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June 30, 2007

Targeting Aristotle and Plato

Thursday night night at The Kitchen I caught Target Margin Theater in one of the last performances of The Argument, written and performed by David Greenspan, who seems to be a veritable one-man catalog of theatrical skills.  Combining Aristotle's Poetics with essays by Gerald F. Else, Greenspan managed the difficult feat of turning an essentially non-dramatic work into a thoughtful, passionate -- and funny -- commentary on art, comedy and tragedy.  Alternately scholarly, soulful, histrionic and hilarious, he seems to have boundless agility.  With expertise like this, perhaps someone could challenge him to adapt some Supreme Court decisions for the stage. 

After intermission came Dinner Party, created by the company and Kathleen Kennedy Tobin from Plato's Symposium.  Eight fine actors delve into the author's classic ruminations on love, with topical references as overflowing as the wine.  (Many bottles accompanied the meal, in a setting that could be someone's East Village loft.)  With brisk direction by David Herskovits, the company again made a non-theatrical text spring to life -- sometimes verging on the silly, but never dull -- helped by some precise technical work, occasionally executed by the actors themselves. 

Originally posted by bhodgesnyc from Monotonous Forest, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2007 at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)

Wind Quintet No. 4 (1984). George Perle /in search of/

Originally from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2007 at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)

Moving the music business on

'The music industry has reacted angrily at a decision to give away the new album by US musician Prince (right) with a tabloid newspaper. Planet Earth will be given free with a future edition of the Mail on Sunday. The 10-track CD from Prince - whose hits include Purple Rain, Sign O' The Times and Cream - is not due to be released until 24 July. Paul Quirk, co-chairman of the Entertainment Retailers Association, said the decision "beggars belief".

The Mail on Sunday's recent CD giveaways include Peter Gabriel, Dolly Parton, Duran Duran, UB40 and Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells. Stephen Miron, the newspaper's managing director, said: "No one has done this before. We have always given away CDs and DVDs, but this is just setting a new level." Mr Miron declined how much the newspaper had paid to secure the deal. He added that the newspaper was not out to put music retailers out of business. "They are living in the old days and haven't developed their businesses sufficiently. We can enhance their business. They are being incredibly insular and need to move their business on," he said' ~ reports BBC News

Eat your heart out Nicholas Kenyon
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 Jun 30, 2007 at 04:16 PM | Comments (0)

Is this a record?

Classical music blogging's poster boy Norman Lebrecht is back on BBC Radio 3 today (June 30, and for seven days via Radio Player) with a programme about classical recordings that he thinks should never have been made. Rumours that there is a sequel about radio programmes that should never have been made have been denied.

The photo is from my post about something that will be in short supply at 12.15h today on BBC Radio 3 - joy of 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 newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2007 at 03:54 PM | Comments (0)

Flying the BBC Proms flag

Hesse Lecture 2007 - Sorry you felt the need to speculatively review this in advance….how odd. As you've written a great deal of interest about the Proms in recent seasons I thought you might like to see the real thing. A shorter version will be in The Guardian tomorrow I believe - Nicholas Kenyon

This was the email sent to me yesterday by Nicholas Kenyon about my post on his 2007 Hesse Lecture, which he gave at the 2007 Aldeburgh Festival. Sure enough, a shorter version appears in today's Guardian. But there is no mention at all that the lecture was commissioned by, and given at, the Aldeburgh Festival. Instead the full page article gets the following sign-off:

Nicholas Kenyon is director of the BBC Proms, and becomes managing director of the Barbican Centre in October. The Proms: A New History is published by Thames and Hudson. BBC Proms runs between July 13 and September 8. Information and tickets: bbc.co.uk/proms or 020-7589 8212

Not only is Nicholas Kenyon director of the BBC Proms. He is also consultant editor of the book The Proms: A New History. How odd...

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 Jun 30, 2007 at 03:54 PM | Comments (0)

Pauline Oliveros, "Poem of Change"

Originally posted by jodru from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2007 at 03:46 PM | Comments (0)

John Cage, "Variations III"

Liner Notes From Wergo WER 60057:

The New Music Ensemble was founded by Howard Hersh (pictured at left) at the Music Conservatory in San Francisco in 1969 with the support of a scholarship from the Ford Foundation. Its primary aim is to bridge the gap between contemporary music and the listener by vital and communicative performances. The Ensemble had some outstanding successes in the USA and in Europe during the first year of its existence. A three-week tour of Sweden and Norway is planned for 1971 plus a series of concerts in the USA, and film making, gospel music, theatre performances, and performances of "avant-garde" music of other epochs.

John Cage: Variations III with Solos. John Cage, born in Los Angeles, California, in 1912, studied under various teachers, including Arnold Schoenberg. In 1943 he moved to New York City. He was already writing works for "prepared piano" in 1938. Cage has probably had a greater influence on the music of later generations of composers than any other in the USA or in Europe. Variations III for voices and percussion with Solos is the third of the Variations, the first of which was written in 1958. The composition leaves plenty of scope for the interpreters as the material placed at their disposal by the composer can be put together as they wish. The "score" consists of six transparent sheets, one of which has dots of various sizes on it while the other five each have five lines on them. They are five sound parameters; the dots represent sound incidents whose character is determined in conjunction with the lined sheets.

Originally posted by jodru from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2007 at 03:46 PM | Comments (0)

Avant Garde Project 66: Hans Werner Henze IV

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.

AGP1-62 are now available for direct download in the archive at www.avantgardeproject.org

AGP63-65 and other recent AGP installments are available at http://thepiratebay.org/user/loudav

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

The fourth and last installment in our June festival of Hans Werner Henze compositions focuses primarily on early works. It includes three of four works that originally appeared on an LP on the L’Oiseau Lyre label (DSLO4) and two cantatas that originally appeared on Deutsche Grammophon 139 373. The fourth work from DSLO4 (Apollo et Hyazinthus) was re-released on the CD that made up AGP63 and so does not appear here. The two cantatas are not LP transcriptions but were drawn from an out-of-print CD from the Henze Collection series, courtesy of a dedicated AGP partisan in Germany. The torrent includes a PDF file with liner notes from the two LPs these works originally appeared on (see pp. 1-3).

Equipment used for A/D conversion of tracks 20-22: 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.

20 - Labyrinth, 1951 [8:52]
21 - Wiegenlied der Mutter Gottes, 1948 [9:01]
22 - L’Usignolo dell’Imperatore, 1959 [16:44]
23-27 - Whispers from Heavenly Death, 1948 [8:42]
28 - Being Beauteous, 1963 [15:04]

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 Jun 30, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

DMG Newsletter June 29th 2007

From DMG:

THREE DISCS from PSI: EVAN PARKER QT, EVAN PARKER/RUTHERFORD /SCHLIPPENBACH, FORCH (w/ BUTCHER, LOVENS & MINTON), ‘SLAVA’ GANELIN & VLADIMIR VOLKOV, TRIO OF DOOM [JOHN McLAUGHLIN/JACO PASTORIUS/TONY WILLIAMS], MUSHROOM w/ EDDIE GALE,

JOEL HARRISON [w/ NGUYEN LE & DAVID BINNEY], DONNY McCASLIN, ALDO CLEMENTI, THE LOW-COST ENGINE LABEL w/ WARREN SMITH, ANDREW LAMB, MALACHI THOMPSON & PAUL STEINBECK, MERZBOW, 2 from FOVEA HEX, 2 from SONDE, A HAWK AND A HACKSAW,

ARCHIVAL RECORDINGS from MUSICA ELECTRONICA VIVA, MILES DAVIS QUINTET w/ JOHN COLTRANE, ERIC DOLPHY QUINTET w/ HERBIE HANCOCK, CHARLES MINGUS QUINTET w/ CAT ANDERSON, BILL EVAN TRIO, STAN GETZ QT, LP’S from JOHN COLTRANE QT, THELONIUS MONK QT/OCTET & THE MICHAEL GARRICK TRIO ! CAETANO VELOSO, THE LITTER & EVEN MORE RARE PSYCH!

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

Jazz Listings In NY

Jazz in New York this weekend.

★ THE BAD PLUS (Tomorrow) With its fifth studio album, “Prog” (Do the Math), this trio ventures further along a distinctive and adventurous path; the bassist Reid Anderson, the pianist Ethan Iverson and the drummer David King sound as committed as ever, and their alchemy of masscult allusions and highbrow inventions still has the power to overwhelm. At 8 p.m. (doors open at 6), Highline Ballroom, 431 West 16th Street, Chelsea, (212) 414-5994, highlineballroom.com; $22 in advance, $25 at the door. (Chinen)

BROOKLYN QAWWALI PARTY (Tonight) The Sufi devotional music of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan provides a mandate for this ensemble, which pursues a boisterous polyphony of percussion, reeds and brass, harmonium, bass and guitar. At 9 and 10:30, Tea Lounge, 837 Union Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, Park Slope, Brooklyn, (718) 789-2762, tealoungeny.com; suggested donation, $5. (Chinen)

★ ANAT COHEN (Monday through Thursday) Ms. Cohen plays the tenor saxophone with perspicacity and the clarinet with authority, and her Village Vanguard debut should further her reputation as a bandleader of vision. On Monday she presents her big band, the Anzic Orchestra; for the rest of the week she leads a quartet with Edward Simon on piano, Omer Avital on bass and Daniel Freeman on drums. (Through July 8.) At 9 and 11 p.m., Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Avenue South, at 11th Street, West Village, (212) 255-4037, villagevanguard.com; cover, $20, with a $10 minimum. (Chinen)

CURHA-CHESTRA/CUT UP QUINTET (Tomorrow) Curha-chestra involves Curtis Hasselbring on trombone and guitar, Shane Endsley on trumpet, Andrew D’Angelo on reeds and Ches Smith on drums; Cut Up Quintet presents a potent showcase for Guillermo E. Brown on drums, electronics and vocals. At 9 p.m., Jalopy Theater, 315 Columbia Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn, (718) 395-3214, jalopy.biz; $15. (Chinen)

HARRIS EISENSTADT/ MIKE MCGINNIS (Sunday) Mr. Eisenstadt, a drummer with experimental tendencies, explores his own compositions with the trumpeter Nate Wooley, the saxophonist Matt Bauder, the vibraphonist Chris Dingman and the bassist Keith Witty. The preceding set will feature a quartet led by Mr. McGinnis, a clarinetist. At 7 and 9 p.m., BAR4, 444 Seventh Avenue, at 15th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn, (718) 832-9800, myspace.com/konceptionsatbar4; cover, $5, with a one-drink minimum. (Chinen)

FREESTYLE JAZZ (Sunday) This edition of the ruggedly experimental series features Outside Sources, a combo led by the bassist Michael Bates; and then the Amanda Monaco Quartet, led by Ms. Monaco, a guitarist. 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)

GRAHAM HAYNES (Tomorrow) Mr. Haynes, a ceaselessly forward-thinking cornetist, marks the release of “Full Circle” (RKM), an album that furthers his investigation of an electronics-girded improvisational music. At 10 p.m., Nublu, 62 Avenue C, near Fifth Street, East Village, nublu.net; cover, $10. (Chinen)

NOAH HOWARD (Tonight) Mr. Howard, an alto saxophonist with heavy free jazz credentials and a deep New Orleans pedigree, surfaces here with the bassist Brian Smith and the drummer Warren Smith. Joining the fray are Eve Packer, a poet, and Stephanie Stone, a pianist and beloved fixture on the local new-music scene. At 8, Seaport District Cultural Association Performance Space, Front Street, at Beekman Street, Lower Manhattan, (212) 393-9191, southstreetseaport.com; suggested donation, $10. (Chinen)

THE MACRO-QUARKTET (Tomorrow) This experimental outfit comprises two intensely inventive trumpeters (Herb Robertson and Dave Ballou) and a flexible rhythm team (the drummer Tom Rainey and the bassist Drew Gress). At 8 and 10 p.m., the Stone, Avenue C and Second Street, East Village, thestonenyc.com; cover, $10. (Chinen)

NED ROTHENBERG AND GLEN VELEZ (Tonight) World music and experimental improvisation cross paths in this duo of Mr. Rothenberg, a multireedist, and Mr. Velez, a master of the handheld frame drum. At 7 p.m., Rubin Museum of Art, 150 West 17th Street, Flatiron district, (212) 620-5000, rmanyc.org; $20. Part of the JVC Jazz Festival. (Chinen)

TODD SICKAFOOSE’S BLOOD ORANGE (Tonight) Todd Sickafoose is a bassist equally fond of rough edges and rounded forms, as he demonstrates on an evocative recent album, “Blood Orange” (Secret Hatch). He performs here with some regular colleagues: the violinist Jenny Scheinman; the trumpeter Shane Endsley; the guitarists Mike Gamble and Jonathan Goldberger; the trombonist Alan Ferber; and the drummer Simon Lott. At 10, 55 Bar, 55 Christopher Street, near Seventh Avenue South, West Village, (212) 929-9883, 55bar.com; cover, $10. (Chinen)

TROMBONOPHILIA (Tonight) For those who have missed this monthlong trombone celebration at the Stone, tonight offers an opportunity to make good. First there’s a set by Slammin’ the Infinite, led by the commanding trombonist Steve Swell and featuring the saxophonist Sabir Mateen; then, a freewheeling performance by the festival’s organizer Christopher McIntyre and an untold number of his fellow slide-savvy improvisers. At 8 and 10, the Stone, Avenue C and Second Street, East Village, thestonenyc.com; $10. (Chinen)

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

Moholo-Moholo and Crispell Previewed

Tomorrow’s Baltimore performance of Louis Moholo-Moholo and Marilyn Crispell is previewed.

Marilyn Crispell and Louis Moholo-Moholo perform at 8 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Saturday at An die Musik Live, 409 N. Charles St. Tickets are $20 ($18 for seniors and students). For more information, call 410-385-2638 or go to andiemusiklive.com.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

Coleman and Hill Win Jazz Journalists’ Association Awards

From NewMusicBox:

Ornette Coleman and the late Andrew Hill were the two big winners of the 2007 Awards of the Jazz Journalists’ Association (JJA), an organization comprising 400 journalists, editors, broadcasters, and photographers working internationally. JJA President Howard Mandel presided over the afternoon awards ceremony which took place on June 28 at the Jazz Standard in New York City.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

Music industry attacks free CD

The artist formerly known as Prince releases a free CD via a Sunday paper, and retailers and his music label go ballistic. So…shall we conclude that one should not give music away if one wants to?

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

Musical Stewards?

I once played a performance of a piece for violin and piano written by a young (and rather talented) composer. I told him that I really don't enjoy performing my own music, and that I much prefer playing concerts of music written by other people. His answer was something like "other people are better stewards of my music that I am." I had never heard anyone refer to a person playing a piece of music as its "steward."

I looked up Steward in Merriam-Webster and found the following definitions:

1 : one employed in a large household or estate to manage domestic concerns (as the supervision of servants, collection of rents, and keeping of accounts)
2 : SHOP STEWARD
3 : a fiscal agent
4 a : an employee on a ship, airplane, bus, or train who manages the provisioning of food and attends passengers b : one appointed to supervise the provision and distribution of food and drink in an institution
5 : one who actively directs affairs : MANAGER

I don't really get the idea of a person playing a piece of music being its "steward," but I kind of like the idea of performing musicians and composers being like note stewards. Composing musicians manage the harmonic and melodic concerns of the music while it is being written (would you like another E-flat in that chord, can I make that sextuplet more comfortable to play by changing the articulation, would this make more sense if there were five beats in this measure?), and performing musicians direct the affairs of the notes and phrases (I think that the G-sharp is the most important note in this measure, or that low D could be softer, or this is the right tempo).

Which reminds me of a totally unrelated story (or maybe it is related): Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was having a composition lesson with Charles Villiers Stanford, and Stanford spilled some of his tea on Coleridge-Taylor's score. He was then reported to have said "now your piece is in the key of ti."

Originally from Musical Assumptions, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2007 at 01:18 AM | Comments (0)

Neil Feather, "Revelation of an Anaplumb"

Appearing at the Red Room, August 18th

Originally posted by jodru from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2007 at 01:16 AM | Comments (0)

Must Read: Chance and Circumstance

Here is a book people have been waiting for.

Carolyn Brown, one of the founding members of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, has published a memoir of her twenty years with the company, 1952-72.

Finally, that is. Apparently it took some 30 years to write it.

And it is a fascinating look into the early years of the avant garde in NY in the 50's and 60's -- the world around John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Earle Brown (Ms Brown's husband during this period), Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and the list goes on.

What makes the book most interesting is that it is a critical as well as adoring account of these people. You read about their good and bad points, and wonder about how much physical as well as psychological abuse dancers must suffer through. And all for art.

It's an excellent book, and a good example of why it's so important to keep good journals. 

Originally from All I Know², ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2007 at 01:16 AM | Comments (0)

Upcoming Other Minds Events

Here's what's coming up from Other Minds:

Dennis Russell Davies & Maki Namekawa, Two Pianos:
October 11, 2007, Thursday, 8:00pm.
Music of Philip Glass, György Kurtag, Adam Fong, and American premieres by Chen Yi and Balduin Sulzer. Herbst Theatre, San Francisco. Tickets TBA.

 

Originally from All I Know², ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2007 at 01:16 AM | Comments (0)

Stockhausen blows into town - Jerusalem Post

Stockhausen blows into town Jerusalem Post, Israel - 11 hours ago By BARRY DAVIS Tomorrow evening, the Ma'abada venue in Jerusalem will host one of the biggest names in contemporary classical music and modern jazz, ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2007 at 01:08 AM | Comments (0)

Sight & Sound. July 07. - GreenCine

GreenCine

Sight & Sound. July 07. GreenCine, CA - 6 hours ago It would be easy to damn Wild Tigers as an uncomfortable alliance of avant-garde tropes and advertising chic if its insistent gorgeousness were all one ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2007 at 01:08 AM | Comments (0)

Sibelius 5 offers new sounds, Audio Unit support - Macworld

Sibelius 5 offers new sounds, Audio Unit support Macworld, CA - 8 hours ago Extra music symbols are included for writing early music and avant garde compositions. Sibelius 5 adds new plug-ins, such as tools for splitting, ... Sibelius Launches Sibelius 5 – the Essential New Version of the ... Business Wire (press release) all 2 news articles

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2007 at 01:08 AM | Comments (0)

Flying the flag - Guardian Unlimited

Flying the flag Guardian Unlimited, UK - 2 hours ago While the Society for the Promotion of New Music was allowed to present small-scale music from the younger avant-garde generation, Britten drew the line at ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2007 at 01:08 AM | Comments (0)

June 29, 2007

New Music Online: a Seminar from the Contemporary Music Centre [mp3]

New Music Online: a Seminar from the Contemporary Music Centre [mp3]
Audio highlights and presentations from CMC's seminar on the promotion and distribution of music on the Internet held at the National Concert Hall, Dublin on 22 May 2007.
From Podcast: Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland: Monthly Podcast.

Originally posted by jeff from cacophonous.org, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)

The Friday Informer: A "Second Life" for New Music?

An RIAA crackdown affects more than college students; Baudrillard struggles in his grave.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

Classical music and a wider audience

I've uploaded the full text of Nicholas Kenyon's 2007 Hesse Lecture today. It's a very long read, and there are some gems hidden in it, particularly for a download doomsayer like me. Here is the condensed read:

"The cosmopolitan world will challenge every idea of a musical canon as never before, but it has huge potential. What we have now is: 1.4 million downloads of Beethoven symphonies from the BBC website, a free offer taking the message of classical music to a wider audience some of whom had never encountered it before, stimulating the market and encouraging listeners to buy CDs. In fact Radio 3’s initiative was so successful, that the new BBC Trust, the successor to the BBC Governors, has prevented it happening again. In a recent ruling it has forbidden the BBC to include classical music in any of its free downloads, even short extracts of works, on the grounds that it is distorting the marketplace --thus at a stroke undermining the BBC’s historic commitment to use every enlightened means to make great music available to all. (As the Director General of the BBC has disagreed with that ruling publicly, I reckon I can do so too.)"

Pliable's note - just so everyone is enlightened this is what the BBC Trust actually said: "There is a potential negative market impact if the BBC allows listeners to build an extensive library of classical music that will serve as a close substitute for commercially available downloads or CDs."

Photo of a wider audience by Pliable at 2006 Proms. 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 Jun 29, 2007 at 10:26 PM | Comments (0)

Not posh enough for an opera house?

'While it seems to me right that the American musicals should come to be seen as a kind of operetta and therefore incorporated into the repertoires of opera houses, the present tendency seems to be to do this only with musicals of the more pretentious kind. This year, for example, English National Opera has put on Kismet and On the Town - the one with music by Borodin and the other with music by Leonard Bernstein, both of whom may be regarded as "serious" composers. The truth is that the best stage musicals (even in terms of their music) tend to be the more unashamedly popular ones, by people such as Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, and Richard Rodgers. Yet these are clearly not posh enough for an opera house' ~ writes Alexander Chancellor in today's Guardian, while elsewhere in the paper the ENO production suffers a fair amount of collateral damage from Tim Ashley.

Now read about the virtual disappearance of classical music across the Channel in Paris.
No apologies for using the LP cover of Percy Faith's recording of Kismet, credit to Percy Faith original recordings. 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 Jun 29, 2007 at 10:26 PM | Comments (0)

A ruthlessly market-driven broadcasting system

In today's Guardian Nicholas Kenyon speculatively reviews Saturday's Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment concert at the Royal Festival Hall. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about BBC Proms Director Kenyons' Hesse Lecture at the Aldeburgh Festival, and today I received this email:

Hesse Lecture 2007 - Sorry you felt the need to speculatively review this in advance….how odd. As you've written a great deal of interest about the Proms in recent seasons I thought you might like to see the real thing. A shorter version will be in The Guardian tomorrow I believe - Nicholas Kenyon

I'd hate to be thought odd. So here, scooping the Guardian, is the attachment:

Metropolitan, micropolitan, cosmopolitan: the BBC Proms, the Aldeburgh Festival, and the future - given in the Jubilee Hall on Tuesday 19 June 2007 during the 60th Aldeburgh Festival by Nicholas Kenyon.

It’s not given to everyone to invent a word, but you’ll notice that one of the three words in my title is invented. It was Kenneth Clark, I believe, who coined the neat word ‘micropolitan’ in one of the many lectures he gave here this hall, at Aldeburgh in 1951. Clark’s lecture was described thus: ‘A consideration of how much is gained and lost at certain periods by avoiding or ignoring the main centres of art, or working outside the current metropolitan tradition’. He was talking about art, not music, but what he said is actually a very acute characterisation of what the Aldeburgh Festival itself did musically in its early years after the war. That was to create a highly characterised ‘micropolitan’ musical culture centred around Benjamin Britten, in direct opposition to --and surely in tacit criticism of-- the prevailing metropolitan musical culture, which was then most powerfully represented by the Proms, under the emerging populist influence of Malcolm Sargent.

The current Aldeburgh Festival is the 60th, and it is 80 years since the Proms of Sir Henry Wood were taken on by the BBC in 1927; that provides one reason to look at the contrasts between these two musical undertakings, even though they may seem at first sight totally dissimilar in size and scope. Another is to ask whether both are challenged by the huge changes that now face all of us in classical music as we move into a third age of musical consumption and dissemination in which everything about the future seems up for grabs, a vast potential and opportunity in a sea of uncertainty. So I offer this Point Counterpoint partly to get us thinking about the role of performance, the choice of repertory and the history of changing taste in the musical world. If I’d like to leave you wondering about one thing at the end of this lecture, it is simply ‘how was my musical taste formed? Why do I like what I like? How it will be different in ten years’ time?’

The subject of performance history has for far too long been neglected by serious music historians as totally secondary to the history of composition. To take a very relevant example, the story of music in Britain after the war can, and has, been written as the unfolding sequence of new works by Britten after Peter Grimes, the emergence of Michael Tippett after A Child of Our Time, the more ambiguous place of William Walton, as they moved towards their great operatic undertakings of the 50s, the arrival of new works by Rawsthorne, Rubbra, Lutyens, Alan Bush, George Lloyd, whoever. But what was the reaction to these works when they were performed? When and where and why were they performed? Equally important to the musical story of the late 1940s are birth of the Edinburgh Festival, the formation of the Philharmonia and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras, the first of William Glock’s summer schools, also 60 years ago, at Bryanston and now at Dartington, the creation of the Arts Council, the popular success of the Proms as they transferred to the Royal Albert Hall, and the thirst for a Festival of Britain that led to the building of the (just triumphantly reopened) Royal Festival Hall. We still live, culturally, in the shadow of that enormously creative period. Peter Diamand of the Edinburgh Festival once expressed the spirit of those times as ‘a healing process’ after the war. But I think we can now see it more as a direct continuation and development of the flourishing of the arts on a truly democratic basis that occurred during the war, as a bright gleam through the years of Austerity Britain that the arts really could be for everyone.

In this picture the new Aldeburgh Festival played a decisive and indeed a prophetic part. Britten more than once referred to it as his most important undertaking. Yet there’s all too little written in the welter of Britten studies about his programming of the Festival, and the light it shines on his creativity. Paul Kildea’s innovative book Selling Britten is an important exception, but whereas he talks about the impact of the festival on Britten’s own music, I want to spread the net a little wider. There are some very revealing sidelights in the recent posthumous collection of Philip Brett’s superb writings, Music and Sexuality in Britten, which includes his Proms lecture of 1997, the Britten Era. But this is the exception rather than the rule.

The origins of every great undertaking become enshrined in myth, and those of the Aldeburgh Festival, like those of the Proms back in 1895, are no exception. Compare these two oft-reported dialogues. Eric Crozier about Aldeburgh in 1948: ‘there was something absurd about travelling so far [in Europe] to win success with British operas that Manchester, Edinburgh, and London would not support. ‘Why not’, said Peter Pears, ‘make our own Festival? A modest festival with a few concerts given by friends? Why not have an Aldeburgh Festival?’ Robert Newman of the Proms in the 1890s: ‘I have decided to run those Promenade Concerts I told you about last year…I want you [Henry Wood] to be the conductor of a permanent Queen’s Hall orchestra…I’ll see what can be done…for I mean to run those concerts.’ And Henry Wood, later: ‘They said there wasn’t a public for great music... But Robert Newman said we’d make a public, and we did.’

However mythological the actual reported speech, it is striking how the constructs, the specific characters of the two undertakings are firmly fixed in those few lines: for Aldeburgh the local idea, with ‘a few friends’, for the Proms the educational impulse and the wish to ‘make a public’. Yet in both cases the motivation was much more complex than this: the aim of the first Proms impresario Robert Newman was more to try and find something to do with the new Queen’s Hall in the summer when the society audience for London concerts was out of town. Hence the masterstroke of clearing the floor area of the Hall for a standing audience paying low prices, which immediately established the egalitarian, socially mixed nature of the Proms that has endured for a century and more.

The motivation was surely equally mixed at Aldeburgh: they may have talked cheerfully of a few concerts for friends, but what Britten actually wanted was control (in the best sense) over how his works were performed by the musicians he chose, in the circumstances he wanted, and how they were received by a sympathetic audience. The experience of collaborating with Glyndebourne on Lucretia had not been a happy one, and the later experience of Covent Garden and the Coronation opera Gloriana, a watershed in Britten’s attitude to the wider world, was to be another. Aldeburgh gave Britten remarkable security in that respect. As the subsequent history shows, ‘a few friends’ were not beyond being sacrificed by Britten to the primary needs of the work in hand, and the localness of the festival is at least open to question.

What was happening back in London? The Queen’s Hall had been bombed and the Proms had transferred, perhaps unwillingly but with enormous success, to the much larger Royal Albert Hall. After the war, and the death of Sir Henry Wood, the BBC acquired a newly proprietorial attitude to the concerts. The emergence of Malcolm Sargent as the darling of the public, fostered by the rise of television during the 1950s, turned the Last Night of the Proms into a TV event for millions. Alison Garnham in the newly published history of the Proms (The Proms: A New History, Thames and Hudson, edited by Jenny Doctor and David Wright) writes tellingly of the BBC’s post-war desire to re-brand the Proms as ‘the Possession of the Whole Nation’. The great symphonies and concertos came together in the programmes to support that allegiance to traditional values (even though that repertory had played far less dominant a role in the adventurous days of Henry Wood). Malcolm Sargent, with his well-known distaste of avant-garde repertory, solidified the belief that the Proms should annually repeat a basically unvarying diet of accepted masterpieces. It was clear that this was a change from Wood’s day: when Sargent told author and promoter Thomas Russell that ‘he no longer regarded it as a responsibility of this series of concerts to present new works’, Russell objected ‘if Sir Malcolm will forgive me, I must say that this discloses a complete failure to understand the meaning of the Proms in relation to our music today’.

