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June 30, 2008
Chico Mello - "FATE AT EIGHT"
(Part 1/4)
Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)
Johanna Beyer: Sticky Melodies
Johanna Beyer: Sticky Melodies
r Clarinet No. 1
String Quartet No. 1
Three Songs for Clarinet and Soprano
Bees
The Federal Music Project
Movement for Two Pianos
Suite for Clarinet No. 2
String Quartet No. 2
Ballad of the Star-Eater
Movement for Double Bass and Piano
Three pieces for choir
Sonatina in C
Astra Chamber Music Society, John McCaughey, director
New World Records
Johanna Beyer is a composer who has been woefully neglected. As the composer of what many consider to have been the first electronic piece (Music of the Spheres, 1938), it’s amazed me how little one hears of her. I first became enamored with the 1938 work on a landmark LP with new music by women composers, and am delighted that New World Records is making a lot of Beyer’s music available in a recent 2-CD set. The recordings provide a really nice overview of Beyer’s music since 1930 (her pre-1930 music remains unknown). Beyer was a contemporary of Charles and Ruth Crawford Seeger, Henry Cowell and other American “experimentalists” of that era, and her music was very much ahead of its time. She ultimately developed ALS and, along with a worsening relationship with Cowell after his release from prison, made her last years tragic and unfortunate.
Fortunately for us, however, we have these 2 CDs with a good deal of Beyer’s music in extremely sympathetic and skillful performances. Of all the music on the album, the two string quartets particularly stand out. While the fourth movement of String Quartet No. 1 have been described in terms that make it seem proto-minimalist, I’m struck more by its use of repetitive glissandi than its stasis. The string writing reminds me of the one performance I heard years ago of John Becker’s string quartet, another amazing piece that I wish were heard more often (note to performers: I’ll die a lot happier if I could hear the Becker again, it’s that good).
The two works for clarinet solo are gems, as is the piece for contrabass and piano. In fact, all the pieces on these discs are incredible finds, and belong in any new music aficionado’s playlist. I’ve wanted to hear more of Beyer’s music since hearing that early electronic piece of hers, and now want to hear the remainder of her oeuvre.
Originally posted by David Toub from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)
They’re Officially In The House
A little while back on S21, I mentioned the good news that the indomitable / indubitable / inscrutable / incontinent Kalvos & Damian were bringing back an online-only version of their (ASCAP Deems Taylor) award-winning broadcasts. Though the name has changed from New Music Bazaar to In The House, The show retains all of its trademark off-the-wall storytelling, banter, and enthusiasm for sharing the music and thought of all kind of interesting NON-POP musicians at work today. Our duo may be out in the wilds of rural Vermont, but there isn’t anything backwoods about their awareness of the new-music scene. Each show is provided in both a high- and low-bandwidth version, so there’s just no excuse to not be listening, hear?
[Note: Happy as I am about this return, I’d be remiss not to also acknowledge the New Music Bazaar’s different yet fine replacement, Noizepunk and Das Krooner. Since 2005 Gene Pritsker and Charles Coleman have been running their own mostly-monthly show, with lots of the same type of K&D-worthy guests. All of their shows are archived for listening at the K&D site right along with the New Music Bazzar’s vast archive.]
Though Kalvos (Dennis Bathory-Kitsz) and Damian (David Gunn) last appeared in 2005, they more or less pick up just where they left off, with an fun interview of the muy importante left-coaster Art Jarvinen. Art has been a big factor in helping shape what’s come out of CalArts (and Cal, period) lately, and Art’s own music and interview heard in this show perfectly show off much of what California/West-Coast/Southwest music has been concerned with these last 30+ years (hint: it ain’t set-theory or the New Complexity… oh, they probably know it, but “thanks, no thanks”; life’s just too short and sweet…).
Shame on you if you’ve never bookmarked the K&D site; but all is forgiven if you do it now, and be sure to check back regularly for all the fun to come. …Oh, and send ‘em a check every so often too, OK? Pure love and enthusiasm can’t pay those production costs and server bills, and Paypal couldn’t be simpler to use. They’re doing this for you, so do a little back.
Originally posted by Steve Layton from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)
NonPop Show 040
NonPop Show 040
Program Notes:(running time: approx. 24 min.)1. “Cries Upon The Mountains” (1975) 7:04by Ingram MarshallIKON And Other Early WorksNew World Records2. “Lena Beamish” 10:33by Miranda JulyThe Binet-Simon TestKill Rock Stars (KRS296)3. “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” 5:36by John CaleCompounds + ElementsAll Saints Recordshttp://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Nonpop/~4/323075903" height="1" width="1"/>
From Podcast: NonPop.
Originally posted by jeff from cacophonous.org, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)
EINSPRUCH | MUSIKALISCHE (R)EVOLUTIONEN UM '68
PROTEST
MUSICAL (R)EVOLUTIONS AROUND '68
FREDERIC RZEWSKI
plays
36 Variations on "The People United Will Never Be Defeated!"
(Akademie der Künste, Berlin. 28.6.2008)
(apologies for this shortened version, i only started recording a few variations in... )
Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 01:44 PM | Comments (0)
Miscellaneous updates
Off-topic diva Veronika Part danced her last leads at ABT this season (she is scheduled for a large supporting part -- Myrtha -- in two later performances of Giselle) in two terrific and well-received performances of La Bayadere. As a commenter here noted, however, word on the internet (also dutifully repeated in the papers) is that she may be staying after all. In what capacity? We'll see.Originally from An Unamplified Voice, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)
ITEC wrap-up
I arrived at the airport almost 2 and a half hours before my departure this morning so that the Mikes could get back to Ithaca on time (they're playing in the band for the IC Wind Conducting Symposium. Had I known this was going on AFTER ITEC, I would have maybe tried to participate as a conductor and get credit for it. Dr. Steve Peterson, director of band as IC, is one of my musical heroes. More on that some other time.). I've been trying to keep busy via my BlackBerry, and happened to open up the Tasks application.This little lifesaver, which is often packed with reminders and deadlines, and basically dragged me through the rigors of applying for grad school and getting through my job alive, is empty.
What am I going to do before the move?
I suppose a better question would be, "what would I like to accomplish before I move to Denton?". The only thing I have on this list is to try and throw a good amount of my effort into doing a lot of playing, while trying to think about getting that "easy" sound that more put-together players have. I know after already seeing some residual effects of the conference's many performances that it is a reasonable and achievable goal. Of course I'll have ensemble audition music to practice and material to review for placement exams, so I'm sure I'll keep busy.
Overall, the conference was a very important experience for me, one of several over the last few weeks. It's been overwhelming at times: tears have been shed, sentimentality has been felt, moods have been altered, sleep has been lost. My views on most things in my life have changed quite a bit, especially over the last 2-3 years. I've always been very goal-oriented, but I have shifted some importance from the outcome of the process to the process itself. Although we are often found navigating unexpected detours, the journeys of all sizes these last few years have paid incredible dividends.
Perhaps this is where I've found much of the patience that is now, in my opinion, a normal part of my character. It was not always this way (and let me tell you, nothing helps you become more patient than teaching middle school band...): had my experience with my trip out to Dayton happened a few years ago, I would have lost my mind. I was able to step back and being pretty reasonable about the situation.
I had not expected the bad weather, but was glad that I acted when I did to move my flight. I did not like having my horn under the plane, but I nabbed the last available seat on the flight, and would not have made it to Ohio until the following day if I hadn't acted.
My bag was not lost; at least we knew where it was. There were plenty of alternatives if my bag didn't arrive, and in the end, it worked out. All it took was a little more driving and a little less sleep.
Finally, the horn. This is tricky, because I could easily blame myself for taking the risk of bringing it along when I didn't "need" it. One thing is certainly my fault: I should have waited with the horn until it was picked up by someone working with the baggage. Then I could have looked them in the eye and told them what was up. I have learned my lesson with that. Still, I could have ended up with worse (the Mikes actually seem to like the "melted" look).
It's also nice to have friends who can remind you of where your problems fit into the big picture. I didn't get stuck anywhere, didn't have to spend an extra money, and didn't have to go out of my way (besides the luggage).
As I said before, this experience is going to prove to be very important for me. It's helped me put a few pieces together in my mind so that I can take that next step towards resuming my serious study of the euphonium. I'm glad that it's been such a tough yet rewarding month so far.
Originally from the search for artistry, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)
Classical vs. pop reviews, June 26
There's no better way to understand why classical music doesn't speak to many people these days than by comparing pop and classical music reviews. I've chosen some from the New York Times, both because I read that paper every day and because the reviews on both sides of the fence are more than reputable. So the comparison, broadly speaking, is fair.So here's a bit of Ben Ratliff's review last Thursday of Gilberto Gil:
His set was a deep fusion of pop and folk culture...An interesting artist, you'd have to say. (And Minister of Culture! Note to everyone at NPAC who wanted a Cabinet-level arts department in the U.S. government -- beware of getting what you wish for. Suppose Obama wins, sets up a Department of Cultural Affairs, and names John Mellencamp to head it. And suppose Mellencamp, an outspoken populist, says that he thinks symphony orchestras get too much money.)
The name of his band, Banda Larga Cordel, means broadband, and Mr. Gil's communications-technology thoughts lie somewhere between cybertheory and metaphorical poetry about practical things....He's not necessarily interested in the status or time-saving aspects of, say, cellphones; he's an artist, the opposite of a salesman. But he is also the minister of culture for Brazil. In interviews, and in songs like the new "Banda Larga Cordel" and the old "Pela Internet" ("On the Internet") -- a tune from 1996 that he played on Tuesday -- he casts broadband technology as an empowerment issue, a cheap way to have an entire country, and ideally an entire world, included in political and social discussions.
Brazilians have long been obsessed with the past and the future at the same time, a double consciousness that has helped produce a lot of good music over the last half-century. Mr. Gil in particular made peace with popular culture before many of his contemporaries did; the tropicália movement, which he helped build in the late 1960s, was playfully anti-nostalgia and ferociously anti-purist. He is the same as ever, a man of big ideas.
Now read Anthony Tommasini, the same day, on a New York Philharmonic concert in Central Park:
Standing at the podium looking south from the Great Lawn to the skyscrapers of Midtown, the conductor Bramwell Tovey declared the sight "one of the great views in the world." Best known to New Yorkers from his guest stints conducting the Philharmonic's Summertime Classics concerts, Mr. Tovey brings droll British wit to his impromptu commentaries. He was in good form on Tuesday night.If I were a smart Martian, new to the earth, I'd read all this, and decide that pop music is serious, and classical music is light entertainment, a blend of Las Vegas and the fourth of July. Somebody, of course, might object that the Philharmonic concert was designed as entertainment, a happy, unchallenging night in Central Park. To which I'd reply that there's also a pop series in Central Park, and Gilberto Gil could well be on it.
After opening the program with an exuberant account of Shostakovich's "Festive Overture," Mr. Tovey tried to explain to concertgoers how they could vote to choose an encore for the orchestra. "No superdelegates here," he added....
After intermission there was a refreshingly straightforward performance of Tchaikovsky's "1812" Overture. The composer may have been embarrassed by this made-to-order occasional piece, but Mr. Tovey and the orchestra treated it as a respectable score with a knockout finale, here punctuated with booming cannon shots courtesy of an electric keyboard. The concert ended with three marches by Sousa that had the crowd clapping and children marching up and down the grassy aisles.
Here's Steve Smith, also on Thursday in the Times, about the Brooklyn Phlharmonic in yet another Central Park orchestral event:
The 29-member ensemble was amplified but still had to contend with an idling truck, cellphones that were answered rather than silenced, and other sporadic nuisances.Classical music here seems like a technical exercise. The pieces are known. So how were they played? Badly or well? The Martian visitor -- or any smart person, reading the Gilberto Gil review and this one -- could be forgiven for simply declining to care. Only at the end of Steve's review, and in parentheses, comes something that might spark some interest:The performance too had its rough edges. Stravinsky's "Dumbarton Oaks" Concerto sounded scrappy, with balances often less than ideal; the robust finale came off best. In Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5 the soloist, Tim Fain, played with an easy brilliance and sweet tone. Competing with a nonplused sparrow and a cavorting bystander only seemed to intensify his megawatt smile. Once again, the last movement was strongest.
I took in those works from a seat near the front, then moved to the plaza behind the seats for Beethoven's Symphony No. 4. There the sound was clearer and better blended, and [the conductor's] careful attention to dynamics and rhythm was more readily discerned.
(During the Adagio sounds from the New York Philharmonic concert wafted on wayward breezes, briefly creating an Ivesian jangle.)And this, of course, has -- strictly speaking -- nothing to do with the meaning or purpose of the concert, or at least not with any meaning the Brooklyn Philharmonic might have intended.
Please note: I'm friendly with both Tony and Steve, and I'm absolutely not saying that either is a bad critic, or that Ben Ratliff (whom I also know) is better than they are. I'm saying that pop music gives Ben more ideas -- more substance -- to work with.
Originally from Sandow, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 12:32 PM | Comments (0)
Friends
As I mentioned the other day, I’ve decided to reread some Hermann Hesse books lately: would they be as stimulating as they were in high school or college?
I started with his first novel, Peter Camenzind. In it, I see how nascent artistic youths (esp. young men) might be truly inspired by this book. There are themes of leaving home, going for long walks, discovering wine, discovering women, discovering art, debating religion, debating suicide, being arrogant and discovering who YOU are — all testosterone driven impulses of a young man.
One part of the book has stuck with me: the act of finding a friend. Peter came from a small town where everyone dead and alive was a Camenzind. So, he evidently decided that a friend who is related is a different kind of friend from one who is not. His passion for finding a friend was touching. And this was not a homosexual desire, rather a homosocial one. He wanted a male best friend.
The most haunting part of the book was the part where he implies that he has no friends. This state seemed bewildering to me. The state of having NO friends. Trying to imagine this has made me realize and appreciate my thousands of friends. With each one of my friends, I, at some point, decided that I wanted them to be my friend, and they me. Having that articulated felt good.
Looking at Peter Camenzind at age 55 feels differently than it did when I first read it at age 19 –– been there, done that, but it still resonates with me.
Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 12:32 PM | Comments (0)
Just Saying
Tonight, as I was transferring in the tube, some man gestured to me. I thought he was going to ask for directions, so I took off my headphones. Instead, he slurred, “What’s your mom doing tonight, if you’ve borrowed her dress?” (I was wearing a lab coat, double-breasted, white, gorgeous). I put my headphones on and marched on. Then I got home to my hotel and read this article, about some retarded Anglican conservatives who are talking about something something not wanting to allow gay people something else something else:
Anglican conservatives, frustrated by the continuing stalemate over homosexuality in the Anglican Communion, declared on Sunday that they would defy the church’s historic lines of authority and create a new power bloc within the church led by a council of predominantly African archbishops. [...] They depicted their efforts as the culmination of an anti-colonial struggle against the church’s seat of power in Great Britain, whose missionaries first brought Anglican Christianity to the developing world. The conservatives say many of the descendants of those Anglican missionaries in Britain and North America are now following what they call a “false gospel” that allows a malleable, liberal interpretation of Scripture.
