the NSO, one missed any sort of progressive harmony in this young work, written in the composer’s early twenties.City Scape, by Jennifer Higdon, was next on the program as a replacement for premiere of Higdon's new piano concerto, which was canceled a few months back due to artistic issues between the composer and Lang Lang. While the NSO is still committed to premiering the concerto, one wonders if Lang Lang will indeed be the soloist.
In three movements and commissioned by the Atlanta Symphony in 2002, City Scape, according to Higdon, “is a metropolitan sound picture written in orchestral tones” about Atlanta, her hometown. The opening movement, titled Skyline, begins with bustling activity. The new American value that “being busier is better” is heard in the sense of commotion. This is a fitting sonic description of Atlanta, a relatively new American city that is now facing congestion issues – see Nick Paumgarten's recent article (There and Back Again, April 16) in The New Yorker.
River sings a song to trees is supposed to represent streams, creeks, and rivers giving life to urban parks. This movement offers solos to many of the instruments and has many modulations. Higdon’s work always succeeds in obtaining a wide sound from the orchestra that fills the room with color. Nevertheless, when the music builds and darkens, it became difficult to imagine a river not being compromised by trash, sewage, and industrial waste as it passes through an urban area. Peachtree Street, the final movement, returns to hustle and bustle and contains a short fugue based on a very fast theme. One wonders if there was a reason to program the Enescu and Higdon one after the other - perhaps to contrast traditional and what is now modern folk music.
Robert Battey, From NSO, the Energy of a 'City' (Washington Post, May 18) |
Originally from ionarts, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 08:18 PM | Comments (0)
Leila Josefowicz at JCCGW
Leila Josefowicz on Disc: Shostakovich  Salonen / Messiaen  Adams  Prokofiev / Tchaikovsky |
Sandwiched around this recital's intermission were two masterpieces of the 20th century, both performed in superlative renditions by Josefowicz and her usual recital partner, pianist John Novacek. Prokofiev's F minor violin sonata, op. 80, concluded the first half, a work that Ionarts last reviewed as part of a recital by Midori in 2005. Composed from 1938 to 1946, it is one of the wartime pieces, along with the bombastic seventh piano sonata. The op. 80 sonata opened with the somber theme rumbling in the low octaves of the piano, underneath a dirge-like monologue on the violin's lower strings. In the middle section of the first movement, the violin plays a series of muted runs that Prokofiev described as "like the wind in the graveyard." This moment of beautiful terror returned to hair-raising effect in the fourth movement, after a magnificently barbaric dance in the second movement and a delicate, celestial third movement. This was great playing from both violinist and pianist, raucous and unhinged at times but with utter simplicity where needed.
 Oistrakh / Richter  Stern / Zakin  Bell / Mustonen |  Repin / Berezovsky  Kremer / Argerich  Shaham / Shaham |
The rest of the program, while played with admirable skill and sensitivity to stylistic detail, was less striking. The best of three shorter works opened the recital, the Brahms C minor Scherzo, composed as part of a composite sonata. Its thunderous, driving triplets, with Brahmsian metric shifts at cadences, were a suitable introduction to the Prokofiev sonata, just as its bucolic trio seemed to look forward to the Stravinsky. It was good to hear Conversio by Erkki-Sven Tüür (b. 1959), as an example of Josefowicz's embrace of contemporary composers. This work begins in the mold of John Adams, with a minimalistic repetition and variation in a more or less tonal framework, before it morphs into something like Boulez. Josefowicz and Novacek reacted with smiles to the reactions of some in the audience, which was on the whole poorly behaved. The work that ended the recital, Schubert's Rondo Brilliant in B Minor, D. 895, was a virtuosic cipher. It has no memorable melodies, lots of technical challenges, and goes on far too long. An encore would have been appreciated, anything to end on a more pleasing note, but it was not to be.