So what lies, consciously or unconsciously, behind our planning? For Aldeburgh and in the early days of the Proms, frustratingly little written evidence survives of the planning process. Aldeburgh didn’t even say it had artistic directors, it originally had three ‘founders’ including Eric Crozier, then in 1955 at a time of considerable reorganisation, it had two artistic directors, the next year it had three with Imogen Holst, whose centenary we celebrate this year, which lasted until the beginning of Snape in 1967, then unwisely it had more, and in the hiatus after Britten’s death it had far too many. As an example of Britten’s ingratiating style with his musical friends, I came across a letter to Yehudi Menuhin, I think so far unpublished, from January 1958, when Menuhin was to come and play the year after the tragic death of Dennis Brain. Britten planned a new piece for four horns and strings in his memory; it didn’t get written in time (we’re performing the fragment he did write in the Proms this year on the 50th anniversary of Brain’s death). Instead Menuhin played the slow movement from the Schumann Violin Concerto. But what else was to be in the programme? Britten wrote: ‘I must say you are angelic to agree to all our wild suggestions about the Festival, and I am going to test your angelicness by making even further impossible suggestions…..I have been hunting for a triple concerto not by Bach with conspicuous lack of success except that I have discovered a beautiful A major concerto by Telemann.’ The idea of Britten at that point in his life researching Telemann triple concertos has a slightly surreal air to it. Britten’s approaches to people to include his own music were always charming: to Leon Goossens in 1957: ‘My dear Leon. Would you be interested to come and play at our Aldeburgh Festival next year? What we were thinking of was a chamber concert with you playing the Mozart Quartet, and perhaps my old Phantasy if you like the idea…’

I am sure we can agree that the role of the artistic director is to sense the taste of the times and push it imaginatively forward, as Henry Wood and William Glock did, as Britten, Pears and Imogen Holst did, venturing further out to sea, as Glock once put it, that their own personal preferences might take them. Glock is often portrayed as a manic modernist, but what his Proms were remarkable for, quite apart from the wealth of contemporary music, was the number of first performances at the Proms of classic repertory, the Mozart Requiem, Haydn Masses, Handel, Bach, Machaut and Rameau; and he always considered the need to attract an audience to the adventurous music he programmed: he put Schoenberg alongside Beethoven (and was thus able to claim that the Schoenberg Violin Concerto drew one of the largest audiences of the Proms season) or Elliott Carter alongside Bach.

In this he was following the principle pursued with enormous energy by Henry Wood, which was to embed among works the public would recognize and love new challenges in every season. So in the early years of the 20th century music by Debussy, Sibelius, Mahler, Musorgsky, Rachmaninov, Cesar Franck and many, many lesser figures were introduced to the Proms audience –some faded without trace, among which one has to mention Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony, a Wood innovation that he never repeated. Some became repertory pieces, like Debussy’s L’apres-midi or Rachmaninov’s First Piano Concerto. Some achieved notoriety, like Schoenberg’s Five Orchestral Pieces in 1912: when Wood was rehearsing that work he said to his players ‘Stick to it., this is nothing like you will have to play in 25 years time!’, and how true that turned out to be.

The difference now is that, dealing with a huge range of international orchestras and conductors, we perhaps plan more collaboratively than in the past. In his chapter in the new history of the Proms, Tom Service writes of the last decade as seeing ‘the creation of a new set of priorities for the Proms, a continuous move from a top-down model of programming and decision-making to a vision that resembled a network of connections …a move towards post-modern diffusion’. He writes that with what I read as a hint of criticism, but it exactly reflects what we want to achieve, because we the planners do not know everything, those we connect with have brilliant ideas, and in my view there is absolutely no virtue in forcing works on artists that they are unwilling to perform. The suiting of work to artist is crucial because the greatest performances result from the right marriage of performer, work and audience. I think Britten too had an acute sense of what musicians were good at performing, and suited his choices to them.

There are countless contrasts between the Proms and Aldeburgh. One is that between the highly characterful micropolitan spaces of Aldeburgh and the comparative metropolitan anonymity of London --though I would argue strongly that the arena of the Albert Hall with its extraordinary sense of community is as strong a space as any in which symphonic music is heard. I’ve said before how much I envy the ability of Aldeburgh to be very experimental in its smaller venues; in our vast space we can equally experiment with formats –our 1000 Years of Music in Day, the Millennium Youth Day or our more recent concerts with improvisational elements and young performers, while maintaining a strong commitment both to established repertory and rare works.

But one other fundamental contrast between the pre-BBC Proms and Aldeburgh that I want to think about is that when people first went to the Proms in 1895 live performance was the only way they heard music; they might perform it for themselves at home around the piano, and they went to concerts. That was it. By the time Aldeburgh started in 1948, broadcasting had become central to our lives and recording was just about to. In this, as in so much else, Benjamin Britten was absolutely a child of his time, as we see from the letters and diaries of the 1930s, a passionate consumer of the extraordinary range of live music that the radio made available to him. I’ll mention one example in a moment, but the point is that Aldeburgh, in assembling its very distinctive repertory, could assume that the music in the festival was not all the music that audiences heard. It took its place against the background of a wealth of broadcasting and recordings. Broadcasting didn’t remove the need for festivals, quite the reverse, one didn’t replace the other, any more than TV has replaced radio: the two co-existed and changed each other. Aldeburgh, as you see from the countless record company ads in the programmes over the years, was affected by and contributed to the recording industry: they didn’t stand in opposition. And festivals became a key part of the broadcast year, as Paddy Scannell has eloquently put it, the BBC created in its calendar of annual events, ‘punctual moments in a shared national life’.

The contrast of repertory between Aldeburgh and the Proms is extreme: before Britten’s death the Aldeburgh Festival did not include a single performance of any symphony by Beethoven or Brahms or Tchaikovsky or Sibelius, which were then the staple diet of Proms programmes. Of course this was partly due to the size of the Festival venues like the Jubilee Hall, but not entirely. Britten did do Schubert symphonies, and Mozart symphonies, because he wanted to, and when wanted to perform Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with the LSO in 1961, still in the pre-Snape years, he did so in Orford Church, which had always been there as a possible festival venue and had been used for Noye’s Fludde in 1958. But where had Britten heard Mahler’s Fourth Symphony? At the Proms in 1930, only the second time it had been done there. (It had actually been introduced to this country by Henry Wood at the Proms in 1905, a couple of years after he did Mahler’s First.) The young Benjamin Britten wrote in his diary in 1930: ‘much too long, but beautiful in parts’ and a later article mentions the ‘slack, under-rehearsed and rather apologetic performance’. But he went on: ‘After that concert I made every effort to hear Mahler’s music and I began a great crusade among my friends on behalf of my new God, I admit with only average success.’ With only a couple of live performances across several decades, it is no wonder that taste changed so slowly.

What then happened was that in the late 1930s, several recordings, including two really fine performances by Bruno Walter, of Das Lied von der Erde in 1936 and the Ninth Symphony in 1939, began to circulate and gained a circle of admirers including Britten, Donald Mitchell, Deryck Cooke, and the process of interest and acceptance started. When the BBC Third Programme started in 1946, one of the early major projects it undertook was to broadcast from November 1947 to March 1948 a complete cycle of Mahler symphonies, some from European orchestras, some on disc, and some new performances by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Adrian Boult had conducted Mahler 4 again in the 1947 Proms. But Mahler 2, with its choral forces, had to wait until 1963 for a first Proms performance, the incandescent one by Leopold Stokowski that’s been released on BBC Legends. [I didn’t realise when I mentioned this performance that the soprano soloist on that occasion, Rae Woodland, was in the hall, and is now President of the Aldeburgh Music Club!] The first Proms performance of Mahler 5? 1968, conducted by Pierre Boulez. Now you just can’t keep them down, there would be three every season if conductors were given half a chance.

Aldeburgh always had what E. M. Forster in his famous account of the first festival called ‘something which is distinctive’, not as he said a festival which is ‘an excuse of overcharging’ and ‘remain at the flower-show level, the amateur-theatrical level, and my old enemy, the Morris Dance, once more comes forth and foots it defeatedly on the tussocks of the village green.’ There’s no greater tribute to the strength of character in the Aldeburgh Festival’s planning that as early as 1951 in the Programme Book, George Harewood could report the remark ‘It felt very like an Aldeburgh programme’. Of course there were programmes which felt a little random in their enthusiasms, of which my favourite, which made me laugh out loud in the hallowed walls of the Britten-Pears Library, has to be the one that started with a Boyce Symphony, continued with Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony, then Chausson’s Concerto for piano, violin and string quartet, Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll and –anyone like to guess or recall? –Saint-Saens’ The Carnival of the Animals. (Actually, thanks to Rosamund Strode’s impeccable pencilled notes in the programme books at Aldeburgh, I see they changed the order so the Wagner came last.)

So how at its best did Aldeburgh characterise itself? It did so by building around Britten’s works a collection of music which both illuminated and contextualised his work. There was music that had an influence on Britten: Purcell, who opened the first festival and was there every single year, with songs which were central to the joint recitals by Britten and Pears; Dowland songs, which Pears performed with Julian Bream; Mozart piano concertos that Britten himself performed long before some of them were fashionable, Bach cantatas, which created the Long Melford spin-off of Bach weekends; and the Schubert lieder in which Britten and Pears excelled. Then a whole range of early music arrived for live audiences at Aldeburgh at the same time as the Third Programme was beginning to uncover it for radio listeners. The first ever complete Bach St Matthew Passion sung in German in this country came from Holland in 1950, thanks to Peter Pears having sung there. George Malcolm and then Britten directed Monteverdi’s Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda in 1951 –astonishing!-- in a double bill with Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. Peter Pears sang the Evangelist in the Passion settings by Bach’s great predecessor Heinrich Schutz.

Following the arrival of Imogen Holst after working with Britten on Gloriana, and then as an artistic director in the mid-1950s, the revival of early music at Aldeburgh gathered momentum: in every annual festival there would be a series of five or six themed concerts (which the BBC Transcription Service promoted). There would be Venetian music 1500-1750, Flemish Music 1430-1630, English church music from the 15th to the 20th centuries, Magnificats every late night in the parish church, acres of amazing rediscovered repertory. These revivals, made possible by the first published editions of those works, now appear epoch-making in the emerging story of the early music movement in this country. (So I think Paul Griffiths is not quite right to say in his interesting survey of the festival in this year’s programme book that ‘early music was strongly represented, but not the early music movement’ –what Imogen Holst did, in those years, was the early music movement.)

This assertion of difference, as Philip Brett has shown both in his writings both on early music and on Britten, was crucial to the motivation of the whole early music movement. And it was critical to Britten as a composer, in his frequent rejection of conventional performing forces and formats in his own works. And I am sure it was critical to the programming of the festival. In Britten’s case I think it might be worth someone unpicking that there were three different repertories --a composing repertory, those who affected his music; a conducting and playing repertory, those he liked to perform; and a festival repertory, those he was broad minded enough to include in Aldeburgh programmes as long as he didn’t have to perform them or in some cases to listen to them either.

As I’ve said, there is too little evidence of the way of both the Aldeburgh Festival and the Proms were planned. But there is one revealing interview I thought we might listen to a little of. In a 1960 BBC programme, Britten talked about planning the Festival with Lord Harewood, just before the opening of A Midsummer Night’s Dream: HAREWOOD/BRITTEN Transcribed in Britten on Music, edited Paul Kildea pp. 176-7

Now there’s quite a lot that could be unpacked there, and that final reference to Stravinsky is extremely disingenuous: he really didn’t form part of the musical world-picture at all in Britten’s lifetime, and when The Rite of Spring was eventually allowed into the festival in 1974 (!) it was in a student performance in an afternoon concert at Snape, when the main evening concert was David Munrow and the Early Music Consort! That balance has happily been strongly redressed in the Oliver Knussen and Thomas Ades years. But go back to the 17th-century composers Britten mentions, Schutz and Monteverdi. They were enthusiasms shared with Peter Pears, and there could surely be no greater proof of how Aldeburgh correctly sensed the temper of the times, how prescient they were, and how they affected changing taste, then that precisely those two composers became the flagships of the most significant new ensembles in the wider popular early music revival at the beginning of the 1960s. In 1962 Roger Norrington formed his Schutz Choir, with Peter Pears as it were validating that new undertaking by singing the Evangelist in all the Schutz Passions in London; then John Eliot Gardiner launched his Monteverdi Choir, with the historic Monteverdi Vespers performance in King’s College Cambridge in 1964. The rest is history…

As the work is performed in this year’s festival, it’s worth recalling that the Aldeburgh Festival was the place where you could hear movements from the Monteverdi Vespers in the early 1950s. The complete edition of Monteverdi’s works had not been completed by Malipiero until 1942, and there was no practical edition of the Vespers until 1949, and that wasn’t very practical. Walter Goehr mounted his pioneering performances and made his new edition, followed by Denis Stevens and others. The relation between available published editions and performance is another critical factor –in his very interesting article on the English madrigal, Peter Pears identifies the succession of published volumes by Edmund Fellowes as the markers along the road to reviving that repertory. Just because music is on library shelves it does not mean it will be performed, but it is a crucial factor in helping it to happen. And works slowly but surely become standard repertory: those Handel oratorios that Aldeburgh championed, Jepththa, Saul, L’Allegro --we can’t get enough of them today. So the micropolitan culture, highly characterised and distinctive, begins to affect the mainstream metropolitan undertakings, and even the Proms begin to include Schutz and Monteverdi alongside Carter and Boulez.

There are two issues around Aldeburgh’s programming which are a little trickier: one is localness. I think it’s fascinating how carefully Britten articulated this aspect in that Harewood interview. ‘There are enough people who like the things that we like’; he refers to the character and size of buildings and the specific nature of the locality and his personal friends, rather than anything much to do with the local audience. In his famous Aspen Award speech he said ‘I belong home, there, in Aldeburgh. I have tried to bring music to it in the shape of our local Festival, and all the music I write comes from it. I believe in roots, in associations, in backgrounds, in personal relationships… I write music now in Aldeburgh for people living there and further afield, indeed for anyone who cares to play it or listen to it.’ Again that’s very deftly put –the roots and associations are to do with his, Britten’s relationship to the place, which clearly does have such a critical influence on his work, and in the suiting of works to available buildings. But the tastes or needs of a genuinely local audience never really played a part in the founders’ very personal enthusiasms. Theirs I guess was more the contemporary philosophy: ‘build it and they will come’.

As indeed they did in their thousands once Snape was converted in 1967 and then rebuilt after the disastrous fire. But the sense of place was thereby transformed, and while writers like Paul Driver have written very eloquently of the exquisite special character of Snape, the fact remains that since 1967, for 40 out of the 60 years of festival history, you have if you so wished been able to attend events in the Aldeburgh Festival without coming into Aldeburgh at all. That makes a real difference, and I think it was a tacit recognition of that fact that the famous Ronald Blythe Aldeburgh Anthology of 1972, published to support the development of Snape, goes to enormous lengths to reassert the local connections of the Festival and make the links with the culture of the region stronger than ever, because there was a real danger that in the new world they might slip away and become less important.

That was a moment of great danger for the festival, I think, that in expanding it might lose touch with its roots –but somehow the Snape fire, which reasserted the make-the-best-of-it spirit on a truly heroic scale, causing the need to cram Idomeneo onto an improvised stage in Blythburgh, reminded the festival of its real roots, the challenge of cramming A Midsummer Night’s Dream into the Jubilee Hall in 1960, Ossian Ellis staying up all night before the premiere to write the two harp parts into one because there just wasn’t room for two harps. Indeed it was through the classic Aldeburgh formulation of ‘a few friends’, that the festival renewed itself, through Britten’s musical partnerships with Richter, Rostropovich and Shostakovich, and embracing Tchaikovsky, always perhaps surprisingly close to Britten’s heart. In fact the Festival flourished post-Snape. What it almost didn’t survive was the death of its founder.

The second tricky issue is the record with contemporary music, and this is also quite difficult to interpret --once you have accepted that the mainspring of the whole undertaking was the ideal performance of Britten’s own music, you have to question how far non-Britten contemporary music was central to the festival, until it became so quite a while after his death. In the early years there was innocuous new music by friends and colleagues like Arthur Oldham, Martin Shaw. Yes, there was the whole continuing tradition of the English Opera Group, then English Music Theatre: Lennox Berkeley, Malcolm Williamson, Nick Maw. Yes there were the visits by distinguished colleagues, Poulenc and Kodaly. The Society for the Promotion of New Music was allowed (albeit in a morning concert in the Jubilee Hall) to present small-scale music from the younger avant-garde generation, in 1957 Richard Rodney Bennett, Susan Bradshaw, Cornelius Cardew, and three years later Hugh Wood, Maxwell Davies and Harry Birtwistle before any of them had Proms commissions. But I’m not sure how central it was, and as we know Britten drew the line at Harrison Birtwistle’s Punch and Judy. (Whether he actually walked out of the premiere is debateable, but he clearly rejected the piece and criticised its lack of links to operatic tradition.) For all his generosity to younger composers, Britten felt increasingly uncomfortable with some of the directions music was taking.

Let’s not be over-critical here, for one thing that Aldeburgh and the Proms of the 1950s had in common with almost every other area of British musical life (William Glock’s Dartington Summer School the honourable exception) is that neither provided any platform for the continental avant-garde. There was nothing here in Aldeburgh, save the famous and not repeated 1954 concert of musique concrete, which actually seems to have arisen from a friendship with the French cultural attaché of the time. This was not untypical: remember that when the BBC eventually and with enormous reluctance broadcast a concert of Henze, Berio and others in 1956, the music department memo said that it had been decided that ‘on reflection to broadcast a few of their better works would not undermine our reputation for acute critical assessment.’

Colin Matthews wrote in the preface to Rosamund Strode’s invaluable Music of Forty Festivals –time for an index of Sixty Festivals now!-- ‘The extraordinary diversity revealed speaks for itself, and as strongly in the music of the present century as elsewhere…The programmes were not restricted to those composers towards whom the artistic directors were themselves sympathetic’ Strictly speaking that’s true, there was of course smaller-scale music by Beethoven or Brahms, for instance, in many festival chamber music concerts. But I would say the programmes were the stronger and more characterful, and the festival the more coherent, the more they were restricted to the directors’ tastes. The really amazing thing you get from Rosamund’s list is that among the works listed under A the first named composer is Johannes Acourt flourished 1400, (who he? Ed), then Agricola, Richard Allwood of the Mulliner Book, Angelus ad virginem from the 14th century, English 15th century motets, Italian 15th-16th century music… It is strange how balanced and consistent in certain respects the central composers of the Aldeburgh Festival turn out to be: not allowing for repeat performances, in the first forty festivals there were about 132 works by Britten, 136 by Bach, and 136 by Mozart, 112 by Purcell, 138 by Schubert. I don’t know how those proportions have changed over recent years, but that sort of gives a fair feel of the festival’s priorities in the Britten years. That is a highly characterised musical cosmos.

As I’ve mentioned the major crisis for the Proms that came on the death of its founder Henry Wood, let us not avoid the crisis for Aldeburgh that came, entirely predictably but all the same dramatically, with the death of its founder. This provoked a crisis of identity that lasted far longer than it should have done. In June 1977 an uppish young critic in the Sunday Times wrote: ‘Britten smiles on the cover of the programme book, but how much of the first Aldeburgh Festival after his death would have given him pleasure?…the opening weekend was devoid of any sense of purpose or direction such as characterised the early pioneering years of the festival … pert wind music, lush Delius part-songs and over-ripe Respighi arrangements… music was reduced to little more than an aural accompaniment to the landscapes of Snape….it would be a tragedy if Aldeburgh became a mausoleum’. Well, I’d wisely left town by the time that review was published, but someone vividly described to me the puffs of outrage in the High Street as people came out of the newsagents that Sunday morning.

Of course as ever there were wonderful individual concerts, thanks to the involvement of Murray Perahia and others (who could forget the chance to encounter the pianist Horsowski at the end of his career?) but the lack of consistent character in the festival was almost painfully visible. After the hiatus of those over-extended years, new music led the way in reinventing the festival’s identity as a home for composers –actually more broadly based than it had ever been in Britten’s own time. Oliver Knussen invited Henze (who had already been welcomed by Britten and Pears), Takemitsu, Dutilleux, Lutoslawski, and the younger generation such as Magnus Lindberg, and that has led seamlessly to the remarkable flourishing of recent years. Once again composers have led the way, the early works of Britten have formed another focus as they have been edited and premiered, and Thomas Ades and John Woolrich have created their own new characterful versions of the repertory.

Compared with the emphases of Aldeburgh, what were the comparable centres of gravity of the Proms repertory? Who was by far the most frequently performed composer in the first half-century of the Proms by a very long way? The answer to that usually surprises people: it was Wagner, because of the predilection for bleeding chunks and operatic extracts. The First World War repertory was well characterised in a passage from that little book The Promenade Ticket of 1914: which said that Prommers ‘love the Brandenburg Concertos, and the Mozart symphonies [though only the handful that were then played], and heaps of Handel, and all the symphonies, concertos and overtures of Beethoven, and lots of Schubert, and some Schumann, and all the Wagner it can hear, and a good deal of Liszt, and two concertos and three symphonies of Tchaikovsky, and plenty more.’ Even that reflects a development from the earliest years of the Proms: over the years 1895-1914, the top ten composers at the Proms went Wagner, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Sullivan, Gounod, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Saint-Saens, and Schubert. (I was surprised not to find Bach, a Henry Wood favourite, in that top ten.)

For 1950-1995, the second half-century of the Proms it is rather different, and based on far fewer works in a programme, a more diverse choral repertory (and no piano-accompanied arias!): Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Elgar, Stravinsky, Haydn, Wagner and Berlioz. The changing Proms repertory is a subject worthy of a full-scale study, but I recently did a quick and basic study of the changing fortunes of the major symphonic composers in the Proms, prompted by Adrian Boult’s waspish complaint in 1946 that ‘the symphonic aspect of the programmes was rather overdone this year’.

CHARTS file attached Or reference The Proms: A New History pp.266-7

If you look at the first chart you can see what he meant: this shows the total number of symphonies by great composers performed at the Proms in every five-year period --and 1945-50 was its height. (Each following chart shows the total number of complete performances of symphonies by individual composers in each five-year period during the history of the Proms. So 1895 on the base line indicates 1895-9; 1900 indicates 1900-4, and so on.) What’s striking is how very little importance was given to symphonies in the opening few years, with then a rapid rise as the educative dimension of the festival becomes established. Then the symphony as a central part of the season tails off after around 1970 as the proportion of new music, early music, and one-work evenings of (for instance) choral music or opera increases steadily. Compare the totals chart with those for the individual symphonists:
Beethoven, overwhelmingly the most popular symphonist, with most symphonies done most years, until it tails off massively after 1960;
Brahms, the smaller numbers concealing that every year all four symphonies were done religiously from 1930 to 1960 or so; Tchaikovsky, a very early staple, chiming with Wood’s Russian enthusiasms, remaining strong until the 1970s;
Haydn, who became a Henry Wood enthusiasm in the 1920s, when he revived many unknown symphonies, and was a Glock favourite;
Mozart, a few symphonies consistently present, again with a peak in the late 1920s (and 2006 not reached in these charts!);
Schubert, the later symphonies consistently strong;
Sibelius, a contemporary runaway success during the Sargent years, then less fashionable under Glock but then reviving in our time
Dvorak became popular, at least his last three symphonies, contributing to the symphonic pile-up of the 40s and 50s.
So what then replaced these central classics?
Bruckner, eventually, after Wood’s early failed attempt on the 7th symphony, becoming a key Albert Hall composer from the 1970s;
Mahler, slowly but surely, reaching its zenith in John Drummond’s complete cycle of 1995; and in recent years the inexorable rise and rise, with audiences and orchestras and conductors alike, of Shostakovich.

I don’t mean to prove too much with these bald charts, except to make the point that taste changes, the canon changes, and the pressures on metropolitan and micropolitan undertakings are very different. A great deal depends on conductors: Pierre Boulez created his own characteristic repertory at the Proms, and what a contrast he and Britten make, as two great composer-conductors who never to my knowledge interacted but who both demonstrated in their programmes exactly where, musically, they came from. Go another generation on, and the repertory of a Esa-Pekka Salonen or a Simon Rattle is based around another centre of gravity, Mahler, Stravinsky, Szymanowski, Janacek, Shostakovich, John Adams–another quite coherent line. This is has helped to determine our taste, the influence that these key figures have had on concert and festival programmes.

But I believe the audience is also critical in the process of determining the musical canon; this is not just a recent invention. Of course one always pushes the audience on and surprises it: Aldeburgh was always creating and training an audience just as was Henry Wood in the early days of the Proms. But in the end the audience decides what will survive. The change in taste are formed by a complex interaction of what we want to programme, what conductors want to conduct (and believe me they usually want to conduct pieces that audiences will react to positively), and what audiences want to listen to –and what is going on in the rest of the musical world, what’s on the radio, on CD and now no doubt on iTunes ready to be downloaded onto your iPod. None of these things happens in isolation: gradually, inexorably taste shifts.

And this is where the third part of the story is critical. If you think of the first age of totally live performance, and then the second age where live performance was complemented and challenged and enhanced by recording and broadcasting, we’re now faced with an age beyond that where everything is going to be available to everyone in the most dizzying way, where not only iTunes but mySpace and YouTube and their yet to be invented successors are circulating music and the arts in a qualitatively and quantatively different way. Just as Google is digitising our libraries, quite soon literally the whole history of recorded music is likely to be available to us at a click of a mouse, except that we won’t use them any more: we’ll probably have a chip embedded in our forefinger. This puts choice, and tradition, and the creation of the musical canon, in a totally new situation. It is a truly cosmopolitan view, in that the whole cosmos of music will co-exist at a single moment.

Does it mean that festivals like Aldeburgh and the Proms won’t have a purpose any more? Surely the opposite: the more choice there is, the more we need trusted guides and discriminating alternatives offered to us. And what we will need to do when we look into cyberspace is to rediscover the human scale of the enterprise, and especially to engage with the new generation which understands that new world.

It’s no accident that the superb revival of Aldeburgh following the period after Britten’s death has been so linked to the creation and huge development of the Britten-Pears School, the year-round activities at Snape for (I guess) a much more local audience, the creation of Aldeburgh residencies. With the development now of Snape Maltings which uncannily echoes the plan that Britten and Pears had for the place, Aldeburgh is poised to create a micropolitan culture which really can once again affect the direct of metropolitan and national musical culture in the years to come. At the Proms we too have expanded into new areas for the new generation, very visibly with initiatives like Blue Peter Proms and Proms Out and About (which we did last week for a thousand kids in Brighton), but we’ve also added to the Proms repertory, we’ve brought into the Proms not just many new commissions and premieres but, I was amazed to find when we counted them up, over 1000 pieces new and old during the 12 seasons up to this year, from large oratorios by Elgar, Mendelssohn, and Franz Schmidt to medieval motets, Mozart arias and symphonies, Stravinsky and indeed Britten, non-Western repertory, wonderful riches that for one reason or another the Proms had previously overlooked.

The sort of intelligent, thought-provoking juxtapositions that Aldeburgh has thrived on and I hope, the Proms too have continued to explore, are even more vital in an age where there is so little guidance, so much to cope with, and so little to separate the dross from the gems. The cosmopolitan world will challenge every idea of a musical canon as never before, but it has huge potential. What we have now is: 1.4 million downloads of Beethoven symphonies from the BBC website, a free offer taking the message of classical music to a wider audience some of whom had never encountered it before, stimulating the market and encouraging listeners to buy CDs. In fact Radio 3’s initiative was so successful, that the new BBC Trust, the successor to the BBC Governors, has prevented it happening again. In a recent ruling it has forbidden the BBC to include classical music in any of its free downloads, even short extracts of works, on the grounds that it is distorting the marketplace --thus at a stroke undermining the BBC’s historic commitment to use every enlightened means to make great music available to all. (As the Director General of the BBC has disagreed with that ruling publicly, I reckon I can do so too.)

Fearful challenges to the imagined dangers of new technology will always be with us. Remember that Thomas Beecham and so many concert promoters criticised music broadcasting when it started on the grounds that it would take audiences away from live concerts. Exactly the opposite happened, and because the BBC was active in the new realm of broadcasting, countless more people came to hear the concerts and the BBC became a unique catalyst in our musical life. In the end both the micropolitan and the metropolitan can have a lot to teach us in the cosmopolitan age, because they will show us how to find our way around the vast musical cosmos. As more forces urge us towards a totally pay-per-use world and a ruthlessly market-driven broadcasting system, the free availability to all of great music, there to inspire a new generation, and the widest possible circulation of enterprises of great purpose and value like music festivals, is surely something really worth preserving.