LOL! I love how they’re talking about how hating on gay people is the culmination of, like, Ethnic Swaraji Politics. I sort of wish Gayatri and shit would drop everything and address this so I don’t have to deal with it on my blog. It is sort of fascinating, of course. The Church of England as a colonial side-dish (or main course, depending on which classes you took in college) rolled into Africa, made everybody Anglican, and all they got were these stupid Anglo Proclivities. It is, legitimately, an interesting argument, because of course, the global south is still, through the remaining colonial religious structures, beholden to the shifting fashions of the Golbal North. They inherited a whole system of beliefs that is rooted not only in Orþódox Christianity from, you know, the time of Christ, but also a whole culture of English Christianity that deeply rolls from the King James Bible to the music sung during services to Sherry in the Chaplain’s Roomz and everything else, including some things that Bishop Akinola is not so fond of. Whatever. She can take it or leave it, as far as I’m concerned. That’s how I approach the church: I take what I like (which is most of it) and the rest of it, I stick my fingers in my ears and sing Spem in Alium. Part of me wants to first address the whole issue of gays in the military before I start harping on African homophobes, because god knows I have other fish to poach, but seriously, I find it so inappropriate.
Also: What even is the Anglican Communion without the gays? Aren’t there other things in Rwanda that require the clergy’s attention? Aren’t there weird pygmy swaraj issues they should be addressing first before h8ing on what I do before and after church? For which, chances are, I have written some beautiful music? (PS, those Pygmies have also written some beautiful music. For my Rwandan readers, next time you want to talk about abomination, why don’t you go figure out what those pygmy polyrhythms are and fax that shit to me, because I still cannot figure it out. Maybe I’m too busy with all that Sodomy or whatever, but it’s a mystery to me and I, as a pledging Anglican, need your help!) What are those bitches doing, running around Africa in they purple robes? What is THEIR mom doing tonight, if they already borrowed her dress?
(My mom, for her part, is probably poaching some fish in a light stock right now. And she borrowed my dress the other week to cook pizza for me, my boyfriend, another homosexual, his dog, and my father, and she looked fierce).
Originally posted by Nico from Nico Muhly, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 12:31 PM | Comments (0)
Murakami on Schubert
"...playing Schubert's piano sonatas well is one of the hardest things in the world. Especially this, the Sonata in D Major. It's a tough piece to master. Some pianists can play one or maybe two of the movements perfectly, but if you listen to all four movements as a unified whole, no one has ever nailed it....that's why I like to listen to Schubert while I'm driving. Like I said, it's because all the performances are imperfect. A dense, artistic kind of imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I'm driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of---that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. And personally, I find that encouraging...."
from Haruki Murakami's novel, "Kafka on the Shore," translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel
Originally posted by Phillip from Mostly Music in the Midlands, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 12:31 PM | Comments (0)
Moorish Spain - truly multi-cultural civilisation
Football doesn't feature here very often, but I have to record my delight at Spain's victory last night in Euro 2000. There is currently a refreshing vibrancy about Spain that is all the more remarkable considering that both Spain and its Iberian neighbour Portugal suffered under right-wing oppression for decades after the defeat of Fascist poster-boys Hitler and Mussolini.
The roots of Spain's creative vibrancy go back to the seven centuries of Arab rule from 711 to 1492, which gave rise to a truly multi-cultural civilisation in which three monotheistic religions and peoples of diverse origins lived in a harmony which should serve as an example in our terror-torn twenty-first century. In Andalucia the cities of Córdoba , Seville and Granada became great centres of cultural, artistic and religous activity in which music and the other creative arts flourished.
Three diverse elements came together to create the Moorish music of the region - Middle Eastern, North African Berber and native Iberian and these three elements also come together in a fascinating CD titled Jardin de Myrtes and inspired by Moorish music from Andalucia. It is played by the French ensemble L'Ensemble Aromates supplemented by Arab musicians. Although an exotic range of instruments is used there is no pretense of historic authenticity; this is a vibrant CD of Oriental music with Baroque touches mixed with Western music with Eastern touches. Highly recommended, and just one of many off-the-beaten-track delights in the innovative Alpha label's Les chants de la terre (Songs of the earth) series. .
More about the truly multi-cultural civilisation in Convivencia and in the story of the Sephardic Jews.
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 12:30 PM | Comments (0)
Weir: A Night at the Chinese Opera Scottish Opera - Musical Criticism
Weir: A Night at the Chinese Opera Scottish Opera Musical Criticism, UK - Early in this work there is a passage that has a passing resemblance to the dense, shimmering textures that Steve Reich creates, for instance, ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)
Classical music online: Salonen, Sellars and Mozart - Los Angeles Times
 | Classical music online: Salonen, Sellars and Mozart Los Angeles Times, CA - A concert honoring the LA Philharmonic music director and a shocking interpretation of 'Zaide' show the Internet's potential as a window to a wider world. ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)
Robert Irwin Plays the Game
"So if you start telling them what art is now, then all you've done is burden them with an old idea." Artist Robert Irwin lecturing, La Jolla, February 2008
Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)
Music in China
Symphony of Millions. The New Yorker, July 7 and 14, 2008.
Originally posted by Alex Ross from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)
Reviews - Classical vs Pop
Greg Sandow brings an interesting viewpoint to the division between classical and pop music - the review. In his blog for 26 June, he compares two reviews, one for pop music and one for classical music. He presents the idea that pop reviews are more interesting (at least that's how I read his post).
In writing classes they say "write to your audience" and I suppose a classical reviewer is looking at their audience as being the older, probably more educated (at least in terms of classical music education) and more affluent, where as a pop reviewer is trying to reach the masses. And typically that's what he crowds are. Occasionally you'll get concerts "in the park" where popular classical tunes are played and fireworks are let lose which bring out the families. But generally, classical concerts are filled with an aging crowd, a crowd that is not necessarily replenishing itself - and part of this is due to the perception that classical music is stuffy, old and unless you're really "into it" boring.
How do we change this, how do we encourage reviewers that the audience is more than just the narrow band of classical music lovers?
Originally from Interchanging Idioms, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 12:28 PM | Comments (0)
Second Half of July at the ISSUE Project Room
From the ISSUE Project Room:
ISSUE Project Room
232 Third Street - Brooklyn, NY 11215
www.issueprojectroom.orgWednesday July 16
ryan jewell+nate wooley+jesse kudler“…to explore the micro and macro structural implications of improvised forms in a real time collaborative environment utilizing the the minute control of unstable sounds in excess audio and silence..”
For this Issue Project performance, Ryan has brought together two of his favorite collaborators, Nate Wooley and Jesse Kudler, who will be performing together publicly for the first time on this date.Ryan Jewell- snare drum, electronics
Nate Wooley- trumpet
Jesse Kudler- electronicsRyan Jewell was born in a small Appalachian river town in southern Ohio in an environment set between the rundown post-industrial factories by train yards and the natural beauty of the forested foothills on the Ohio River. The juxtaposition of these two seemingly conflicting environments has profoundly affected his aesthetic. He studied percussion and electronic composition techniques at Capital University and has since studied drumset with Susie Ibarra and tabla with Dr. Lowell Lybarger. Ryan regularly works as a solo performer and collaborator in the arenas of very quiet improvised music and very loud harsh noise. In addition to being a perpetual traveler of the US, he has also toured extensively in Europe. He was invited to perform at such respected international festivals as the SOWIESO 1 festival in Paris, the Kraak Festival in Brussels, the International Noise Conference in Miami, SXSW in Austin and Les Sciences Bruitistes also in Paris.
He has collaborated with such diverse artists as C. Spencer Yeh, Greg Kelley, Nate Wooley, Jack Wright, Christine Sehnaoui, Bhob Rainey, Larry Marotta, Mike Shiflet, Tatsuya Nakatani, Reuben Radding, Hasan Abdur-Razzaq, Tom Abbs, David Boykin, Douglas Ewart (AACM), Graveyards, Envenomist, Fossils, Wasteland Jazz Unit, and many more…Nate Wooley (b. 1974) was born in Clatskanie, Oregon. He began his professional career on trumpet with his father at the age of 13. After a brief stay in Denver, Nate moved to Jersey City in 2001. He has developed a highly personal style, mixing his knowledge of jazz and classical trumpet tradition and context with a very healthy bit of experimentation. His solo album, “Wrong Shape to be a Storyteller” on Creative Sources Recordings from last year was a culmination of this kind of thinking and was critically acclaimed as a benchmark for solo documents in the lowercase/reductionist tradition. His main thrust is still the trio, Blue Collar, whose sophomore cd “Lovely Hazel” on Public Eyesore was voted one of the top 10 jazz and improv cds by the Philadelphia CityPaper in 2005. Besides these projects, Nate does a great deal of work as a sideman with figures as diverse as John Butcher, Anthony Braxton, Paul Lytton, John Olsen of Wolf Eyes, David Grubbs, Daniel Levin, Stephen Gauci, and the Sound/Vision Orchestra.
Jesse Kudler, born 1979, improvises on guitar, synthesizer, tapes, radios and electronics, and he makes music on the computer. Recent interest has focused on both internal (electronic) and external (microphone/speaker) feedback, from radios/transmitters and microphones, allowing dynamic textures to arise in concert with the space in which they are played.
In his various travels, Kudler has performed with Matt Bauder, Kyle Bruckmann, Gene Coleman, James Coleman, Tim Feeney, Marcos Fernandes, Brent Gutzeit, Horse Sinister, Bonnie Jones, Jason Kahn, Mazen Kerbaj, Pauline Oliveros, Bhob Rainey, Vic Rawlings, Christine Sehnaoui, Mike Shiflet, Jason Soliday, Howard Stelzer, Christian Weber, Matt Weston, Jack Wright, Jason Zeh, and many others. He has toured the United States several times.
Jesse Kudler lives in Philadelphia. Current projects include: Benito Cereno (with Dustin Hurt, Chandan Narayan, Tim Albro, and Ian Fraser); HZL, an electronics duo with Tim Albro (and sometimes Dustin Hurt, as HZL BRD); Tweeter, a treble-intensive noise trio with Alex Nagle and Eli Litwin; solo performance and recording; and various ad hoc groupings.
His last name rhymes with “muddler.”8pm $10
Thursday July 17th
roy vanegas+ kiThe sound of Noise Floor Music, Roy Vanegas’s solo music project is electronic, at times guitar-based, heady, typical, and experimental. The music can be described as an ambient cross between Arvo Pärt and Boards of Canada (with the audio mechanics of Western melody conjoining the two).
Roy Vanegas is a musically-inclined technician. His passions for post-rock, electronica, and neo-classical don’t allow him to choose the genre in which to work, so he attempts to put elements of them all into his music. He listens to Tabula Rasa every day.
KI
Percussionist/vocalist Fritz Welch is a founding member of The Peeesseye and peeinmyfacewithsurgery. He has also played with W!77iN6, Irritating Horse Eye, Three Day Stubble, and the live video performance group Naval Cassidy and the Hands of Orlak. His approach to improvisation ranges from the absurd to the prophetic in a framework of blistering density and earthbound invisibility.
Michiko ::
One of member of No Neck Bluce Band.and MASK (Sabir Mateen and other). She played with many more musicians. She plays piano alto sax etc.., also performs Butoh dance.Shiraishi Tamio::
Originally from Japan. mainly play alto sax. Performers with whom he played include Keiji Haino, Crash Worship, Alan Licht, and many more. Also he performed with many Butoh dancers in Japan. Recently he often performs outdoor.8pm $10
Friday July 18th
duane pitre + corridors+ ilya monosovByron Westbrook (b. 1977) is a sound/intermedia artist living in Brooklyn, NY. His audio video performances as CORRIDORS involve the distribution of processed instrumental and environmental recordings through a multi-channel environment with a focus on energy distilled from sound and light. He has shared bills with Sawako, Tony Conrad, O.blaat, Lichens, James Blackshaw, Anette Krebs, Soft Circle, Mountains among many others, and presented at venues such as Tonic, Issue Project Room, Experimental Intermedia, Exit Art Gallery. He has also collaborated with Rhys Chatham in the drone metal group Essentialist (Table of the Elements), as well as performed in the ensembles of Phill Niblock, Rhys Chatham (alongside Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Kim Gordon), Glenn Branca and Jonathan Kane. He was a 2007 recipient of the Jerome Foundation Emerging Artists Commission through Roulette Intermedium. Releases are forthcoming in 2008 for both Corridors and Essentialist, along with European Corridors performances and a fall tour of the US with Alessandro Bosetti.
www.byronwestbrook.com
www.myspace.com/corridors—————————————————————
Duane Pitre (w/ ensemble)
Duane Pitre (originally from New Orleans) is a Brooklyn-based composer, improviser, and sound-artist. His primary instrument is electric guitar(s), which he plays in a nontraditional fashion, utilizing various objects such as mallets and rotary tools to coax unusual sounds from the instrument. His current works explore both chaos and discipline–and the territory that exists between the two.
In summer of 2007 Pitre’s album, Organized Pitches Occurring in Time, was released on Important Records (CD) and Trome Records (vinyl). This album consists of two versions of his lengthy drone/contemporary-classical composition Ensemble Drones. Ensemble Drones was performed live in December 2007 by a 13-piece ensemble in Burlington, VT, and future performances of the piece are in the works for Chicago, San Diego, and New Orleans.
Pitre has a number of releases scheduled for 2008, including a track on a compilation of experimental/avant-garde guitarists, which will also feature work by Keith Rowe (AMM), Tetuzi Akiyama, Sebastien Roux, and others. He is currently curating–and will be contributing a track to–a Just Intonation compilation that will be released on Important Records in late 2008. The compilation will include work by artists such as Pauline Oliveros, Ellen Fullman, Michael Harrison, and Arnold Dreyblatt.
Pitre is currently constructing, and writing for, a bowed-guitar ensemble, which will use unconventionally strung electric guitars (utilizing multi-unisons) tuned in Just Intonation. Tonight’s performance will be from this ensemble/material.
www.duanepitre.com
www.myspace.com/duanepitre8pm $10
Tuesday July 22nd
Mary Magdalene Feastday Celebration Curated by M.M. Serra
A fantastic evening of films and festivities - a homage to the female subject and the exultant powers that SHE possesses as both a sinner and saint.8pm $10
Wednesday July 23rd
mask mirror meets james rouvelle+ j sam sheffield +alessandro BosettiAlessandro Bosetti – mask mirror/electronics/voice
J Sam Sheffiled – electronics/network desing/visuals
James Rouvelle - electronics/network desing/text generatorsSound artist Alessandro Bosetti and he’s speaking sampler project “Mask Mirror” meet the media artists James Rouvelle and J Sam Sheffield.
Mask/Mirror a sampler to process recordings of spoken language in real time.
The sampler follows both sound and meaning criteria in sorting, organizing and processing samples and in formulating utterances.
It is a software tool based on max/msp and a speech recognition software interacting with my own voice during performances. It’s also a state of mind enabling expanded spoken and vocal improvisation, expanded communication and ecstasy.
It has been developed in collaboration with STEIM in Amsterdam.
In the Issue project room performance Bosetti, Rouvelle and Sheffiled will create a sonorous, linguistic and visual network using mask mirror, automatic text generators and translators and allowing the audience to participate via sms to the unfolding text improvisation.
Mask/Mirror has to do with virtually everything but at the same time it does not have anything special to do with anything special.
As well as being a blank mask I can put on my face - and my voice - it’s also a mirror that let me browse and talk to my memory while I am watching into it.