There is one more classical concert at JCCGW this season, featuring the JCC Symphony Orchestra next month (June 17, 7:30 pm). The program includes Beethoven's Egmont Overture and Fifth Symphony, as well as Amit Peled playing Shostakovich's first cello concerto.
Originally from ionarts, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 08:18 PM | Comments (0)
Salome day
It's the 101st anniversary of the Austrian premiere of Salome, an event that is described at some length at the beginning of my book. The photograph above, which appears in Gilbert Kaplan's wonderful book The Mahler Album, captures Mahler and Strauss together on the day of the premiere, apparently getting to leave for an afternoon expedition in the hills above the city. Alma Mahler described the day memorably in her memoir. It's worth noting that when Strauss read the book in the nineteen-forties he wrote in the margins of that description, "All untrue."
And happy birthday to Alex Star, the last New York intellectual.
Originally posted by Alex Ross from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 08:17 PM | Comments (0)
Jazz X-tet shows off mastery of avant-garde - Chicago Tribune
| Jazz X-tet shows off mastery of avant-garde Chicago Tribune, IL - Practically everyone who follows music in Chicago knows Mwata Bowden, a phenomenally versatile reedist, bandleader and composer. ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 08:17 PM | Comments (0)
ALO: IT JUST FEELS GOOD - JamBase
 JamBase | ALO: IT JUST FEELS GOOD JamBase, CA - We were all music majors so we were listening to crazy avant-garde music, too. So, we were just trying to fuse all that stuff together, as well as being ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 08:17 PM | Comments (0)
Amazon.com's Bold Move - Huffington Post
| Amazon.com's Bold Move Huffington Post, NY - The big story is that Amazon is unveiling a music download store which could possibly give iTunes a run for its money. And we applaud Amazon, ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 08:17 PM | Comments (0)
Music of Christopher Kaufman to Be Performed by Long Beach Festival Orchestra on May 27 as Part of Long Island ArtsFest
The Twilight Festival Series of Long Island ArtsFest will present The Long Beach Festival Orchestra, with Christopher Kaufman conducting the World Premiere of his new composition ‘Imagined Scenes’ for Orchestra on Sunday May 27 – 6 PM at Kennedy Plaza in Long Beach, New York. The orchestra’s Music Director Yakov Dyman will also conduct works by Mozart, Weber and Brahms.
This new work was arranged by Mr. Kaufman specifically for the Long Beach Festival Orchestra, which includes musicians from the Rockaway-Five Towns Symphony Orchestra.
This event is free and open to the public. For more information, please call Long Island ArtsFest at 516-432-6342 or visit them online at http://www.liartsfest.com/.
Visit Christopher Kaufman at http://www.chkaufman.com/
Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 08:01 PM | Comments (0)
AMN Upgrade
This morning we’ve upgraded our blogging software. All major functionality seems to be running well with a few minor exceptions. We’ll be working these issues throughout the next couple of days. Bear with us and make sure you notify us of any problems you might find.
Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)
The Friday Informer: Where Are They Now?
Professionals who would have better served humanity had they chosen another career, or never gotten out of bed in the first place.Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)
from our FAQ
How does a Renewable Music item come to be written?While there are naturally a number of procedures unique to this enterprise that we've chosen to keep proprietary, I can speak for the rest of the staff here in the Home Office in Praunheim
and praise the work done by our R.&.D. team in Pacoima. The R.&.D. team has developed, with the aid of some programming outsourced to the South Asian offices of the Oublogo, an algorithm for determining the frequency, length, principle, subsidiary, and dangling subject matters, degree of sustained relevance to the subject matter(s), as well as determining, through extensive polling of a target audience (Island- and mountain-dwelling over-educated service sector refuseniks
with mild-but-reasonable paranoia and over-sensitive moral fibers), the nature of any opinion to be expressed in an item. Of course, in practice, the process is a bit more complicated, as when this week the program determined that the subject would
be one tangential to the theme of Jimmy Carter, relevant to music, and contain an approximation of Wagnerian assonance, hence the post on Melisma malaise.That's very interesting, but what do you do when the program is out of order?