C Nicholas Kenyon 2007. For permission for further use, corrections or comments please contact nicholas.kenyon at bbc.co.uk. Aldeburgh, The Britten-Pears Library
2007


Photos taken by Pliable at 2006 BBC Proms. 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 Jun 29, 2007 at 10:26 PM | Comments (0)

The Nation's Capital Celebrates Haydn And Mozart -- And Johann Hoven, Berg, Eisler, Schindler-Mahler, Zemlinsky, Weill, Szymanowski, And Webern

Austrian mezzo-soprano Elisabeth von Magnus and Dutch pianist Jacob Bogaart, under the patronage of the National Gallery of Art and the Embassy of Austria, have been giving a free, three-program overview of the Austrian and German Lied tradition, which has already featured performances of warm and exquisite songs by Haydn, Mozart, Johann Hoven, Berg, Eisler, Schindler-Mahler, and Zemlinsky.

The mini-residency concludes this evening, Friday, at the Austrian Embassy with an evening of German, French, and American songs by Kurt Weill.

*

Program information to the performance of songs by Berg, Eisler, Schindler-Mahler, and Zemlinsky, at the National Gallery of Art, this past Wednesday -- part of the superb music program accompanying the exhibition Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918–1945 -- are available here.

*

This Sunday, July 1, at 6:30 PM, the Royal String Quartet from Warsaw, performs a free program of Webern and Szymanowski's two string quartets at the National Gallery of Art. Further information here.

*

"Johann Vesque von Püttlingen (pseudonym Johann Hoven; July 23, 1803, Opole, Galicia [Silesia] - October 29, 1883, Vienna) was an Austrian composer who belonged to a noble family originally from Lorraine, the Vesques de Puttelange.

He befriended Franz Schubert and Felix Mendelssohn, and beginning in 1828, he published a number of his own compositions, most of which, like the rest of his oeuvre, were contributions to the lyric vocal repertoire. In the end, he would compose over 330 lieder, notably the Ironischen Lieder; ten operas, including Turandot (1838) and Jeanne d'Arc (1840); and about twenty quartets, in both sacred and secular settings." (Wikipedia)
















The New Europeans are coming, the New Europeans are coming ... and they are not afraid of Western classical music!!

*

Bonus Quote for the Day:

"I don't think there is much American music."
Sir Harrison Birtwistle

Photo credits: (c) Courtesy of the Austrian Cultural Forum and the Royal String Quartet, Warsaw, Poland. All rights reserved. With thanks.

Originally from Renaissance Research, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 05:20 PM | Comments (0)

Combining Four-letter Words: Oboe + Blog

Part One: BASE + BALL, DIES + IRAE, HIP + HOP

I received an email about my post In Which David Is Confused By The Second Coming. This concerned a piece of hip-hop music, The Second Coming by Juelz Santana, which quotes the Dies Irae. It was used in a television commercial for basketball shoes. I can tell you, it confused the hell out of me when I first heard it.

That post has gotten more hits than any Mixed Meters post ever. When you're one of the first to write online about a subject many people are actually interested in, I guess that's what happens. This wave of hits rose up and carried Mixed Meters along for a while, giving me a whole new understanding of the phrase "Surfing the Internet".

Anyway - like I was saying...

I received an email about my post about Nike/Dies Irae/Juelz Santana from Susan Spector. Susan plays oboe at the Met in New York City. That means she wears black clothing and sits in the big hole in front of the stage where only people in the first few rows can see her. Here is her picture from her blog Perfect Pitch showing the proper way to hold an oboe. What a grip.

Obviously a blog called Perfect Pitch is about BASEBALL Duh. Specifically her blog is about her team, the Mets. Susan is a big fan of the Mets.

Let's review: Susan plays at the Met and she roots for the Mets. What were the chances?

What brings

• Hip Hop and
• Baseball and the
  
• Dies Irae and an
  
• Opera Orchestra Oboist

all together in one post? I'm glad you asked.

Well, The Second Coming, that same music from the Nike commercial, is being used to rouse the Mets fans into something approaching excitement at their home games. Susan's first reaction, not unlike mine, was confusion. She has a good deal more to say about The Second Coming story and the meaning of the Dies Irae. Read her Perfect Pitch Post entitled Day of Wrath here.

Part Two: RICH + POOR, FEMALE + CRITIC, MUSIC + DANCE, POLITE + PEOPLE

In a more recent MM post Rich Critic, Poor Critic, I asked whether there were any female music critics out there. Another blogging-oboist (or oboe-playing-blogger), Patty Mitchell of OboeInsight, added a comment alerting me to the history of female music critics in the Bay Area. She also mentioned NY Times' critic Anne Midgette. Thanks Patty.

(Later without any help I remembered music critic Donna Perlmutter here in Southern California.)

In Patty's blog I found this article entitled To: Guy Who Screamed Obscentities at the Ballet the Other Night which links to a too-good-to-pass-up story told in this Craigslist posting.

Here's a sample.

It was then you yelled, in your beautiful gray-haired old crotchety man voice, "WILL YOU PEOPLE SIT DOWN AND LET THE *POLITE* PEOPLE SHOW THEIR APPRECIATION?!," slight pause, "YA ASSHOLES!"

Just read the whole thing for yourself. Gentility lives at the Ballet. At least the recent fist fight in Boston was at a Pops concert.


PART THREE: DEATH + MUSIC, CHAMBER + NIGHTCLUB, THEN + NOW

On Sunday, June 24, at my local Pasadena Starbucks I picked up an abandoned copy of the New York Times Arts & Leisure section. The featured column one article was "Music That Thinks Outside the Chamber". I read a the first few paragraphs finding these striking quotes:

...an acquaintance informed him that the two most boring words in the English language were "chamber music."

...for many people, chamber music is dead.

"Wow" I thought. "I wonder whose article this is."

I looked for a by-line. It was by none other than Anne Midgette. Since the death of classical music is turning out to be a frequent Mixed Meters theme I read on. A couple more paragraphs and I found this:

"At the moment supply outstrips demand," said John Steinmetz, a bassoonist and composer active in the chamber music field.

"Double Wow" I thought. John Steinmetz has been a close friend of mine for many decades. He and I were students together at Cal Arts, co-founders of the chamber ensemble X-tet, frequent performers of one anothers music and, these days, close neighbors (if only by the loose standards of Southern California geography). And here he was being quoted on the front page of the NYT Arts section above the fold. Way to go, John.

"I'd better read this entire article." my thoughts concluded.

(For those of you wonder "What's a Bassoon?" imagine four oboes laid end to end and twisted around the body of the performer. This picture shows a somewhat younger John Steinmetz playing one.)


Anne Midgette's article dealt mainly with people playing chamber music in "non traditional spaces" Um, that means "bars".

Fine. Let's give this idea another try. In 1976, when John and I were studying at Cal Arts, the chamber ensemble Tashi (including my clarinet teacher Richard Stoltzman) played The Quartet For The End of Time at the Bottom Line in New York City. That concert was big news back then. Yep. And it really changed everything in the world of chamber music. Nothing's ever been the same since.

Apparently Anthony Braxton shared the bill with Tashi at the Bottom Line.





Oboe+Blog Tags: Perfect Pitch. . . OboeInsight. . . Juelz Santana. . . The Second Coming. . . baseball. . . nike. . . The Mets. . . Metropolitan Opera. . . female music critic. . . Anne Midgette. . . chamber music. . . death of chamber music. . . non traditional spaces. . . Susan Spector. . . Patty Mitchell. . . John Steinmetz. . . Richard Emmet. . . Frank Zappa. . . Tashi

The "Beats The Hell Outa Playing the Oboe" picture came from Roboflutist

Another MM post, entitled Who Is Weiden-Kennedy Anyway?, about a different Nike television commercial which used religious-themed classical music to sell basketball shoes.

Here's an article about the 2008 reunion of Tashi.

The picture of Richard Emmet, John Steinmetz, Frank Zappa and myself - and others like it - can be found on Richard Emmet's website.

X-tet's website can be found here.

John Steinmetz's website can be found here. He has been mentioned previously in Mixed Meters here and here. The little metal rat sculpture was given to me by John years ago. You'll have to ask him what it signified and why he wanted me to have it.

Originally from Mixed Meters, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 05:20 PM | Comments (0)

Britten in Iran

Noise's Iranian correspondent reports that last weekend the Tehran Youth Chamber Orchestra played a program of Veracini, Vivaldi, Bach, and, of all people, Benjamin Britten — his Simple Symphony.

Originally posted by Alex Ross from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 05:19 PM | Comments (0)

I-65 epilogue

Here is a belated follow-up to last week's column on the orchestras of Indianapolis, Nashville, and Alabama. Each ensemble's website is well stocked with information on its doings, so there's not much to add there. But I'd like to say a little more about other orchestras that I explored online and would like to have seen live.

One is the Redwood Symphony, a volunteer orchestra based in the Silicon Valley area. As I mention in the piece, this has to be one of the only community orchestras in the country that has performed all of Mahler's symphonies, including the Eighth. It has also lately essayed such challenging repertory as the Sibelius Sixth Symphony, Berio's Rendering, Ives's Fourth, and Copland's Third. Eric Kujawsky, the Redwood's conductor, sent me a couple of sample CDs, and I was particularly impressed by the energy of the playing on the all-American disc. To produce the famous hammerblows in Mahler's Sixth, incidentally, the orchestra deployed a large wooden box that matched Mahler's original specifications.

I'd also like to cite imaginative programming at the South Dakota Symphony, the Duluth-Superior Symphony, the Albany Symphony (which puts to shame better-known ensembles in its promotion of new and American music), the Pacific Symphony, and the Kansas City Symphony (which, as PlaybillArts reports, is doing exceptionally well at the box office). Anyone who believes that orchestras outside the so-called Big Five or Big Ten — increasingly ill-defined and unhelpful categories — play nothing but warhorses and pops programs should take a close look at some of these season listings. Many others are worthy of mention; some are listed in this PlaybillArts piece on ASCAP's adventurous programming awards.

A little litany often accompanies articles on the ups and downs of the orchestra business: "...ageing subscribers, dwindling audiences, orchestras folding left and right." The ageing of the subscriber base is not in question, although whether the cohort has precipitously aged in the last ten or fifteen years, as Greg Sandow has often suggested, is a matter of debate. Greg has statistics suggesting that the median age of the orchestra public was much lower back in the thirties and forties. I don't doubt it. But let's not overlook the ageing trend of the sixties — a fairly sudden development that led to a flurry of classical doomsaying circa 1970. Philip Hart's 1973 book Orpheus in the New World has a couple of pages on this issue. He writes: "...the symphony audience is older than either the urban population or the performance arts audience in general." And he cites a 1970 study by a University of Washington marketing class that showed 48% of Seattle Symphony subscribers to be fifty or older. Nonetheless, I don't wish to sound a complacent note here; I believe that orchestras must work hard to cultivate new listeners. Many orchestras would send out self-congratulatory press releases if they could match the demographics of the Seattle in 1970.

As for "folding orchestras," it's good to be wary of that much-used phrase and its variations. Six orchestras folded in the 2002-3 season, raising alarms that a wave of bankruptcies was about to sweep the nation. Drew McManus is the only person I know who has bothered to follow up on the fates of the ensembles in question. As he shows, the Colorado Springs Symphony has become the Colorado Springs Philharmonic; the San Antonio Symphony is back in service, though chronically underfunded; the San Jose Symphony has become Symphony Silicon Valley; and the Tulsa Philharmonic has given way to the Tulsa Symphony. This leaves two orchestras, the Florida Philharmonic and the Savannah Symphony, which have not been replaced. But it should be noted that the Savannah Sinfonietta is serving that gracious town with some very attractive-looking chamber-orchestra programming. And Orchestra Miami is set to fill the void created by the somewhat mysterious demise of the Florida Philharmonic.

In short, life goes on.

Originally posted by Alex Ross from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 05:19 PM | Comments (0)

Generalization of the day

My wife works for Harvard, so we get Harvard magazine in the mail, sixty or so glossy pages recounting fabulous adventures of faculty and alumni. Anyway, this month brings a half-page of pithy remarks culled from a confab with John Adams, who picked up the Harvard medal for the Arts this year, including this one:

Harmony is where the psychological meaning of the music is. [Twelve-tone composers] wrote atonal music, and at the same time Duke Ellington, Richard Rodgers, and George Gershwin were having a fine time with harmony.

Here's a fun game: try and come up with a context in which this out-of-context remark doesn't imply that, say, the Berg Violin Concerto contains no harmony. (Or the Lyric Suite, for that matter.) How about Martin? Henze? I'm spending the week walking orchestration students through a section of Dallapiccola's Variazioni that's nothing but harmonic progressions. And those are just the composers, who, off the top of my head, seem to put their primary emphasis on harmony. Triads are nice, but there's more than one way to meaningfully stack up those notes.

Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 05:19 PM | Comments (0)

Arguments, agreements, advice, answers, articulate announcements

On the heels of research that shows that music you find pleasant does, in fact, reduce pain (although, given what I find "pleasant," I'm going to need a private hospital bed) comes this bit of fun: "Musical Intervals in Speech," by Duke University neuroscientists Deborah Ross, Jonathan Choi, and Dale Purves. Ross et al. analyzed the vowel formants of everyday speech and found, more often than not, that the frequency relationships correspond to the intervals of the 12-note chromatic scale.

To test the hypothesis that chromatic scale intervals are specifically embedded in the frequency relationships in voiced speech sounds (i.e., phones whose acoustical structure is characterized by periodic repetition), we analyzed the spectra of different vowel nuclei in neutral speech uttered by adult native speakers of American English, as well as a smaller database of Mandarin.
...
... [We calculated] the distribution of all F2/F1 ratios derived from the spectra of the 8 different vowels uttered by the 10 English-speaking participants (i.e., the relationships in 1,000 utterances of each of the vowels). Sixty-eight percent of these ratios fall on intervals of the chromatic scale (red bars), and all 12 chromatic intervals are represented over a span of 4 octaves.

In other words, the 12-note scale isn't so arbitrary after all. Interestingly, there's preference for tuning systems in speech as well:

In so far as the observations here inform this argument, the observed ratios in speech spectra accord most closely with a just intonation tuning system. Ten of the 12 intervals generated by the analysis of either English or Mandarin vowel spectra are those used in just intonation tuning, whereas 4 of the 12 match the Pythagorean tuning and only 1 of the 12 intervals matches those used in equal temperament. The two anomalies in our data with respect to just intonation concern the minor second and the tritone.

That minor-second/tritone anomaly brings up a good chicken-egg question, given that composers who work with more chromatic than diatonic sounds tend not to explore alternate tunings so much: does a preference for crunchy dissonance mean that just intonation sounds "wrong"? Or is it that, in our predominantly equal-temperament world, it's those clashing seconds that sound the most "natural," so that's where the preference comes from? As someone who likes the sound of diatonic music in pure ratios, but opts for equal-tempered dissonance in my own, I'm inclined towards the latter, but I would imagine this is a highly personal impression.

Anyway, turns out Harold Hill was right: singing is just sustained talking.

Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 05:19 PM | Comments (0)

How to Put Your Cart Before Your Horse

"Although periodic sound stimuli arise from a variety of natural sources, conspecific vocalizations are the principal source of periodic sound energy that humans have experienced over both evolutionary and individual time (1–3). It thus seems likely that the human sense of tonality and preferences for the specific tonal intervals are predicated on some aspect of speech." -- "Musical intervals in speech", Deborah Ross, Jonathan Choi, and Dale Purves, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America, Vol. 104, No. 23.

It could also seem likely that the human sense of tonality derives from the natural series of overtones, no? The thrust of the paper's argument is that the chromatic 12-note scale is readily indentifiable in speech patterns.

In a more current issue of the same journal, Dan Dediu & Robert Ladd point to strong evidence that tonality in language is a genetic phenomenon. Might a future study find a similar genetic marker for the 12-tone patterns Ross, Choi and Purves discovered? Probably.

But if found, does that genetic marker really signify anything? The next puzzle will be to figure out who put it there: God or Evolution. In other words, are we hard-wired to reflect the overtone series in our speech or is that a trick we picked up when our tails dropped off?

After that, we'll have to figure out why we still think the Spice Girls are great, and are thrilled at the thought of their reunion.

Originally posted by jodru from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 05:18 PM | Comments (0)

Stockhausen and the future(ists) (part 4 of 4)

If one were to pick an object of the world and express what that object means to us in the human experience we could see more clearly how the work of Stockhausen and the Futurists relate. For example, when a Futurist wishes to express a table he or she would immediately want to know how the table would move, or under what circumstances it would move and it would show the entire movement of that table in one flat space. Simultaneity might also provoke a Futurist artist to express other things moving in relation to the table at the same time. Stockhausen can view this table with the knowledge gained in the last fifty years. The atomic age lets us know that the table is no longer merely a table but it is an object which is composed of millions of atomic materials in constant motion. If all materials are composed of fundamental elements it is possible to imagine that object being transformed into a different object with the elements added, subtracted, or rearranged. In other words the Futurists might want to exhibit the simultaneous motion of a train smashing through the table with passengers dining comfortably on similar tables in their cabins, and Stockhausen could conceivably express a transformation from the table into the locomotive itself. The Futurists idea of simultaneity is the expression of the movement of the table and its modern environment at the same time. Stockhausen’s idea of expressing simultaneity is to express the table becoming the environment, or perhaps to show various degrees of the elements between the table and its environment. Stockhausen’s music is often essentially a decomposition or deconstruction of melodic and harmonic elements and new permutations of these elements. Using electronics he can create these permutations almost infinitely in ways the human body can not comprehend without the knowledge of mechanical or electronic devices.


Karlheinz Stockhausen’s work can clearly be seen as an extension of the Futurist aesthetic that motivates us towards thinking above and beyond the limitations of our natural body. They both use a simultaneous expression of time that is free of the body’s limitations, they both believe in the potency of the future compared to the latent perceptions of the past, and they both rely on the machine’s ability to do what the body naturally cannot. Stockhausen has similar views of expressing the simultaneity of the human experience and the relationship between man and machine but he applies what we have learned from science and technology in the last fifty years. Stockhausen shares the Futurists’ wish to “hurl their defiance to the stars,” and proclaim the age of the machine as a necessary step in human evolution. He also uses technology to heighten our perception of the world and escape from what he calls the prison of our organic limitations.


It is a constant desire of mankind to learn as much as we can about the world and it is also the constant need of the artist to express our experiences. Therefore it is inevitable that the learning and the expressing combine to push mankind further in its evolution. Both the Futurists and Stockhausen struggle with the possibility of escape and transcendence from the limitations that were imposed upon us from birth, and both wish to express the possibility of a malleable reality which would allow us to evolve into a freer and more perfect entity.



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Originally posted by dolf from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 05:18 PM | Comments (0)

Film Fang Foom

Summer here in the Twin Cities means heat and humidity coupled with swarms of flesh perforating insects, all downside to a state with seasonal temperature differentials that reach as high as 120° F. One of the positives to that...

Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)

Coming up and the Bohemian National Home

From Detroit’s Bohemian National Home:

Saturday, June 23: Fiberglass Freakout 2007
Straight-up Detroit style rock and roll, featuring: Bad Faces Clan, Friends Of Dennis Wilson, Wildcatting, The Pizazz, The Amnio Acids, The Questions, The Birddogs, and Heroes and Villains. Doors at 8:00 pm; $7.

6/29 secret party…
6/30 Shadiamond Le Freedom and Paradise
9/4 Keefe Jackson’s Fast Citizens
9/6 Eye Contact

9/14 & 9/15: Eugene Chadbourne and Jimmy Carl Black
10/3 Magik Markers
10/8 Rempis Percussion Quartet
10/19 Trevor Watts and Jamie Harris- early show

Bohemian National Home
3009 Tillman, Detroit 48216
313 737 6606

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

Ken Vandermark, Tim Daisy at the USC School of Music Recital Hall

This upcoming show is previewed:

Ken Vandermark, Tim Daisy — USC School of Music Recital Hall: Tuesday, July 3

In a sense, jazz music has been dumbed down by being academically intellectualized — the emphasis (or over-emphasis, perhaps) on theory has stagnated creation and innovation, yielding compositions that are either painfully intellectual academic headaches or abhorrently insipid elevator-music butt-jazz. What you essentially have is innovation for innovation’s sake co-existing with tradition for tradition’s sake — and either is equally boring. Make no mistake — there’s plenty of theory involved in avant-garde jazz, especially improvisational avant-garde jazz — but avant-garde jazz, and free jazz especially, is the punk rock of jazz music: loud, aggressive, dissonant and full of sound and fury. And while some avant-garde’s musicians get lost trying to reinterpret jazz in a “post-modern context,” the geniuses remember that the most excitement and greatest joy isn’t in the destination; the reward comes from the adventure — the thrill of the hunt, if you will.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

Bagatellen Reviews

From Bagatellen:

Nagl, Bernstein, Akchoté, Jones - Big Four Live - 28 Jun 07
MIMEO - Sight - 28 Jun 07

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

AAJ Reviews

From AAJ:

29-Jun-07 Lydian Sound Orchestra
Back to Da Capo (Alma Music (Italy))

29-Jun-07 Andy milne
Andy Milne: M-Base & Dapp Theory Radical Unplugged

29-Jun-07 The Nels Cline Singers
Draw Breath (Cryptogramophone)

29-Jun-07 Underground Jazz Trio
Radio Free Europa (Leo Records)

28-Jun-07 simakDialog
Patahan (Moonjune Records)

27-Jun-07 Adam Lane
Adam Lane & Ken Vandermark: 4 Corners and New Magical Kingdom (Clean Feed Records)

27-Jun-07 Jason Smith
Tipping Point (Moonjune Records)

27-Jun-07 Alessandro Bosetti
Her Name (Crouton Music)

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

ICP Orchestra at the Ottawa Jazz Festival

This week’s ICP show is reviewed.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

Musique Machine Reviews

From Musique Machine:

Ov - Noctilucent Valleys
Noctilucent Valleys submerges the listener in heady and psychedelic world made up of synth drone craft, lo-grade electro beatscapes, free form folk/ improvised rock traces , with the odd touches of dreamy & hazed of male & female vocals here and there.

Jazkamer - Balls the Size of Texas,Liver the Size of Brazil
This really revels in screwing with your perception of it, firstly the title suggest head-ripping noise or staged and cocky rock, This is neither. Secondly with the Jazhamer name attached to it one would expect a real noisy afair, though there are noise elements here that certainly is not the predominate sound strain .

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

music by john cage and morton feldman

John Cage: Music for Keyboard 1935–1948
Jeanne Kirstein, prepared piano, piano, and toy piano

Morton Feldman: The Early Years
David Tudor, Morton Feldman, Edwin Hymovitz, Russell Sherman, pianos; Matthew Raimondi, Joseph Rabushka, violins; Walter Trampler, viola; Seymour Barab, cello

New World Records
This is a 2-CD release of a historic recording of early music by Cage and Feldman. Even though I already own a lot of this music (this is something the fourth version of Cage’s Bacchanale that I have on my iPod), these represent important early performances from Columbia Record’s “Music of Our Time” series that was overseen by David Behrman. The Feldman CD represents a 1959 LP that served as the first major recording of his music. The Cage CD is from another LP that contains classic performances by Jeanne Kirstein.

The Cage CD contains the following:

Two Pieces, Metamorphosis, Bacchanale, The Perilous Night, Tossed As It Is Untroubled, A Valentine Out of Season, Root of an Unfocus, Two Pieces for Piano, Prelude for Meditation, Music for Marcel Duchamp, Suite for Toy Piano, Dream

The Feldman CD consists of:

Piece for Four Pianos, Intersection 3 for Piano, Extensions 4 for Three Pianos, Two Pieces for Two Pianos, Projection 4 for Violin and Piano, Structures for String Quartet, Extensions 1 for Violin and Piano, Three Pieces for String Quartet

A few comments about selected tracks—all of the performances of Cage’s piano and prepared piano works are outstanding. While there’s a lot to be said for Markus Hinterhauser’s performances of many of these works on his CD set of Cage’s works for prepared piano, Kirstein’s performances are similarly inspired, and are said to have been highly regarded by Cage himself.

I was particularly interested in hearing the recording of Feldman’s Piece for Four Pianos. This is one of Feldman’s most noteworthy works, in which the four pianos paly the same notes but on their own time frames, and this means that each performance is particularly unique. I own a recording by Le Bureau des Pianistes that is amazingly beautiful, and clocks in at just over 16 minutes. This recording by David Tudor, Russell Sherman, Edwin Hymovitz and Morton Feldman is less than half the length of my other recording, and is very different in other ways as well. Yet it is just as valid and captivating. Similarly, I have recordings of Structures and Three Pieces for String Quartet by the Concord and Rangzen Quartets respectively, and these are captivating performances. The recordings on the New World CD by a string quartet consisting of Matthew Raimondi, Joseph Rabushka, Walter Trampler and Seymour Barab are different in some ways but offer a different sonic experience. The repetitive section with mostly string harmonics in Structures is perhaps better accentuated in the New World CD performance. The included performance of Projection 4 by Matthew Raimondi and David Tudor is as definitive as that of the recent recording by Christina Fong and Paul Hersey on OgreOgress.

So even if you might have some or all of these works on other recordings, this is a very special 2-CD set, both from historic and listening perspectives.

Originally posted by David Toub from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 05:01 AM | Comments (0)

music by kraig grady

Beyond the Windows Perhaps Among the Podcorn

Jessica Catron/cello, Elizabeth Schenck/saxophones, Sara Schoenbeck/bassoon, Tara Tavi/voice, Kris Tiner/trumpet, Mia Doi Todd/voice

Transparency Records

Upfront confession: I had no expectations from this album whatsoever, and had a preconceived notion that I wouldn’t like it. I have to say that from moment one, this album blew me away. The piece is nearly an hour long and consists of sustained tones in just intonation by winds, voice and cello. While the piece owes a lot to La Monte Young, of course, there are no prolonged silences (at least none that I could detect). Even more amazing is the fact that other than the cello, all of the instruments require breathing (including the voices), yet the tones are sustained for very prolonged periods. I’ve read something that suggests some overdubbing was done, but even so, this is quite a performance feat.

If you hate postminimalist music in just intonation, this album isn’t for you—go back to something safe. But if this stuff is as much your taste as it is mine, then this is a great CD to listen to. My only complaint about this album is the absolute lack of liner notes—the only reason I know anything about the composer is through the Web. I’d like to hear more of Kraig Grady’s music, and suspect many others will as well once they hear this album.

Originally posted by David Toub from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 05:01 AM | Comments (0)

Nagl, Bernstein, Akchoté, Jones - Big Four Live

hatOLOGY 637 Big Four borrows its name and basic structure for a somewhat counter-intuitive antiquated source. In March of 1940, Sidney Bechet and Mugsy Spanier entered a studio with a guitarist and bassist as conscripts, cutting eight seminal sides...

Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 05:01 AM | Comments (0)

Busier than before

Listen here:

Subscribe here:

This is a work in progress...

Trying to get the repetitions to work.

Originally from Podcast Bumper Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 02:02 AM | Comments (0)

MIMEO - Sight

Cathnor Cath004 I don’t guess it’s necessary to rehash the particulars behind this recording; hard to imagine anyone with even a passing interest not being well aware of how “Sight” got to be that way. I’ll only pause to...

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

RIP Barry Beyerstein

Originally from Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 02:01 AM | Comments (0)

Ornette Coleman & Andrew Hill Win Big in 2007 Jazz Journalists' Awards

Ornette Coleman and the late Andrew Hill were the two big winners of the 2007 Awards of the Jazz Journalists' Association.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2007 at 02:00 AM | Comments (0)

June 28, 2007

R. Timothy Brady co-winner of Opera Vista competition

 
Atlanta composer R. Timothy Brady emerged as a co-winner of the first annual Opera Vista Festival competition this past week with his new 40-minute chamber opera Edalat Square.

Opera Vista, a Houston-based organization dedicated to new opera, hosted the Festival, which took place from June 21-24, 2007 at the Barnevelder Arts Complex in Houston, Texas. After a professional jury winnowed down the number of contestants and operas to five, the Festival audience was called upon to select the winning work by vote, based upon live performances of 15-minute excepts from each. The result was a tie between Brady's Edalat Square and Soldier Songs by New Jersey composer David T. Little.

"We counted the votes numerous times (because it was rather incredible)," said Opera Vista's artistic director Viswa Subbaraman in an public message to the Orchestralist online discussion group. "They both received exactly the same number of votes!" As a result, both winning operas will be performed fully staged during the 2008 Opera Vista Festival.