All mirrors are masks and vice versa. Both are tools enabling identity.“It is difficult not to treat Mask Mirror, with its randomized garble of words, as a willfully cryptic Oracle of Delphi reincarnated as an Apple laptop. While Bosetti had described the project as “about the aboutness of being about” what Noise got out all of this is that it’s devilishly hard not to seek meaning even where it’s clear none is forthcoming. Not until the program, in a moment of absurd hilarity, spit forth the word “hamburgers” did it all click: Mask Mirror is a tool for shearing all meaning from language. It’s a liberation, of sorts, like the sound version of Rorschach tests: The mind is encouraged to wander freely and delight in words purely for their sound. In the information overload of contemporary times, Mask Mirror’s playful rupturing of sense–its nonsense, in other words–is a welcome respite.” Raven Baker - Noise/Citypaper
Alessandro Bosetti was born in Milan, Italy in 1973. He is a composer and sound artist working on the musicality of spoken words and unusual aspects of spoken communication, producing text-sound compositions featured in live performances, radio broadcastings and published recordings. In his work he moves across the line between sound anthropology and composition, often including translation and misunderstanding in the creative process. Bosetti is assistant professor in sound at the Maryland Institute College of Art MICA, Baltimore.
James Rouvelle is an interdisciplinary artist who uses visual art, music and sound. His work is experimental using electronics, mechanics, computers, and robotics. He is professor for interactive media at MICA in Baltimore.
J Sam Sheffield is a media and visual artist and programmer currently living in Baltimore.8pm $10
Thursday July 24th
emily manzo
‘A night of vocal music from many genres’Pianist Emily Manzo plays all of her favorite music- Webern, Ives, Neil Young, George Gershwin, Christy & Emily- with all of her favorite singers – Daisy Press (virtuosic soprano and champion of new works), Judith Berkson (of Platz Machen), Nick Hallett (!), Aaron Diskin (of Golem, Lycaon Pictus), Rachel Cox (of Oakley Hall), Pat Sullivan (of Oneida, Oakley Hall) and Christine Edwards (of Christy & Emily). Plus other surprise guests and DJs.
8pm $10Friday July 25th
droid: amir ziv + jordan mclean + luke o’malley
w/ visualist cjAdvanced screening of: “DROID – The Spirit of Improvisation”
A documentary film by Rafael AltmanEmerging out of the underground dens of New York City’s DJ-based remix revolution - DROID pushes the envelope of improvised music, mixing elements from breakbeat / electronica to industrial rock and NU-form jazz. Their combination of all these disparate sensibilities is a touchstone to an incredible new scene in NYC; reminiscent of the eclectic mix of people and sounds that brought about the early 80’s NO WAVE scene. In 2000 the band was signed to Shadow Records and released “NYC D ‘n’ B” as well as various tracks on Shadow compilations “Hard Sessions” 1 & 2. NYC’s DJ Spooky and Detroit producer Carl Craig incorporated Droid’s music in their own remixes.
The musicians that make-up DROID combine experimentation, musicianship and an attitude for current beat culture. Amir Ziv (long-time member of Cyro Baptista’s Beat the Donkey & leader of KOTKOT w/Marc Ribot, Cyro Baptista & Shahzad Ismaily) plays drums and co-leads with trumpeter Jordan McLean (Antibalas & leader of Fire of Space). The past few years have seen Droid collaborate with synth virtuoso Adam Holzman (keyboardist and musical director of Miles Davis!!!) As for the LOW-END…. BASS that is - it’s basically a rotating “electric” chair which so far has been bravely filled by the likes of: Tim LeFebvre, Jonathan Maron, Luke O’Malley, Shahzad Ismaily, Stu Brooks & Yossi Fine. Droid has been very active during 2007/2008 doing live events at their Lower East Side Estate home-base and recording/archiving their current sound.
Tonight’s event will feature an advanced screening of “DROID – The Spirit of Improvisation”, a documentary film by Rafael Altman. Followed by a performance set featuring Amir Ziv on drums, Jordan McLean on Trumpet and Luke O’Malley (Antiballas) on bass.
In addition, projection artist CJ (Chris Jordan) will be collaborating with the group as they fold time and space.
For more info on the artists and sound clips please go to:
http://www.myspace.com/droidfactory
http://www.myspace.com/amirziv
http://www.myspace.com/fireofspace
http://www.seej.net/
http://www.rafaelaltman.com
8pm $10Tuesday July 29th
harrius + the mothJenny Graf (Metalux) and Chiara Giovando (PCPCG) are Harrius, a duo from Baltimore, Md. Their first LP “Enter the Cotton Ring” was released on Ehse records in 2005. Described as a “bizarre dream of a record… this is willfully weirdly its own brand of wonder! It works a deep subconscious rupture…like a blood vessel mic’d up to volcano level.”
Harrius creates a strange and perplexing sound that straddles the line between psychedelic folk and electronic improv via BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Never resting on either side of the fence, they build soft arenas of song that are alternately revealed and consumed by a dense field of electronics. Far removed from any “noise” record professing the same instrumentation; Harrius uses vocals and violin to blend in and out analog electronic hiccups and tidal waves. Both their recordings and live performances yield carefully sculpted composition.
The duo has also recently completed a short film, “Proud Flesh”, a kind of psychedelic Western shot in the Badlands of South Dakota that is scheduled to Premiere in Baltimore on July 11th 2008.
For Issue Project Room Performance Chiara will be playing violin electronics and voice and Jenny will be playing Trinu, an istrument designed with Peter Blasser and voice.
The Moth is a Swedish improv/elctronicaduo comprised of Martin Öhman and Erika Alexandersson. With drums, voice and live electronics, attractive as well as repulsive soundscapes take form. The moth use no pre-recorded tracks since they are very fond of creating in the spur of the moment. And that’s what you’ll hear at ISSUE PROJECT ROOM - the spur of the moment!
Erika Alexandersson and Martin Öhman decided to form a band. At first the music was acoustic (it still is sometimes…), but after a while as moth´s do “the moth” went through a transformation and reinkarnated as an impro/electronica duo.
MARTIN ÖHMAN has received a lot of attention for his unorthodox way of playing. Martin uses fans, razors or whatever he can to create a different sound. In The Moth, Martin uses drums and cymbals, amplified with the help of contact microphones and manipulated through various guitar effects and custom made electronics. In recent years he’s built a reputation as a highly sought after composer by composing for bands, filmscores and other projects. In 2005 he put together and composed for an ensemble with The Moth partner Erika Alexandersson, world famous bassplayer Anders Jormin and trumpet phenomenon Arve Henriksen from the norwegian improv/electronica group Supersilent.
ERIKA ALEXANDERSSON has spent time tearing down the vocal boundaries and investigating the sound possibilities of the human voice. As a result, her singing stretches from melodic simplicity to making free improvised lyrics and transforming the human native sounds into music. Apart from The Moth, Erika Alexandersson appeared with the Swedish indiepop band Loney, Dear, and with her other duo, Josef och Erika, that recently was nominated a Swedish Grammy for their second album. Erika is also about to release her debut solo album in Japan during the fall 2008.
8pm $10
Wednesday July 30th
Music at the Bridge Festival Brooklyn Bridge Park in the Tobacco Warehouse
ISSUE Project Room presents and evening for the Music at the Bridge Festival
Theremin Society w/ members Dorit Chrysler, David Simons, Rob Schwimmer,
Theremin Society was founded in December 2005 by ISSUE Project Room Artistic Director Suzanne Fiol and thereminist Dorit Chrysler. The project focuses on the contribution of the theremin to 21st century musical culture and the musicians who have devoted their careers to this instrument. Participants are defined by varying approaches and a wide range of musical language, which has included abstract experimentalist to classical to pop electronica. To date there have been 13 Theremin Society performances and each one has featured new guest artists.
John Zorn’s Cobra
jim staley… trombone
sylvie courvoisier… plano
david weinstein… keyboard
annie gosfield,,, keyboard
anthony coleman,,, keyboard
eyal maoz,,, guitar
mark fekdman,,, violin
okkyung lee,,, cello
shanir blumenkranz,,, bass
ikue mori… electronics
cyro baptista… percussion
kenny wollesen… drumsjohn zorn…prompter
Written and premiered in 1984, “Cobra” is a classic in the circles of
new music, having been performed innumerable times. In fact, composer and “prompter” John Zorn says in the liners that it his
most-often-performed composition — no mean feat considering his prolific output. It is no wonder, though: There is a mischievous,
cartoonish quality to it that epitomizes Zorn’s style but also makes
for continually fascinating listening. Based on the composer’s
secretive “game pieces,” “Cobra” is a fun-filled, mystical,
blindfolded ride down a dark alley that circles back every few yards.
(Steven Loewy, All Music Guide).Jonathan Kane’s February
Jonathan Kane is a Downtown NYC legend — as co-founder of the no-wave behemoth Swans, and the rhythmic thunder behind the massed-guitar armies of Rhys Chatham and the rock excursions of La Monte Young and one of the hardest-hitting drummers on the planet. With his solo work, Kane summons Swans’ concussive wallop, Chatham’s dense guitar strata, and the perpetual propulsion of 70s krautrockers Neu, then steers it all head-on into… the blues. Make no mistake about it: Kane is a bluesman, and beneath the high-decible bombast, he’s powering guitar-driven minimalism into the blues, and the blues into guitar-driven harmonic maximalism. So roll with Jonathan Kane down his Highway 61 of the mind — it’s the shape of blues to come.
This is a free concert and will take place in Dumbo NOT at ISSUE
Thursday July 31st
Walking Another Way + Cosmic Poetry –
New audiovisual compositions of ethereal qualities.Walking Another Way – Being 98% water, jellyfish are the visual manifestations of water as a creature. First performed at EyeWash *Scenario” earlier this year, Walking Another Way is an all-immersive audiovisual performance exploring the elegant movements and mysterious world of the jellyfish. With Lady Firefly on live video mix and Dok and Zemi17 on live sound.
Cosmic Poetry - Cosmic Poetry premieres at IPR as a series of audiovisual performances dedicated to the cosmos. In the first installation, Cosmic Poetry transforms analog / digital noise, feedback, and video abstractions into flower-like and organic imagery — creating a sonic and visual jungle. Other short form pieces to be included. Developed by Lady Firefly at a residency at Experimental Television Center this summer.
Lady Firefly (a.k.a. Zarah Cabañas) is a video artist/VJ based in New York City who explores the vital, sensual, and transient qualities. Zarah performs and exhibits her self-dubbed “electrorganic” works throughout New York City and internationally including the River to River Festival, American Museum of Natural History, EyeWash, Eyebeam, and South Street Seaport; to eclectic events at nightclubs, warehouses, parks, music venues, rooftops, mountaintops, galleries, and living rooms. Festivals have included Territoria Festival (Moscow), Apositsia III Experimental Music Forum (St. Petersburg), Lux VJ Festival (Barcelona), LoopVideoArt Fair (Seville), DUMBO Arts Festival (NYC) and the Montreal Sketch Comedy Festival. She is a 2008 resident of Experimental Television Center, former resident at Chashama, Knitting Factory, and Nublu. She is also vocalist for Oloroso, saxophonist of audiovisual group Silence Corporation, and video editor at Blue Man Group.
http://www.fireflylab.comDok Gregory has been composing/performing and recording experimental electronic music since 1983. As a member of NYC based audio visual group Amoeba Technology from 1997 to the present, he has performed throughout the United States, Europe, Russia and South America. Audio visual works have been featured in programs at the Forum Des Images in Paris, Basel Art Fair in Switzerland, The Kitchen and Lincoln Center in NYC, and elsewhere. Dok has also toured/worked extensively as a member of Psychic TV, Trance Pop Loops and Ransom Corps. Current projects include ongoing collaborations with fellow 23 Windows resident Zemi 17, and “ZGT” with Peter Principle of Tuxedomoon.
http://www.amoebatechnology.netZemi17 is a composer, musician and media artist who creates experiences that are to plant seeds for the evolution of consciousness. He is the co-founder of the Ransom Corp and 23 Windows Studio in Bushwick Brooklyn, co-curator of the Resonant Wave Festival in Berlin, and has lived and worked extensively in Indonesia collecting field recordings of insects and frogs, while researching and learning archaic and sacred forms of music.
http://zemi17.net8pm $10
Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 12:28 PM | Comments (0)
I'm not trying to knock you out, or what's it about
Originally from Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 12:28 PM | Comments (0)
The marimba, rich and warm, makes itself heard
Vivien Schweitzer, New York Times, 6/29/2008Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 12:28 PM | Comments (0)
Porteur de L’Image - Through a Glass Darkly
Don Hill’s music project Porteur de L’Image is both strange and inspiring, sort of a “Dark New Age” to coin a phrase. It appears that most consider this to be post-industrial, a description I will grudgingly concede. Through a Glass Darkly, which has the subtitle of “Electronic Sounds of Faith”, was originally released in 2003 from Epiphany records as a limited release but is now available as a free and legal MP3 album. Often surreal and chant-like, Hall’s electronic soundscapes are hypnotic but disquieting. The first three tracks are interesting but it really didn’t grab me until the mesmerizing “Take This Cup from Me” and the following “In Mercy Broken”. Each track has its own unique sound environment and bears attentive listening.
The album is available in 192kbps MP3.
Originally posted by Marvin from Free Albums Galore, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)
Spoleto Italy: At the Zeppelin Cafe, Another German Trauma
At the Roman amphitheater in Spoleto, the Spanish actress Victoria Abril was giving a flamenco-inflected concert of French chansons, and directly above her a large screen set up in an outdoor cafe was showing the European championship soccer match, in which Spain was beating Germany.Originally posted by Daniel J. Wakin from ArtsBeat, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)
Anne Midgette to Stay at WaPo
Originally from Ionarts, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)
Kirk Knuffke Quartet - Bigwig
Clean Feed 107 Unassumingly ambitious is one way to characterize the debut disc on Clean Feed of trumpeter Kirk Knuffkes quartet. Knuffke is a relative newcomer to New York, who has worked in the ensembles of Butch Morris and...Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)
Gary Smith - June 2008
By Massimo Ricci This interview came out from many months of email conversation between 2007 and 2008 with guitar explorer Gary Smith, following a review of his SuperTexture CD (Sijis) on Paris Transatlantic. Those who know Mr. Smiths work need...Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)
Jeff Harrington - Irae with Clarinet - for Violin, Clarinet and Contrabass
Jeff Harrington - Irae with Clarinet - for Violin, Clarinet and Contrabass
Score and parts available for free at http://jeffharrington.org
Originally posted by jeff from cacophonous.org, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)
Chris McGregor: Brotherhood (Fledg’ling - 2008)
En 1972, sortait Brotherhood, deuxième album (après un éponyme assez anecdotique) du Brotherhood of Breath, grand ensemble libertaire dirigé par le pianiste sud-africain Chris McGregor, ou Duke Ellington du Cap. Réédité.
Douze musiciens, parmi lesquels compter aussi Dudu Pukwana, Mongezi Feza, Harry Miller, Louis Moholo, servent sous les faux airs d’une fanfare joyeuse un mélange rare de free jazz sans limite pour rejeter avec force l’influence de piano bar à laquelle doit faire face McGregor (Joyful Noises) et de swing à l’allure mouvante, puisque altéré par les sifflements instrumentaux (Think of Something).
Plus vindicatives, les percussions soufflent ensuite sur les braises d’un répétitif et dansant Do It, saxophones clamant une dernière fois l’héritage de Sun Ra (le parallèle avec les enregistrements en leader du disciple Eddie Gale, à faire aussi) avant d’entamer un court Funky Boots March qui finit de révéler la fougue du groupe de McGregor, qui accueillera plus tard des invités de la taille d’Evan Parker ou Paul Rutherford), et donne ici l’un de ses enregistrements les plus enthousiasmants.