The Home Office always keeps a manual data base (blue-and-red-lined white card stock, 3"x5") from which topics can be determined by our thoroughly-tested in-house method (seven perfect shuffles and a Carson City top-to-bottom force). The topics in this data base (e.g. food, making fun of the critic-who-shall-not-be-named or the American Music
Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 02:39 PM | Comments (0)
Wiki Scores
I just found out about this great wiki that has public domain music scores as PDF files to download for free. The International Music Score Library Project is a great resource, which I have added to the list on the left.Originally from Musical Perceptions, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 02:35 PM | Comments (0)
Calling all bloggers!
I'm starting to do the research for the next installment of the top 51 classical music blogs. If you know of a blog that wasn't on the last list or mentioned in the comments to that post, please name it here or email me.Originally from Musical Perceptions, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 02:35 PM | Comments (0)
Populism
Melinda Doolittle was kicked off of American Idol Wednesday night.
OK, that sentence, or at least its presence in this blog, needs some backstory. Yes, I realize that the intersection of American Idol and eighth blackbird fans might only be a point in the Venn diagram of life, but I’ve been thinking a lot about this. Especially combined with the endlessly-written-about Joshua Bell incident (see the earlier post titled “Forgive My Sensationalism” to see what I’m talking about). Essentially, Melinda Doolittle (let’s call her “Mindy,” mostly because that’s what most other writers call her, and maybe that’s even what she wants to be called) had the best voice on American Idol all season. Hands down. A professional back-up singer, Mindy had excellent technique, her pitch and vocal support were superb, and she nailed every song style given to her, some more than others. So it was a shock for me when Wednesday night, she was the one who received the fewest votes out of the top three, allowing two younger singers to vie for the title and leave her behind.
So what does this mean? Over 60 million votes were tallied (note I didn’t say 60 million people, although since I’m from Chicago, I don’t think that the idea of someone voting early and often is necessarily a bad thing), so why didn’t they who voted vote for Mindy? What did they think was better about Jordin or Blake? That’s the question I’m interested in, and one that we couldn’t ask in the Joshua Bell (let’s call him “Joshie,” because I feel like it) situation. When hundreds of people passed Joshie (see? Isn’t it fun?) in the DC Metro, not noticing that one of the world’s best violinists was playing some of the best pieces ever written for that instrument on a violin that’s one of the best ever made, we didn’t get a chance to find out whom they would have noticed and maybe even tipped, given the alternative between him and someone else. American Idol voters did have a choice, and maybe I’m the only one, but whom they picked helps me understand both situations better.
Neither Mindy nor Joshie ever seemed to exert a lot of effort in their performances. They both sang/played passionately, sometimes even exuberantly, and they both connected with their music and even their audiences (Mindy more than Joshie, to be fair). But it never seemed hard for either one. There was never a moment in any of their performances in which an audience member would find himself holding his breath, wondering how someone could be doing what he was witnessing at that moment. And wondering if that performer might fail.
Professionalism in music breeds control in performance. If you perform for people night after night, obviously it’s a huge goal to not screw up as often as possible. I don’t buy into the theory that polishing technique requires a sacrifice of musicality — without technique, how can you express a truly beautiful musical phrase? Jordin can’t hit her high notes without support, and Blake can’t beat box without rhythm, so I’m not proposing that they were chosen because people want to hear raw amateurish performances. But I’m thinking that maybe some people voted for them because they saw that when Jordin or Blake faltered, they did it because they were trying to do something incredible. Maybe even something beyond their abilities. And, maybe, people voted for them to show their appreciation that these performers cared enough to try to give more than they — and their current ability — had to give.