The complete Edalat Square received its premiere April 15th of this year at Emory University, where Brady (b. 1985 in Atlanta) studied composition with John Anthony Lennon and graduated cum laude this year with a B.A. in music composition.

The composer offered the Festival the following synopsis:

"Darkness and despair, disguised as piety and righteousness, descend from atop the minarets of the mosques, consuming those who seek hope through the light of God. On July 19, 2005 in Edalat Square, Iran, Mahmoud Asgari (17) and Ayaz Marhoni (16) were hanged for the crime of lavaat (sex between two men). Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, an estimated 4,000 people have been executed for lavaat. Inspired by the circumstances surrounding the execution of Mahmoud and Ayaz, the soul of Edalat Square emerges from the poetic essence of the Sufi mystics—emerging from silence and meditation, melody and prayer. Disturbed by a crisis in Islam, the soul awakens..."

Houston Press critic D.L. Groover reviewed the Festival competition in an article published Thursday (28 June, 2007), which can be found online here at www.houstonpress.com.

In his review, Groover called Eladat Square both "the most adventurous of the lot—in both music and libretto" and "poignant, highly poetic."

R. Timothy Brady (who, by the way, is not to be confused the Canadian composer/guitarist Tim Brady) offers on his MySpace Music page a clip from the evocative multi-track pre-recorded vocal opening of the opera ("Preview" in the audio samples list) and a short radio interview with WABE-FM's Wanda Temko, recorded and broadcast prior to the work's Emory premiere.

For more information about Opera Vista, go to www.operavista.org

—Mark Gresham, composer/music journalist • 28 June 2007

[NOTE: This article by Mark Gresham is cross-posted from his EarRelevant blog.]
 

Originally from Atlanta Composers Blog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 11:02 PM | Comments (0)

Don't Beat Yourself Up

Do you have to struggle during the compositional process in order to create something musically worthwhile?

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

Marquette Interchange

Milwaukee, Wisconsin has joined the illustrious roll of American metropolises that have screwed over their classical radio listeners. WFMR is now—and I'm so glad I'm typing this on an empty stomach—"smooth jazz," as a series of format changes left the city without its daily ration of Dave Koz, and, well, somebody's got to fill that painful void, right? The Journal-Sentinel's Tim Cuprasin explains:

It's part of a chain reaction that started with WKTI-FM (94.5) dumping its morning show to target younger listeners, which led WJZI-FM (93.3) to drop smooth jazz to target disenfranchised WKTI listeners.

Now it's WFMR's turn. General manager Tom Joerres explains that the switch came because of the "opportunity" presented by WJZI's format flip.

You seize that opportunity, Tom! At this rate, all the stations in Milwaukee will keep grabbing each others' sloppy seconds until the the median demographic is about four years old.

Just last June, Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett had proclaimed "WFMR Day" in honor of the 50th anniversary of the station, which had, with but one brief interruption, managed to keep classical programming going through a maze of frequency and ownership changes. I'm guessing you can probably pick up that proclamation for yourself if you make Joerres a good enough offer. You Milwaukeeans should be more careful with your civic institutions: the Brewers are having their best season since 1982. The last thing they need is a curse.

Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 07:40 PM | Comments (0)

The Thrill of the Hunt - Free Times

The Thrill of the Hunt Free Times, SC - 3 hours ago Yes, avant-garde jazz is notoriously and archetypically difficult music, but remember that the journey is more important than the destination. ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 07:40 PM | Comments (0)

ICP'S New Dutch Swing takes jazz past its roots - Georgia Straight

ICP'S New Dutch Swing takes jazz past its roots Georgia Straight, Canada - 1 hour ago If any individual embodies the spirit of the Dutch avant-garde, it would have to be Mengelberg–the leader of the ICP, assuming this tribe of anarchists can ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 07:40 PM | Comments (0)

Music Choices - Georgia Straight

Music Choices Georgia Straight, Canada - 2 hours ago With avant-garde maestro Paul Plimley playing piano for the MHAE, listeners can expect a wild ride into new sonic skies on the back of a dragon. ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 07:39 PM | Comments (0)

Bruno Maderna the composer

My recent post about the BBC Legends release of Bruno Maderna conducting Mahler's Ninth Symphony attracted a lot of readers. So it is good to see a new CD of Maderna's music on the Vienna based Col Legno label. The new release features Maderna's three oboe concertoes played by Fabian Menzel with Michael Stern conducting the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra. In my post I wrote: 'I can...express the hope that we may see a revival of interest in Maderna the composer as well as Maderna the conductor'. Looks like it could be happening.

For more on Maderna on the path visit The Year is '72.
Photo shows Bruno Maderna (centre) in 1958 with two other important contemporary composers - Pierre Boulez (left) and Karlheinz Stockhausen (right), credit Drammaturgia.it. 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 Jun 28, 2007 at 05:38 PM | Comments (0)

Cue the Tenor

So, the wonderful Serbian film director Emir Kusterica’s new opera Time of the Gypsies (based on his zany film of the same name) opened last night in Paris.  Woody Allen is directing Puccini and David Cronenberg is prepping The Fly for L.A.  Anthony Minghella, Michael Haneke, Zhang Yimou. What is happening here? Have we run out of opera directors? Have film directors done operas in the past? Are opera companies just hoping that a high profile director can pack the seats?

Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)

Is Phoenix ready for The Grateful Dead?

By Matthew Heil
Public Relations Manager

It may well be where The Phoenix Symphony has never gone before: a Pops concert of Grateful Dead songs. The Russian National Orchestra just released a CD of work based on the rock group's counter-culture music. The Phoenix Symphony isn't a stranger to adaptations of contemporary rockers, though not perhaps to this degree.. Just this past season alone the orchestra performed with a Beatles tribute band, and turned out to rock with Live Nation's presentation of Led Zeppelin music. But is Jerry Garcia's artistic interesting to a classical audience? I guess we'll see how the new recording is received! For more about the new enterprise in genre-blending, see the San Francisco Chronicle article.

Originally from SoundPost - The Phoenix Symphony, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

Naming of Parts

The quote of the day is from Edmund Wilson's To the Finland Station, his survey of the intellectual precursors of Marxism-Leninism, about the 19th-century French historian Jules Michelet, author of the momumental Histoire du France:

One remarkable device of Michelet's has since been exploited and made famous by the novelist Marcel Proust.... The more important actors in Michelet's history often produce sharply varying impressions as they are shown us at different ages and in different situations—that is, each is made to appear at any given moment in the particular role that he is playing at the moment, without reference to the roles he is later to play. Michelet explains what he is doing at the end of the fifth book of the Revolution—"History is time," he says; and this evidently contributed in Proust's case, along with other influences such as Tolstoy, to his deliberate adoption of that method of presenting his characters in a series of dramatically contrasting aspects by which he produces the effect of the long lines on economics charts fluctuating back through time.

If you're like me, first of all, my condolences, and second of all, then this passage made you think of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Much is made of that work's various "transformations" of the opening rhythmic Morse-code "V" motif, but really, they're not so much transformed as just presented in different surroundings that create the sense of the motif having undergone some crucial change. This is a common enough occurrence in Romantic music—think of the Liszt Sonata in b minor, or the opening and closing of Schumann's Frauenliebe und -Leben, or the idée fixe in Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, to name some more famous examples—that it's not unreasonable to point to a common Romantic idea as the conscious or unconscious spur to the technique in both its literary and musical guises: the notion that there's something about human behavior and human nature that's essentially irrational and unknowable, that the Enlightenment idea of a clear, understandable chain of causality and motivation is a naïve illusion.

But it seems to me that the "thematic tranformation" shorthand we use for this is misleading. It's not what changes about the motif that's important, it's what stays the same, at least from a Romantic standpoint. If a theme is transformed organically and clearly such that it ends up a materially different theme, then, in this sense, it's a Classical influence—the knowable process—rather than a Romantic one—the unknowable leap. And yet we associate the whole idea of "thematic transformation" primarily with Romantic composers.

This is a retrospective association. Take Schoenberg's 1933 essay "Brahms the Progressive." Schoenberg is using the example of Brahms to expain his own preference for developing, non-repeating melody. He traces examples of irregular, asymmetrical melodies and phrases from Mozart through to his own work, with a special emphasis on Brahms. The analysis is all on the level of gradual transformations of motives within the melody.

The most important capacity of a composer [Schoenberg writes] is to cast a glance into the most remote future of his themes or motives. He has to be able to know beforehand the consequences which derive from the problems existing in his material, and to organize everything accordingly. Whether he does this consciously or subconsciously is a subordinate matter. [emphasis added]

I would venture that any Romantic thinker would take issue with that last sentence—the difference between conscious and subconscious motivation would have mattered very much indeed to them, with the true artistic impulse being found in the latter. And its the fundamental unknowability of consequences that many of the Romantics considered vital—it's one of the main reasons they considered Shakespeare a kindred spirit. But the point is not that Schoenberg is some sort of hypocritical Romantic, the point is that when we consider atonality and the 12-tone method to be just an outgrowth of late Romanticism, and, in fact, when we consider atonality and the 12-tone method to be the one and the same thing, we blunt the usefulness of a term like "Romanticism" by lumping in music that is philosophically dissonant with some of the movement's most basic premises. And, not incidentally, we're failing to take Schoenberg at his word:

Analysts of my music will have to realize how much I personally owe to Mozart. People who looked unbelievingly at me, thinking I made a poor joke will now understand why I called myself a 'pupil of Mozart', must now understand my reasons.

Schoenberg got it right: serialism is the result of a neo-Classical impulse, not a Romantic one.

This disconnect between the philosphical and artistic terms we most often use to characterize musical styles and the actual non-musical ideas associated with those terms is something I find more amusing than appalling, but it points up the need to be careful not to blithely assume that one leads to another. A lot of the composers we tend to think of as "late Romantic," in particular, were actually after an artistic experience more in the spirit of the Classical era, their Wagnerian vocabulary notwithstanding—Rachmaninoff, for instance, or post-Rosenkavalier Strauss. Conversely, the juxtapositions and surrealist structures of a lot of "neo-Classical" composers (Stravinsky, Satie, Les Six) seem to be more in sympathy with Romantic literary ideas of fragments and non-linear narratives. Names are useful; realities are more interesting.

Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:47 PM | Comments (0)

Vegetable Orchestra

Frank Zappa wrote a song that said “Call any vegetable, call him by name…” The Vegetable Orchestra decided to play any vegetable and regularly bands together to show off the fruits of their labor. They were kind enough to share this video with us.

Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:47 PM | Comments (0)

Stephen Stills: Helplessly Hoping

In my opinion, this is one of Crosby Stills and Nash’s best songs, written by Stephen Stills and on their first album. Stephen Stills, fresh from the Buffalo Springfield, sings the melody on bottom, David Crosby, recently booted from the Byrds, sings the middle voice, and Graham Nash, formerly of the Hollies, sings high tenor.

The song is harmonically noteworthy because it begins on vi, or the submediant, and never really settles down to the tonic until the end of each version. That’s excellent harmonic control.

Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:47 PM | Comments (0)

Clark Gesner: Captain Kangaroo (opening)

In honor of Robert Keeshan and a childhood memory, I post this ancient TV clip. It’s from the opening of Captain Kangaroo, a children’s TV host that I watched faithfully as a boy. I LOVED this part with all the doors. The only part you don’t see here is that when he puts his keys on the hook, the music stops instantly. The music is by Clark Gesner (1938 - 2002) who provided all the incidental music for the series. Gesner studied at Princeton. I can’t help wondering whether he was a student of Professor Babbitt, or a classmate of Sondheim.

Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:46 PM | Comments (0)

The classical impulse

Matthew Guerrieri has a fine meditation on transformations of musical material, and notes correctly that a classical attitude and technique or a romantic attitude and technique does not necessarily coincide with the eras and repertoires of the same name. Indeed, I would trace a classical impulse even further, for example, in the work of Alvin Lucier, in which classicism describes well the aesthetic of clarification essential to his music.

Matthew focuses on Schoenberg's identification of Mozart as a precursor, and I was immediately reminded of Lou Harrison's preface to his his SUITE for Piano, written during his studies with Schoenberg:

In 1942-3 1 was working as a musician and teacher in the Dance Department of the University of California at Los Angeles and had indeed gone there in the hope that I might study, even a little, with Schoenberg. It proved that he was conducting a small seminar on one afternoon each week. I gathered up my courage and applied to his then assistant, Harold Halma, who took me directly to Schoenberg in his study. He had evidently been in deep concentration, and must have been startled, for he physically twitched during the introduction. I was relieved, though, to be accepted.

I was told that he refused to examine any work in "12-tone technique." Firstly, then, I took my Saraband and also my Prelude for Grand Piano and played those for him. He said, in obvious pleasure, "This is music I understand," and, turning, asked my fellow seminarians, "Why do you not bring to me such music?"

Meanwhile, I had been introduced by the lovely dancer Melissa Blake to Peter Yates and his wife, Frances Mullen. We shared intently many musical pleasures and, upon discovering that Frances Mullen was a fine concert pianist and sympathetic to new music, I began to concentrate on this Suite for Piano, to give her. I had composed much of it, and then found that I was composing myself into a corner in III, the Conductus. Emboldened by Schoenberg's own kindnesses, I arrived one afternoon with the work. I supposed that, for my bringing in a 12-tone work, he might throw the three or four of us "out" -- permanently ( as I was told he had done once or twice before in exasperation) -- or that he might throw out at least me. I played the Prelude. There was a rather long moment of silence, and then he asked me, thoughtfully, "Is it 12-tone?" I simply said, "Yes." He reached for the page, saying, "It is good! It is good!" (What a relief! I was not going to be thrown out!) He asked me to continue, and I played Movement II. Again, "It is good! It is good!" He seemed fascinated by the very wide, soft spacing in measures 4-8. By the time I had played to the point of my blockage in Movement III, he plunged directly in, already aware of my structure, and, with splendid illuminating instructions, permanently disposed of for me not only that particular difficulty but also any of the kind that I might ever encounter. Only a few years ago I wrote a sentence, in a paper for the East-West Music Encounter in Tokyo, which suggests something of what 1 felt he was telling me about : ". . . that deft, light musicality which to us ( as musicians) is the very happiest conjunction of our intellect and senses."

If, as I sometimes suspect, I was being "spoofed" about Arnold Schoenberg's patience, then I am nonetheless grateful for that, too, for obvious reasons.

He was a lovely and delicate man, very nervous when airplanes flew over U.C.L.A.; who once hushed us, too, in order to hear a bird outside.

There was more, and much of musical interest. When I was about to leave for New York, he asked me why I was going there and I replied that I did not really know. "I know why you are going," he said. "You are going for fame and fortune. Good luck! And, do not study anymore -- only Mozart!"

Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:46 PM | Comments (0)

Music Cognition Online

No, not a new journal, though that would be so cool. Instead, I offer a blog and a research project. First, the blog, by Henkjan Honing. Henkjan belongs to the Dutch study group that runs those online music listening projects I've posted about before, most recently here. He is also a great guy, very smart, with incredibly interesting hair. Music Matters is his new venture, which looks to be a great resource in music cognition. Plus you can see pictures of adorable babies wired up for reactions to Balkan music.

Second, an experiment being run by MIT's Media Lab. They are examining "the universality of various aspects of music perception," with a test called the Music Universals Study. It takes about 15 minutes to complete.

Originally from Musical Perceptions, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:45 PM | Comments (0)

Standing String Quartet?

Charles Noble wrote a response to a concert that the Emerson Quartet played last week in Carnegie hall with three quarters of their ensemble standing up. It seems that the Emerson Quartet's influence has rubbed off on some of the younger just-out-of-music-school quartets that are cropping up like violets just about everywhere.

To me chamber music, particularly playing string quartets, is a musical experience among equals, and four people sitting together, moving only when necessary, and watching one another's bows and faces, are playing together on a kind of equal turf. The musical product of the group of four has every chance of sounding like a unified sum that is greater than all its parts.

When the group of four stands up they become four standing individuals who each claim their own place on the stage, very much like the way a standing soloist takes a commanding place on the stage. The audience, which reacts physically (we all do) to what it sees as well as what it hears, has its attention pointed towards the players rather than towards the music. It is, as far as I'm concerned, the beginning of the end for any chance of a purely musical experience. What we get is "entertainment."

To me standing to play a string quartet is like standing to eat a meal. Sure, standing makes it possible for upper string players to move around more freely (though Noble said that the Emerson's violinists were kind of stiff), and moving around freely is one of the things that young string quartets are encouraged to do so that they can feel the music, I guess. Standing string quartet players look better as individuals because you can see the actual cut and style of their clothes, and costume is important when you are trying to provide a kind of (often expensive in cities) entertainment in order to compete for the "leisure dollar."

The idea of a string quartet concert as entertainment is a new thing for me. I like listening to string quartets for the music. I like the intimate experience of listening to four people sitting down and playing a piece of music for my enjoyment, my enlightenment, my education at times, and to satisfy my emotional needs. Entertainment I can get from the television.

I certainly hope that this is just a passing fad.

Tags: String Quartets, Emerson Quartet, Classical Music

Originally from Musical Assumptions, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:45 PM | Comments (0)

Counting to Seven

Alex Ross' blog The Rest Is Noise linked to The Juilliard Manuscript Collection.

I spent only five minutes looking at musical manuscripts. It's a very cool and efficient website.

During that 5 minutes I found this mirthful little example from the hand of a famous departed composer. I provide it anonymously because even these 4 little notes are probably an egregious copyright violation.


Since at least one of my three readers is not (much of) a musician, for a mere five dollars I'd be happy to send a free explanation of what is wrong with this particular mixed meter.

Mis-Noted Tags: music notation. . . Juilliard Manuscript Collection. . . musical errors

P.S. Besides telling Viola Jokes, musicians know a few Dancer Jokes. One that I tell is "How does a Dancer count to seven?". Sorry, but the punchline can't be typed, it must be counted out loud.

Originally from Mixed Meters, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:43 PM | Comments (0)

Washing the Ashes from Little Feet

At one in the morning on June 22, we no longer sit on the cusp between spring and summer. The solstice day itself is magical and indeterminate, an end and a beginning--spring, summer, which is it--but by midnight it seems more officially a new season. At one in the morning on June 22, I was still trying to negotiate balance, albeit on the edge of my bathtub, washing dust and ashes from my feet. I had celebrated this year's precarious day of in-between barefoot, inside a mausoleum, playing toy piano and accordion, and cutting moths from natural history texts.

Sidecar performed at Oakland's Chapel of the Chimes and Columbarium on Thursday as part of the Garden of Memory walk-through concert/event. Our set consisted of electronic soundtracks, Anne's recent composition Monoliths (for live and processed voice and electronics), radio feedback play, songs by Charles Ives and Hanns Eisler, and clapping games. This was the first incarnation of The Children's Hour, the show we will be presenting throughout the remainder of the summer. The lighting in our little Chapel of Remembrance--one of hundreds inside Julia Morgan's maze of sacred nooks and crannies--provided the perfect ambiance for our dreamy reimaginings. Were these reimaginings of Ives' song, of our own youth, of eras and childhoods that we did not ever know? Maybe. Perhaps. Yes and no. No and yes.

between the dark and daylight...comes a pause in the day's occupations...flightless...cutting moths from natural history texts...dying moths...making radios squeal and shriek...what if little girls took apart radios instead of dressing and undressing their dollies three...friends or enemies...dying moths...flightless...two little flowers...Edith and Susanna...scissors and radio stations...the children's hour...

I hesitate to write much more about the program or its concept. It would be like saying I Love You too soon--too soon to a new season that only a few days ago was somewhere and something in between. But perhaps I have something to learn from the dirty feet. Kids sit on the cusp all the time, but they are not afraid to leap off with grand, shrieking I Love Yous. Seasons and cusps be damned. The sentiment is sincere. Hmm...

Originally from in the wings, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:42 PM | Comments (0)

Kettle's On

Originally posted by jodru from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:41 PM | Comments (0)

Russolo and Marinetti - men of the future (part 2)

Luigi Russolo was another Italian Futurist who had ideas for Futurism in music. In 1913 he wrote, “We take greater pleasure in ideally combining the noises of trams, explosions of motors, trains, and shouting crowds than in listening again, for example, to the ‘Eroica’ or the ‘Pastorale.’”4 He describes the pleasure of listening to a large modern capital with its “gurglings of water, air, and gas inside metallic pipes, the grumbling of motors that breathe and pulse with an indisputable animality, the throbbing of valves, the rising and falling pisons, the screeching of mechanical saws, the jumping of trams on their rails.”5 Russolo’s idea is to form a new orchestra with a new classification of sounds. Instead of strings, brass, and woodwinds he envisions screams, thumps and explosions. These are sounds of the machine; essentially Russolo was describing a type of electronic music in 1913. The exact technology for performing these sounds was not yet possible but the Futurists envisioned a music that was free of the organic sounds of human performers. Russolo envisioned a new orchestra that would obtain sonic emotions by imitation of life but by a “fantastic association of various timbres and rhythms.”6 Russolo’s idea of Futurist music was the glorification of factory and machine simultaneously using new mechanical sounds as the orchestra of tomorrow. In other words Futurist music was music which neglected the organic human body while reveling in the power technology and its ability to do what the body could no longer match.

Marinetti’s motivation was somewhat political when he founded Italian Futurism; he wanted an Italy free of its archeological sleep and an Italy of vitality. His glorification of the new and avant-garde was a way of drawing attention to the future rather than the past. Neitzsche said, “there can be no nostalgia! No pessimism! There’s no turning back! Boldly, let us advance! Forward! Faster! Further, Higher! Let us lyrically renew our joy in being alive!”7 Like Neitzsche the Futurists believed in the potency of the future. They affirmed that “the future is a malleable entity in perpetual creation and is the only authentic dimension of reality,” and they believed that, “the past does not actually exist except in the memory.”8 What only exists in this latent fraction of the mind cannot be conceived of as reality instead absolute truth was to be found in the future.9 In 1909 Marinetti published the novel Mafarka the Futurist, the story of the birth of a mechanical winged superman. The author created a mythology of the future and set it in the past. This convergence of the past and future allowed the past to exist as a symbol of mysticism and the future to be exalted as the only truth. Marinetti wrote that only the machine could deliver us from our biological and genetic fate and, at the same time, assure the irreversibility of history.

The Futurist’s conception of time is one that further expresses the desire to escape from the human organic body. Futurist artists used simultaneity as the expresses the desire to escape from the human organic body. Futurist artists used simultaneity as the expression of the incredibly complex rhythms of life. Essentially Simultaneity is the perception of many different events and meanings at the same time. Simultaneity is movement beyond the body and a display of all things in the human experience, but exhibiting and comprehending this movement can only truly happen without the limited perceptions of the human body.


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Originally posted by dolf from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:41 PM | Comments (0)

The Great Fugue online

Last year I reported on the Juilliard School's grand unveiling of the much-talked-about manuscript of the four-hand arrangement of Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, alongside dozens of other musicological treasures. Juilliard has now set up a handsome, high-tech website for its manuscript collection. You can roam through masterpieces of ancient and modern music, using zoom features to examine pages closely (for example, to see Leonard Bernstein's cartoons in the margins of his arrangement of Copland's El Salón México). It's hard to think of a comparable site where the working methods of so many great composers are made instantly accessible. This is a magnificent and generous use of digital technology.

Originally posted by Alex Ross from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:41 PM | Comments (0)

THE CITY IS ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF TWO GENTLEMEN'S MUSIC - VUE Weekly

VUE Weekly

THE CITY IS ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF TWO GENTLEMEN'S MUSIC VUE Weekly, Canada - 6 hours ago “It seems to be almost two plays in an almost avant-garde way, but it really is a beautiful play about love and regret and redemption. ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:40 PM | Comments (0)

The Day the Music Dies - SF Weekly

The Day the Music Dies SF Weekly, CA - Jun 26, 2007 Webcasters like Seattle's KEXP and San Francisco's SomaFM are the de facto curators of America's most avant-garde electric art galleries. ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:40 PM | Comments (0)

Matt Shulman: The Next Big Thing - All About Jazz

All About Jazz

Matt Shulman: The Next Big Thing All About Jazz, PA - 6 hours ago He is kind of an obscure, European, avant-garde trombone player. There is a little more room in the mouthpiece and in the tubing, also you can sing with ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:40 PM | Comments (0)

August at the Stone

New York’s Stone has published their August calendar.

August 2007 at the Stone curated by Duck Baker / Eugene Chadbourne

8/1 Wednesday (JC)
8 and 10 pm
Duck Baker, Cyro Baptista, John Zorn and Richard Crandell
Duck Baker (guitar) Cyro Baptista (percussion) John Zorn (sax) and special guest Richard Crandell (mbira, guitar)
Four old friends get together for a wild night of improvisations.

8/2 Thursday (KJ)
8 pm
Mycale: John Zorn’s Book of Angels
Jon Madof (guitars) Ayelet Rose Gottlieb (voice) Basya Schecter (voice) Shanir Blumenkranz (bass)
World premiere of a new Masada vocal project.

10 pm
Rashanim
Jon Madof (guitar) Shanir Blumenkranz (bass) Matthias Küntzli (drums)
The killer Jewish power trio perform music from their newest Tzadik release.

8/3 Friday
8 pm
Sacha Perry Trio
Sacha Perry (piano) Ari Roland (bass) Phil Stewart (drums)
The brilliant young bebop pianist in his first appearance at The Stone.

10 pm
Sacha Perry Trio plus guests
Sacha Perry (piano) Ari Roland (bass) Phil Stewart (drums) and special guests

8/4 Saturday (RK)
8 pm
Duck Baker plays Monk
Duck Baker (guitar)

10 pm
Duck Baker— traditional folk songs/deconstruction and reconstruction
Duck Baker (guitar)

8/5 Sunday (OL)
8 and 10 pm
Vinny Golia Trio
Vinnie Golia (reeds) Harris Eisenstadt (drums) Reuben Radding (bass)

8/7 Tuesday (JC)
8 and 10 pm
Harris Eisenstadt’s Jalolu
Michael Attias (baritone saxophone) Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet) Harris Eisenstadt (drums, compositions) Peter Evans (trumpet, pocket trumpet) Nate Wooley (trumpet)
This performance will feature all-new music inspired by Eisenstadt’s return visit to West Africa in March 2007.

8/8 Wednesday (GG)
8 pm
Duck Baker—original tunes and improvs
Duck Baker (guitar)

10 pm
Duck Baker—a mix of everything and everything else
Duck Baker (guitar)

8/9 Thursday
8 pm
Tim Sparks
Tim Sparks (guitar)

10 pm
Tim Sparks
Tim Sparks (guitar) plus special guests

A NIGHT OF HERBIE NICHOLS
featuring Duck Baker and Eric T. Johnson
The complex and beautiful compositions of the elusive jazzman Herbie Nichols in stunning arrangements for guitar.

8/10 Friday
8 pm
Duck Baker plays the Music of Herbie Nichols
Duck Baker (guitar)

10 pm
Eric T. Johnson Quartet plays the Music of Herbie Nichols
Eric T. Johnson (guitar) Tony Malaby (tenor sax) Mark Helias (acoustic bass)
Tom Rainey (drums)

8/11 Saturday (RK)
8 and 10 pm
Ellery Eskelin with Andrea Parkins and Jim Black
Ellery Eskelin (tenor sax) Andrea Parkins (accordion) Jim Black (drums)

8/12 Sunday (MM)
8 pm
Sylvie Courvoisier Solo
Sylvie Courvoisier (piano)

10 pm
David Fabris
David Fabris (guitar) Geoff Burleson (piano) Maria Tegzes (voice) Jordan Scannella (bass)
Andrew Frawley (drums)
The founder of the Fabulous School of Music in his Stone debut.

8/14 Tuesday
8 pm
Charlie Kohlhase Quintet
Charlie Kohlhase (saxophones) Duck Baker (guitar)

10 pm
harlie Kohlhase’s Explorers’ Club
Charlie Kohlhase (alto, tenor and baritone saxophones) Matt Langley (tenor and soprano saxophones) Jeff Galindo (trombone) Eric Hofbauer (guitar)
Jef Charland (bass) Miki Matsuki, Chris Punis (drum)

8/15 Wednesday (OL)
8 pm
Michael Moore and Duck Baker
Michael Moore (sax and clarinet) Duck Baker (guitar)
The great reedman based in Amsterdam in duo with Duck Baker.

10 pm
Michael Moore and Cody Brown Duo
Michael Moore (sax and clarinet) Cody Brown (drums)
The great reedman based in Amsterdam in duo with a killer drummer.