CD: 01/ Nick Tete 02/ Joyful Noises 03/ Think of Something 04/ Do It 05/ Funky Boots March >>> Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath - Brotherhood - 2008 (réédition) - Fledg’ling. Distribution Orkhêstra International.
Originally posted by Grisli from Le son du grisli, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 30, 2008 at 02:13 AM | Comments (0)
June 29, 2008
The Price of Coolness
On Friday, our functioning but old air conditioner took its last breath, knocking out main breaker power to our house along the way. Panic briefly ensued, but rational heads prevailed. On Saturday, we had a brand new air conditioner and the house and family was no worse for the wear. However the bank account had taken some damage.
On Friday, we had plans to spend the weekend in Michigan, going to amusement parks and beaches. On Saturday our plans had changed to stay home and fit the trip in sometime later in the summer.
We usually keep the doors and windows closed year round due to my family’s issues with seasonal allergies. So air conditioning is a greater need for us than it is for more people.
About the trip: the kids are disappointed, but not as much as my wife. I’m ok with postponing it, as my schedule is crazy enough this week.
Originally posted by Mike from Turtles all the way down, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
funiculi, funicula
Last week's performance of Napoli. Remember, the flag pictured off to the side is made entirely of duct tape.
I'm taking a mini-vacation (again) from the blog. Talk to you soon.
Originally from the search for artistry, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
Wednesday Links
- What’s the first thing you need to do when starting your own country? Create a national anthem of course. Yotam Haber has a crash course in anthem writing at the New Music Box. Here’s a hint: don’t copy Italy.
- Prospect has published a list of the top 100 public intellectuals. It appears that qualifying for the list requires more than just being intellectual in public. Denouncing God is helpful as is telling the world what it’s like to get a sanga wax.
- Countless hours and likely billions of dollars have been poured into efforts to close the gender gap. In some fields, like hard science, it doesn’t seem to be working.Perhaps girls just aren’t interested.
- Why are so many musicians excellent cooks?
- It is one thing to love a person’s music - quite another to try and physically resemble that person while watching them perform in concert. Chuck Klosterman on the uber-fans
Like this? Why not try:
Originally posted by Miss Mussel from The Omniscient Mussel on Classical Music & Culture, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
Extracts From A Schimpflexikon: One Of A Series
I played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms. What a giftless bastard! It annoys me that this self-inflated mediocrity is hailed as a genius....Originally posted by ACD from Sounds & Fury, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
What's Wrong With This Picture?
The following are part of German director Elke Neidhardt's justification of her rewriting of the stage action and updating of the setting of Mozart's Don...Originally posted by ACD from Sounds & Fury, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
windiness
I'm in Chicago for a bit of R&R and a family wedding. Back next week, y'all.
Originally from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
Landmarks (34)
Gordon Mumma: Pontpoint (1966-1980), electroacoustic music. Premiered as music for a dance by Jan McCauley for her company, Cirque.Mumma's own analog cybersonic circuitry is here used to modify sounds from two acoustic sources, a bandoneon (the free reed instrument best known for its use in the Argentine Tango ensemble) and a bowed psaltery. These two sound sources, each generally characterized by simple and stable wave forms, are modulated to produce sound events with spectra that are often far from simple and are subject to change in a variety of parameters over time. Moreover, Mumma modulates the position of sounds within physical space, a device which becomes critical to the formal development in Pontpoint.
Minimalism in music is too often limited to an association with musics using a reduced set of tonal possibilities. The minimalist impulse in music did not, however, originate in a nostalgia for tonality, but rather in interest in the intensification of the listeners' engagement with the material state of sounds and the compositional problem of translating that intensified experience into musical forms. To recover that impulse, I believe that it's very useful to return to the definition of minimalism as the elimination of distractions.
In Pontpoint, Mumma isolates individual sounds between silences, a framing device that better allows the listener to focus attention on the activity within a single sound by eliminating the distraction of the continuity between neighboring events . And although the global pace of activity, from one island of sound to the next, is leisurely, the pace of activity within single sounds is made both more intense -- invoking the same sort of tempo paradox that Monteverdi uses in the stile concitato -- and distinctive.
With the combination of three techniques: use of electronics to further individualize acoustic events, the isolation of events in time between silences, and the assignment of each event to distinct positions in physical space, Mumma shapes each sound into an individual island within an archipelago. Pontpoint thus achieves a remarkable balance between the larger form, which suggests nothing so much as a narrative or a journey, and its local punctuation by events or attractions of heightened contrast and detail.
Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
Surfacing
Despite appearances, this blog is not dead. I spent most of March finalizing a score to submit to New England Conservatory for my doctorate. They’ve been expecting it for about 7 years, so push finally came to shove.
One of the last things I managed to do before the dissertation score took over my life was to write about the Greensboro Opera Company’s production of Hansel and Gretel. As an afterthought, I sent an email to the people listed on their contact page to say that I had enjoyed the opera and had written a little on my blog about it. Based on the emails I got back, they were genuinely pleased. I know from my own experience how nice it is to find that someone has heard my music and been engaged by it–a better and rarer thing than simply liking or enjoying it. An excellent thing to keep in mind if you have a blog and you’re inclined to write about the arts.
In that entry I mentioned that the fine young baritone who played the father is a student at North Carolina State University, here in Durham, and that I hoped I’d have a chance to hear him again before long. Lo and behold a comment was left this afternoon to say that his graduation recital well be about a week and a half from now:
Richard Leon Hodges’s Senior Recital
An Afternoon of Classical Music
Sunday, April 15, 2007
4:00pm - 5:15pm
B. N. Duke Auditorium on the Campus of North Carolina Central University
1801 Fayetteville Street
Durham, NC
I’m looking forward to it. His web page is well worth reading, too.
I’m also hoping to get back to Greensboro next week, when they’re doing Henry Mollicone’s Face on the Barroom Floor.
Tags: Greensboro Opera Company, operaOriginally posted by Robert Zimmerman from Re:harmonized, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
Plugged.
Luca Francesconi - 'Etymo'; 'Da Capo'; 'A Fuoco'; 'Animus'
Barbara Hannigan, soprano; Pablo Márquez, guitarist; Benny Sluchin,
trombonist; Ensemble Intercontemporain, conducted by Susanna Mälkki.
Kairos 0012712KAI; CD.
(Kairos Music Shop)
Originally posted by NightAfterNight from Night After Night, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
on Pétrouchka
The Times of London asked me to write a short article about a song that was, for one point, the soundtrack to my life. The result is printed here, or, reprinted below.
The main struggle my teachers had with me was making me learn large-scale structure: you start at the beginning, you undergo a series of controlled transformations, climax, then bring it home to the barn. Stravinsky’s 1911 ballet Pétrouchka, as a narrative, is a fragmented procession of episodes inside a Russian country fair: a perfect vehicle to show off the different stuff that Stravinsky could, as a composer, perfectly execute, all the while resisting traditional (19th-century) structures. Think of a meal that is made up of 16 small dishes, rather than the meat and two veg to which we are all accustomed.
I first bought a CD of Pétrouchka in 1994; and, with it, the cheap and old-fashioned Dover edition of the score. Spotty and awkward, I spent hours on the floor of my parents’ house, obsessively studying the details of each episode. That modal melody a few minutes into the piece is played on cellos, way too high for their normal comfort zone, which is why it sounds like an accordion. The second large part begins with an explicitly flatulent contrabassoon. Sassy? Inappropriate?
I pressed my nose into those orchestrational decisions: a little flourish with English horn, celesta and some bizarre subcommittee of the second violins plucking three notes sent a shiver down my spine. The details of the score seemed more important to me than whatever the overall structure might be.
I listened and ignored the primary melodic material. What’s left is a latticework of patterns, detailed and repetitive, energetic from the distance of 60ft away in a concert hall, but pornographically mesmerising with a score in the hand and the volume knob turned up dangerously high. In my most narcissistic moments, I like to imagine some 14-year-old kid sitting on her floor in Russia, blissing out on the pointillistic bumps and grinds I constructed in a cabin in Vermont.
This isn’t to say that Stravinsky’s orchestration was the only thing that appealed to me; I began learning the piano reduction, which allowed me to prolong my repetitive obsessions. In the Danse Russe of the first tableau, a bassline walks down a fourth, then a fifth — you hear this in Abba, you hear it in Beethoven.
A circular rhythm machine of oboe and bassoon twitters, and the bass comes in again. This time, though, it doesn’t hit the money note, but a terrifying, disorienting, evil f-natural. The oboe doesn’t care, and starts up the food processor again, merrily chirping along. The bassline comes back and plays the “good” note again. It’s a perfect cycle.
Not only does Stravinsky ignore the romantic notion of a small motive blossoming into a whole narrative, his material is already self-contained and self-realised, like the greatest and simplest folk art: the garland, the braid, the wreath, the woodcarving of a serpent devouring its own tail.
For most of my adolescence, I could only think about this kind of music, and it is still the music to which I return with the most familiar kind of relationship. Put on a recording of Pétrouchka and I’ll be there, even rooms away, swaying with the big rhythms and twitching with the small, seeing the notation swirl around my face like a cloud of birds.
Originally posted by Nico from Nico Muhly, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:27 PM | Comments (0)
Atonal Composition with Pablo Casals
I thought I'd share this 1962 drawing by Lorenzo Homar of Pablo Casals surrounded by JFK, Franco, and Dean Rusk, that I found tucked among several pieces of his over at BibliOdyssey.
Originally from Musical Assumptions, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:27 PM | Comments (0)
Wagner and The Birds
I imagine that this brilliant marriage of opera and film was put together by Roy.
Originally from Musical Assumptions, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:27 PM | Comments (0)
Karita Mattila
Link to all posts related to Karita Mattila on mostly opera here.
KARITA MATTILA - CAREER
Finnish soprano. Born 1960, Somero, Finland.Education: Sibelius Academy, Helsinki. Further studies with Vera Rozsa.
Winner of the first Cardiff Singer of the World competition 1983.
Karita Mattila´s career initially centered around Mozart (Pamina, Countess, Donna Elvira) with debuts at Covent Garden (1985) and the Metropolitan Opera 1990 (Countess). A heavy performance schedule during these early years led to a vocal crisis requiring surgery on her vocal chords in 1992, one of the reasons she currently limits her annual performances to about 50. Karita Mattila´s career seemed to have reached a plateau in the early 90´s, however in the mid-90´s she re-emerged in the lyric-dramatic repertoire with highly acclaimed interpretations such as Chrysothemis (Salzburg 1995) and Elsa (Paris 1996), and she is now one of the absolutely leading sopranos of her generation with performances in all major opera houses, in particular the Metropolitan Opera.
Karita Mattila is reknowned for the beauty and versatility of her lyric-dramatic voice, with an exceptionally beautiful middle register as well as for her extraordinary stage ability and range of expressivity. Karita Mattila is also an admired recitalist and exponent of new music, particularly that of compatriot Kaija Saariaho, who also wrote a song cycle for her, Quatre Instants in 2002.
Karita Mattila on the profession:
"It doesn't do any harm if you look good and take care of yourself. I lost 40 pounds through Weight Watchers when I was 22 and I am glad I did it. I wasn't fat, but I was plump, and I didn't feel comfortable. It has been an eternal battle. It has nothing to do with vanity; it's just to serve your work by looking the part."
"I don't break my contracts for personal reasons because I owe it to my audience to be there. If it has already been announced that I will be singing there, then I think it would be very unprofessional for me to cancel."
"There is always room at the top, and it is very windy, meaning that it is harder to be at the top than on the way up."
KARITA MATTILA - KEY ROLES AND PERFORMANCES
ngrin) - Paris Bastille Opera 1996 (d: Carsen), Metropolitan Opera 1998, 2006 (d: Robert Wilson). Her immensely beautiful middle register and secure top made Karita Mattila the ideal Elsa, a role she now seems to have retired from her repertoire. In my opinion, she was unsurpassed in this role, possibly her finest to date.Chrysothemis (Elektra) - according to Mattila, this role in Salzburg 1995 marked her transition from Mozart to the heavier lyric-dramatic repertoire, for which she is reknowned today. She seems to have retired this part as well.
Fidelio - Metropolitan Opera, London ROH (MET premiere 2001, d: Flimm) - also on DVD. One of Karita Mattila´s signature roles, which she continues to perform worldwide.
Katya Kabanova and Jenufa - Karita Mattila has a special affinity for Janacek´s heroines, which she continues to perform at major stages worldwide.
Salome - Metropolitan Opera 2004 (d: Flimm). Mattila´s Salome at the Metropolitan Opera 2004 is among the most admired operatic performances of the last decade, and will be repeated autumn 2008 at the MET. Sound clips with photographs here.
Previously, Karita Mattila had major successes in the Italian repertoire such as Elisabeth in Don Carlos (d: Bondy, Covent Garden and Châtelet - also on DVD) and Amelia in Simon Boccanegra (d: Stein, c: Abbado, Salzburg and Firenze - also on DVD) as well as Ballo di Maschera. Other successes include Hanna Glawari (Merry Widow), Arabella and Lisa (Pique Dame). Meistersinger (Levine, Metropolitan Opera 2001)KARITA MATTILA - THE FUTURE
Karita Mattila will repeat her Salome at Metropolitan Opera in September/October 2008, a performance transmitted live in HD to cinemas worldwide and probably to appear on DVD as well.
Karita Mattila will open the 2009/2010 Metropolitan Opera season with a new production of Tosca.
She has previously stated she will probably sing Sieglinde in the future.
There have been speculations of Karita Mattila singing Isolde, to which she has replied: "Maybe, maybe, one day. But -- not without a Tristan. I have a feeling you can't do that opera without a Tristan."KARITA MATTILA ON CD (SELECTED)
Strauss: Orchestral Songs, Four Last Songs (Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonics, 2999, DG). Karita Mattila has had an extensive collaboration with Claudio Abbado, who considered her voice ideal for a wide range of repertoire.
Karita Mattila - Live in Helsinki (2007, Ondine) - A stunning recital performance of songs by Rachmaninov, Saariaho, Dvôrak, and Duparc.
Gurrelieder (Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonics 2002, EMI)
Meistersinger (Solti 1998, Decca) Overall I´d recommend this as the version to own.
Jenufa (Bernhard Haitink, Covent Garden 2002, Erato)
Karita Mattila recently released a successful jazz CD, as well as previous cross-over recordings.
Full discography here.KARITA MATTILA ON DVD (SELECTED)
Don Carlos (Pappano, Paris Châtelet 1996, d: Luc Bondy)
Fidelio (Levine, Metropolitan Opera 2001, d: Flimm)
Full discography here.
Karita Mattila as Elsa (Lohengrin, Paris Bastille 1996, Robert Carsen´s production):
KARITA MATTILA - LINKS
All posts on mostly opera related to Karita MattilaKarita Mattila complete performances at the Metropolitan Opera
Wikipedia biography on Karita Mattila
Originally from mostly opera..., ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:27 PM | Comments (0)
The REAL Peach State
Haven't figured out yet how to embed YouTube videos into my blog posts, so instead I have to refer you to Laurin Manning's blog for this Stephen Colbert excerpt. Colbert, who is a native South Carolinian, sets the record straight about what state is the true champion when it comes to my favorite fruit. The bittersweet end to summer as August passes into September is not just about the change of weather, or "going back to work." It really is about the peak of peach season passing into the gloom of non-peach season. This was a good one, my major accomplishment having been to make a couple of good peach pies from the recipe in Pat Conroy's wonderful cookbook.