When we professional musicians spend our time trying to control every aspect of our performances, what happens to the performances themselves? Are we actually performing, or just repeating a well-choreographed rehearsal? And how does the latter appeal to an audience of interested, potentially stressed-out, musically-curious but — honestly — musically-uneducated people who often trust what the media and their friends tell them is good more than their own instincts? Are they drawn to a performer who’s clearly mastered a skill in a way that they can’t possibly dream of doing? Or are they looking for someone who’s very, very good, much better than them, but still connected TO them through the sheer fact of trying to do something that they haven’t necessarily already perfected?
And does that matter? Obviously, I think it does. It seems to me that as performers, we need to be reminded that we have an obligation to take risks, to push ourselves to be better, and, especially, to try to do things that we’re not sure we can do. I think Melinda and Joshua are fabulous artists, and I — a professional musician — have been thrilled and inspired by both of them over the past months and years. But hundreds of commuters, and millions of Idol voters, can’t be completely wrong. Putting too much stake in populism has plenty of its own pitfalls. But that doesn’t mean professionals can’t learn something from it.
Originally posted by Matt Albert from thirteen ways, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 02:35 PM | Comments (0)
Rock-and-roll is here to stay
Previewing the Boston Modern Orchestra Project.Boston Globe, May 18, 2007.
Some bits that didn't make it into the article:
Anthony De Ritis on quoting Ravel's Bolero in his concerto for DJ, Devolution:
I actually had finished the piece before I found out [Bolero] wasn't in the public domain. Luckily, many thousands of dollars in lawyers' fees later, I was able to use it.Steven Mackey on the origin of his patriotism:
I remember, I was England for a time as a kid—my father worked for the government—and people would find out we were American, and they'd come up to us and say, "Congratulations on your John Glenn!" or, "Congratulations on winning World War II!" That probably wouldn't happen today.Mackey on rehearsals for the 2003 premiere of Dreamhouse, during which the orchestra found out it was being disbanded:
It was literally, the manager came up and said "I just have to make a couple announcements before we start" and then he gets up in front and says, "Um, you're all fired. Oh, and here's your guest conductor for the week, Gil Rose." It was insane.Excerpt of my interview with Evan Ziporyn:
EZ: There's rock music in [Hard Drive], but it's kind of a narrow segment of that, because it's the music I listened to as a kid, you know? And it's not always what you expect. I liked prog rock—I liked King Crimson, I liked the Mahavishnu Orchestra. But I was also listening to Barry White.
MG: You know, I was a closet Barry White fan for years, and then one day it was like all of a sudden it was cool to be a Barry White fan.
EZ: His time has come!
MG: I've noticed these days that people are pretty shameless about what they like. They don't care if it's cool anymore; the nerdier the better. It's like they wear it as a badge of honor.
EZ: Well, that's a positive development for the human condition, isn't it?
(It's new-music day in the Globe: also check out David Weininger on Harold Shapero's new song cycle.)
Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 02:34 PM | Comments (0)
Chilly thrills
Bluebeard's Castle—Erwartung. Time Out Chicago, May 17, 2007. Chicago Opera Theater's double-bill wows 'em.
The magazine is short-staffed this week, so yours truly is stepping up and staring at his computer's monitor even more than usual. That's my excuse for not posting more lately. Be back soon, I hope.
Originally posted by MarcGeelhoed from Marc Geelhoed: Deceptively Simple, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 02:33 PM | Comments (0)
Composer Matthew Rosenblum's vision translates to Asian-influenced opera
Mark Kanny, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 5/17/2007Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 02:32 PM | Comments (0)
Sollima/Gjertsen: Sogno ad Occhi Aperti (Daydream)
Here is Lasse Gjertsen’s video of Italian cellist/composer Giovanni Sollima performing his own compositions “Terra Aria” and “Concerto Rotondo.”
Lasse is famous on YouTube for his human-beatbox videos like “Hyperactive,” and “Amateur.”
Part 1
So this is the project I’ve been working on for the last 5 months, and heres how part 1 of it is made:
On the six arms parts, which by the way took most of the time to make, I filmed Sollima playing the different layers of cello after each other. I then edited the video frame by frame in Photoshop (remember, it’s 25 frames per second of video), cutting his arms out from the other layers and pasting it on top, matching the movement of the cello. This was done ca 4000 times, by myself.