August 16 to 31
CHADFEST 2007
Dr. Chadbourne comes up from Greensboro for two weeks of madness, horror, humor and political intrigue.

8/16 Thursday (OL)
8 pm
Pops plays Pops I—Fencing (acoustic version)
Eugene Chadbourne (acoustic and electric guitar) Mark Ribot (acoustic and electric guitar) Duck Baker (acoustic and electric guitar)
John Zorn’s classic game piece from 1978 performed by an all-star guitar trio.

10 pm
Pops plays Pops II—Fencing (electric version)
Eugene Chadbourne (acoustic and electric guitar) Mark Ribot (acoustic and electric guitar) Duck Baker (acoustic and electric guitar)
John Zorn’s classic 1978 game piece performed by an all-star guitar trio.

8/17 Friday (OL)
8 pm
Pops Plays Pops III—Eugene Chadbourne plays the solo guitar music of John Zorn
Eugene Chadbourne (acoustic and electric guitar)
Eugene Chadbourne plays from The Book of Heads, a collection of solo guitar etudes written for him in 1978 by John Zorn.

10 pm
Pops plays Pops IV—Eugene Chadbourne plays the solo guitar music of John Zorn
Eugene Chadbourne (banjo)
In the late night hipster’s set, Dr. Chad presents a banjo arrangement of Dominoes, an even earlier solo guitar piece by Zorn which like the Book of Heads was originally written expressly for Chadbourne. First performance in nearly thirty years.

8/18 Saturday (GG)
8 and 10 pm
Improv Night—a Stone Benefit
John Zorn (alto saxophone) Eugene Chadbourne (acoustic and electric guitars, banjo) Richard Baker (acoustic guitar) Timothy Dahl (electric bass) and other special
guests.
Come and support the Stone in 2007. TWENTY DOLLARS

8/19 Sunday (MM)
8 and 10 pm
Eugene Chadbourne and Lukas Ligeti duet
Eugene Chadbourne (acoustic and electric guitars, banjo) Lukas Ligeti (percussion)
This is the first duo meeting of Chadbourne and Ligeti; they played together previously when Ligeti came through Greensboro on a trio tour.

8/21 Tuesday
8 and 10 pm
Leslie Ross solo
Leslie Ross (bassoon, electronics, homemade instruments)
One of New York City’s premier instrument builders and inventors takes charge of The Stone to present her latest projects.

8/22 Wednesday
8 pm
Paul Elwood solo
Paul Elwood (banjo)
A composition teacher at Brevard College in North Carolina, banjoist Elwood has written innovative pieces performed by banjoists such as Tony Trishka and recently recorded a new CD of original songs and ’60s covers with Chadbourne.

10 pm
The Chadbourne Baptist Church
Eugene Chadbourne (electric guitar, banjo and vocals) David Fox (piano) Schroeder (drums) Paul Elwood (banjo)
This group has been an ongoing project since the late ’80s, involving an international cast of musicians and the ever-expanding Chadbourne songbook.

8/23 Thursday
8 and 10 pm
David Fox solo
David Fox (piano)
A music appreciation instructor at Greensboro College, this pianist is a cornerstone of the jazz scene in Greensboro, playing everything from straight jazz in supper clubs to avant garde music with many visiting performers. He has collaborated with Chadbourne on a variety of projects including a duo CD and performances in Chadfest 2006.

8/24 Friday
8 and 10 pm
New Directions in Appalachian Music
Eugene Chadbourne (acoustic guitar and banjo, vocals) Barry Mitterhof (mandolin) Paul Elwood (banjo) Tatsuya Nakatani (percussion) Leslie Ross (bassoon)
Groups functioning under this title use the traditional “oldtime music” songbook as raw material for improvisation.

8/25 Saturday (KT)
8 pm
The Four in One Festival
Eugene Chadbourne (acoustic and electric guitar) Schroeder (percussion) Evan Gallagher (keyboards and percussion) and many other special guests.
This unique event combines four unique compositional events from Chadbourne’s history in one program.

1. The English Channel—Chadbourne’s early ’80s orchestra piece is revisted in reduction form by the duo of Chadbourne and Evan Gallagher

2. Kuboxe—A solo guitar piece written for Chadbourne by Wadada Leo Smith. The title is Swahili for “a wooden box in flames.”

3. Premiere of a newly commissioned piece for Chadbourne from an important New York City composer.

4. Horror Part Two: House by the Cemetery—Chadbourne’s tribute to Italian goremeister Lucio Fulci gets a new face sewn on in a duet arrangement with percussionist Schroeder.

10 pm
Chadbourne/Dahl/Fox/Schroeder Quartet
Eugene Chadbourne (electric guitar and banjo) Timothy Dahl (bass) Schroeder (drums} David Fox (piano)
This new formation combines bassist Dahl of The Hub with Chadbourne and several of his Baptist Church cohorts.

8/26 Sunday (MM)
8 and 10 pm
American premiere: Sacred Insects of Ancient Egypt
Eugene Chadbourne (banjo) Evan Gallagher (computer) Mary Halverson (guitar) Jessica Pavone (viola) Stephanie Rearick (piano) Barry Mitterhof (mandolin)
2004 composition from the Insect and Western series in which players utilize a score consisting of heiroglyphics.

8/28 Tuesday
8 and 10 pm
Stephanie Rearick solo
Stephanie Rearick (piano)
Based in Madison, Wisconsin, Rearick is a highly original pianist and composer whose songs are uniquely influenced by classical composers such as Bartok and Debussy.

August 29, 30 and 31
The Jack and Jim Show
The original drummer in Frank Zappa’s finest version of the Mothers of Invention and a Cheyenne Indian, Jimmy Carl Black is making his first trip back to the USA in nearly a decade. He celebrates his 69th birthday this year, thus Jack and Jim’s “Think 69″ tour. Plus many special guests and some unusual surprises. Wednesday: both sets, Tony Trishka (banjo)

8/29 Wednesday (CB)
8 and 10 pm
The Jack and Jim Show
Eugene Chadbourne (electric guitar, banjo and vocals) Jimmy Carl Black (drums, vocals) Tony Trishka (banjo)

8/30 Thursday (SK)
8 and 10 pm
The Jack and Jim Show
Eugene Chadbourne (electric guitar, banjo and vocals) Jimmy Carl Black (drums, vocals)

8/31 Friday
8 and 10 pm
The Jack and Jim Show
Eugene Chadbourne (electric guitar, banjo and vocals) Jimmy Carl Black (drums, vocals)

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:36 PM | Comments (0)

The Latest From Free Albums Galore

Free Albums Galore has posted a handful of new links.

Ten and Tracer - Baker’s Blood
Genre: Electronica

The Zymogen netlabel continues to release exceptional electronica, usually in the area of experimental and abstract. One of their latest offerings is Ten and Tracer’s Baker’s Blood. The tracks overflow with electronic effects, field recordings, found sounds, and exotic percussion, yet manages to fit together into a tight irresistable groove. My favorite track is “The Church”. It moves along effortlessly daring you to ignore just how complex it really is. “Waltersben” mixes its glitchy beat with a spacy background while “Glad To Generalize With You” has African percussion mixed with sample sounds. “Vintage Airplane - Vintage Man” is the most abstract of the pieces but still mesmerizing in its layers of electronic sounds. There are lots of free electronic albums on the internet, but this is a stand-out effort.

The albums is available in separate tracks or album zip in 256kbps MP3.

Alexei Borisov — two albums
Genre: Avant-Garde, Improvisation, Electronica

Abstract electronics in the realm of the avant-garde is the forte of Russian sound artist Alexei Borisov. Two online albums feature live performances of this creative and sometimes perplexing underground figure.

The appropriately titled Abstractionist features two lengthy tracks of noise and tones. Often the sounds appears to have no real connection and are seemingly random although I suspect this is not the case. “Artworks” is the more abtract piece and requires your full undivided attention to appreciate it. However “Cakeshop” is a little more accessible. A melody can barely be deciphered among the odd electronic drone but even this is soon lost is a bewlidering by fascinating collage of electronics and found sound. This is a challenging but rewarding listen.

Live in Kaliningrad is an hour plus live performance divided into 4 parts. The artist uses fragments of his past recordings, alters them through a laptop and other devices then adds elements of voice, found sounds and other effects. The results remains interesting throughout the perfomance although again it is challenging and may confuse those who are looking for tone and structure. Personally I find it exhilarating when listened to in an quiet and uninterupted environment. My friends often ask me what I see in abstract music such as this. What I see is a way to look at the world in ways I haven’t been able to before. Our consumer society has taught us to accept music as background noise or to view it as a corporate product to use and discard. I urge you to find a quiet room, put on your headphones, and listen to this or one of the other experimental music albums you can find here and give yourself an truly revolutionary experience.

Abstractionist is available in 320kbps MP3 while Live in Kaliningrad is in 192 kbps. If you enjoy the music, you can find more information about his CDs and live shows from his MySpace page.

Aerotrio - Aerotrio
Genre: Jazz

Aerotrio plays jazz on the edge of electronic and rock. It is vaguely similar to the rock jazz experimentation of Bad Plus and Happy Apple. Paulo Guilherme alternates with keyboards and synthesizers to make a variety of genre bounching tracks. When on piano or electric piano he exhibits strong latin influences and a Ramsey Lewis afinity to a funky form of soul jazz. “Salamangaia” and especially “New Orleans / Brazil” are excellent examples of fairly mainstream jazz. His synthesizer work is quite intriquing on rockish numbers like “Diaz” while some songs such as “Analog Soul” and “Coton” are a bit heavy handed with the electronic experimentation. I definitely prefer the straight jazz side of Aerotrio but overall the album is quite interesting. Bassist Orlando de Freitas is equally fluid in this music as evidenced by the fine solo and backing on “A Insustentavel Leveza do Som”. Percussion and Electronics are handled nicely by Edmar Travassos.

Aerotrio comes to us via the the Japanese netlabel Bump Foot and is available in 192kbps MP3.

Transit - two albums
Genre: Post-Rock

Yesterday I featured a classic work by Olivier Messiaen, who also had a reputation as an ornithologist. I thought it might be a good time to introduce you to the post-rock band Transit, whose only real tie to Messiaen is that the group consists of three ornithologists.

Leaving the birdies aside, Transit has a rather casual sound for a post-rock group. Their first album. Broadleaves vs Conifers involves lanquid and pastoral lines such as on “Pilot’s Handbook” and “Long Song”. When the tension does builds, such as on “Matacabras”, the artists are able to move into Mogwai territory and still keep their own individualism. My favorite track is the beautiful “Reflections on the Asfalt” (what’s an asfalt?).

The three track Harmattan is a brief but continually interesting exploration into their music. It consists of two slightly extended versions of “Long Song” and “Mattoral”, both also on the first album, and “Maza”. The best track is “Maza”, a melodic treat that ends with a punch. The 19 minutes Harmattan is brief but, with three strong tracks, it makes a good introduction to this interesting post-rock band.

Both albums are available from the Lost Children netlabel. Broadleaves vs. Conifers is in 256kbps MP3 while Harmattan is in 192kbps.

Messiaen - Couleurs de la Cité Céleste
Genre: Classical

Couleurs de la Cité Céleste by French Composer Olivier Messiaen is an unusual composition. It was composed in 1963 and is based on passages from the Book of Revelations. Its instrumentation of piano, 3 clarinets, 3 xylophones, brass, and percussion sounds mystical and even savage at times. As in most of Messiaen’s works there are spiritual overtones. Messiaen’s unique influences and techniques are evident in this work. The use of ancient Greek and Hindu rhythms, the transcription of bird calls in his music (he was also an ornithologist), attempts to notate color into sound, all play a role in this outstanding composition.

This live performance is by the University Of Kansas Wind Ensemble under the direction of Professor John Lynch. Avguste Antonovhe is on piano. The performance date is November 18th 2004 and it is available on The Piano Society’s web site. The MP3 bitrate is 192kbps.

Necronomikon Quartett - Input
Genre: Rock, Other, Avant-Garde, Pop

WM Recordings’ write-up for The Necronomikom Quartett’s online album Input implies that the group’s music is close to free jazz or avant-garde. This may be true but for the most part Input is a highly accessible and listenable set of well structured pieces that exhibit high musicianship and a playful spirit.

The first two tracks are clearly endebted to the surf music genre. “Sofawende” rocks hard with its Dick Dale influenced guitar lines while “Wave Rider” evokes a 21st century Ventures sound. “Song of Tomorrow” is a light 60s romp that makes a case for the kazoo as a rock instrument.

Things are a little less clear in the next three tracks. “Tube Music Part IV” sounds like an extract of a film score. The guitarist contributes a jazzy but mysterious solo. The 6 minutes “Auf Stelzen durch die Wuerst” allows for a little stretching out and has some post-rock leanings. The last track “Future 03″ is the most experimental track of the six but its repetitive riff also makes it the weakest. Nonetheless, Necronomikon Quartett has given us an excellent album of creative sounds.

The album is available as separate tracks or full album zip in 192kbps MP3.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:36 PM | Comments (0)

New Releases on Cadence Jazz Records

From Cadence Jazz Records:

No Lesser Evil - Mat Marucci (Primary), Doug Webb (Primary), Kerry Kashiwagi (Primary)
Nothing But Blue Sky - Chris Humphrey (Primary), Matt Wilson (Drums), Martin Wind (Bass), Mark Shilansky (Piano)
Buffalo- Adam Lane (Primary), Vinny Golia (Tenor, Soprano Saxophones), Paul Smoker (Trumpet), Vijay Anderson (Drums)
Live at The Guelph Festival - Lou Grassi (Primary), Marshall Allen (Alto Saxophone)

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:36 PM | Comments (0)

AMN Podcast: Nels Cline Singers - Draw Breath

Download “Caved-in Heart Blues” (mp3)
from “Draw Breath”
by The Nels Cline Singers
Cryptogramophone

More On This Album

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:36 PM | Comments (0)

New Music on Youtube

A commentator notes the plethora of modern classical on Youtube, and subsequent comments suggest some folks think this is a very good thing.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 01:36 PM | Comments (0)

links for 2007-06-28

Originally from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

Here comes water cooler television

'The BBC yesterday unveiled its long-awaited iPlayer catch-up service, hailing it as the biggest change in the way we watch television since the introduction of colour 40 years ago. After more than three years in development, the corporation said the free catch-up service for all BBC programmes would launch on July 27.

After installing the iPlayer on a PC, viewers will be able to download almost any programme from the previous seven days at will and store it on the computer for up to 30 days, after which it will be automatically deleted. Viewers will be able to search for their favourite shows via a linear schedule, genre or channel. Links to the iPlayer will also be scattered liberally around the BBC website and flagged up after BBC shows.

BBC Vision director Jana Bennett predicted the iPlayer would revolutionise the way we watch television, allowing more people to participate in drama "water cooler" events while at the same time allowing them to discover lesser-watched shows. The BBC's director of future media and technology, Ashley Highfield, said it would become the default means of accessing its programmes on demand as technological advances allowed viewers to watch television "any time, any place, anyhow". He predicted the service would have 1 million users within a year' ~ reports today's Guardian.

But classical music isn't going to be on tap from the digital water cooler. As was revealed On An Overgrown Path in January classical music will be excluded from the BBC's download services because, according to the BBC Trust, "there is a potential negative market impact if the BBC allows listeners to build an extensive library of classical music that will serve as a close substitute for commercially available downloads or CDs." Which means the future of serious music broadcasting lies with the long-tail of radio made accessible by tools like the Radeo internet player.

Lots of interesting back links flow from my headline, including Martini music making and music like water
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 Jun 28, 2007 at 08:52 AM | Comments (0)

2007 Guelph Jazz Festival Announced

This year’s lineup for Guelph Jazz is available.

Wednesday, September 5

Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, 8 pm:

• Michael Snow and Jesse Stewart (Ontario)

Thursday, September 6

Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, 5 pm:

• Isaiah Ceccareli Ensemble (Quebec)

Mitchell Hall, St. George’s Anglican Church, 8 pm:

• Exploding Star Orchestra (USA/Brazil)

Mitchell Hall, St. George’s Anglican Church, 11:30 pm:

• Do Make Say Think (Ontario)

Friday, September 7

Guelph Youth Music Centre, 5 pm:

• Marianne Trudel Quintet (Quebec)

Main Stage, River Run Centre, 8 pm:

• Anthony Braxton and AIMToronto Orchestra (USA/Ontario/Alberta)

• William Parker Ensemble: The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield (USA)

Mitchell Hall, St. George’s Anglican Church, 11:30 pm:

• Loka (UK)

Saturday, September 8

Guelph Youth Music Centre, 10:30 am:

• Catherine Potter – Duniya Project (Quebec)

Upper Wyndham Street Tent, 11:30 am – 7:00 pm:

• Jayme Stone Quartet (USA/Ontario)

• The Inhabitants (BC)

• Damien Nisenson Trio (Quebec)

• Jah Youssouf, Jayme Stone, Lewis Melville, Dave Clarke, and friends (Mali/USA/Ontario)

• Lubo Alexandrov Group (Quebec)

Guelph Youth Music Centre, 2:00 pm:

• Trio M: Myra Melford, Mark Dresser, Matt Wilson (USA)

Main Stage, River Run Centre, 8 pm:

• Charlie Haden Liberation Music Orchestra featuring Carla Bley (USA)

Mitchell Hall, 11:30 pm:

• TBA

Sunday, September 9

GYMC, 10:30 am:

• Anthony Braxton – Diamond Curtain Wall Trio (USA)

GYMC, 7pm:

• Eccodek with Kiran Ahluwalia (Ontario/USA)

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 05:00 AM | Comments (0)

In Spite of All This (2005). Missy Mazzoli /...new music continues/

Originally from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2007 at 05:00 AM | Comments (0)

June 27, 2007

A bit more of the steel drum melody

Listen here:

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This is a work in progress...

Each note has a small glissando applied to it now, either up by a 17:16 or down by a 15:16. Just enough to not notice too much.

Originally from Podcast Bumper Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 11:02 PM | Comments (0)

Water towers and cartoons

Two obituaries caught my eye yesterday: photographer Bernd Becher, who with his wife Hilla documented the elusive beauty of massive industrial structures around the world, died of lung cancer.  I first stumbled across some of their water towers, each photographed from the same vantage point, as dispassionate as an encyclopedia.  But as I stared at the dozens of different styles I began to ask myself questions about form, function and location, and all this was aside from the sheer pleasure of the black and white photography itself. 

And on the same day The New York Times reported the death of J.B. Handelsman, cartoonist for The New Yorker from 1961 through 2006, four-and-a-half decades.  As a reader of the magazine for a mere two-and-a-half or so, I thought of him as someone who would never die, an old friend forever chuckling over your shoulder. 

["Water Tower, Neville Island, near Pittsburgh, U.S.A., 1980," by Bernd and Hilla Becher (1989), from Sonnabend Gallery via Artnet.  Drawing by J.B. Handelsman, from his website.]

Originally posted by bhodgesnyc from Monotonous Forest, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)

AMN Podcast: Gebbia/Powell/Smith - People In Motion

Download “In Their Hair” (mp3)
from “People In Motion”
by Gebbia/Powell/Smith
RASTASCAN RECORDS

More On This Album

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

It's a Bird, It's a Plane...It's New Music On YouTube

I can't cite statistics, of course, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that YouTube gets more people interested in new music than all the symphony orchestras in America put together.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)

Leading violinist's novel spelling

The first novel by Emerson String Quartet violinist Eugene Drucker is published in July. The subject is a German violinist who is forced to play, against his will, for prisoners at a concentration camp. The title is The Savior, and that spelling will pose a few problems in England. Which reminds me of this early post on the path.

Eugene Drucker is on the left of the photo. 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 Jun 27, 2007 at 05:24 PM | Comments (0)

Dan Locklair In Memory H.H.L. in Performance by Missouri Symphony Orchestra, Kirk Trevor Conducting, on June 30

American composer Dan Locklair’s In Memory – H.H.L. will be presented by the Missouri Symphony Orchestra, Kirk Trevor conducting, on Saturday, June 30 – 7:30 PM at the Missouri Theatre Center for the Arts, 203 South 9^th Street in Columbia, Missouri.

The work will be performed as part of the orchestra’s Patriotic Pops program, which also features the Symphony No. 2 (“Romantic”) of Howard Hanson, as well as selections by Richard Rodgers, Victor Herbert, Bernard Hermann, Irving Berlin, John Philip Sousa and others.

The Locklair string orchestra work was written in 2005 in memory of his mother. Maestro Trevor has written this about the piece after recording it with the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, “After the first read-through of In Memory – H.H.L. I realized we had found a worthy successor to the Barber Adagio. Here was a gorgeously crafted Adagio for Strings that had a new voice, but with the same hauntingly lush harmonies and intensity that makes the string orchestra such a beautiful vehicle in the concert hall. After recording it, I was even more convinced that In Memory H.H.L. has a real place in the standard string orchestra literature. As a conductor we are often looking for that five minute adagio to fit into our programming, and now we have a second option to the Barber from a wonderful living American composer.” Maestro Trevor’s recording will be released on the Naxos label later this year.

Tickets for the June 30 concert are $15, $17, and $20. For tickets and information, call the Missouri Theatre box office at (573) 875-0600 or visit them online at http://www.motheatre.org/calendar/?show_ID=715.

For more information about composer Dan Locklair, including a bio, list of works, discography and much more, please visit the redesigned http://www.locklair.com.

Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)

Quick hit.

Last night, I finally managed to catch Passing Strange, a new musical by singer-songwriter Stew, musical collaborator Heidi Rodewald and director Annie Dorsen, at the Public Theater. The show chronicles the coming-of-age of a young, middle-class African-American man from Los Angeles, as he pursues his muse and grapples with issues of racial identity, belonging and commitment.

I'll come back to talk about this show at length soon. But since the run closes this Sunday (July 1), it seems imperative to at least say this much: Passing Strange is tuneful, adventurous, provocative and touching, and a genuinely absorbing evening of theater. The book is wordy, funny and genuine; the music touches on rock, soul, gospel, cabaret, punk and more conventional modes of Rent- and Hedwig-era musical theater. The staging is minimal but inventive, and the cast is fabulous.

Stew, whose cabaret-rock work I've not always appreciated in the past, is nearly always at center stage, providing a solid, self-deprecating center of gravity around which events and characters swirl, and into which the audience is drawn for at least a few hours, as well.

Passing Strange isn't flawless, but it's still one of the most engaging and thought-provoking performance pieces I've seen in quite some time. There are seven remaining performances: one show tonight, tomorrow and Saturday, and two on Friday and Sunday. More details here.

Originally posted by NightAfterNight from Night After Night, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)

Rufus Wainwright: Release the Stars (CD)

Certain composers’ oeuvre can be thought of as one large composition. Each piece is cut from that large fabric. Composers that come to mind in this category are Edgard Varése and George Crumb. Similarly, there are songwriters who, in addition to penning a popular song, compose song prototypes (for lack of a better word), and throughout their career recompose these songs, consciously or unconsciously, with those prototypes. Songwriters in this category include James Taylor and Paul McCartney. Songwriters and their publishers are very aware of the audience’s attraction to these prototypes.

RELEASE THE STARS (2007, Geffen), Rufus Wainwright’s latest album, was recorded balancing and competing with the gravitational fields of his Judy Garland shows and starting his new opera for the Met. All Rufus fans were curious to see what he would do next. With four CDs under his belt to date, and many more available as collaborations and songs on films, Rufus has amassed a handsome catalog of songs. Many are historically significant (read more in my upcoming book), and many are prototype songs, and not just of his own, but of other artists as well.

In my opinion, many of the songs from RELEASE resonate with some of his earlier songs. I wonder whether this decision to tap into his own prototypes already is a marketing choice, an example of automatic-pilot writing, or a lack of exploring new ideas. Composers who do not open themselves up to new music sadly fall into the latter category and keep rewriting the same songs for a whole career, if it lasts that long. Other songwriters infuriate and surprise their audiences by reinventing themselves every few years. Rufus hasn’t really done either. He knows a lot of music and uses that knowledge as a vast musical palette.

That being said, RELEASE is Rufus’s next album. Nothing groundbreaking in it, but there is evidence that in this album, seeds are planted that, if well tended, should blossom and metamorphose into a career as a so-called, classical composer.

If this were a concept album, I would discuss the songs in order of their playlist. I don’t find this CD to be one, so I’ll choose to accent the songs I hear as the strongest ones, and mention the other songs to tweak your interest, or not.

“Nobody’s Off the Hook” is scored for Rufus (voice and piano) and string quartet. The spirit of a bouncy Schubert song hangs over this one. The “movement” is really a song: melody over a chord progression. The strings add textural color but are not central to most of the song. It doesn’t matter. This string arrangement is BY RUFUS. Good for you Rufus! You do NOT disappoint me. I see this as a young concert composer flapping his wings. The direction to go now is to take out the piano and give it all to the strings. But he’s not ready to do that quite yet. Listen to how the string writing gets braver and braver as the song goes on. I’ll be patient. The harmonic language of the song nothing nothing that can’t be found in a Carpenter’s song, but the presence of the string quartet gives it a new classiness.

“Tulsa” is also scored for strings and Rufus (piano and voice). The song opens with a vamp reminiscent of “The Art Teacher” and has song-like melody-with-chords underpinning throughout, but here we here Rufus’s string writing abilities kicking up a notch: becoming more daring, pushy, active, and containing more idiomatic writing for the strings. Bravo Rufus! The song is only 2:19 long. (It’s a lot of work writing down notes ain’t it Rufus?)

“Leaving for Paris” is an older, Poulencian song that many of us have known for quite a while. It’s a great song and was worth bringing out. The orchestration is for Rufus (voice and piano) and a multi-tracked bass played by Jeff Hill. The orchestration is eccentric and I’ve grown to like it quite a lot after hating it on first listening.

I learned a great deal hearing Vince Mendoza’s orchestration and arrangement of Joni Mitchell music on her last two albums. For me, this music became “Late Mitchell” in the spirit of “Late Beethoven” the point being that when artists revisit their early work, late in life, it is interesting. To hear Joni sing “Both Sides Now” and “A Case of You” with orchestra tears me apart. It is with that hope that I find “Sanssouci” a great song. But what a dorky orchestration. I must confess to not liking the Beatles original orchestration of “Here, There, and Everywhere.” It’s one I’d love to hear Paul do late in life with an orchestration by Vince Mendoza. So, I can imagine a huge range of vocal artists taking on “Sanssouci” and making it the great song it is. But here it sounds like a peppy little pop song. The harmonic layout is a blues progression in slow motion, with a few little harmonic niceties spritzed over it like so much truffle oil.

“Going to a Town” has the orchestrational and compositional thumb print of Paul McCartney all over it. The tune is catchy and great fun to sing. I don’t claim to be an authority on what Rufus says in his lyrics, but there seems to be a Dylan protest streak in him that wells up from time to time and the refrain “I’m so tired of you America” is one such manifestation of that streak. This is his “hit single” from the album, so Geffen and/or Rufus found this to have the most potential for a wide audience.

In it’s drone-like Arabic flavor “Do I Disappoint You” opens the CD in much the same way that “Agnus Dei” opened WANT TWO. The orchestration here is rather fun to follow, although this old orchestration teacher would have advised him to thin it out a bit. It is a wedge song, or a “climactic” song whose function in a concert is to create high drama. Speaking of which, take a look at the audio shapes of these Wainwright songs. Although equalization obscures the shape we actually hear, you can still see the dramatic (volume) shape of each song as a wedge.

Release the Stars

Do I Disappoint You?

An Old Whore’s Diet

Oh What a World

These shapes are interesting as they illustrate attention the overall form and flow of the song. So many pop songs have one orchestration, one volume, and are made to be heard on bad car radios. Rufus’s approach to song writing is more dramatically oriented, more concert oriented: how the song will fit into a play list on a CD or a concert. His sensitivity as to exactly where to put the power song, the love song, the kick back song, the clever song, and the naughty song should serve him well in his efforts to write his opera.

The other songs? “Release the Stars” is a climactic set-ender for live shows. “Between My Legs” is one of Rufus’s bacchanal romps. “Rules and Regulations” is a toe-tappin’ summer song. “Not Ready to Love” is his slow song for the album reminiscent of “Want.” “Slideshow” is a happier version of “Go or Go Ahead” from WANT ONE. “Tiergarten” should have been recorded on kd lang’s “Endless Summer” — that was the album where she fell in love, the edge blunted, and we got a cheery poppy album.

My prediction is that his music will split: he will write music for himself to perform, and then, if he can pull it off, write music meant for OTHERS to perform. I’m routing for you Rufus. And I am not disappointed.
.

Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 01:55 PM | Comments (0)

Quattro Differente to perform Panta Rei in three Latvian Cities

The Rīga-based clarinet quartet Quattro Differente (Guntars Gedroics, Kristaps Kitners, Marina Vidmonte & Ceslavs Grods) will include my (recently revised version of) Panta Rei on their concerts in Liepāja, Madona, and Valmiera in Latvia in July and August. Panta Rei, originally an 8-minute work for saxophone quartet, was premiered by the Amherst Saxophone Quartet in Buffalo, New York. You can hear their performance here. Quattro Differente premiered an earlier version of the piece in Ogre, Latvia, last year.

Also on these programs will be works by Nick Gotham (Up From Under/Uzniršana), Jēkabs Nīmanis (Episodes), Santa Ratniece (Septiņi Pakāpieni), Jānis Dūda (Intermezzo), Edgars Raginskis (Asteriona nams), Austra Savicka (About Time), and Imants Mežaraups (Sfinksa).

The performances will take place:
July 1, 4PM
The Gallery Theater of the Latvian Society House
Liepāja

August 2, Evening concert
Latvian Music Festival
Madona

August 9, 7PM
Vidzeme Summer Music Festival
Sēļu Manor House
Valmiera

Originally posted by Charles from Charles Griffin, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)

Stirring Composers, Musicians and Theater Artists Into a Stew

Steve Smith, New York Times, 6/13/2007

Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)

When the bad angel' whispers, the composer listens

Karen Sandstrom, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland), 6/24/2007

Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)

Sonorities of a Tenor Tuba and a Symphonic Saw

Daniel J. Wakin, New York Times, 6/24/2007

Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)

Glass concerto première in November a 'big deal' for La Jolla Symphony

Valerie Scher, San Diego Union-Tribune, 6/24/2007

Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)

Music That Thinks Outside the Chamber

Anne Midgette, New York Times, 6/24/2007

Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)

Cleveland Orchestra honored for adventurous programming

Donald Rosenberg, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland), 6/26/2007

Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 01:52 PM | Comments (0)

Improvisation and Composition

Originally from Anthony Cornicello, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 01:51 PM | Comments (0)

Musique Machine Reviews

From Musique Machine:

Abnocto - Simon Magus
Simon Magus is dramatic and atmosphere heavy synth, piano, acoustic guitar and string driven work, touching down in Neoclassical & soundtrack genres, with odd folk traces along the way.

Zelienople - His/Hers
His/Hers is a wonderful lost and haunted take on slowly unwinding /hazy guitar craft that mixes together touches of folk, the blues, & rock into it’s sludgy dream or drug soaked atmosphere.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 01:46 PM | Comments (0)

News Releases From Cryptogramophone

Two eagerly awaited releases are out on Cryptogramophone:

New CDs by Nels Cline and David Witham
New releases due June 26th

New CD Draw Breath by The Nels Cline Singers. We’ll be releasing tracks from this CD every week until it hits the streets on June 26th. This great CD by Nels’ long-time trio also features percussionist Glenn Kotche of Wilco. Also being released is Spinning The Circle, a great new CD by pianist/keyboardist David Witham. David has played with everyone from George Benson to k.d.lang, and his new CD features Nels, as well as drummer Scott Amendola and pedal steel player Greg Leisz.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 01:46 PM | Comments (0)

New From Long Song Records

Long Song Records has a pair of new releases:

Long Song Records releases two new albums this month: Duo Milano and Plays Monk. Plays Monk is a creative, exciting and unusual rendition of classic Monk tunes by three very acclaimed and open minded players: Scott Amendola, Ben Goldberg and Devin Hoff. Duo Milano is a no compromise, totally improvised sonic landscape by two guitar masters as Elliott Sharp and Nels Cline. This is what Nels and Elliott say about their work together: Elliott: “Nels is one of my favourite people and favourite guitarists - our playing together resonates in such a way as to create the sound of one seething bubbling bristling glowing instrument. Every gig and recording we’ve done has been different. “Duo Milano” captures some sonic moments in Italy in a fine studio in hyper real detail.” Nels: “Elliott and I have been investigating an improvised duet language/interaction in both acoustic and electric settings for several years now. It is always a pleasure and an honor, and this disc is the first document to represent our ongoing dialogue in sound and feeling. We seem to function as one empathetic, huge guitar. This recording was a happy accident in that Elliott and I happened to be in Milano at the same time, and the gracious Fabrizio booked studio time and acquired some extra guitars so that we could do almost anything. The result is, to my mind, a splendid example of our sometimes fragile and intimate and other times monolithic and tripped-out sensibilities.”

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 01:46 PM | Comments (0)

Chicago’s HotHouse to Move

From Crain’s Chicago Business:

The HotHouse, where musicians and poets have lit up the stage for two decades, will leave its current location at the end of July.

The Center for International Performance and Exhibition is scheduled to close its doors at 31 E. Balbo Drive at the end of next month, officials announced Monday. The organization has not found a replacement location, but will continue to search for one, officials said.

“HotHouse has been fortunate enough to reside in the South Loop for many years,” Martin Bishop, HotHouse president and attorney, said in a statement. “HotHouse moved into the South Loop well before the neighborhood took off in popularity. It is now time to move this great institution forward.”

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 01:46 PM | Comments (0)

Bagatellen Reviews

From Bagatellen:

Peter Zak - My Conception - 26 Jun 07
Hugh Hopper - Hoppertunity Box - 25 Jun 07

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 01:46 PM | Comments (0)

This weekend at Bowerbird

Upcoming shows from Philly’s Bowerbird:

june 30th (sat)

NATE WOOLEY + KIERAN DALY + AARON SIEGEL
BENITO CERENO *cd release*
BARRIOS / ENGLE / CAPECCHI
DEEKUS / HERNANDEZ

@ University City Arts League
(UCAL) [ website ]
4226 Spruce Street
Philadelphia, PA
[ directions ]
8:00pm, $5 - $10 sliding scale
NATE WOOLEY trumpet
KIERAN DALY electric mandolin / preparations / effects
AARON SIEGEL percussion

NATE WOOLEY (b. 1974) grew up in Clatskanie , Oregon , a finnish-american fishing and timber town. He has spent most of his musical life whole-heartedly embracing the space between complete absorption in sound and relative absence of the same. Nate’s trumpet playing is considered an organic mixture of new music, free jazz, and noise improvisation traditions. In the context of trumpet improvisation, he has worked diligently to keep one musical foot firmly planted outside of the recognized lineage. Nate currently resides in Jersey City , NJ and performs solo trumpet improvisations as well as with his trio Blue Collar with Steve Swell and Tatsuya Nakatani. He has also performed with Anthony Braxton, Paul Lytton, John Butcher, Alessandro Bosetti, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Joe Morris, Cor Fuhler, Andrea Neumann, Chris Forsyth (in the supergroup Duchess of Oysterville), Randy Peterson, Tim Barnes, Okkyung Lee, Steve Beresford, Veryan Weston, and other improvisation luminaries. Besides two cds of Blue Collar’s music (a third, live recording, on the way from Utech Records this fall), Nate has a solo cd from Creative Sources Recordings (wrong shape to be a storyteller), and is a featured sideman on 25 recordings to date (including Daniel Levin’s “Some Trees” on Hat Art, Reuben Radding’s “Fugitive Pieces” on Pine Ear, and “Transit” on Clean Feed Recordings)

Kieran Daly (electric mandolin/preparations/effects) was born in South Carolina, and immediately left after he graduated high school. He now resides in Brooklyn, New York where he is constantly searching for new ways to present his instrument and discover new sounds; as well as creating an intense relationship with people he performs with and his surrounding environment. He is very active in both electroacoustic and noise genres, as well as the post-downtown improvised music scene in New York City. In addition to his ongoing solo work with prepared electric mandolin and sometimes amplifier feedback loop/effect pedals, he is also involved in projects such as MALAMUTE (with Jim Black and Nate Wooley), an electroacoustic duo with J.K. Brogan, the chamber ensemble NOK SNAKT (with Andrew D’Angelo, Chris Speed, and Trevor Dunn), and trio with Nate Wooley and Aaron Siegel. In his spare time he likes to watch TV shows and movies online, and think about where he is going with his music until he gets a massive headache and has to go to sleep.

Composer/Percussionist Aaron Siegel lives in Brooklyn, NY where he produces concert events involving his own compositions as well as the works of other members of the experimental arts community. His work ranges from solo compositions and chamber music to improvised ensembles and collaborative theater pieces. Aaron has shared the stage as a percussionist with several well-known improvisers, in addition to his many peers, including: Fred Lonberg-Holm, Scott Rosenberg, Guillermo Gregorio, Stephen Rush, Boris Hauf, Jason Roebke, Nate Wooley and Sean Meehan. He is a member of Memorize the Sky, The Anthony Braxton Sextet, Chorus of Seeds. Rainer and Low and Away, all of which represent long-standing improvisational relationships. As part of these and other ensembles, Aaron has toured extensively in the United States and Europe.

BENITO CERENO * cd release *
chandan narayan - autoharp
tim albro- guitar, radios, electronics
jesse kudler - guitar, electronics, synthesizer, radio, and tapes
ian m fraser - laptop, tapes, radios and electronics
dustin hurt - cornet, accordion

Benito Cereno is Tim Albro (guitar, radios, electronics), Ian Fraser (laptop, tapes, radios and electronics), Dustin Hurt (cornet, accordion), Jesse Kudler (guitar, electronics, synthesizer, radio, and tapes), and Chandan Narayan (autoharp). Benito Cereno began as an attempt to move beyond typical duo and trio improvising logics and “dialogical” improvising conventions into a space where a relatively large number of acoustic, electro-acoustic, and electronic instruments could function together towards a massed group sound. The quintet is now looking towards personalized compositions as a means to further explore sound arrangement. In fitting with its instrumentation, spread along the spectrum of fully acoustic to fully electronic, Benito Cereno’s sound includes warm acoustic tones, austere sine waves, and rough-and-tumble blasts of noise.

The name “Benito Cereno” refers to a short work by Herman Melville, an author who shares a last name with the street on which the five usually play.

[ for more info on Benito Cereno ]

JON BARRIOS guitar
MATT ENGLE bass
DAN CAPECCHI percussion

Matt Engle, bass, grew up ten minutes outside of Philadelphia in South Jersey. He now resides in Philadelphia where he is a working member of the music scene. Matt studied with Kevin McConnell and Tony Marino while attending The University of the Arts. He has an integral role in Shot by Shot as both a performer and composer. In addition to Shot × Shot, Matt plays with Trio Rhizome, Seth Meicht and Sonic Liberation Front .

Jon Barrios has performed with Toshi Makihara, Dan Blacksberg, Jack Wright, Tatsuya Nakatani, Anne West, Dustin Hurt, Alban Bailly, Christine Shenoui, Gerald Sloan, John Dikeman, Dan Scofield, Jesse Kudler, Marina Petersen, Fabrizio Spera, Raed Yassin, and others. Barrios also runs the small label Lift Records which focuses on limited edition short run releases of curious projects. He’s been touring the mid-west and recording, performing within Philadelphia and New York since he moved to Jack Wright’s Spring Garden house in the Spring of 2006.

Dan Capecchi is a percussionist and composer from St. Paul, Minnesota. Having lived in Philadelphia since 2002, he now plays drums with Shot X Shot and a few other musical groups.

ASHLEY DEEKUS marimba
KATT HERNANDEZ violin

Deekus is a young marimbist living in the Philadelphia area. For a short while, she was living under jazz vibist Tony Miceli’s wing, then with the percussionists at The Curtis Institute. Unfazed by the sociology of genre and pedigree, Deekus is on the path of creative music without boundaries, lending her mallets to contexts as diverse as Do Make Say Think, Broken Social Scene, Feist, Make A Rising, and AC Shagazaki, in addition to her own compositions and local collaborations. Is she just a musical mooch or a sea sponge for knowledge? Her sound is somewhere between the laugh of an idiot child, and a hepcat on a harmonica.

Katt Hernandez has been living in the Boston area, playing the violin, for the last six years. She has collaberated with a magnificently variated sea of musicians, dancers, and others including- but certainly not limited to- Joe Maneri, Zack Fuller, David Maxwell, Marc Bisson, Matt Somalis, John Voigt, Allisa Cardone, Gordon Beeferman, Jonathan Vincent, Walter Wright, Joe Burgio, Eric Rosenthal, Jeff Arnal, Jaimie McGlaughlin, Andrew Neumann, Dave Gross, and Hans Rickheit. She has twice been invited to perfrom on the Autumn Uprising , High Zero , Mobius ArtRages , and Improvised and Otherwise festivals, and has also appeared at the Montreaux-Detroit , Brandeis New Music , Boston CyberArts , Michiania , IAJE , IASJ , and Ear Whacks festivals. She has been a guest artist at MIT, Harvard, and the New England Conservatory, performed in a vast slew of local venues and- to date- any number of subway passages, urban grottos, and troglyditical performace slaces, as well as other experimental and life-making places throughout the Bos-Wash metropolii.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 01:46 PM | Comments (0)

links for 2007-06-27

Originally from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

Least common denominators

Here is a fascinating article, accessible to a non-specialist audience, by pianist and scholar Anatole Leikin on the evolution and institutionalization of performance styles. In this case, Leikin is describing the Russian piano tradition, but it certainly resembles the pattern found elsewhere. The kicker here is his description of the 13th Tchaikovsky Competition, in which a number of "brilliant pianists...stood out as the most fascinating and original artistic personalities" were all eliminated in the first round to leave the competition to less interesting pianists who are more closely compliant with the official style.

Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 02:58 AM | Comments (0)

The Composer on the Coffee Table

1986: When the copy of Morton Feldman Essays spilled out of the envelope, addressed by hand in Peter Garland's distinctive felt-tipped printing, I realized at once that the day would come when I would have to be an owner of a coffee table. Although the book, edited and published in a quixotic and bankrupting labor of love by Walter Zimmermann, was only a paperback, and its typos and transcription errors would soon become terms of distress for the picayune, it was, and remains, a gorgeous volume, faced with Philip Guston's portrait of his friend M.F., and a book that wants to be displayed, and nowhere else but on a coffee table. The essays in the book have since been republished, edited and corrected, but there is no substitution for the original edition.

Coffee table books are a special genre, and only a small handful of books about recent composers qualify. Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents, by Vera Stravinsky and Robert Craft certainly belongs, and is a real treasure, if only for the pages here about The Owl and The Pussycat, a last glimpse of the composer at work, his hands, his tools, his notes. I have been to more than one recital in which the accompanying pianist has insisted on playing from the manuscript reproduction found here rather than from the engraved sheet music. That reproduction, in the context of the photo essay about its creation, has taken on its own aura of authenticity.

Some books about composers have been relatively short-term occupants of my coffee table. The John Cage issue of the Revue D'esthetique and Philip Blackburn's Enclosure 3: Harry Partch and the Burning Books anthology The guests go into supper have all taken their turns in the table top rotation. If I could afford a copy, I would certainly book space for one or the other volume of Taruskin's Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions, a book that my local library will only let me peruse in the reading room. At the moment, place of honor goes to the new Meyer/Zimmermann volume Edgard Varèse: Composer, Sound Sculptor, Visionary (which the library has kindly let me borrow, but I am already loathe to return).

Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 02:58 AM | Comments (0)

A Response to Alex Ross "On the Road"

I live in what most New Yorkers might refer to as "beyond the provinces," but my husband and I still get the magazine. It is nice to know that Alex Ross took the time to fly to Indianapolis, rent a car, and drive to a couple of cities accessible by way of the interstate highway system. I'm glad that he enjoyed the concerts he heard played by three of the many fine professional orchestras scattered through the Midwest and upper south, and I'm glad that he shared his experience with the readers of the New Yorker.

He didn't quite get all his information right though. He mentioned that

"conservatories are producing wave after wave of almost excessively skilled players, and, like Ph.D.s in the humanities, hundreds of them fan out across the continent each year in search of jobs. They may stay with a regional orchestra for only a season or two before moving on to a higher salary, but they raise the level of playing as they go."

Mr. Ross needs to change that number to thousands, and he needs to make his geographical range global, because people routinely travel from the far "corners" of the world for the possibility of a job in a full time American orchestra. Also, if someone is lucky enough (and there is a certain element of luck involved in the audition process) to get a job in Indianapolis, Nashville, or Birmingham, s/he is more likely to stay than move on. Vacancies for any instrument in a full-time professional orchestra are few and far between, and the number of highly-qualified applicants is exponentially out of proportion to the number of jobs available "out in the provinces" in any given year.

Distance from the established centers of American music making does not have anything to do with the quality of a person's playing or an orchestra's playing. There are great musicians everywhere, and the people who are able to win competitive auditions should be celebrated the way Olympic athletes are celebrated for their accomplishment. It is no surprise to me that the bass solo in Mahler's First Symphony, as played by the Indianapolis Symphony's principal bassist, was great. The principal string players in Indianapolis are as good (I could even use the world great) as principal string players in any "big city" orchestra who make a lot more money.

There are a few (and that is a literal few: between three and five) people who "move up" in the orchestra world in a given year, but many of the best jobs (many is not a good word: I'm talking about a handful of jobs) in the East Coast orchestras have gone to excellent instrumentalists in their early 20s who have come straight from Curtis, and will stay in those jobs for the rest of their professional lives.

People with Ph.D.s in even the most specialized fields of the humanities have a far better chance of getting work in their fields that would pay the rent and raise a family than musicians graduating from conservatories.

Tags: Regional Orchestras, New Yorker, Alex Ross, Classical Music, Classical Musicians

Originally from Musical Assumptions, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 02:56 AM | Comments (0)

Those wonderful teenage (y)ears

I love reading the recent posts and comments at Dial M for Musicology about teenage listening experiences. We all had them, and they almost always involved "discovery." When our children were young I tried not to impose my musical preferences on them because I remembered the joy I had as a teenager when I found my "own" music. Sure, my discoveries were sometimes found in my parents' small collection of recordings they never listened to (the small number of recordings we had amazed me since my parents were both musicians), and they were sometimes pieces I heard played at my father's concerts, like the Brahms and Dvorak Piano Quartets, but nobody told me what to listen to. I am grateful that my parents let me develop my musical tastes on my own, and I wanted to pass that experience to my own kids.

From a very young age both of our kids practiced (violin and cello), took lessons, played in orchestras and chamber music groups, sang in chorus and in shows, and managed to become exposed to a lot of what I would consider worthwhile music through the stuff that they heard around the house.

I will never forget the day that my daughter Rachel (who is now 20) came into my bedroom and started singing some Simon and Garfunkel songs for me. She had just heard them on the radio (a few years ago "oldies" stations were all the local rage). She had a look of pure joy on her face while she sang them. She had found something of her own, and it was something really beautiful, and it was something she wanted to share with me. I loved Simon and Garfunkel as a teenager too. Imagine my inner kvell.

Our son Ben (who is now 18) and his sister share many of the same likes and dislikes in popular music, but Ben has been devoting a lot of energy into expanding his musical horizons backwards and sideways. The other day he took some recordings out of the library. They were recordings that were important in my husband Michael's teenage years, and if he had known Ben was interested in listening to them, he would have gladly let Ben borrow his copies. I was very happy that Michael was able to share that particular "discovery" moment with Ben.

As exciting as my own teenage musical awaking was, watching and listening to the musical awakenings of our kids is even more exciting. It seems that all discovery for a teenager is self-discovery, and that's one of the things that makes watching (and listening to) kids grow up so much fun.

Update! Ben just told me about his brand new myspace music page where you can listen to him singing (and playing guitar and cello on) some of his own songs.

Originally from Musical Assumptions, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 02:56 AM | Comments (0)

Mess o'potamia

Back. Have been in Denmark, eating fish...more of that when I've copied the photos properly.

So, where were we? Well, a big thank-you to everyone who wrote in support of the Kismet feature! The Times has its own take on the thing today (my dear readers will recognise the quoted critic, which could perhaps have been attributed more precisely), and they've interviewed Luther Davis (90), the surviving member of the original team. Ho-hum, here's what he says about the Baghdad problem:

“There’s a line in the song Not Since Nineveh in which Lalume sings ‘Don’t underestimate Baghdad!’ Now we were discussing how to deal with this in the current situation. Should we get rid of it, or downplay it? No, my suggestion was to lean on it heavily, to really belt it out. In a way it reminds you that Baghdad isn’t just a war zone, it’s a place that’s been full of real human beings for millennia.”

Er, right...Read the whole thing here. The headline is good.

UPDATE, 9pm: OOOH, the fur is flying backstage!!! This is what happened while we were away...and the first preview has been put back a night...

Originally from Jessica Duchen's classical music blog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 02:54 AM | Comments (0)

VOIVOD: New Audio Interview With AWAY Available - June 26, 2007 - Blabbermouth.net

VOIVOD: New Audio Interview With AWAY Available - June 26, 2007 Blabbermouth.net, NY - 2 hours ago Said Langevin about KOSMOS, "We're a progrock collective from Montreal, Canada and we're influenced by the '70s Krautrock scene and avant-garde music."

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 02:52 AM | Comments (0)

The Day the Music Dies - SF Weekly

The Day the Music Dies SF Weekly, CA - 1 hour ago Webcasters like Seattle's KEXP and San Francisco's SomaFM are the de facto curators of America's most avant-garde electric art galleries. ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 02:52 AM | Comments (0)

Cuénod fête ses 105 ans

Warmest birthday wishes to the superb Swiss tenor Hugues Cuénod, who turns 105 today. Among other things, Cuénod is newly married — or newly unioned. PlaybillArts has the story.

Originally posted by Alex Ross from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 02:51 AM | Comments (0)

Stilt Pose | Chinese Whispers @ Kriek der Spracken

Meteor Motel plays at STILLE POST | Chinese Whisper . This was the first version of the evening.

Originally posted by Johnny Chang from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 02:46 AM | Comments (0)

Mechanical Music - automatic birds

That scene in Bladerunner where Deckert goes to meet his girl and she has an artificial owl is a great extrapolation of the future rich.

Royalty had artificial birds in the 18th Century. They were really the first "robots" built and were the predecessor to the cuckoo clock. Here is an example of a modern mechanical bird that is built much the same way it has been for hundreds of years. There is a clip of the birds moving and singing, and then the works inside.


tp://www.dolfkamper.org/">

Originally posted by dolf from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 02:46 AM | Comments (0)

Stockhausen and Marinetti - men of the future (part 1)

The modern world is an age of reliance upon the machine. The relationship that has evolved between the organic and the mechanical modifies the way we as humans perceive the world because we no longer view the world as it relates specifically to the body. In fact one might argue that we have neglected our organic body. Only in sickness, or when the body does not function, is the average person consistently aware of his body. Instead we view the world in relation to the machines that have become necessary to our daily life.

Before the inorganic intrusion of the modern world we perceived the entire world only as it related to our organic body. Every form we recognize has a natural relation to our body. Even the way we perceive time is as it relates to the linearity and length of our body’s life span; and a three dimensional form can only be something that our body can get inside or around. In other words, if we did not have a body that has a finite time of life, we could not view time linearly and if our body did not move in space our perception of all three dimensions would be radically different.

The Futurist artists of the early part of the century were dedicated to applying themselves to the future, and to affirming the belief in an evolution of the human spirit that has no further use of the organic body. Karheinz Stockhausen is constantly experimenting with pushing our perceptions free of what he calls the “prison of our body.”1 Because of its glorification of technology and desire to express time independently of humans’ natural perception, Futurism was essentially expressing the desire for and escape from (or an evolution beyond) the limitations of the physical and organic human body. Karlheinz Stockhausen is a composer who uses technology to reexamine the way we perceive rhythm, time, and pitch. Stockhausen’s work attempts to push our evolution towards an escape from the limited perceptions imposed by the organic human body; therefore, his works are an extension of the Futurist aesthetic.

The Italian poet F. T. Marinetti founded Futurism in January 1909. Futurism was an attempt to express a glorification of speed and the dynamism of the modern mechanical world. Marinetti would often converge the Organic with the Inorganic in his work in order to express the unique symbiotic relationship between man and machine that had begun to evolve in the beginning of this century. In his Manifesto of Futurism, the Italian author refers to his automobiles (a modern addition to the world in 1909) as a living things.

"I went up to the three snorting beasts, to lay amorous hands on their torrid breasts. I stretched out on my car like a corpse on its bier, but revived at once under the steering wheel, a guillotine blade that threatened my stomach.”2

In this passage Marinetti expresses and inadequacy of our natural body when compared to the mechanical automobile. He compares the vitality and speed of the car to the weak and dependant corpse of the body. Later in the same work Marinetti speaks of his love for this new relationship of the modern world.

“O maternal ditch, almost full of muddy water! Fair factory drain! I gulped down your nourishing sludge; and I remembered the blessed black beast of my Sudanese nurse… When I came up – torn, filthy, and stinking – from under the capsized car. I felt the white-hot iron of joy deliciously pass through my heart.”3

Originally posted by dolf from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 02:46 AM | Comments (0)

Upsampling

Listen here:

Subscribe here:

This is a work in progress...

Upsampling is the deliberate munchinization of a sample. In this excerpt, I've upsampled the bent wire instrument and it sounds more like a steel drum.

Originally from Podcast Bumper Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 02:02 AM | Comments (0)

New Meira Warshauer Arrangement for Trombone Ensemble To Be Premiered on June 28 at Philadelphia’s Temple University

The World Premiere performance of Meira Warshauer’s new arrangement for trombone ensemble of her “My Goodness Gracious Lord” will be given on Thursday, June 28 – 8 PM at the Boyer College of Music and Dance, Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Haim Avitsur (http://www.haimavitsur.com/), Artistic Director of the Summer Trombone Workshop will lead the ensemble.

“My Goodness Gracious Lord” was originally written for mezzo-soprano soloist and SATB chorus and piano and was commissioned by Congregation Children of Israel, Augusta, Georgia.

For more concert information, please call Boyer College at (215) 204-8301 or visit http://www.haimavitsur.com/stw07/ or http://www.temple.edu/boyer/index.htm.

Meira Warshauer’s latest Bracha Newsletter, containing full program notes for 2007 premiered Symphony No. 1, is online at http://www.jamesarts.com/releases/jan07/MW_nws_010907.htm. You can read Carson Cooman’s Music & Vision Daily interview with the composer about the new work at http://www.mvdaily.com/articles/2007/01/meira-warshauer.htm.

You can find much more about her at http://www.meirawarshauer.com.

Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 02:02 AM | Comments (0)

There Is No Center

The way you see and hear the world depends on where you are.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 02:00 AM | Comments (0)

Composer Clint Needham Wins ACO's 2007 Underwood Commission

Composer Clint Needham has been named the winner of American Composers Orchestra's 2007 Underwood Emerging Composers Commission, bringing him a $15,000 commission for a work to be premiered by American Composers Orchestra.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 02:00 AM | Comments (0)

Cowell, Garland, Zorn on the Web

Composer Adam Baratz, whom I've long corresponded with via Sequenza 21, and finally met this last month, has alerted me...

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2007 at 02:00 AM | Comments (0)

June 26, 2007

Peter Zak - My Conception

Steeplechase 31619 Encumbered with an alphabetically challenged surname, Peter Zak may require a bit of footwork to find in your local record shop. Rest assured, any extra strides necessary are worth it, for as far as “mainstream" keyboardists go...

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

Paul Lansky: Etudes and Parodies

LANSKY: Etudes and Parodies (2004); Semi-Suite (2001); Ricercare Plus (2000, 2004). William Purvis, horn; Curtis Macomber, violin; Mihae Lee, piano; David Starobin, guitar; Brentano String Quartet. BRIDGE 9222 65 minutes

Paul Lansky is well-known for the large body of electronic music he has produced over his long career. According to Mr. Lansky’s notes for the new disc of his recent instrumental music:

I was comfortable, successful, and imagined sailing happily into senior citizenship doing nothing more than sitting at home in my bathrobe crafting sounds on my computer. Then as I zoomed past my 50^th birthday I gave in to the urgings of some instrumentalists to write pieces for them . . .

I, for one, am glad he gave into those urgings, some of the fruits of which can be heard on this outstanding Bridge disc.

Etudes and Parodies is a substantial seven-movement piece for horn, violin, and piano. (This bring me to the only real issue I have with this release—Mr. Lansky’s titles. They are often misleadingly modest, as in the case of Etudes and Parodies, which is a far more ambitious work than the title suggests, or downright cutesy, as in the case of Semi-Suite. It’s a quibble, I know, but I can’t help but wonder if these titles ill-serve the composer and his music.)