Originally posted by Phillip from Mostly Music in the Midlands, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:27 PM | Comments (0)
Cellist Anthony Elliott and USC Cello Choir
This weekend brings another edition of USC Cello Choir, an event organized each year by the university's distinguished professor of cello, Robert Jesselson. Each year he brings in a guest cellist to conduct master classes and perform as soloist with the massed ensemble of cellos. This year's guest is the wonderful cellist Anthony Elliott, who was a colleague of mine for several years at the University of Michigan and with whom I've worked in many different scenarios, from the old MayMusic festival in Charlotte that I was directing in the 90's, to concerts in Japan. Tony is a great teacher and if you want to watch his teaching in action, come to the master classes at the USC Recital Hall on Friday. There'll be a session for high school cellists and then one for college-level cellists.Tony and I recorded a CD several years ago with 3 of the major French works for cello and piano: the Franck, Debussy, and Poulenc sonatas. It's available via CD Baby. For more information on the USC Cello Choir events click this link.
The final concert of the cello choir is at 5 PM Saturday in the Koger Center; if you get out by 6:30 you can go right next door to the School of Music and you might, I repeat might have a chance of getting a seat for the first Southern Exposure concert of the season. They've been granting a reserved seat for the whole series to those who contribute $75, and I understand many of the seats are getting snapped up. The first concert features the Amernet String Quartet playing Bartok's 3rd Quartet and, jumping the gun a bit on his 100th birthday coming up next year, Elliott Carter's 5th, plus works by Joel Hoffman and a work by Russell Platt for bassoon and quartet, featuring USC bassoon whiz Peter Kolkay.
Originally posted by Phillip from Mostly Music in the Midlands, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:27 PM | Comments (0)
Review: NZ Symphony Orchestra at Auckland Town Hall - New Zealand Herald
Review: NZ Symphony Orchestra at Auckland Town Hall New Zealand Herald, New Zealand - Strauss and Dutilleux are just two influences in this exquisitely shaded music. Leppanen forged the most idyllic of pathways around the edges of Young's ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:27 PM | Comments (0)
Die Fledermaus in Bangkok
The Metropolitan Opera of Bangkok presented a thoroughly enjoyable production of Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus this past weekend at the Thailand Cultural Center Small Hall. Everything from the costumes to sets were professional and the orchestra sounded wonderful, clean and clear. Though many in the all-Thai cast were new to opera, there were still a few standout performances, namely from soprano Siriwaranya Supranee as Rosalinde and baritone Piyawat Pantana as Dr. Falke. Sophie Tanapura, founder and lead vocal coach for the Met Opera BKK singers, was a spunky Adele. The production was directed by Dr. Charles Henn, a foreign affairs guru with a penchant for opera, and it was sponsored by the Austrian Embassy.Originally from classicalive, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:26 PM | Comments (0)
Ensemble brings satiny sound to National Arts Centre
Richard Todd, Ottawa Citizen, 6/29/2008Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:26 PM | Comments (0)
Piano man: Author traces roots of Gould's fascinating fixation on his favourite Steinway
Arthur Kaptainis, Calgary Herald, 6/29/2008Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:26 PM | Comments (0)
Musicians bend sound to their will during Experimental Music Festival
The Experimental Music Festival gets previewed.
“There’s a lot of electronic music that defies any description,” said Domenica Clark, curator of the 14th annual Experimental Music Festival, happening during four days this weekend. “That’s why you call it experimental - because you are not sure what else to call it.
“It’s one of those things. You know it when you hear it,” she added.
Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:26 PM | Comments (0)
Spoleto Italy: Reveling in the Seclusion of a Hill Town
Sanjay Leela Bhansali, a Mumbai native from the world of Bollywood, is the director of the Spoleto festival's flagship opera, Roussel's "Padmavati" and is thus given auteur status by the festival, though many others from his part of the world might not receive the same warm treatment in Italy.Originally posted by Daniel J. Wakin from ArtsBeat, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:26 PM | Comments (0)
Whisper or Scream - RedOrbit
Whisper or Scream RedOrbit, TX - Music (for want of a better word) ceases totally save for a distant whirr as of central heating, behind the long duration of the composer's speech: it then ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:26 PM | Comments (0)
Diktat went double Swiss
[june 29, 2008 | sbpc/021] Hear Audio [ mp3 17.8MB ]
DIKTAT performed but twice over the last seven months or so. Twice that was in Paris, and twice we met a Swiss
duo in concert. Late last autumn we played with BUG (Christian Bucher and Andreas Glauber) in
La Comete (watch it on YouTube). And last month (hear a 20-minute extract in this entry's podcast) we met JEUDI (Benoit Moreau and John Menoud) in
l'Ogresse, for the time of an intimate and concentrated two set performance. Then we mistook an egg box for a hat, and in the end went home with nothing but
some change, and enough Mongolian Tugrik to buy us a couple of pieces of candy ...
Originally from HarSMedia (Feed and Podcast), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:24 PM | Comments (0)
Jeff Harrington - Brass Quintet
Jeff Harrington - Brass Quintet
Score and parts available at http://jeffharrington.org
Originally posted by jeff from cacophonous.org, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:23 PM | Comments (0)
New Piece - Brass Quintet and Some Revisions and Arrangements
I've finished my new brass quintet and am proofing the score and parts. It's a piece that's a little bit like my 4th string quartet arrangement for sax quartet, Spirale d'Arco in its breadth and generous emotional spaciousness. I play on strange phasing rhythms like I did in that piece too.
Brass Quintet - Synthesized Realization
The piece for flute and vibraphone I wrote for Due East has undergone a few revisions, some at their suggestion. In particular, the ending is now a huge virtuoso splash! They've played it twice now, I'm hoping for another performance this year.
Valley Spirit and Wind Master - Flute Part
Valley Spirit and Wind Master - Vibraphone Part
Valley Spirit and Wind Master - Score
Valley Spirit and Wind Master for Flute and Vibraphone - Synthesized Realization
I've arranged my piece Irae for Violin, Viola and Contrabass for the same grouping but with clarinet instead of viola at the request of conductor/violinist Alexey Kurkdijan who works out of São Paulo. I've made a new realization and the new score and parts are available too. I really like it; it seems much more disturbed and bizarre than the original arrangement. Rehearsals have started and the premiere of this arrangement should be July 26th in São Paulo!
Irae - Clarinet Part
Irae with Clarinet - Violin Part
Irae with Clarinet - Violin Part
Irae with Clarinet - Violin Part
Irae with Clarinet - Synthesized Realization
I'm now working on a new big piece for Alexey in the form of a septet comprised of flute, oboe, clarinet, piano, violin, cello, and contrabass. It's going to be massive!
Originally from The Music of Jeff Harrington, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 10:23 PM | Comments (0)
Creation miscellany
The Phot and I had looked forward to this day with great excitement since we first learned of Kentucky’s Creation Museum last year.
According to its website, the Museum
brings the pages of the Bible to life, casting its characters and animals in dynamic form and placing them in familiar settings. Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden. Children play and dinosaurs roam near Eden’s Rivers. The serpent coils cunningly in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Majestic murals, great masterpieces brimming with pulsating colors and details, provide a backdrop for many of the settings.
Below, the flute-playing Aussie poses next to one of the Garden of Eden’s dinosaurs:
You might well say: “Dinosaurs! In the Garden of Eden!?” Well, that is just because of your racist, Darwin-loving, “the infidel Voltaire”-worshipping naivete. The Creation Museum is here to set you straight:
So, why is there NO scientific evidence of dinosaurs existing with humans?
And why doesn’t the word “dinosaur” appear in the bible? Why, that’s easy! Because it wasn’t invented until the 19th century.
Below, the incredibly un-human-looking Adam and Eve hangin’ in the Garden. Now they LOOK naked, but on closer inspection neither the Phot or I could find Eve’s nipples or Adam’s penis:
Apparently it is “human reason,” not millennia of religious/political conflicts that is responsible for genocide and racism:
Even though admission was $22 and a “state-of-the-art” facility was promised, much of the Museum looked incredibly cheap and tacky: painted backdrops in Eden, unconvincing plaster human models, outdated animatronic dinosaurs, amateurish videos depicting “a world without morals.”
What was most illuminating about our visit was the light it cast on what creationists actually believe: Apparently everything is centered around the great flood.
Here are a pair of stegosauruses being loaded onto Noah’s ark:
Here are some more dinosaurs inside the “life-sized” model of the ark:
As well as explaining fossils (turbulence caused layers upon layers of dead animals to be compacted together) and even coal (the tempest caused trees to sink to the bottom of the ocean and generated enough pressure that, hey presto, the trees turned to coal), the flood also explains the shifting of land masses around the earth. Apparently Rodinia (fascinatingly, scientific terminology is used to explain creationist theories throughout the museum), transformed into Pangea within just a few years of the beginning of the flood.
Actually, the best part of the museum were the Hollywood-style, sensationalist films scattered throughout the museum. Early on we were shown blockbuster-preview-style version of the 6 days of creation, complete with an impossibly deep, resonant voice intoning, “And on the first day…” The flood film was essentially The Day After Tomorrow with Noah instead of Jake Gyllennhaal.
Below: The Museum’s explanation for the spread of animal species around the globe at the end of the flood. Called “rafting,” it resulted when animals unknowingly stepped on logs (which were left floating across the oceans after the flood), which transported them across the great oceans of the world…
I have to admit that I was a little afraid of being “found out” by the god-botherers who were genuinely there to “learn” something. But everyone was so busy smiling and being good-natured that us heathen impostors managed to get out without raising the atheist alarm. Fundamentalist christians really seem to be happy people, except it is a bit too much like being stuck in the Stepford Wives for my liking.
Granted it was a Saturday morning, but the Phot and I were shocked to discover that the museum was pretty much packed full of people. With the exception of a few Asians, the patrons were all pasty white (I even saw a few Amish-looking folks in overalls and olde fashioned hats).
While shopping for Creation Museum memorabilia in the gift shop, a lady standing next to me turned to her friend and remarked about the DVD she was holding: “Ooh, Betsy, it says that it is appropriate for ages 8-14. That means I can show it to my elementary school class!”
Below: Creation-Museum-walking-induced, sandal-inflicted wound? Or stigmata? You decide:
The most shocking discovery that I made? Ken Ham, “president and founder of Answers in Genesis-U.S. and the highly acclaimed Creation Museum,” and a truly scary looking bloke, is a native-born Australian! Let me, as a card-carrying Aussie, take this opportunity to claim responsibility for Ken and the pain he has brought on a generation of evolutionary theorists. My sincerest apologies.
More Creation Museum photos here.
Originally posted by Tim from thirteen ways, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)
Update
When I took over Free Albums Galore from Luke in 2006, I was recently retired. Since then I landed the proverbial offer-I-can’t-refuse and am now a full-time worker again. This delegates my blogging time to weekends when I search for albums and write up enough posts to fill the week. This of course dominates my weekends and is more than a little irritating to my wife who wonders why I can’t be like a regular guy and just go out and have an affair. Nonetheless I struggle on and continue to bring good quality free and legal albums to the music hungry world…Which is an overly verbal way of explaining why I was shocked when I looked at the album recommendations and found 220 albums I haven’t yet listened to! So if you see a post on an album and wonder “Didn’t I tell him about that a year ago?”, that’s why.
But keep them coming. Email me at freealbumsgalore@yahoo.com.
A caution. If your album is only posted on a share site like Rapidshare, I’m not likely to bother with it. Share sites are not really permanent hostings and usually means it is a “limited-time offer” which I don’t feature either. I have made exceptions like when the artists assures me it will be long-term and that it is actually their album to offer as free, but usually I pass them up.
Here’s a few extra treats for you. Composer Oleg Paiderdin offers quite a few of his compositions on his web site. They tend to be under 10 minutes and lean toward the use of woodwinds rather heavily. Some of the reviewers compare his composition to Arvo Part and Xenakis which is good company indeed.
I am looking forward to the day WFMU’s Free Music Archive kicks off their library and wows us with a vast collection of independent music and local or forgotten artists. Until then, you will still find a lot of interesting music including live studio recordings from the very strange radio station.
I haven’t kept up my music resource page so I urge you to check out these music blogs that review free albums: Phlow, Catching The Waves, and Musikrebell. These are three of the newest and best reviewers of free music on the internet.
I also have not ended with a music video for a while, so here’s one of my favorites. It’s a nice hair metal cover of a classic Del Shannon song with Del and Donny Osmond in cameos. The dinosaurs are pretty rad too! I think I used to jam with the bass player in a bar in Pacoima…
Originally posted by Marvin from Free Albums Galore, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 01:08 PM | Comments (0)
White Bread
In many places on this planet, let's take Europe for example, it's hard not to be conspicuous if you're a 6'4" American. And if, somehow, information gets out that said conspicuous yank is a musician, well then, folks met in passing (e.g. neighbors, strangers in trains, people in shops and on street corners, schoolkids), are bound to ask if my music either rocks or swings, and I'm bound to disappoint with the news that, no, my music is rather more the kind that scares housepets. Yes, even in lands of famously old and high culture, the default setting for "musician" is assumed to be entertainer. Fortunately for my psyche, an American youth prepared me well for encounters of the sort. They are opportunities for educating oneself as well as the inquirer: how do I talk about music (mine, other) without technical terms, how do different musics (mine, other, 'nother other) relate to one another, if at all, and what functions can musics play in the real world? (You ask a lot of questions for a Comanche...)Sometime I'll write a nice long item about my accidental displacement in Europe. It wasn't ever planned, not even expected. (In fact, I never actually had plans to venture past the American west and I still avoid the right coast as much as possible: my music may not be played on the island of Manhattan.) But the facts on the ground are these: I ended up here, a conspicuous presence, and it became necessary to see this as an opportunity. It has not, as far as I'm concerned, been a career opportunity; there is no land of milk & honey for experimental music composers anywhere, and I have none of the institutional affilliations that would make Europe either more milky or sweet. But Europe, in taking up the negative space absented by my own continent, has been an opportunity for better focusing a musical and cultural identity, coming to grips with tradition and experiment, with materials, methods, & forms, and, in my case, even with my inner white bread.
Yep, white bread. I shout a lot about being a Californian and, on my father's side, it goes back generations. But my mother came to California as a toddler, during the second world war. She was born in South Dakota, Irish Catholic mother, Dutch Reformed father, which means meat'n'potatoes, white bread'n'butter all the way. Okay, canned salmon patties on Fridays, that special midwest Catholic specialty, but you get the drift. (Not to disparage South Dakota -- home, after all of the National Music Museum-- but some friends report that, during a continental roadtrip, a request for dessert in a South Dakota diner was met with a plate on which sat a crustless slice of Wonderbreadtm soaked in Coca-Colatm. But I digress.) With this background, I probably have more legitimate musical connections to Lawrence Welk than to either rock or jazz, let alone the whole European art music tradition, but the path to legitimacy often follows a wide trajectory, even including Wonderbreadtm, enriched in twelve different ways, and American accordion bread (as one calls it here) is, in the end (or was, as the product is now being discontinued in Southern California as fashion and nutrition turn to whole grains and loafs with added nuts, seeds, and herbs) a unique technical accomplishment along a trajectory with no certain terminus, and a trajectory with roots as legitimately European as Boulez, Nono, Stockhausen, or even that 95% rye bread that makes Hessians so happy.