The clouds were actually filmed in my backyard, sped up 1250 times. The birds we’re filmed in my town, Larvik, Norway on clear blue sky, so that I could use blue screen keying to put them on top of the clouds. It’s hard to notice, but the birds are moving in half speed slow motion. I also had to stabilize the motion of the birds, since I filmed it with handhelt camcorder. The sequence was cut together using After Effects and Premiere.
The forest, river sequence was photographed in a forest in Arona, Italy. I took a picture ca. every five meters, and morphed the images together using WinMorph, matching the pace of the music.
The zooming sequence is very hard to explain. Basically, the first 8 seconds after it starts zooming and when you see Mr Sollima’s face is real photos. The rest inbetween are “painted” in Photoshop by me.
The rest of this part is merely editing in Premiere and After Effects.
Part 2
So this is the project I’ve been working on for the last 5 months, and here’s how part 2 of it is made:
We went out into this very weird forest outside Milan, Italy, 5 in the morning to catch the morning fog. Then we just started filming, nothing planned except which song to play
SO most of this is merely experimenting with angles and editing. People have asked me how I made the background. “Uhm, it’s a real forest..?” Spooky atmosphere..
The part were the “camera” follows the bow is made with After Effects.
[Notes and video directed by Lasse Gjertsen. © 2007 Casa Musicale Sonzogno, Milan. Source Ursi’s Blog.]
Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 02:32 PM | Comments (0)
LA’s musical past
I discovered a marvelous resource for Los Angeles photography, taken by photographers from the LA Times from 1920 to 1990, curated by the UCLA Library Digital Collections. I typed in some composers names like Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and a few other names but didn’t come up with much. I typed in Music teachers and found this fun pic. The cellist/composer featured in this photo is Avner Ash who is now a Professor of Mathematics at Boston College.
Besides that, I typed in COMPOSER and came up with a great picture of Carrie Jacob Bond’s 64th birthday party (girls only??).
[Source: Los Angeles Times photographic archive, UCLA Library. Copyright Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.]
Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 02:32 PM | Comments (0)
Next On MFOM
Two piano concertos by Henry Cowell from 1928 and 1941, and 4 Dances by John Cage from 1943 will be featured on my next MUSIC FROM OTHER MINDS program Friday 5/18 and Monday 5/21 at 11pm on KALW (San Francisco) and on demand from our website, otherminds.org/mfom.
Originally from All I Know², ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 02:31 PM | Comments (0)
Three orchestras in two days: Day 1
My 7PM flight to Indianapolis arrives at 1AM. After a few hours' sleep I proceed through Monument Circle to the Hilbert Circle Theatre, for an 11AM matinee by the Indianapolis Symphony. The gifted young French conductor Stéphane Denève, who is reportedly working wonders with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, leads Berlioz's Francs-juges Overture and Mahler's First. On Friday and Saturday he will add to the program Une Lueur dans l'age sombre (A Glimmer in an Age of Darkness) by the young French composer Guillaume Connesson, whom I have not heard but who comes pre-approved by Kyle Gann. Hilbert Circle Theatre is an ex-movie theater of the grand pre-war type:
By 2PM I'm heading south on I-65, which will be my constant companion on this Midwestern/Southern orchestra road trip:
The vehicle is a Pontiac G6. Visible in the background are trucks and cows, signifying America:
Playing on the stereo are the new Wilco record, Björk's Medúlla (meant to grab Volta), Georg Friedrich Haas's in vain (with regards to Sam Adams), the fabulous Mark Padmore Handel recital (soon out on Harmonia Mundi), and Golijov's Ayre (a favorite driving record). Believe it or not, the CD-recognition system knows what in vain is when I put it in the player. It refuses, however, to play it. So instead I find myself listening three times in succession to the Wilco record. The first thing that grabs me is the closer, "On and On and On," built on an unending two-note whole-tone ostinato against which the vocal line and accompanying harmonies gently clash. In general, though, this is a less new-musicky, noise-drunk Wilco; it's more an homage to the Band (Garth Hudson ghost-church organ) and Tonight's the Night Neil Young (Nils Lofgren-style guitar). I've never really raved about Wilco before, but so far I'm liking the record intensely. There is something piercing about its emotional landscape. It certainly chimes well with Kentucky, through which I regretfully zoom almost without stopping:
6PM, Music City:
The music in question will be Kevin Puts's Elgar-inspired ...this noble company, Haydn's Symphony No. 103, and Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra, as performed by the Nashville Symphony, under Alasdair Neale's direction, at the almost brand-new Schermerhorn Symphony Center:
Just now, when the room-service guy brought me a late-night fried-chicken salad, he saw the above picture on my computer and asked, "That picture, is it in America?" Not just America, Nashville! A couple of shots from a late-night walk on the adjoining pedestrian bridge:
Originally posted by Alex Ross from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 02:30 PM | Comments (0)
Catch these events before they disappear after this weekend: - Denver Post
| Catch these events before they disappear after this weekend: Denver Post, CO - ART & MUSIC|Plus+Gallery will present a night of exciting, avant garde music as part of its Experimental Performance Series. The show will mix free-form ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 02:30 PM | Comments (0)
Jazz X-tet shows off mastery of avant-garde - Chicago Tribune
| Jazz X-tet shows off mastery of avant-garde Chicago Tribune, IL - Practically everyone who follows music in Chicago knows Mwata Bowden, a phenomenally versatile reedist, bandleader and composer. ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 02:30 PM | Comments (0)
"eyeSpace" taps into the individual-driven music selection of the ... - San Bernardino Sun
| "eyeSpace" taps into the individual-driven music selection of the ... San Bernardino Sun, CA - Renowned for his collaboration with avant-garde composers and artists, Cunningham's first music director was John Cage, who remained associated with the ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 02:30 PM | Comments (0)
Perfect
The world according to Wikipedia, as told by David Malki at Wondermark.com (thanks to B. McLaren):...Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 02:26 PM | Comments (0)
The most interesting thing in life ...
'In art what is interesting is the structure of evolution, the direction things take. You can talk about beginning, development and end in many ways but in my view the idea of development is the most interesting thing in life' ~ Elliott Carter, Literary works. Italian. [le traduzioni dei saggi di questo volume sono di] autori vari ; a cura di Enzo Restagno. Torino, EDT/Musica 1989.
Now read about a standing ovation for Elliott Carter
Sorry, the score isn't Elliott Carter, the painting is Le Violin rouge, vers 1948 by the Fauvist Raoul Dufy. 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 newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 10:25 AM | Comments (0)
Harvard was decidedly conservative
Harvard's political culture in the early 1920s was decidedly conservative. Soon after Robert Oppenheimer's arrival, the university imposed a quota to restrict the number of Jewish student. (By 1922, the Jewish student population had risen to twenty-one percent.) In 1924, the Harvard Crimson reported on its front age that the university's former president Charles W. Eliot had publicly declared it "unfortunate" that growing numbers of the "Jewish race" were intermarrying with Christians. Few such marriages, he said, turned out well, and because biologists had determined that Jews are "prepotent" the children of such marriages "will look like Jews only." While Harvard accepted a few Negroes, President A. Lawrence Lowell staunchly refused to allow them to reside in the freshman dormitories with whites.From American Prometheus, the Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. Now read about a Harvard alumni with musical connections, who had strong views on Jews.
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 newmusicrebloggers on May 18, 2007 at 10:25 AM | Comments (0)
Amazon Announces DRM-Free MP3 Store
In what appears to be a growing trend, DRM is going the way of the dodo.
25 FREE Downloads from eMusic. No Restrictions - Own Your Music!