The many virtues of all of the pieces on the program are amply displayed in the trio. The music is tonal and memorably melodic, without ever being cloying or backward looking. The rhythmic energy, which has always been an important component of the composer’s electronic music, is even more apparent in this music, with the instruments giving syncopations a punch that is really only hinted at in computer generated sound. Mr. Lansky’s structural sense, his feeling for how sounds move through time, is sure and poetic. Etudes and Parodies seems to end with a fast, final climax. That expectation is thwarted, however, with a lyrical slow movement.

The guitar writing in Semi-Suite is idiomatic and subtle. The piece includes references to guitar techniques from many musical traditions, subsumed into Mr. Lansky’s individual voice. Its form is that of a Baroque dance suite, and it really does dance.

The program closes with Ricercare Plus, a three movement piece for string quartet that references the past in structural (the repeating patterns of the “Ricercare”) and playing (long passages without vibrato) techniques. Like the other pieces, Ricercare Plus acknowledges the past with longing for it.

The performances are nothing short of remarkable. This music is not easy to play, but the incredibly clean and expressive readings make it sound like it is. Bridge’s sound is, as with every Bridge disc I’ve heard, warm, present, and full.

 

Originally posted by Steve Hicken from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2007 at 08:02 PM | Comments (0)

The long tail of radio

Contributor Antoine Leboyer writes this piece in praise of the Radeo internet player which I featured here, and which can be downloaded here:

My last weeks have been hectic. Travels, airport delays, long days with evenings alone in anonymous hotel rooms away from my family. All more reasons to try Radeo. Here is a summary of my experience and basically why I am really starting to get hooked. There are several reasons for this:

• Live Performances: Artists are always better in live performances than in the studio. My primary appeal in trying Radeo was to have access to a large variety of concert broadcasts around the world. A couple of days ago, I was able to compare on the same evening two very different performances of Brahms First Piano Concerto, one from Paris with Ax and Chung followed by one from Munich by Barenboim and Jansons. Fascinating comparisons in terms of tempis, orchestral colors and balance.

• Quality: The sound is on most stations as acceptable as sound from my Ipod. I am using the same ear phones I use with my Ipod and the music stream has good sampling quality.

• Listening when no Radio is available: Hotel rooms have radio in bad sound from a TV set and very little to no choice. As we speak, my plane is YAD (Frequent travellers acronym for Yet Again Delayed …). As I write, I am listening to a Tanglewood Festival reply of Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony with the Boston Symphony under Haitink. It may not be an ideal soothing music but what a performance …

• Choice, Choice, Choice, … I was not aware before Radeo of the wide variety of radio stations available on the web. I could have tried here and there but Radeo’s search engine is so easy to use. Just look for Berlin stations or type in classical … I was not aware that there were so many offerings available. It will take me several months to explore the world.

• Favorites: Too early to tell but I have preset BBC Radio 3, Bayern
4, France Musique, Radio Classique (they should cover the Aix Festival …) and WGBH from Boston. Could readers tell what they have found ?

• Simplicity of use: The Radeo designers have made a smart interface. Search capabilities, the ability to preset some stations (think of your car radio system …), a very cool feature to “visit” the radio site and hence be able to the day program … This is smart product marketing and design here.

Have you read The Long Tail ? This is a book by Wired editor Chris Anderson which does a revealing analysis of Amazon’s success and unique positioning. Anderson found that Amazon made its revenue and profit not thanks to the books blockbusters à la Harry Potter but by selling a large amount of books read by a small number of people. Instead of being a mass-marketplace, Amazon is more a mass of tiny small markets. This is of course a big simplification of what is a fascinating book. Anderson explores after how other industries could exploit this concept. Radeo is doing it for the Radio world. Its system enables classical music lovers to easily find where to listen to Moscow broadcasts just as it could enable Korean Hard Rocks fans to discover and tune in to their favourite stations.

There is a need for Radeo. It works and it is of great value for us, classical music lovers.

Now read another contributor on These moments are rare in radio
Image credit Langaitis Zenotas' Old Radio Collection from Lithuania. 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 Jun 26, 2007 at 06:38 PM | Comments (0)

Sonic youth.

The Brooklyn Youth Chorus at the Kumble Center for the Performing Arts at Long Island University
The New York Times, June 26, 2007

(Administrative note: Starting now, reviews like this one are open to comment, same as everything else on this blog. Thanks, as always, for visiting.)

Originally posted by NightAfterNight from Night After Night, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

CMS Two violinist Erin Keefe has won the Silver Medal and the Audience Prize at the prestigious Sindai International Music Competition in Sendai, Japan. She writes in to provide us with an in-depth look at the rigors of a musical competition, and tells us a little bit else about her busy summer schedule.

The Sendai Competition is unique because instead of the usual repertoire requirements such as Bach, Paganini and recital programs, it’s mainly concertos. There was a tape round last summer which consisted of a Bach Partita or Sonata and a show piece, and then there was a live screening round in January where each of the 100 violinists who passed the tape round had to play a Mozart Concerto. There were auditions in New York, Shanghai, Sendai, Moscow, Paris and Vienna and it was narrowed down to 44 violinists who were invited to the competition this May in Japan.

The first round consisted of only the Schubert Rondo in A Major for violin and string quartet. Seeing as how I’m friends with all of the CMS Two artists, I called in a few favors the day before I left and got to run it through a couple of times with Arnaud, Inon (playing the second violin part on piano), David, Priscilla and Kurt Muroki. I played the Schubert with a great Japanese quartet for the actual competition. Twelve semifinalists advanced to the next round where we had to choose a concerto from a list of four twentieth-century works and perform it with the Sendai Philharmonic. I chose Bartok Concerto No. 2 which I just performed twice in March with the Allentown Symphony. Six finalists then advanced to the finals where we had to play a Romantic Concerto. The interesting thing about the finals is that we had to prepare two different concertos and then one was picked randomly (basically out of a hat) for us to perform. My two concertos were the Dvorak Concerto and Saint-Saens Concerto No. 3, neither of which I have performed with orchestra before. I ended up drawing the Saint-Saens Concerto, and played it with the Sendai Philharmonic. The finals were broadcast on NHK (Japan Broadcast Corporation) so there were TV cameras all over the stage and in the audience. It was a little nerve-wracking to know that beforehand, but once I started playing it was easy to forget about.

In the end I was awarded the Silver Medal as well as the Audience Prize, and as one of the top three prizewinners, I got to perform the Saint-Saens again with the orchestra the next night for the Gala Concert. I try not to go into competitions with too many expectations, so it was really exciting to do that well. The orchestra sounded great, and the two conductors I worked with were incredibly supportive. The audience treated all of us like we were celebrities and I was constantly signing program books and posing for pictures.
The only thing I regret about the whole experience is that even though I was in Japan for almost three weeks, I was so busy practicing and performing that I didn’t get to see anything! I did, however, stuff myself with sushi at least every other day so that was a definite plus.

I was originally planning on Sendai being my last competition, but I ended up applying for a new competition in Poland next November that I just heard about. Even though competitions are incredibly stressful and a lot of work, I find them somewhat addictive!

I’m really looking forward to the rest of my summer since I’m getting to do lots of traveling and performing. About an hour after I got off the plane from Japan, I started rehearsals for OK Mozart (rehearsals in NY for a week, followed by concerts in Oklahoma for five days) with CMS artists Paul Neubauer, Ida Kavafian, Fred Sherry, and Edgar Meyer as well as Leon Fleisher and the McDermott Trio. Next week I’m coaching chamber music and performing at Summertrios in Pennsylvania, followed by two weeks of performing at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, a couple of weeks as Artist/Faculty at Music@Menlo, concerts at the Sebago-Long Lake Chamber Music Festival in Maine, and then Chestnut Hill Concerts in Connecticut and Boston. I have 28 different pieces of chamber music to perform in two months, so that doesn’t leave too much time to rest after the competition!
-Erin Keefe

The performance hall.

Erin and colleagues relaxing after performances at the OK Mozart! Summer Festival in Oklahoma (left to right: Fred Sherry, Wu Han, Erin, Paul Neubauer, Ida Kavafian, and Leon Fleisher.)

Originally posted by Ronen from Intermission: Impossible, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

Classical music survives!

By Matthew Heil
Public Relations Manager
The Phoenix Symphony

As we start another week at Phoenix Symphony offices, here's a good article for pondering....
L. A. Times critic Mark Swed takes the opposite tack, proclaiming that classical music is in fact--despite assertions to the contrary--not a dying art. Read more here.

Originally from SoundPost - The Phoenix Symphony, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2007 at 02:30 PM | Comments (0)

Instrument Building

From time to time I do some instrument building, either to follow up on an acoustic lead, as an adventure for its own sake, or to fulfill a need in a composition in progress. Lou Harrison put it this way:

"to make an instrument is in some strong sense to summon the future. It is as Robert Duncan has said of composing, "A volition. To seize from the air its form." Almost no pleasure is to be compared to the first tones, tests & perfections of an instrument one has just made. Nor are all instruments invented & over with, so to speak. The world is rich with models ~ but innumerable forms, tones & powers await their summons from the mind & hand. Make an instrument ~ you will learn more in this way than you can imagine."

The best job-job I ever had was working summers and holidays for Charles Chase at the Folk Music Center in Claremont, CA, where I helped to organize his instrument collection, did some instrument repair, and very often, Charles and I would get lost together in an instrument building project. For me, it was practical training in organology and potential instrumentation, with some poetics and old left politics on the side.

I learned quickly that I was not to be fine luthier, as that would have been a job for a parallel lifetime, and I discovered that I was not going to build my own orchestra, like Partch, or my friend Kraig Grady. But I am handy at repairs on the spot for a good number of instruments, and occasionally like to make an instrument or two specifically for my own compositions.

At the moment, my work in progress needs some high sustained sounds matching the pitches of my gamelan (I have a small sléndro set in my studio; doesn't everyone?) , and I've been experimenting with stroked aluminum rods, following an instrument design of Robert Erickson. The sound -- haunting, bright -- is right, but I'm not yet certain how to turn the ensemble of rods into a reliable instrument. In particular, I'm not sure how best to suspend the rods, but the experiments have just begun.

Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2007 at 02:30 PM | Comments (0)

Summer Camp

In High School, as part of my rebellion against marching band and marching band culture and marching, I went to an Early Music workshop over several summers, up in the mountain retreat of Idyllwild, California. Although the experience of performing sections of the Machaut Mass or Isaac's devastating lament, Quis dabit capiti meo aquam or figuring out how to get my awkward adolescent 6'4" frame to do a bransle were perhaps as important to my musical thinking as any composition lessons, I never really had a composers' summer camp experience. Places like Tanglewood or Aspen had been long shut off to experimental music and were preserves of other networks of teachers and students, the Burdocks and Chocorua Festivals were one-offs and slightly before my time, the Cabrillo Festival of '80 was not a training program, and the Ostrava Days were far in the future, a real gift for the next experimental generation. By the time I got to Darmstadt, in '90, I had already grown out of my happy camper phase, and was happy enough to watch the complexifiers kick dust around in Gut City. I reckon it as a loss that I didn't have the direct exchange with my contemporaries that comes about in these summer programs, but perhaps this blogging enterprise has made up somewhat for this lost episode in my youth: Renewable Music, my virtual summer camp.

Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2007 at 02:30 PM | Comments (0)

Guest blogger: Carl Nielsen

Several people were struck by the quotation from Carl Nielsen's book Living Music (trans. Reginald Spink, Hutchinson, 1953) that I put on the blog last week. I thought I'd reprint here Nielsen's essay "The Fullness of Time," which for me is one of the most radically sensible statements any twentieth-century composer made on the always fraught question of the old, the new, tradition, and innovation. The last two paragraphs are just as relevant — maybe more so — than they were in the 1920s. Take it away, Carl:

It is right that the historian should indicate the summits of achievement in art (the poetry, architecture, and sculpture of ancient Greece, sixteenth- and eighteenth-century music, Renaissance painting, etc.); but in a sense this is of little use to us. The claims of life are stronger than the sublimest art; and even were we to agree that we had achieved the best and most beautiful it is possible to achieve, we should be impelled in the end, thirsting as we do more for life and experience than for perfection, to cry out: "Give us something else; give us something new; for Heaven's sake give us something bad, so long as we feel we are alive and active and not just passive admirers of tradition!"

There may, therefore, be some sense in the thesis, said to be current in certain artistic and musical circles in Paris, which, if I have understood it aright, declares that it is not so much a question of turning out good art in the accepted sense as of creating a stir and putting life into things. I find it tempting to draw the logical conclusion and strive to achieve something bad. This may sound a paradox, but it is no use trying to apply generally accepted ethical standards to art. Perhaps its very nature is the reverse of the ethical; do we not say that art is free? Now if we were to strive intensely to achieve the opposite of what has previously been deemed good, we should at last come full circle and no harm would be done. So-called progress, it should be remembered, is in rings and circles. It is the color of the rings and not their shape or course which varies with the times.

This brings us to the very interesting question of originality. Movements like the one mentioned spring from an intense desire for something different, something fresh, original, and surprising. The creative artist will not tolerate continued neglect and indifference. This instinct for display lies so deep in our nature that it is a tremendous driving force to those made of the right stuff. But it is exacting, and the smaller and slenderer the talent, the more careful must it be to abstain from seeking great originality. Nothing in all art is as painful as unsuccessful originality. It is like the twisted grimaces of vanity. We see the spirit everywhere. Some of us know it, but have no word for it; we exchange looks and shudder, like children at the sight of a skeleton. We see it in houses, paintings, statues, music; and most of all where artists have wanted to express strong emotion. Joy howls, Cupid squirms and writhes, mirth is stylized on stilts, and sorrow and grief look like the mask of some sphinx with great hollow eyes. This is what happens when a man of insufficient talent tries to be original and do things for which he has neither the feeling nor the powers. Oh, you artists, see how Albrecht Dürer painted a blade of grass, how Schubert composed a little song! Learn that the smallest shall be the greatest; that two colors, three notes, two right-angles and a circle sufficed for the man who found delight as a humble servant of art!

There was a time in music, not long ago, when the pursuit of originality led to monster orchestras. Imagine the incredible naïveté of trying to get a greater effect with bigger orchestras! It is not more than 15-20 years ago and there are composers still living who took part in the movement. But of course the limit was soon reached. Orchestras of one, two, three, and four hundred players were the cry, and the mass display culminated with a thousand at a concert, I think, in Vienna. [Munich — ed.] And what then? That was far as it could go; and clear-headed people outside the profession — not conductors and musicians — began to react in speech and print. A new and equally absurd cry went up, this time for small orchestras at any price. Wind ensembles with one stringed instrument, harp duets with a percussion instrument, and so forth. While citing the old masters, their advocates overlooked the essential point that they wrote for the orchestras they had on hand or were commissioned to write for. This last movement is already outmoded. What will be the next? These cults of giant orchestras on the one hand, and pygmy ensembles on the other, are concerned with the externals of music, its garb, the surface, and the fullness or meagreness of musical sound — and of course music must sound right to the musical ear. But, as I have repeatedly pointed out, what we must consider, the alpha and omega of music, is the tones themselves, the tonal register, and the intervals. These have been clean forgotten in all the experiments with so-called tonal color and other externals.

Are we to return to something old, then? By no means. We should cease to reckon with either old or new. But woe to the musician who does not have his eyes about him; who fails alike to learn and love the good things in the old masters and to watch and be ready for the new that may come in a totally different form from what we expected.

Theories and prophecies are irrelevant. Some believe in and hope for a new Messiah in art; others think that all is in hopeless decline. Both are unrealistic. The former believe in miracles and want to witness them; the latter, that life may be extinguished to the last flicker. They both forget that art is human and that humanity will not die out in fifty or a hundred years. There is hope for the new generation if it will work from within and not seek originality in externals, biding its time like the mother who carries the fruit of her womb within her until the great day dawns. And let us not forget that every single creature is different from his neighbor, though all must have time to realize the fine strong growth which perfects itself.

Every musician is entitled to use tones as he thinks fit. Old rules may be accepted or rejected at will. Schoolmasters no longer take their scholars by the ear; whipping and thrashing have been abolished, abuse and scolding silenced. But let no man assume that he can relax his efforts on that account. It is up to you to listen, seek, think, reflect, weigh, and discard, until, of your own free will, you find what our strict fathers in art thought they could knock into our heads. We have the glorious badge of freedom and independence. And should our path take us past our fathers' houses, we may one day allow that they were after what we are after, we want what they wanted; only we failed to understand that the simplest is the hardest, the universal the most lasting, the straight the strongest, like the pillars that support the dome.

Originally posted by Alex Ross from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2007 at 02:29 PM | Comments (0)

Are you ready for this?

Alex Prior is a fourteen-year-old composer, conductor, former boy soprano, horn player, organist, pianist, cellist, and mandolinist who is currently studying at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. His worklist includes three symphonies, five concertos, two ballets (Mowgli just had its premiere at the Moscow Classical State Ballet), and a music drama for orchestra and voices on Pushkin's "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Golden Fish." He is presently penning an opera based on Ibsen's A Doll's House. As if that weren't enough, he is listed as a great-great-grandson of Stanislavsky. To judge from musical samples on his website, Prior has considerable potential as a composer, although prodigies of this type must work hard to rise above imitative cleverness. Whether or not another Korngold is in the offing, Prior's rather overstuffed site provides moments of amusement. One highlight is his performance of "Nessun dorma" at the Kremlin before a waxworks audience that includes Vladimir Putin (wait for the last shot of the clip). Another is his rendition of "O sole mio" for a comically impressed Meryl Streep. Maybe someone needs to ease off the publicity a little?

Then there's Peng-Peng Gong....

Originally posted by Alex Ross from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2007 at 02:28 PM | Comments (0)

Music inspired by the melody of the land - Inverness Courier

Music inspired by the melody of the land Inverness Courier, UK - 3 hours ago While he is familiar with a huge range of musical styles, from early music to the contemporary avant-garde, he chooses to write in an accessible style in ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2007 at 02:28 PM | Comments (0)

Do Conductors and Perfomers Make Good Composers?

Joshua Bell tells the Korea Times that he’s working toward writing his own stuff in a few years.  Could work, I suppose.  His pal Edgar Myers is a decent composer and fine musician.  But, you pretty much have to go back to Rachmaninoff to find someone who was “great” as both a performer and composer.  (Or, I’m sure someone will remind me that you don’t have to go back that far.)

Same thing for conductors.  Okay, Lenny was great at both but most are not.  The most excruciating half hour I ever spent in a concert hall (and this includes Chinese opera) was listening to some endless percussion drivel by Michael Tilson Thomas that he had forced upon the poor kids in the New World Symphony.  I really admire Esa Pekka but I just can’t warm to his music.

So, gang, what’s the verdict? 

Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2007 at 02:01 PM | Comments (0)

Mes Amies

I thought I might write about a few of the people in my life who are named Amy:Since this is the ETHEL blog, let me start with Amy Kohn. As you may know, ETHEL recently received a grant from the Jerom...

Originally from Ethel - MySpace Blog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2007 at 02:01 PM | Comments (0)

AAJ Reviews

From AAJ:

26-Jun-07 Erik Truffaz
Arkhangelsk (Blue Note Records)

26-Jun-07 Mikko Innannen and Innkvisitio
Paa-da-pap (TUM Records)

25-Jun-07 Rob Brown Trio
Sounds (Clean Feed Records)

25-Jun-07 Multiple Artists
Chicago Underground Trio: Chronicle

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

Vision Festival Reviews and Photos

Darcy James Argue’s blogs about the recent Vision Festival as does Brian Olewnick. The NY Sun also has a review.

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

links for 2007-06-26

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

Max Roach 4 - Plays Charlie Parker (Verve)

Bird tributes have been a reliable jazz staple for over a half century. This one probably ranks as my first pick amongst the Hitchcock-sized flock. Max was in the midst of a creative watershed that initially made his look...

Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2007 at 05:01 AM | Comments (0)

He's just trying to tell a vision

Originally from Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2007 at 02:01 AM | Comments (0)

June 25, 2007

Chamber Music of Charles Griffin to be Performed in New York City on June 28 and in Liepaja, Latvia on July 1

Chamber Music by American composer Charles Griffin will be performed in New York City and Liepaja, Latvia in the next week at the following locations:

Charles’ Jazz Suite for clarinet and piano will be performed by clarinetist Demetrius Spaneas and pianist Elaine Kwon on June 28 – 7:00 at The Knitting Factory Tap Room, 74 Leonard Street in Manhattan. This will be presented as part of a concert by the Sapphire Ensemble of new solo and duo classical/crossover works by Nickos Harizanos, Elaine Kwon, Leroy “Sam” Parkins, William Susman, and Demtrius Spaneas (http://www.dspaneas.com/). The Sapphire Ensemble is a NYC based music group with flexible instrumentation that specializes in crossing genres by presenting new classical chamber music influenced by jazz, rock, film, theater, world music, and other forms of improvisation.

Tickets for this event are $8 in advance, $10 at the door. For more information, call The Knitting Factory at (212) 219-3132 or visit them at http://www.knittingfactory.com/.

The Riga, Latvia-based clarinet quartet Quattro Differente will include Charles’ recently revised version of Panta Rei on their July 1 - 4PM concert at The Gallery Theater of the Latvian Society House in Liepaja, Latvia. Also on this program will be works by Nick Gotham, Jekabs Nimanis, Santa Ratniece, Janis Duda, Edgars Raginskis, Austra Savicka and Imants Mezaraups.

Panta Rei, originally an 8 minute work for saxophone quartet, was premiered by the Amherst Saxophone Quartet in Buffalo, New York. Quattro Differente (http://www.qd.lv/index_en.htm) premiered an earlier version of the piece in Ogre, Latvia, last year.

Read Charles Griffin’s latest From the Faraway Nearby newsletter at http://www.jamesarts.com/releases/june07/CG_nws_062507.htm and his lively blog of the same name at http://www.sequenza21.com/latvia/. You can also hear a marvelous new Noizepunk & Das Krooner interview with him at http://www.kalvos.org/nkshows.html. Much more about him at his website - http://www.charlesgriffin.net/.

Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)

Hugh Hopper - Hoppertunity Box

Cuneiform Rune 240 For being a band heralded for their burning live performances, especially in the early 1970s, the Soft Machine were major proponents of studio trickery. What was a tight live sound was infinitely altered and overdubbed over...

Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)

SICPP finale covers a lot of ground

The recent SICPP festival gets coverage.

The 2007 Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice at the New England Conservatory closed on Saturday with the annual students’ marathon concert, impishly dubbed the “Sick Puppy Iditarod” by artistic director Stephen Drury. Though not quite as long as its namesake, the 28-work, six-and-a-half - hour trek traversed a fair portion of the new-music landscape.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

DMG Newsletter June 22nd 2007

From DMG:

FRED FRITH & CHRIS BROWN, THE NELS CLINE SINGERS, WILLIAM PARKER DOUBLE QUARTET, STEVE SWELL’S FIRE INTO MUSIC With JEMEEL MOONDOC/WILLIAM PARKER/HAMID DRAKE,

PETER KOWALD 2 DVD CD SET, EVAN PARKER/MATTHEW SHIPP, JOHN COXSON/WADADA LEO SMITH & HAN BENNINK With JOHN COXON/ASHLEY WALES, DAVID MURRAY BLACK SAINT QT, ROSWELL RUDD & YOMO TORO, JASON KAO HWANG/SANG WON PARK

A TREASURE CHEST of GEMS from THE EX & THEIR TERP CATALOGUE! MICHEL PORTAL w/ TONY MALABY & JEF LEE JOHNSON, STEFAN PASBORG W/ ELLERY ESKELIN, JOHN TCHICAI & RAY ANDERSON, VIJAY IYER & MIKE LADD, WILLIAM HOOKER & SABIR MATEEN, MATT LAVELLE & EVIL EYE [JONATHAN MORITZ/NATE WOOLEY/MIKE PRIDE/KEN FILIANO],

JAYNE CORTEZ & THE FIRESPITTERS With DENARDO COLEMAN/BERN NIX, 8 NEW DISCS from CIMP & CADENCE JAZZ, A HANDFUL OF HISTORIC & SALE ITEMS from THE DIW & AVANT CATALOGUE, PHAROAH SANDERS, MOONDOG, ZAKIR HUSSAIN, RAVI SHANKAR & HARIPRASAD CHAURASIA, THE WILD MAGNOLIAS & EVEN MORE GOODIES!

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

Umbrella Music Through July 11

From Chicago’s Umbrella Music:

Wednesday, 27 June 2007
The Hideout
10:00PM | Bass Blowout
Bass Duos, Trios, and Quartets by
Josh Abrams
Ingebrigt Håker Flaten
Kent Kessler
Nate McBride
two sets
$6 cover
PLUS | DJ sets
Vandermark Soundclash : Both Sides Of The Ocean - The Early AACM and English Improvisation Scenes

Thursday, 28 June 2007
Elastic
10:00PM | Blink
Greg Ward - reeds
Dave Miller - guitar
Jeff Greene - bass
Quin Kirchner - drums
11:00PM | Josh Berman Quintet
Josh Berman - cornet
Keefe Jackson - tenor saxophone
Jason Adasiewicz - vibraphone
Anton Hatwich - bass
Nori Tanaka - drums
$7 requested donation

Sunday, 1 July 2007
The Hungry Brain
10:00PM | Pandelis Karayorgis and Friends
Pandelis Karayorgis - piano
Chicago improvisers TBA
two sets

Thursday, 5 July 2007
Elastic
10:00 PM | Karayorgis/Gregorio/McBride
Pandelis Karayorgis - piano
Guillermo Gregorio - reeds
Nate McBride - bass
11:00 PM | Pandelis Karayorgis and Guests
Pandelis Karayorgis - piano
Others TBA

Sunday, 8 July 2007
The Hungry Brain
10:00PM | Vandermark/Daisy Duo
Ken Vandermark - reeds
Tim Daisy - drums
two sets

Wednesday, 11 July 2007
The Hideout
10:00PM | Judith Berkson Solo
Judith Berkson - voice, keyboards
11:00PM | Halvorson/Pavone Duo
Mary Halvorson - guitar, vocals
Jessica Pavone - viola, vocals
$7 cover
PLUS | DJ Sets : Jeb Bishop Presents
Horn players : Solos, Duos, Trios

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

An interview with DaveX, host of "It's Too Damn Early"

Originally from The Hollow Tree Experimental Music Report, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)

Meet The Composer President Moves to State Council on the Arts

Heather A. Hitchens, who for eight years has been the president of Meet The Composer, was recently appointed by New York governor Eliot Spitzer to be the Executive Director of the New York State Council on the Arts.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)

School's Out For the Summer!

From finding ways to encourage the performance of new music by students to creating opportunities for all composers to write for young players and considering how to help educators find their way to us, many penetrating questions have been raised. But has this online conversation made a difference?

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)

I was revolted by Schoenberg

Largely positive reception for John Tavener's new work The Beautiful Names. So here is an interesting aspect of Tavener:

I have always been drawn more to the archetypal levels of human experience and human types, which is why I think I was drawn to Stravinsky and revolted by Schoenberg. Schoenberg (left) was for me the filthy, rotten 'dirt dump' of the twentieth century. I personally could not stand the angst-ridden sound of decay in his music, the vile post-Freudian world. Basically, I do not respond to the so-called 'Germanic Tradition', whose by now rotting corpse - the hideous sound world of its fabricated complexity - smothers archetypal experience that I have always sought. - John Tavener writes in The Music of Silence, A Composer's Testament (Faber ISBN 0571200885).

But Schoenberg could be just as bitchy. Read here what he said about Toscanini.
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 Jun 25, 2007 at 06:14 PM | Comments (0)

The day we met.

(Posted today on the TONY Blog)

Don't get us wrong, no one loves Joe's Pub more than we do. But we can think of a few ways that swanky lounge might have been refurbished to suit last night's record-release date by Boston roots-rockers Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles. All those tables? Outta there. Toss some sawdust on the floor. Instead of pricey cosmopolitans, $5 pitchers. A pool table and a smoky haze in the air would have finished the picture nicely.

We told you about Borges—pronounced BOR-jes, not BOR-haze—last week in a five-star review of her new album, Diamonds in the Dark. She's a Massachusetts native currently based in Boston, and her music struck us as a whip-smart mixture of old-school torch and twang (Wanda Jackson, Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam) and punk-rock attitude (old Elvis Costello, X, Lone Justice). "The Day We Met," the disc's lead-off single, has an unbeatable power-pop bounce, while "Stop and Think It Over," penned by garage-rock maven Greg Cartwright, is a throwback to the soulful girl-group sound. (Small wonder that former Shangri-La Mary Weiss also covered the latter song on her recent comeback album.)