*****
While I can't reproduce Wonderbreadtm in my own kitchen, I do have a favorite white bread recipe. To be honest, it's more like Italian bread, with great big holes throughout, and a hard crust, but if I'm going to admit one white bread to my life, it's this one. It's messy but requires no kneading and less thinking, and while the total duration is 16 hours or so, the elapsed working time is only a few minutes.
By hand, with a spoon in a large mixing bowl, mix together:
3 cups bread flour
1/2 teaspoon instant dry yeast or 1 teaspoon dry yeast
a bit more than 1 teaspoon salt
Stir in
1 1/2 cups cold water
Cover bowl with plastic wrap and a dark towel. Let sit for 12 to 18 hours.
The dough should now be covered with bubbles, very wet, almost like pancake dough. On a well-floured work surface or cutting board, pour the dough, dust the top of the dough with flour and turn over once. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 15 minute.
Adding just as much extra flour as needed to keep the dough form sticking to the surface, shape the dough roughly into a ball. Again dust the top with flour. Flour a cotton kitchen towel, and lift the ball of dough onto one half of the towel, then cover the dough with the other half.
Let the dough rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. At least fifteen minutes before baking, heat the oven to 450F (230C) , placing a large cover-able pot, casserole or dutch oven into the oven. When the oven has reached temperature, put the dough into the pot -- seam up is nice, but it's not essential, and it can get pretty sloppy and still be great -- , cover, and return to oven. Bake covered for one half hour. Remove cover, and let continue to bake for 10 to 30 minutes, browned to your own taste.
This is a trajectory with its own variations, too: Omit the salt, Tuscan-style, or use some sourdough starter, San Francisco-style. Dust with corn meal instead of flour. Add some chilies or cheese or garlic or roasted onions.
Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 01:07 PM | Comments (0)
Harrison Birtwistle's spirit of space
Spirit of space as well as spirit of place is being celebrated at this year's Aldeburgh Festival. The magic of perspective was present even before the music started with sculptor East Anglian sculptor Laurence Edwards' three nine feet high Creek Men (photo above) menacingly standing guard over the distant marshes.
Space and visual images were also at the heart of last night's double-header new music programme which included the UK premiere of Harrison Birtwistle's string quartet Tree of Strings. This totally convincing study in creative fragmentation started with the superb Arditti Quartet inhabiting a single musical and physical space at the centre of the stage. Then, as the thirty minute work unfolded they moved to separate and distanced spaces around the perimeter of the large Snape platform where they spoke with separate musical voices before individually, and silently, making their exits from the famous performing space. In the magical final moments, as the last member of the quartet, cellist Lucas Fels, stopped playing and left with his instrument, we were left wondering whether the Arditti were on their way across the wind-blown marshes to join the Creek Men.
I have for long thought that Stimmung is a superb piece of music but a miraculous piece of music theatre, and London Voices' exemplary performance, which concluded the evening, confirmed that. Space and visual images were again central, with the six white-clad singers individually moving from the audience to the stage at the beginning of the performance and tossing vocal lines across space during it. A great performance of Stimmung is the ultimate in teamwork, big companies should stop wasting money on expensive team-building consultants and simply send their executives to observe Stimmung being sung as it was last night - at just £10 a ticket think of the budget savings.
But despite affordable tickets neither the Arditti concert, which also included Birtwistle's Bach transcriptions, Stravinsky's Three Pieces for String Quartet and John Cage's String Quartet in Four Parts (which made the new Birtwistle quartet sound positively familiar) or Stimmung were anywhere like full even after energetic marketing which included a late half-price ticket offer. However, what the audience lacked in quantity it made up with quality, Joanna McGregor, Sir Harrison Birtwistle and former Covent Garden and Channel 4 boss Jeremy Isaacs were just some of the celebrities in the rows behind us. As someone remarked to me, if Aldeburgh can't sell out a concert like this who can?
One smallish moan. Mains hum through the PA was excusable in 1968 when Stockhausen was composing Stimmung for six amplified voices and flaky valve (tube) PA systems were the norm. But things have moved on and the obtrusive 50hz buzz from the left speakers throughout Stimmung last night was inexcusable. But, carping aside, a quite magical evening, and it didn't rain on our between-concert picnic although the wind did blow the candles out.
They don't always get it right. But the magic of Aldeburgh is that, unlike so many of today's prestigous festivals, it is so much more than just a music factory. One of many heroes last night was local sculptor Laurence Edwards who created the Creek Men, and the evening made me think of American sculptor Richard Serra's words about his own work, "It's not going to change the world, but it can be a catalyst for thought."
* Barbara Hepworth's Family of Man sculture occupies the foreground between Snape Maltings and the Creek Men on the marshes, and also comprises three figures. Family of Man is on permanent loan from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge in memory of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears. But despite the title of the work Hepworth had a distinctly feminine point of view.
Creek Men photo credit EADT24. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 01:07 PM | Comments (0)
Frank Zappa's son is keeping the focus on the music - The Times-Picayune - NOLA.com
 The Times-Picayune - NOLA.com | Frank Zappa's son is keeping the focus on the music The Times-Picayune - NOLA.com, LA - Michael Mesker / Zappa Family EstateDweezil Zappa, son of avant-garde rocker Frank Zappa, hopes his tribute show brings new audiences to his father's music. ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)
Of Minimalism, Avant-Garde and Beethoven’s Sonatas - New York Times
Of Minimalism, Avant-Garde and Beethoven’s Sonatas New York Times, United States - But when prodded by something in the music, he can be volatile and fearsome. Here his performances of three early works, the Sonatas No. 5 in C minor, No. ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)
Basses loaded - San Diego Union Tribune
 San Diego Union Tribune | Basses loaded San Diego Union Tribune, United States - Former student Korb credits Turetzky for more than just his artistic vision and ability to play classical, jazz, klezmer and avant-garde music with equal ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)
À mon chevet: Opera and the Morbidity of Music
Originally from Ionarts, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 08:15 AM | Comments (0)
Zander on Music and Passion
Benjaim Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, has become a hot ticket on the corporate leadership circuit. Here’s why:
Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)
New Music Duo Hybrid Groove Project Drops Latest Hit “HGP Anthem”
Peabody faculty member David Smooke sent this along for your delectation:
Summer’s just beginning and Hybrid Groove Project, the genre-bending new music duo from Baltimore, is already heating things up with their number one summer jam, “HGP Anthem.” In the grand tradition of the
great hip-hop conflicts like Tupac v. Biggie Smalls, Dr. Dre v. Eazy-E, and 50 Cent v. Kanye West, “HGP Anthem” brings some much needed antagonism to a new music genre more accustomed to passive
aggressive behind-the-back battiness than brive-bys and street corner stompings.
“By droppin’ this track we’re showing all these new music fakers who the real playaz are,” say Sacawa and Spangler. “It’s like we’re telling everyone, ‘Yo, we’re hot, and you’re not,’ you feel us? Like,
y’all need to get out of the game. Plus, we need to show love for Bmore, you know what we’re sayin’?”
Indeed, new music will soon regret its unofficial partnership with indie rock with the release of Hybrid Groove Project’s latest hit, the number one summer jam of 2008. But don’t call it a comeback, Hybrid
Groove Project’s been making heads nod since 2004. Just hope it’s not too late to return those skinny jeans.
http://briansacawa.com/blog/2008/06/24/we-need-more-beef/
Originally posted by Christian Carey from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)
Guy/Crispell/Lytton - Phases of the Night
Intakt 138 There is something tremendously fitting about Barry Guy engaging the piano-trio format, as he has for three releases with pianist Marilyn Crispell and drummer Paul Lytton. After all, the bassist was at the forefront of European free...Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)
GARY SMITH - JUNE 2008
By Massimo Ricci This interview came out from many months of email conversation between 2007 and 2008 with guitar explorer Gary Smith, following a review of his SuperTexture CD (Sijis) on Paris Transatlantic. Those who know Mr. Smiths work need...Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)
Farewell to the off-topic diva
At this point most who care have likely long since seen this interview or simply heard the news: ballerina Veronika Part -- this blog's official off-topic diva -- is leaving ABT after this season.Her time at ABT was surely frustrating -- if perhaps not nearly as sad and awful as that piece might have us think. Each of her lead roles here has shown her rare expressive and communicative art, but the company -- like her previous home, the Mariinsky -- seems never to have taken her seriously. Was it that she -- tall, not super-thin, more artist than technician -- is too idiosyncratic for these institutions' current shape? Was it poor luck, as the scapegoat for McKenzie's awful Burger King production of Sleeping Beauty (in which she got her one and only production premiere)? Dislike from the New York Times?
Whatever the case, Part has meanwhile earned at least a cult following in the city. And the time here's helped her, if perhaps not as much as it could or should have: Odile in yesterday's matinee Swan Lake showed a cruel and reckless glamour alien to the dancer who first arrived with the Mariinsky on their 2002 tour.
At any rate, I can't write about dance, so I'll only note that there are two more opportunities to see Part before she leaves the company.
Afterwards -- I hope, for myself, that these aren't her last New York performances. But I hope for her, as for every artist, that she finds a situation where she is able to give her best.
Originally from An Unamplified Voice, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)
I Have Nothing New to Say and I Am Saying It
The sad fact is, though, that this book will advance my reputation in musicological circles far more than the postminimalism book I should be working on. As I've noted often before, a musicologist's reputation is proportionate to the square of the fame of the composer he's an expert on. Explaining Mikel Rouse and David First and Eve Beglarian to the world will make me more an oddity than an expert. Writing a Cage book won't put me up with the Beethoven and Bach savants by a long shot, but it will zoom me up near the top of the relatively small 20th-century heap. Quality and content play little part in this dispensation.
And yet that's not at all why I'm doing it: I'm more doing it in spite of that. I would rather spit in the eye of every musicologist in Christendom than lift a finger to achieve status in such an artificial, unthinking heirarchy. A couple of friends have been kind enough to tell me that I'm a better composer than writer, and I would like to think so. Personally, I believe that my most important contribution to the world is the extent to which I have developed just intonation into a broader musical language, with deep roots in tonal practice and tremendous ramifications for future usage, and if I had my druthers, which I don't, I'd infinitely prefer to be remembered for that. I have no ambitions at all as a musicologist, beyond righting the wrongs that good composers of my generation have suffered.
So why am I doing this? Because the opportunity arose, offered by an editor who's an old friend, with a generous advance attached, and, in a Cagean spirit, I grabbed it. Because Cage played a tremendous role in my youth and only a peripheral role in my adulthood to date. Because Zen was a wonderully energizing influence on my life in the '70s and early '80s, and I've been too long divorced from it. Because he was a wonderful man, and his personal example laid an indelible imprint on my life. (Among other things, I think I absorbed from Cage the lesson that being a prolific and controversial writer can help augment one's reputation as a composer.) So ultimately my motivations are self-serving, in the deepest possible sense: to get back to my roots, to backtrack over where I came from, to figure out why, at age 17, performing 4'33" in public seemed like such an important thing to do. To revisit those high school days in which I enthusiastically played the Everest recording of Variations IV for my theory class, with my teacher and classmates all terribly dubious as to whether that was actually music. As of June 8 I'm at the beginning of a new 30-year astrological cycle in my life, and I needed to reorient myself. I'm at a lull in my compositional activity, with many large projects just completed and new ones still vague in my mind. And I'm hoping, hoping against hope, that newly understanding 4'33" and the rest of Cage's post-1950 output, as an adult, will propel me, as a composer, in a new and hopefully completely unexpected direction.
Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 05:10 AM | Comments (0)
...well, It's based on his ability to draw you in.
Alex Ross on Alfred Brendel's last NY Concert everOriginally from agavenectar, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 02:10 AM | Comments (0)
mere wankings?
You know, sometimes you're just looking for some motherfucking emotional release.This guy doesn't suck. In many, many ways this guy doesn't either.
note:
1) Creative release could be emotional release.
2)The word "Motherfucker" is contemporary literary vernacular.
Originally from agavenectar, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 02:10 AM | Comments (0)
Giacinto Scelsi, "Rotative"
Giacinto Scelsi"Rotative" *
per due pianoforti
Fabio Luz, Marinella Tarenghi,
pianoforti
(Edizione: Salabert, Paris)
concerto del 3 ottobre
Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 29, 2008 at 02:10 AM | Comments (0)
June 28, 2008
Festivalgoers To Soak Up Brazilian Culture And Music - Tampa Tribune
Festivalgoers To Soak Up Brazilian Culture And Music Tampa Tribune, FL - The series regularly features challenging experimental and avant-garde music. Emit concerts regularly challenge preconceived notions about popular and ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
For Jazz’s Avant-Garde, an Annual Gathering and a Little Competition - New York Times
 New York Times | For Jazz’s Avant-Garde, an Annual Gathering and a Little Competition New York Times, United States - Last fall Ms. Nicholson Parker announced the formation of the advocacy group Rise Up Creative Music and Arts. Along with Mr. Parker, she articulated the ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
Phila. Orchestra returns to China
Jennifer Lin, Philadelphia Inquirer, 5/30/2008Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
Burton Greene and Laurence Cook Duo, Cambridge, MA
A review of this recent performance is available.
Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
100%
To be fair, Opera got to 100% at the same time as the current WebKit build of Safari 3.1. So if Safari is now so much better, why won't the current IMAX theater schedule at the Franklin Institute load in my browser? Guess it's that issue with Java applets or something...Originally from david's waste of bandwidth..., ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
Week 37
Oy Vey!DVORÁK Symphony No. 8
INTERMISSION
OLIVER Federal Street (Great God, we sing that mighty hand)
HATTON Duke Street (O God, beneath thy guiding hand)
ROOT Shining Shore
TRADITIONAL Good Night, Ladies
BISHOP Home, Sweet Home
IVES New England Holidays
[redacted] Symphony Chorus
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor
Monday
2-4:30 Trout Quintet rehearsal
Tuesday
10-12:30 rehearsal
12:30-2:30 Prokofiev Quintet rehearsal
7:30 concert (Rameau/Vivaldi)
Wednesday
12-2:30 3:30-5:30 rehearsals
Thursday
10-12:30 rehearsal
8 concert
Friday
9:30-11:30 In-school concerts
1:30 concert
7:30 Trout Quintet concert
Saturday
8 concert
Sunday
7:30 Ars Viva Benefit rehearsal
This week = last week. I’m behind again.
We had one of the quirkier podium performances this week. In rehearsals the ratio of talk to useful information conveyed threatened to fall into the red zone. To make matters worse, although more entertaining, the Maestro’s score for the Ives didn’t seem to match the set of parts the players were using. Questions fired from all corners of the orchestra began to resemble a Bush administration press conference with dissembling, non-responsive, or off-putting replies. At one point a seemingly simple question about whether a certain measure would be conducted in two or in four prompted a lengthy non sequitur; when pressed on the subject, the maestro admitted he would have to get back to the questioner on that (I can’t recall if he ever did).
Rumor has it somewhere in the chain of command the fact that a chorus would be needed for these concerts was overlooked. A small brave group hastily assembled at the rear of the stage (the normal chorus seats had been sold) needed amplification to be heard over the orchestra. A sad but humorous incident occurred when, after starting and stopping several times to have the chorus microphones turned up again, one of my colleagues muttered to no one in particular “Why doesn’t he ask he orchestra to play more softly?” We can all breathe a sigh of relief such desperate, scorched earth tactics were not needed.
The Dvorak was conducted (mostly) from memory – the score lay pointedly closed on the conductor’s stand throughout in what seemed to be a sort of ‘look mommy, no hands!’ type gesture. Of course we know the all too predictable results of such ill-advised showmanship; the inevitable crash, the tears, the band-aids…
Originally from Bass Blog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)
Bang, whimper
A fairly huge crowd materialized in the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center for Bang on a Can's twelve-hour new-music marathon, the inaugural event in this year's River to River Festival. Suffering from a summer cold and middle age, I made it through only the first five and a half hours, and missed, with much regret, Stockhausen at sunrise. Steve Smith has the full report; see also Justin Levine, Lauren Cartelli, and Brooklyn Vegan (with photos of the mosh-pit moment). More shots below.
Looking from the back of the space toward the stage, the bluish area on the far right.
Bang co-founder David Lang holds forth.
Lisa Moore plays Annie Gosfield with flourish.
Owen Pallett and Evan Ziporyn.
Some T-shirts seen in the très hip crowd: "Dissent is patriotic," "Please God fuck my mind for good," "Sasquatch," and, of course, "Mostly Mozart."
Originally posted by Alex Ross from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)
Bonnaroo: The Warriors Stick Around
Sunday is for what Aimee Mann just called the "Bonnaroo warriors," in it to the end.Originally posted by Jon Pareles from ArtsBeat, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)
Opera watch
Opera has been, well, a bit limited in Bangkok over the last ten months. Bangkok Opera's Die Walkure was the big event back in November and December, but that company has been quiet on the full-scale opera front ever since, due to internal re-structuring. Upstart NUNi Productions offered "Mozart in Mischief" in the fall as well, and also recently presented the super interesting Orpheus Schemata, a "liminal theater", multi-genre, modern interpretation of the myth. The Met Opera BKK has presented a few vocal recitals with its in-house singers, and Bangkok Music Society/Orpheus Choir with soloists sang Handel's Samson on June 7. That has pretty much been it. This week and next however, Bangkok's opera scene will spring back to life. From June 24-29 at the Thailand Cultural Center Small Hall, Met Opera BKK presents Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss, and on July 4 in the same venue, NUNi Productions in cooperation with the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra presents Donizetti's Il Campanello. So it will be another curious American holiday for me, ringing in Independence Day 2008 with Italian opera in Thailand. Further down the road on July 31st, Thai singers Kittinant Chinsamran (bass-baritone) and Samitra Suwannarit (soprano) will present a selection of songs and arias by Handel, Mozart, Bellini, and Strauss at the Stock Exchange.Originally from classicalive, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)
George Antheil, "Dementia" (1955)
What a magnum opus this could have been, huh? Completely silent film about a woman going nuts...?
The score features Marni Nixon and sounds like it got ripped off hard by Alexander Courage. Other than that, it's completely forgettable.
Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)
Busy times
Firstly, a big apology for the lack over postings over the past couple of weeks. It's been a busy time at Chandos Towers and I've also been on vacation which apart from climbing up Greek mountains also involved catching up on some much-needed music listening!In particular I've enjoyed re-visiting my Vaughan Williams collection, of course the catalyst being the 50th year since his death. There have been some brilliant articles and television series over the past month on RVW and in general I think the anniversary has been successful in highlighting the genius of this wonderful English composer. Chandos has long championed him and have been fortunate to have such a behemoth of a conductor in Richard Hickox to put his stunning music to disc. Please visit our website to see the full list of repertoire available. Much of it is available on SACD, CD and mp3 so you can dabble in all formats! Hopefully you will have also had the opportunity to catch Richard conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra on tour as they undertake a serious contribution to the celebration of Vaughan Williams across the UK, if not check out the Philharmonia's website for a list of performances. One highlight being The Pilgrim's Progress this weekend at ENO, which was the first production of the stage work in London for over 12 years. Music OMH.com wrote of the performance: "Richard Hickox led a glowing performance from a relatively small-force Philharmonia. In addition to those already mentioned, the astonishing cast included Matthew Rose, Matthew Brook, Timothy Robinson, Sarah Tynan, James Gilchrist, Robert Hayward and Andrew Kennedy, each dipping and diving from one cameo to another. It was as talented a gathering as one could expect and, towering above all, was Roderick Williams' richly sung and sympathetic Pilgrim. This singer, who is now establishing himself as a major talent, was as good a representative of Everyman as we'd wish." Chandos 's recording of Pilgrim's Progress is available on our website. CHAN 9625(2) It stars amongst others, Roderick Williams, Gerald Finley, Pamela Helen Stephen and Peter Coleman-Wright.
Other highlights of June so far:
Karen Geoghegan's debut CD has gone down a treat with all those who have heard it. We were delighted with the interview on Radio 3 and they seem to have added it to the playlist which is a definite bonus! Karen has had a busy time promoting the disc and performed her first solo chamber concert since the disc was launched at the beautiful venue of Fulham Palace. If you haven't been before, try and get there over the summer as this is a worthy London attraction.
One of our other June releases flying off the shelves is Hickox's latest addition to the Britten discography, Owen Wingrave and with rave reviews to boot! Here is one such review (from the Telegraph)
"The composer's masterly clarity of scoring and vocal line, together with a vintage Chandos recording, ensure that all the words come across while at the same time providing plenty of atmosphere. Richard Hickox's command of the score also banishes once and for all the idea that the work was a mere appendix to the composer's operatic career: its pacifist theme was a central one to Britten's creative being, and he invested the opera with all the musical richness and textural originality of an unrivalled master of the medium, best expressed here in the playing of the City of London Sinfonia, which is wonderfully alive.
As with Chandos's previous Britten recordings - almost without exception serious rivals to those by the composer himself - the cast is full of familiar names from the Hickox "rep company". It is led by Peter Coleman-Wright as an authoritative Owen - the young man whose rejection of his family's militarism propels the drama - at his best in the vocal and dramatic passion he brings to the "peace manifesto" aria that precedes his tragic act of bravado in the face of his ancestors' ghosts.
Also notable are Alan Opie's sympathetic Coyle, James Gilchrist's resourceful portrayal of Owen's student friend Lechmere and Robin Leggate's lithely conveyed Sir Philip/ballad singer (the original Pears roles).
The four women who variously rail against Owen all emerge as rounded characters, too, particularly Elizabeth Connell's forbidding Miss Wingrave."
Watch out for an exclusive podcast with Richard Hickox, who talks to Raymond Bisha Radio Promotions Manager for Naxos of America. It will be uploaded soon!
Originally from Chandos Records, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)
Chamber Orchestra chief has cancer, leaving job to fight disease
Dominic P. Papatola , Pioneer Press, 6/26/2008Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)
Rhapsody on a Theme of Goolsbee-ni
Slate has been compiling an Encyclopedia Baracktania to keep track of Obamaisms, the "Barackification" of the English language. Today's entry gets the classical-music prize of the campaign season for "Barachmaninoff." Read the definition here.
Barachmaninoff has a touch of class, I think; Obamadeus...not so much.
Originally posted by MarcGeelhoed from Marc Geelhoed: Deceptively Simple, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)
Later they brought me their song
I must confess I rather wish I was at Glastonbury this weekend to hear Leonard Cohen who has been receiving rave reviews for his UK tour. But I'm quite happy to be at Aldeburgh's Faster Than Sound new music festival starting with this double-header tonight:
* Arditti Quartet at 7.00pm ~ Bach arr Harrison Birtwistle Fugue (world premiere), Stravinsky Three pieces for String Quartet, Cage String Quartet in Four Parts, Bach arr Harrison Birtwistle Fugue (world premiere), Harrison Birtwistle Tree of Strings (UK premiere)
* London Voices with Ben Parry director at 10.00pm ~ Stockhausen Stimmung (Header photo of Collegium Vocale performing Stimmung in Paris in 1971 is from Richard Friedman.)
The weather forecast for Aldeburgh is good after rain last night. So we're doing it Glastonbury style with a bottle of wine and a patchouli oil burner for the hour's interval between the two concerts, and Leonard Cohen will be with us in the car.
Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone.
They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can't go on.
And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song.
Oh I hope you run into them, you who've been travelling so long.
Leonard Cohen- Sisters of Mercy.
Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage and Leonard Cohen appear together here.
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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 01:35 PM | Comments (0)
Composer in the Kitchen
(Click to enlarge.)
Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 01:34 PM | Comments (0)
Pyrrhic victory.
It's always a pleasure to welcome a new voice to the classical blogosphere, but in the case of South Florida Classical Review, it comes at a high cost. The blog is run by Lawrence A. Johnson, a veteran journalist and critic whose writing we've all read in Gramophone, Opera News, Opera, The New York Times, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and elsewhere. The reason Johnson started SFCR, however, is because on Monday he was laid off by the Miami Herald after 18 months on the job.
Susan Elliott, in a well-reported and pointedly nuanced article on MusicalAmerica.com, noted that the Miami Herald is owned by the McClatchy Company, the nation's third-largest newspaper chain, and one still burdened with debt from its 2006 acquisition of Knight-Ridder. Johnson was hardly the first casualty of the McClatchy belt tightening: Exactly one week earlier, Paul Horsley was laid off by the Kansas City Star, a possibility he had ruefully anticipated during the Music Critics Association of North America meeting in Denver just the previous Saturday. (MusicalAmerica.com reported that story on June 20.)
Faced with laying off 17 percent of its staff, the Miami Herald was said to have made its choices on the basis of seniority. This, I suppose, should come as something of a relief if we can assume the notion of classical music being marginal didn't enter into the picture. But how disappointing that this comes at a time when classical music in Miami appears to be in especially robust shape.
The overall trend of classical music critics being terminated, sadly, shows no sign of abating; indeed, at the end of her article Susan makes dark intimations about the future of the Palm Beach Post, which is due to shed some 300 jobs presently. But if there is a silver lining to this dark cloud, it's that Lawrence Johnson, like Alan Rich before him, refused to clam up and let the art go unserved.
Welcome to the blogosphere, Mr. Johnson. Glad to have you with us.
Playlist:
Elliott Sharp - Errata; SyndaKit; Larynx; Rheo-Umbra; Re:Iterations (Neos)
Miley Cyrus - Meet Miley Cyrus (Disney/Hollywood)
Carcass - Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious and Heartwork (Earache)
Ralph Vaughan Williams - Symphony No. 4; Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis; Symphony No. 6* - New York Philharmonic/Dmitri Mitropoulos, Leopold Stokowski* (Sony Classical, with thanks to a special and distinguished benefactor)
Alexandre Lunsqui - p-Orbital; Tempi Intermedi; Spira Mondana - Argento Chamber Ensemble/Michel Galante; Glaes - Duo Nakamura-Beyer; Ligare - Due East; After Frottage - Carol McGonnell and Dave Eggar; Iris - Greg Beyer (available from www.lunsqui.com)
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures (London/Rhino Collector's Edition)
Public Image Ltd. - Plastic Box (Virgin)
Sergei Rachmaninoff - The Isle of the Dead; "Youth" Symphony; Symphony No. 1 - BBC Philharmonic/Gianandrea Noseda (Chandos)
Johanna Beyer - Suite for Clarinet I & Ib; String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2; Three Songs for Soprano and Clarinet; Bees; The Federal Music Project; Movement for Two Pianos; Ballad of the Star-Eater; Movement for Double Bass and Piano; Three Pieces for Choir; Sonatina in C - Astra Chamber Music Society/John McCaughey (New World)
Jason Cady - Post Madonna Prima Donna (Peacock)
Z-Trip vs. MSTRKRFT - Soundclash of the Titans (promotional CD)
Billy Idol - Idolize Yourself: The Very Best of Billy Idol (Capitol)
Franz Joseph Haydn - Violin Concertos in C, A & G - Augustin Hadelich, Cologne Chamber Orchestra/Helmut Müller-Brühl (Naxos)
Leon Kirchner - String Quartets Nos. 1-4 - Orion String Quartet (Albany)
Franz Berwald - Symphonies Nos. 1-4; Memory of the Norwegian Alps; Play of the Elves - Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Dausgaard (Brilliant Classics)
Originally posted by NightAfterNight from Night After Night, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 01:34 PM | Comments (0)
Bundit Ungrangsee at Kasetsart University
I was reading the NY Times profile of Xian Zhang, associate conductor of the New York Philharmonic, just yesterday and learned about the Maazel/Vilar Conductors' Competition in which she shared top prize in 2002. Today I discovered that the person she shared top honors with was Thai conductor Bundit Ungrangsee, who is currently heading a conducting workshop quite literally up the street from me at Kasetsart University here in Bangkok. Back in 2002, Ralph Blumenthal in the NY Times wrote of Zhang and Ungrangsee: "A 28-year-old woman from Beijing who learned music on a piano handmade by her father, and a 31-year-old man from Bangkok, where Western classical music is rarely played, shared the top honors and $90,000." Things in Bangkok have certainly changed since 2002, and Khun Bundit's schedule has picked up quite a bit as well since then, with international gigs regularly on the calendar and special work being done in Korea particularly.
Originally from classicalive, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 01:34 PM | Comments (0)
Okay, it's your turn...
Heard anything good lately? Anything out there challenging, if not changing, the way you listen? What and to whom should we being paying attention?Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 01:33 PM | Comments (0)
Getting a First
Although the final grades are not out, the preliminary marks lead me to believe I will achieve a First Class Honours Degree from Napier University for my BMus studies. While the reaction from all those around me are praise and hearty congratulations, I am feeling a bit lost with marking it as anything extraordinary.
I do not want to put down the education I have received. I do not want to make little of my accomplishments over the past four years. What I am trying to say is, I do not think what I did was extraordinary for me. I do not feel, particularly in this last year, that anything I did was much of a stretch for me. I really wish I had done more, gone farther and done better. Yes, I (potentially) have First Class Honours Degree and it doesn't get any better than that. I guess it's just that I expect more of myself.
Does this sound egotistical? I don't mean it to.
Achievements this year:
- Finished writing and conducted my first symphony
-
Yes, I am very proud of that.
- Wrote 30 minutes of a opera that has real potential (IMHO)
-
Yes, I am proud of that
- Wrote a complete string quartet (not just a short 5-6 minute string piece)
that is being professionally performed (not just as a vanity project)
-
Yes, I am proud of that
chieve:
- Better understanding of what makes some composers music so intriguing.
- I'd like to study Mahler, (John) Williams, Corigliano indepth. I did study Holst,
Brittan, Ferneyhough and Maxwell-Davis (and others), but there are so many more
that I should also have gotten to and just didn't.
- Better handle on the tricks in orchestrating for symphony orchestras.
- I am woefully lacking in knowing the tricks of master orchestrators. My first
symphony does a number of interesting things - but there are still more out
there (there must be) and I don't know them. It's like I am a painter who learned
a couple of techniques, but then look at Monet and realise I have no business
attempting water lilies at this stage in my development - and that's frustrating!
- Better handle on sound mixing.
-
I don't want to be a sound engineer, but so much of film music is done though
computer generated sounds. I am not getting the clarity of sound I know can
be achieved (even with generated sounds) so my works do not sound as good as
they should.