Despite a massive cult in Boston and a healthy following on the roots-rock tour circuit, Borges has yet to break here in New York. Last night's show proved that it's just a matter of time. Decked out in a black-and-silver striped mini dress and white cowboy boots, and armed with a duct-taped Telecaster, Borges revealed a winning stage presence and showed off a voice even stronger and more flexible than her record had suggested.

The band kicked off its set with four tunes from its first disc, Silver City (issued in 2005 on Texas indie Blue Corn), then followed with a trio from the new one: "Lord Only Knows," "Belle of the Bar" and "Lonely Town of Love"—the last delivered by Borges in a bluesy drawl worthy of Mick Jagger. Bassist Binky announced "Daniel Lee," the single from the first album, as "a really big hit in our bedrooms." The set included just about everything from both discs, including a pair of requests Borges was clearly pleased to honor.

Guitarist Mike Castellana—a Long Islander, it turned out—served up twangy riffs and heartsick pedal-steel arias. Rob Dulaney demonstrated that ultimate sign of a drummer not prone to grandstanding: mouthing the lyrics to many of the songs. And then there was Binky: bassist, backing vocalist, raconteur and all-around foil to the leader. His ability to play a one-note throb with one finger of his left hand while operating a long-neck with his right must surely be the envy of bassists everywhere; later, he used the half-empty bottle as a slide. His chemistry with Borges—including (but not limited to) rock-star stage choregraphy—put this gig over the top, even in front of one of those quiet, show-me NYC crowds.

It probably helped the band to have Josh, a young kid who knew the words to all the songs—even the new ones—sitting on the front row all night. (He was rewarded with a copy of the new CD.) And eventually, a handsome couple at the next table got up and danced through "The Day We Met" and a few other songs. It took every ounce of our composure not to join them.

You'll have another chance to catch Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles on July 28, when the band opens for Kelly Willis at the Bowery Ballroom. Until then, head to her MySpace page to hear the band for yourself, check out this video for a taste of the live show, and tune into WFUV on June 20 for a live set the band taped while it was in town for last night's show.

Originally posted by NightAfterNight from Night After Night, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)

Dusted Reviews

From Dusted:

Artist: Current 93
Album: The Inmost Light
Label: Jnana
Review date: Jun. 25, 2007

Artist: Jandek
Album: Manhattan Tuesday
Label: Corwood
Review date: Jun. 22, 2007

Artist: Erik Satie
Album: Cubist Works 1913-1924
Label: LTM
Review date: Jun. 20, 2007

Artist: Sonic Youth
Album: Daydream Nation (Deluxe Edition)
Label: Geffen
Review date: Jun. 20, 2007

Artist: Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso U.F.O
Album: Crystal Rainbow Pyramid Under the Stars
Label: Important
Review date: Jun. 19, 2007

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 01:56 PM | Comments (0)

Musique Machine Reviews

From Musique Machine:

Goon Moon - Lickers Last Leg
This Goon Moon’s second album of genre bending song craft that mixes together retro and stoner rock, psychedelic pop with electronic elements and weird edges. It manages to be chaotic, discordant and rocking, yet also haunting, melodic and full of oddness through out its playing time.

Sleep Research Facility - Deep Frieze
This is Sleep Research Facility aka Kevin Doherty second deep ambient album for Cold Spring and his fourth in all. The albums concept is based around the uncharted and people-less polar landscapes, caverns and mountains, which really managers to suck you deep into its deeply chilling sonic world.

Jessica Rylan - Interior Designs
Interior designs presents the listener with four tracks mainly played via analog synthzier’s constructed by Rylan herself. The pieces fall somewhere between improvised synth patterns and noise,Think a more aggravated and volatile version of the likes of Rafael Toral’s more recent work.

Organ Eye - S/T
Organ Eye’s Self titled debut servers up two long form satisfying and detailed drone based pieces from this Australia/ New Zealand four piece.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 01:56 PM | Comments (0)

monk for the masses

Played a gig with my buddy Dan Schnelle (a.k.a. Dan the drummer for the IJG) last night and he told me about this hilarious take on Thelonious Monk's music (and apparently some people haven't realized yet that it's actually Larry Goldings):

After you watch that, go to Hans' MySpace and listen to the samples from his CD, which is supposed to be out soon. Let's hope so - I'm pretty sure I'd pay good money to hear the rest of "Think of One"!

Originally from stop the play and watch the audience, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 01:55 PM | Comments (0)

John Whitney: Arabesque (1975)

John Whitney (1917 - 1995) was the father of computer animation and was a UCLA professor as well. He was perhaps best known for the psychedlic galactic travelling scenes in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.

Whitney was an important artist and deserves to be better known. I looked at a website that celebrates him, sponsored by Siggraph, but it is badly in need of updating. We have a laser disc (remember those?) of his work, but have been unable to play it. I found this excerpt on YouTube but is, sadly, of poor quality. (I just checked to see whether the laser disc has been re-released but it appears to not have happened.)

Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 01:55 PM | Comments (0)

SFist Today - SFist

SFist Today SFist, CA - 19 hours ago --Contemporary classical music with SFSound at the ODC Theater, including an intriguing piece for ensemble and spotlight. $5, 8 pm, ODC Theater (3153 17th, ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 01:55 PM | Comments (0)

Festival kicks off in true Vancouver fashion - Globe and Mail

Festival kicks off in true Vancouver fashion Globe and Mail, Canada - 4 hours ago Takase, specifically, is rooted to a piano tradition that can take in both bop (Thelonious Monk) and the avant-garde (Cecil Taylor) in equal measure. ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 01:55 PM | Comments (0)

Spellbound radio 6/3/07 hr 2

Spellbound radio 6/3/07 hr 2
Spellbound radio 6/3/07 hr 2 - Purple Note Radio Network - Spellbound, music for theremin
From Podcast: Spellbound, a brief program of music for theremin.

Originally posted by jeff from cacophonous.org, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

Spellbound radio 6/10/07 hr 1

Spellbound radio 6/10/07 hr 1
Spellbound radio 6/10/07 hr 1 - Purple Note Radio Network - Spellbound, music for theremin
From Podcast: Spellbound, a brief program of music for theremin.

Originally posted by jeff from cacophonous.org, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

Spellbound radio 6/10/07 hr 2

Spellbound radio 6/10/07 hr 2
Spellbound radio 6/10/07 hr 2 - Purple Note Radio Network - Spellbound, music for theremin
From Podcast: Spellbound, a brief program of music for theremin.

Originally posted by jeff from cacophonous.org, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

Spellbound radio 6/17/07 hr 1

Spellbound radio 6/17/07 hr 1
Spellbound radio 6/17/07 hr 1 - Purple Note Radio Network - Spellbound, music for theremin
From Podcast: Spellbound, a brief program of music for theremin.

Originally posted by jeff from cacophonous.org, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

Spellbound radio 6/17/07 hr 2

Spellbound radio 6/17/07 hr 2
Spellbound radio 6/17/07 hr 2 - Purple Note Radio Network - Spellbound, music for theremin
From Podcast: Spellbound, a brief program of music for theremin.

Originally posted by jeff from cacophonous.org, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

Spellbound radio 6/3/07 hr 1

Spellbound radio 6/3/07 hr 1
Spellbound radio 6/3/07 hr 1 - Purple Note Radio Network - Spellbound, music for theremin
From Podcast: Spellbound, a brief program of music for theremin.

Originally posted by jeff from cacophonous.org, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

Avant Garde Project 65: Hans Werner Henze III

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.

AGP1-62 are now available for direct download in the archive at www.avantgardeproject.org

AGP63-64 and other recent AGP installments are available at http://thepiratebay.org/user/loudav

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

Our third Hans Werner Henze installment includes two concert suites based on motion picture soundtracks composed by Henze, and an arrangement by Henze of an oratorio by Giacomo Carissimi. The movie Swann in Love (1984) is represented by twelve variations for orchestra, and the movie Katharina Blum (1975) is represented by a concert suite for orchestra. While the music in these works was originally written to accompany motion pictures, it includes some of the most gratifying harmonies I have heard by Henze. His arrangement of Carissimi’s Jepthe is scored for an intriguing collection of flutes, plucked string instruments, and percussion–producing timbres that are unmistakably from the twentieth century.

The torrent includes a PDF files with liner notes from the two LPs these works appeared on (see pp. 12,15,16).

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.

17 - Katharina Blum [27:09]
18 - Swann in Love [21:34]
19 - Jepthe [27:40]

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 Jun 25, 2007 at 05:00 AM | Comments (0)

Cleveland area composer Lewis Nielson gets ink T...

Cleveland area composer Lewis Nielson gets ink

The Cleveland Plain Dealer runs a profile of Oberlin prof and composer Lewis Nielson. I was a little surprised the article makes no attempt to describe Nielson's music or list his influences. There is also no discography in the article, and I couldn't find any of his work when I searched Emusic. (After much Googling around, I did finally find a Craig Hultgren album on Emusic, that has one of Nielson's pieces, "Valentine Mechanique.") The official faculty site does list some recordings, although Nielson doesn't list the record labels or explain how to acquire them. There are also no sound samples, although Nielson carefully lists his awards. Hey dude, post some streaming music so we can hear it.

Originally from Modernclassical, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 05:00 AM | Comments (0)

Dead Cambodian Dictator Wins Britain’s Got Talent Contest

Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2007 at 02:01 AM | Comments (0)

June 24, 2007

Gimme one vision

Originally from Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 24, 2007 at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)

Free Jazz Blog Reviews

From Free Jazz:

Free Improv from Clean Feed - two reviews
Jason Lindner - Ab Aeterno - (Fresh Sound World Jazz)
Mikolaj Trzaska - Kantry (Kilogram Records, 2007)

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 24, 2007 at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

The pigeonholes of old are dissolving

"Orchestral music is quite marginalised but I don't think that all pop music is evil or that pop equals cultural ignorance and orchestral doesn't. The pigeonholes of old are beginning to dissolve and musicians are working with other artists and barriers are breaking down. But it doesn't mean that everything has to be crossover; there's also a place for what you might call pure classical music."

Jonathan Reekie (photo above), Chief Executive of the Aldeburgh Festival tells it like it is in The Independent in 2005, and puts his money where his mouth is with a triumphant 2007 Festival that featured everything from William Byrd to the electronica of Faster Than Sound and Elephant and Castle, and ended this afternoon with a life-affirming B minor Mass with Masaaki Suzuki conducting the Britten-Pears Baroque Orchestra and singers from the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme. Barriers are certainly being broken down in Aldeburgh.

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 Jun 24, 2007 at 08:01 PM | Comments (0)

Sylvano Bussotti, "Couple, for flute and piano"

Originally posted by jodru from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 24, 2007 at 07:14 PM | Comments (0)

BMG Foundation Celebrates GCC Polo Cup with HM Queen Elizabeth II ... - Emediawire (press release)

BMG Foundation Celebrates GCC Polo Cup with HM Queen Elizabeth II ... Emediawire (press release), WA - 11 hours ago "Bringing contemporary classical music under the BMG Foundation umbrella will help us reach a more extensive circle of participants, supporters and ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 24, 2007 at 07:14 PM | Comments (0)

SFist Today - SFist

SFist Today SFist, CA - 1 hour ago --Contemporary classical music with SFSound at the ODC Theater, including an intriguing piece for ensemble and spotlight. $5, 8 pm, ODC Theater (3153 17th, ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 24, 2007 at 07:13 PM | Comments (0)

The Alt. Route to Metametrics

Art Jarvinen, whose rhythmic intricacies are second to those of no one I write about, offers a different genealogy for...

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 24, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

Tim of the Jungle

I've never succeeded in getting my music on NPR, but I now have a relative who has. My brother-in-law Tim...

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 24, 2007 at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

Here are some songs by Berlin-based Brazilian comp...

Here are some songs by Berlin-based Brazilian composer, Chico Mello. They are quite surprising songs, which somewhat straddle the music of Popular Brasilian and the European Avant-Garde. (From the album, Do Lado Da Voz.)

Achado

Chorando em 2001

Mentir

Originally posted by Johnny Chang from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 24, 2007 at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)

Sylvano Bussotti, "RARA, for solo cello"

Continued Notes From Wergo 60048:

RARA (eco sierologico), for violoncello is the version for violoncello of the work composed for soloists on five instruments, of which each individually and in turn performs on one of a succession of evenings, with a combined offering on the final evening of a six day festival. This procedure was followed at the festival in Rome organised by the Nuova Consonanze Society, which commissioned the work.

As opposed to the "cosmic" music, accomplished by the accumulation of musical happenings or mathematical treatment of masses, which becomes more and more common from Stockhausen to Xenakis, the music of Bussotti is only accessible virtually. That means that its range and meaning can only be appreciated fully by reading the score, and not by listening alone. It would seem to be the conscious intention of the composer to complicate and render almost impossible the execution of his "great forms" through the diversity of the media which he employs. For the "Cinque frammenti all'Italia" alone he uses, for example, the vocal sextet, a mixed choir and 24 mixed voices. An ideal performance of this work can only take place on paper. Thus Bussotti confirms his inclination towards abstraction and his preoccupation with the written mode of expression, the possibilities of which are inexhaustible. Is that to suggest that Bussotti's work is perfect but impossible to perform? Quite the reverse is true. For all, to the very last detail is filled with the breath of life, with an intimate and pathetic pulsation, which could be compared to the music of a state of mind. This, the composer achieves by using his own highly individualistic handwriting combining a peculiarly expressive graphic style with the most precise, elaborate post-Webern notation. Encroached on from many sides, the exponent must exert himself here to the utmost, employing his virtuosity, his imagination and his sensitivity in a kind of loving dialogue with the score. Very few are equal to the task, for it requires more than mere aptitude.

Originally posted by jodru from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 24, 2007 at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)

New From Victo Records

Victo Records has a new release out, which was recorded at FIMAV 2006.

BORBETOMAGUS & HIJOKAIDAN - “Both Noises End Burning”

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 24, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

AAJ Reviews

From AAJ:

24-Jun-07 Paul Bley / Kresten Osgood
Florida (Ilk Music)

24-Jun-07 Phil Miller - In Cahoots
Conspiracy Theories (Moonjune Records)

22-Jun-07 Anthony Ortega
Afternoon In Paris (Hatology)

22-Jun-07 Mikkel Ploug Group
Mikkel Ploug Group (Fresh Sound New Talent)

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 24, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

Sub Rosa New Releases

The latest from Sub Rosa:

for Bunita Marcus - MORTON FELDMAN
performed by Stephane Ginsburgh

didascalies (CD + DVD) - LUC FERRARI
performed by Jean-Philippe Collard-Neven and Vincent Royer

live in London 1982 BRION GYSIN
with Ramuntcho Matta

WINTER FAMILY - WINTER FAMILY

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 24, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

links for 2007-06-24

Originally from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 24, 2007 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

ESP New Releases

New release from ESP:

VARIOUS ARTISTS, “MOVEMENT SOUL VOLUME II” esp4034

A continuation from the earlier Alan Ribback work, produced by Michael D. Anderson. The CD examines untapped and historically important achievements and tragedies in the lives of a people during the Civil Rights era.

This compilation presents facts on events in black history that merit their being acknowledged. Other forth coming volumes will present further historical developments that will remain an important part of American history seen and unseen. Each CD will examine different aspects of the Civil Rights Movement featuring interview footage, press releases, and music heard during the time of each theme.

The production of this CD is to encourage people of all races the do more study involving the Civil Rights era and other thematic topics that also address stages of development during this era. It is hoped that people of all races will better understand the on-going struggle of African Americans and the many achievements towards the development of this country which dispel the negative connotations passed down through families for generations.

NORMAN HOWARD, “BURN BABY BURN” esp4033

Despite the profound obscurity of Norman Howard’s music, and that of his mate Joe Phillips, it’s crucial as a window not only into the influence that Albert Ayler carried in creative music, but into how the Aylers affected the musicians of their hometown. Most importantly, this reflects on how vital free music has been at the local level, where it remains so to this day. – Clifford Allen

DON CHERRY, “LIVE AT THE CAFE MONTMARTRE” esp4032

Don Cherry, more than any other artist in the jazz of his era, pioneered the music’s internationalist nature that has now come to be commonly accepted as an integral part of its character. The individuality of Cherry’s contribution to the history of jazz has often been unfairly obscured by his admittedly important association with the music of Ornette Coleman. While the (pocket) trumpeter’s position as Coleman’s front line partner in the altoist’s first revolutionary quartet was indeed a major one, Cherry’s role as one of the founders of the genre that is known today as “world music” is equally significant. – Russ Musto

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 24, 2007 at 05:00 AM | Comments (0)

New From Blossoming Noise

Blossoming Noise has a set of new offerings:

G*PARK: Seismogramm CD (BN 021CD)
“Remastered from the original tapes by Marc Zeier, Seismogramm was first released as a limited edition LP in 1990 on the Swiss Schimpfluch int. label. One of the original (1986) and most elusive SCHIMPFLUCHGRUPPE members operating in the vein of the Viennese aktionists.”

DENHAM & OLI NOVADNIEKS, VAL: Raw Powder CD (BN 022CD)
“Sonorous melodies and melodic sonorities from the fabulous Val Denham (known for her work with Hafler Trio, Throbbing Gristle, Marc Almond, Black Sun, Coil and more…) & Oli Novadnieks. Limited edition of 1000 deluxe gold copies featuring Tranart by Val Denham.”

MERZBOW: Zophorus CD (BN 024CD)
“Japan’s king of noise returns with Zophorus. Speaker-massaging pulsations of psychic skree & frequency abuse. Housed in a deluxe 5 color digipak designed by Masami Akita. Recorded in February of 2007.”

ASTRO: Astral Orange Sunshine CD (BN 025CD)
“Psychedelic space music from Hiroshi Hasegawa of the legendary Japanese noise outfit C.C.C.C. Astral Orange Sunshine was recorded between 2004 and 2007 using the EMS Synthi as its main sound generator.”

MENCHE, DANIEL: Bleeding Heavens CD (BN 026CD)
“Brand new studio compositions from Portland’s corporal sound purveyor, Daniel Menche. Comprised of deconstructed organ and trumpets. Recorded from 2006 to 2007 at House of Menche.”

RUNZELSTIRN & GURGELSTØCK + MAMA BÄR: Il Portale Delle Indipendenti CD (BN 027CD)
“Psycho acoustic pandering from Schimpfluch founder Rudolf Eb.er & Asylum-Lunaticum’s Mama Bär. Includes Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck concert for spanking featuring Raionbashi & Mai Sau as well as a reissue of the out of print (limited edition of 27) LP Il Portale Delle Indipendenti.”

PRURIENT: Adam Tied to Stone LP (PYG 006LP)
“All new recordings of malaise from Brooklyn noise herald, Dominick Fernow. Limited edition of 500 copies on 140 gram green marbled vinyl.”

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 24, 2007 at 05:00 AM | Comments (0)

New on Emanem & Psi

Emanem & Psi have a pile of new releases:

Latest Psi releases - available now:
07.01 Lawrence Casserley & Simon Desorgher ‘Music from ColourDome’ (2006) with Evan Parker, David Stevens & Philipp Wachsmann
07.02 François Houle, Evan Parker, Benoît Delbecq ‘La Lumière de Pierres’ (2005)
07.03 Bark! ‘Contraption’ (2004) Rex Casswell, Phillip Marks and Paul Obermayer
07.04 VA ‘Free Zone Appleby 2006′ Paul Lovens, Rudi Mahall, Evan Parker, Paul Rutherford, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Aki Takase, Philipp Wachsmann
07.05/6 fORCH ’spin networks’ (2005) 2-CD set Richard Barrett, John Butcher, Rhodri Davies, Paul Lovens, Phil Minton, Wolfgang Mitterer, Paul Obermayer, Ute Wassermann
07.07 Evan Parker ‘Hook, Drift & Shuffle’ (1983) reissue with George Lewis, Barry Guy & Paul Lytton

Latest Emanem releases - available now:
4136 Lol Coxhill ‘More Together than Alone’ duos & solo (2000-5) with Hugh Davies, Henry Lowther, John Russell & Pat Thomas
4137 Terry Day ‘2006 Duos’ with Rhodri Davies, Charlotte Hug, Hannah Marshall, Phil Minton & John Russell
4138 John Russell ‘Analekta’ duos & Quaqua (2004/6) with Chefa Alonso, Henry Lowther, Garry Todd & others
4139 ‘freedom of the city 2006′ Chefa Alonso, David Leahy, Javier Carmona; Jan Huib Nas, Adelheid Sieuw, Guy Strale, Jean-Michel van Schouwburg; Garry Todd, Nigel Coombes, Nick Stephens, Tony Marsh
4140 Phil Minton Quartet ‘Slur’ (2006) with John Butcher, Roger Turner & Veryan Weston

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 24, 2007 at 05:00 AM | Comments (0)

This page is currently being redesigned.

Originally from The Hollow Tree Experimental Music Report, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 24, 2007 at 02:00 AM | Comments (0)

June 23, 2007

Two with Maazel, two with Muti

I'm eagerly awaiting tonight's final concert of the season with Lorin Maazel and the New York Philharmonic, with Deborah Voigt in four Richard Strauss songs and the Mahler Seventh.  Meanwhile, here are my reports from two earlier Maazel evenings: a post-Europe display of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, and an all-Brahms program with the excellent New York Choral Artists.  Riccardo Muti was also in town for the sole opera I know that includes an arachnid, Hindemith's Sancta Susanna, and later, Rossini, Schubert and Dvořák.

Originally posted by bhodgesnyc from Monotonous Forest, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 23, 2007 at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)

The National's brand of intelligent art-rock quietly hooks ... - San Francisco Chronicle

The National's brand of intelligent art-rock quietly hooks ... San Francisco Chronicle,  USA - Jun 21, 2007 Make the pop world safe for avant-garde classical influences. Dessner is a classically trained guitarist whose New Music credentials include tours with the ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 23, 2007 at 10:16 PM | Comments (0)

This Is How They Do It - Kolkata Newsline

This Is How They Do It Kolkata Newsline, India - 22 hours ago ... Music Day in Kolkata, packed a punch that introduced the most capricious elements of punk, progressive rock, blues, the psychedelic and the avant-garde. ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 23, 2007 at 10:16 PM | Comments (0)

Stanford Jazz Festival to feature 33 concerts, more than 100 artists - HULIQ

Stanford Jazz Festival to feature 33 concerts, more than 100 artists HULIQ, NC - 1 hour ago 4, features the classic, the innovative, the avant-garde and the offbeat. Moreover, it offers jazz lovers an intimate setting and an informal atmosphere. ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 23, 2007 at 10:16 PM | Comments (0)

Two with Maazel, two with Muti

I'm eagerly awaiting tonight's final concert of the season with Lorin Maazel and the New York Philharmonic, with Deborah Voigt in four Richard Strauss songs and the Mahler Seventh.  Meanwhile, here are my reports from two earlier Maazel evenings: their post-Europe display of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, and an all-Brahms program with the excellent New York Choral Artists.  Riccardo Muti was also in town for the sole opera I know that includes an arachnid, Hindemith's Sancta Susanna, and later, Rossini, Schubert and Dvořák.

Originally posted by bhodgesnyc from Monotonous Forest, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 23, 2007 at 10:09 PM | Comments (0)

Judy Dunaway, "Champagne in Mexico City - Fragment Set #1"

Judy Dunaway, balloons
Dan Evans Farkas, electronics

Originally posted by jodru from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 23, 2007 at 10:07 PM | Comments (0)

Stille Poss | Chinese Whisper @ Krieg der Schprachen

Volker Schindel presents his cover for Christian Kesten's Stille Post | Chinese Whispers (Version 5)

Originally posted by Johnny Chang from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 23, 2007 at 10:07 PM | Comments (0)

A short survey of what the people in Berlin-Wedd...

A short survey of what the people in Berlin-Wedding are listening to.


D-Irie Shok Muzik (Berlin-Wedding)
Der Angriff (The Attack)












Offer Nissim (Israel)
First Time













Ibrahim Tatlise (Turkey)
Seni Sana Birakmam

Originally posted by Johnny Chang from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 23, 2007 at 10:07 PM | Comments (0)

Still Pos | Chinese Whisper @ Krieg der Sprachen

Sasha Pushikin presents the final version from STILLE POST | Chinese Whisper (Version 10)

Originally posted by Johnny Chang from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 23, 2007 at 10:07 PM | Comments (0)

Citizen Kane (1941). Bernard Herrmann

Originally from aworks :: "new" american classical music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 23, 2007 at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)

The Talent in the Family

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11009621...

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 23, 2007 at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)

Music blogs and the only show in town

Good for music blogs to see the official Aldeburgh Festival website quoting reviews from the Times, Guardian, Independent, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times and On An Overgrown Path.

I wonder if a certain music journalist still thinks "until bloggers deliver hard facts … paid for newspapers will continue to set the standard as the only show in town"?
Photo by Pliable 21 June 2007. 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 Jun 23, 2007 at 02:57 PM | Comments (0)

The Ministry of Silly Crackles

[june 23, 2007 | sbpc/015] Hear Audio [ mp3 3.3MB ]
"Je n'aime pas la musique contemporaine ..." We pulled our crackle boxes and started our noisy business, right on the doorstep of the french ministry of culture, which thus for some thirty, forty minutes became the Ministry of Silly Crackles ...

Originally from HarSMedia (Feed and Podcast), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 23, 2007 at 02:02 PM | Comments (0)

Bagatellen Reviews

From Bagatellen:

Sten Sandell Trio John Butcher - Strokes - 22 Jun 07
Carlos Barretto - Radio Song - 21 Jun 07
Eric Rasmussen - School of Tristano - 21 Jun 07

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 23, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

Mike Patton’s New Tomahawk Reviewed

One of Patton’s many projects, Tomahawk, is reviewed.

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 23, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

Bang On A Can Returns to MASS MoCA

New on this upcoming BOAC event:

MASS MoCA and Bang on a Can will present their sixth consecutive year of musical collaboration, intensive musical training, and exciting performances. Music will drift through the galleries every day beginning July 12 as the festival once again brims over with talented faculty and fellows from around the world who offer daily recitals at 1:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.. The always enjoyable Bang on a Can All-Stars perform on July 21 at 8 p.m. with Iva Bittov , preceded in the morning by the perennially popular Kids Can Too event. The closing concert the Bang on a Can Marathon, will feature special guest Don Byron this year and will take place on July 28 from 4 p.m. - 10 p.m..

Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 23, 2007 at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

Curtis Hasselbring and Guillermo E. Brown in NY

From www.improvisedcommunicatons.com:

Saturday, June 30th at 9:00 p.m.
The Reddy Music Concert Series presents:
Curtis Hasselbring’s Curha-chestra
Guillermo E. Brown’s Cut Up Quintet
Jalopy Theater
315 Columbia Street in Brooklyn, NY
Admission is $15
Venue information is available at (718) 395-3214
Learn more about the Jalopy Theater at http://www.jalopy.biz/
Find out more about Reddy Music at http://www.reddymusic.com

Curtis Hasselbring, trombone and guitar; Shane Endsley, trumpet; Andrew D’Angelo, bass clarinet and alto saxophone; Todd Sickafoose, bass; Ches Smith, drums

Guillermo E. Brown, drums, electronics and voice; Cochemea Gastelum, reeds and electronics; Will Johnson, samples; Keith Witty, bass; plus a special guest

On Saturday, June 30th, the Reddy Music Concert Series at Brooklyn’s Jalopy Theater will present a night of electronically oriented improvised music featuring performances by Curtis Hasselbring’s Curha-chestra and Guillermo E. Brown’s Cut Up Quintet. Curated by saxophonist/composer Rob Reddy, this ongoing monthly series is an extension of his Brooklyn-based record label, Reddy Music.

In a career that spans the last two decades, trombonist, guitarist and composer Curtis Hasselbring has appeared on more than 50 recordings, playing everything from Eastern European brass band music to country rock to electronica to jazz and improvised music. His Curha-chestra, one of three active Hasselbring-led ensembles, is an ever-changing outlet for his alter-ego, Curha, an electronic music creator who thrives on deconstructions and reconstructions of everyday noise. Learn more at http://www.curha.com/

Best known for his work as a drummer with Dave Burrell, William Parker and David S. Ware among others, Guillermo E. Brown is a multi-faceted musician and multidisciplinary performer whose work spans dance, theater and a wide range of musical genres. This version of his Cut Up Quintet, a group AllAboutJazz.com’s John Sharpe called “a smorgasbord of styles encompassing jazz, funk, noise and rap, mixed into a cohesive whole,” will preview music from its forthcoming release. Learn more at http://www.michaelkmills.com/brown/test.html

Upcoming Reddy Music Concert Series Events:

7/28 :: Mark Taylor’s Nameless Quartet and the Rob Reddy Quintet
8/25 :: Pheeroan akLaff and the Charles Burnham Band