- Better understanding of Popular music
-
I took a Dance Music class, but still just failed to grasp what it is that makes
modern pop, hip hop, rock, drum&bass, club, house…. Music tick. I didn't
take a pop degree, but it is so much of what is part of the musicscape of today
that I feel inadequate in my knowledge.
pefully this provides some understanding as to why I'm not necessarily celebrating my achievement. Maybe I have just walked up a large hill (maybe even a mountain) but there so many more mountains left to climb. Taking time to celebrate climbing this one doesn't seem appropriate.
Originally from Interchanging Idioms, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 01:33 PM | Comments (0)
News Flash: Opera Plots are Terrible
Or so says Ian McEwan. Well he is right. And wrong. Opera has a long tradition of pulling stories from literature, including folk tales and the oral tradition. This means the plots are varied and uneven with fantastical elements that can beggar belief. (Ever read the original story of Cinderella? Brutal!) Add to this the fact that the composer and librettist are often speaking two different languages and the recipe for plot disaster is created. The legendary exploits of composers slashing the libretto to fit the music are numerous, as are the battle of wills between the artist of the written word and the master of the musical notes.
Where I think the problem comes in is when one element or the other assumes superiority - when story and music are at war, one element will lose out and that is most often the story.
So how do Chip and I solve this power struggle to ensure that our collaborations produce end products that have both exquisite music and exciting and engrossing story? Rather the same way we approach our marriage - as a partnership - hard won by compromise, communication and collaboration!
Chip and I have the benefit of a shared musical knowledge - I am also a composer. We also share a love of words - I am a novelist, Chip is a poet. At the beginning of a new project, we bandy ideas about for a story, hashing out the main plot and themes. I will then write a one page 'treatment' similar to that used for a film pitch. Chip then uses this treatment to create musical themes and motives - which the two of us will then hash over keeping this, changing that, adding a bit until we both feel we have a musical landscape we can work in. From that point the real writing begins. Chip and I are both comfortable working with outlines, so firstly I will create the story arc and Chip will create a musical sketch to match. From there, we have the bones of our opera and we can begin to put flesh upon them.
Working this intensively close can lead to argument and passionate outbursts, but in the end we create a Yin/Yan kind of opera where the music serves the text, and the text serves the music. Many times we forget who had which idea, or who created what, but that really doesn't matter. What matters is the story - words spoken and thoughts intoned - what matters is the opera!
Originally from Interchanging Idioms, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 01:32 PM | Comments (0)
Homer in Cyberspace: Penelope’s Story
This is the opening number. The curtain opens and Penelope is sitting at her piano trying to compose “the perfect song.” She pines for long gone husband, O [Odysseus, aka “O-man”]. Her suitors encourage her to finish the song and to remarry. Grace Wall is Penelope.
.
Download audio file (penelopes_story.mp3)
.
“Penelope’s Story” from HOMER IN CYBERSPACE
Music: Roger Bourland
Lyrics: Mel Shapiro
Soprano: Grace Wall
June 7, 2008
Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 01:32 PM | Comments (0)
Today's Mothers can't Skweezit in - The Province
Today's Mothers can't Skweezit in The Province, Canada - However, Zappa -- influenced by such composers as Stravinsky and Stockhausen -- is today recognized as one of rock's best and most innovative songsmiths. ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 01:31 PM | Comments (0)
Cellist Weilerstein steals show in SF - San Jose Mercury News
Cellist Weilerstein steals show in SF San Jose Mercury News, USA - In the first half of the program, Robertson led the orchestra through a crisp, luminous performance of Lutoslawski's "Mi-Parti," from 1976. The music was ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 01:31 PM | Comments (0)
Dark World International Releases 'Chapter One - Remastered' from ... - Melodika.net
Dark World International Releases 'Chapter One - Remastered' from ... Melodika.net, Bulgaria - Compared to the works of avant-garde composer Gyorgy Ligeti, and masters of twentieth century music John Cage, Penderecki, and Schoenberg, Stygian Tars' ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 01:31 PM | Comments (0)
Endpaper: why Bloomsday rocks - Telegraph.co.uk
 | Endpaper: why Bloomsday rocks Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom - "I don't like the book but wish it were published and be damned to it," wrote James Joyce to his brother Stanislaus in 1907 about Chamber Music, ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 01:31 PM | Comments (0)
Music App 101, Part 3 - Voice of San Diego
Music App 101, Part 3 Voice of San Diego, CA - The same is true if you listen to music by a relatively well-known modern composer like Steve Reich. "If it's a new composer, all bets are off," McAllister ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 01:31 PM | Comments (0)
Various Artists - Rhaaa Lovely Festival Compilations
The Rhaaa Lovely Festival in collaboration with The Silent Ballet brings us two exceptional compilation albums featuring artists playing at the the yearly event in Cortil-Wodon, Belgium. This is an idea that I hope other festivals adopt: a free and legal souvenir of what must have been an interesting gathering of indie rock bands.
The 2007 compilation offers 14 tracks by 14 bands. Many of the artists have a cerebral sound that lends to a pleasant and relaxing day. Matt Elliot’s “Our Weight in Oil’ sways along in what sounds like a gypsy melody. The opening track by Whisper in The Noise is between introvert indie and new age. Rothko is the only one of the artists I have heard before and has alway been one of my favorite Tortoise influenced groups. But all is not calming. Hard metallic sounds comes from bands like Pentak and Pelican while We Cut the Tape and Scatter has a disquieting but attention getting style that makes them a group I would like to hear more from. This Lovely Festival isn’t afraid to take chances.
The 2008 compilation has 12 tracks from 12 other artists. Magyar Posse has an symphonic sound while Youthmovies’ “Shhh! You’ll Wake It” has full-bodied indie rock credentials. “Floodwaters” by The . J. Boyd Sexxxtet provides a odd but beautiful setting of chorus and strings. M0re traditional rock sounds can be found on tracks by Dead Meadow and Mutiny on The Bounty but my favorite track is a complex fusion number by Sleeping People. These two albums are fine samplers of music by independent musicians out of the mainstream. Those who went to the festival will have a nice reminder and those of us who didn’t will probably be clearing our calender for next March.
Both albums are available in 192kbps MP3.
Download
2007 Rhaaa Lovely Festival Compilation
2008 Rhaaa Lovely Festival Compilation
Originally posted by Marvin from Free Albums Galore, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 01:30 PM | Comments (0)
From bliss to Bedlam
Thomas Adès, Guardian Unlimited, 6/26/2008Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 01:26 PM | Comments (0)
Symphony revisits Lutoslawski
Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, 6/27/2008Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 01:25 PM | Comments (0)
Leroy Anderson: Master of the Miniature
Pat Dowell, NPR, 6/27/2008Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 01:25 PM | Comments (0)
Performance of the seminal "In C"
from the Cerberus Percussion trio (or quartet? quintet? I don't think they even know now! ;) ) :| Date: | Saturday, July 19, 2008 |
| Time: | 8:30pm - 9:15pm |
| Location: | WonderRoot (art gallery) |
| Street: | 982 Memorial Drive |
| City/Town: | Atlanta, GA |
Please join us for a performance of the famous minimalist work "In C" by Terry Riley! If you are a musician, we want you to play! Reply to this with your regular email address, and I can send you a PDF of the score and instructions.
There will be a short rehearsal before the concert, at 8:00pm, and we ask everyone to be there so we can be all set up before the show...we have 45 minutes to perform the piece, as there are two rock bands on the same bill.
RAD!
contact me and I can get you in touch: (my full name, no spaces) at gmail
Wish I could make it - hope some of you can!
-ASN
Originally from Atlanta Composers Blog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)
SCI Journal of Scores
Hello everyone,Just writing to say kudos to Toby Chappell, whose solo guitar piece "Memories of the North" has just been selected for the next issue of the SCI call for scores. (FYI, a recording of this work is available on the GSU chapter's CD "In With the New, Vol. 3").
Also kudos to our friend from Chattanooga, Jonathan McNair, whose "Sonata for Solo Percussion" was also selected.
Originally from Atlanta Composers Blog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)
Tombes de Mes Aïeux!
Originally from Ionarts, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 08:15 AM | Comments (0)
Chamber Music of Michael Colina to be Performed on June 30 at Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York
American composer Michael Colina’s Idoru Piano Trio for piano, violin and cello will be given its World Premiere on Monday, June 30 at 4 PM by the New Arts Trio as part of the celebration of their 30th anniversary season at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York.
In the Idoru Trio, Colina merges his formal classical training with jazz inflected harmonies, a strong rhythmic backbone and melodies that sound improvised or sung. The composer writes about the inspiration for the work, “The fascination with feminine beauty is the subject of the great futurist William Gibson’s novel, Idoru. The setting is Japan, where I once lived and worked. I was inspired by the novel’s theme, which describes a society clamoring to meet the holographic projection of an impossibly beautiful woman. In turn, her computer-generated eyes reflect back ones every dream, hope and desire.”
Since its inception in 1974, the New Arts Trio has performed in major cities throughout the United States and Canada. The Trio has also made several tours of eastern and western Europe. The New Arts Trio has been in residence at the Chautauqua Institution since 1978. During the seven week festival they perform, present master classes, coach chamber music and teach students who come to study with them from all over the world. Visit them here.
The Chautauqua Institution was founded in 1874 and is a National Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Much more about it here.
Read Michael Colina’s latest SoundRoom newsletter here. Visit him online at http://www.michaelcolina.com/.
Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 28, 2008 at 02:11 AM | Comments (0)
June 27, 2008
We need a forum for new music in London - guardian.co.uk
 guardian.co.uk | We need a forum for new music in London guardian.co.uk, UK - Why doesn't London have a decent contemporary classical music festival? We're coming up to the international festival season, with the Proms and Edinburgh ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2008 at 09:43 PM | Comments (0)
New Music News Wire
Seven composers have been selected to participate in the 2008-09 Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, which will be held in Minneapolis from November 1-8, 2008. The Sphinx Commissioning Consortium selects Roberto Sierra for inaugural commission to be performed by 12 American orchestras. The 2008 Jazz Journalists Association Awards. The Jazz Journalists Association presented held its 12th annual awards ceremony at the Jazz Standard in New York City, and Maria Schneider won in four categories. The National Endowment for the Arts has announced the six recipients of the 2009 NEA Jazz Masters Award: George Benson, Jimmy Cobb, Lee Konitz, Toots Thielemans, Snooky Young, and Rudy Van Gelder. Jeff Fairbanks was awarded the BMI Foundation Charlie Parker Composition Prize and Manny Albam Commission at the 20th anniversary showcase concert of the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop. Three living jazz legends—bassist Ron Carter, composer-arranger and saxophonist Bill Holman, and tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins—along with three posthumous honorees—trumpeter Bunny Berigan, drummer Art Blakey, and arranger/composer/pianist Tadd Dameron—were inducted into the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame. In addition, pianist/composer Gonzalo Rubalcaba was presented with The ASCAP Foundation Vanguard Award and 27 young jazz composers received ASCAP Foundation Young Jazz Composer Awards. ASCAP also honored 26 orchestras and 4 chorus who have demonstrated exceptional commitment to contemporary composers in special Awards Presentations held in partnership with the League of American Orchestras and Chorus America during the National Performing Arts Convention.Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2008 at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)
Member News: Ken Bales Plays Bemis
Originally from ANALOG Arts Ensemble news, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2008 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)
overhaul, baby.
Friends. Long time, no post. Derek isn't aware I'm publishing this, but I'm sure he won't mind. *cough* Being blessed with some free time -- I intend to revamp this place. Comparatively, I'm surprised that the community here has stayed...Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2008 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)
Medici
Medici.tv, affiliated with the classical-video company Medici Arts, is now offering free broadcasts online. At the moment you can watch various events from the Aspen Festival, notably David Zinman conducting the premiere of John Harbison's Great Gatsby Suite; streaming tonight is Peter Sellars's production of Mozart's Zaide from Aix-en-Provence. You can also download items from Medici's back-catalogue, at the reasonable price of 7 euros each; the online stock includes Frank Scheffer's film of Stockhausen's Helicopter Quartet, the same director's excellent Elliott Carter documentary A Labyrinth of Time, and Bruno Monsaingeon's mesmerizing portrait of Sviatoslav Richter ("There are two things that I hate: analysis and power").
Originally posted by Alex Ross from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2008 at 03:51 PM | Comments (0)
Bleg
A small request -- does anyone know of an English-language source of information about the Japanese composer Toshiro Mayuzumi, in particular about his politics?Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2008 at 01:52 PM | Comments (0)
w00t Interview on QuestionCopyright
QuestionCopyright just posted an interview on the w00t release.Question Copyright
Originally from Bob Ostertag - Blog (plus News), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2008 at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)
Mikhail Kokzhayev Residency at Basically Modern Arts Sanctuary
Originally from Basically Modern, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2008 at 01:27 PM | Comments (0)
All's Well That Learns Well - Metro Santa Cruz
 Metro Santa Cruz | All's Well That Learns Well Metro Santa Cruz, CA - For the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, which can be intimidating because of its often challenging contemporary classical content, students may ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2008 at 01:25 PM | Comments (0)
Bartoli as Maria as Clari
Originally from Ionarts, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 27, 2008 at 08:27 AM | Comments (0)
June 26, 2008
John David Earnest: Chamber Music
EARNEST: Winter Dances; The Blue Estuaries; Trois Morceaux. Judith Kellock, soprano; Mariam Adam, clarinet; Peter Sanders, cello; Evelyn Ulex, piano; Hrabba Atladottir, violin; Ensemble X/Sebastian Gottschalk. Koch 7555. 53 minutes.
John David Earnest has devoted most of his long compositional career to music for orchestra, song cycles, and choral music. The current disc contains about half of his chamber music. The music here is accessible, but not without some harmonic and (especially) rhythmic bite.
All of this music is exceptionally well-written. The instruments sound great—in fact, the music is probably easier to play than it sounds, and performers love that. The forms are simple, direct, and clearly-articulated. In fact, Earnest’s skill as a composer raises the craft itself to an expressive element of the music. It’s a case where the technique so identifies with the content that quality of the work translates into expression. Earnest’s harmony is tonal, but not diatonic, and his rhythmic style is flexibly pulse-y, with shifting accents and changing meters.
The performances are very good, with the players responding to their parts with style and skill. Soprano Judith Kellock delivers the vocal part in The Blue Estuaries in a rich, full soprano voice and with solid diction and a good sense of phrase. Koch’s production is very clean, with good balance.
Originally posted by Steve Hicken from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
A Ripe Idea
My approach to composing music is, more than likely, grossly misguided.Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)
Doctor (Rutherford)-Johnson
AOriginally posted by Tim Rutherford-Johnson from The Rambler, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 09:18 PM | Comments (0)
Interview with my father
I can't resist putting a link to an interview with my father, who discusses his long career in the BSO on the radio. It is really very entertaining and enlightening, and you also get to hear him play. Yes, I'm very proud of him.
Originally from Musical Assumptions, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 09:17 PM | Comments (0)
Ego Alley
Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 09:17 PM | Comments (0)
Electroacoustic Music of Judith Shatin to be Performed at Utah Arts Festival in Salt Lake City on June 28
Violinist Hasse Borrup will perform Judith Shatin’s Penelope’s Song, for amplified violin and DVD on Saturday, June 28 – 3 PM as part of the Utah Arts Festival in Salt Lake City. For more information, visit the Festival website at http://www.uaf.org/.
Penelope’s Song is a tribute to Penelope, Queen of Carthage and wife of Odysseus. It was inspired by Homer’s epic, the Odyssey. For complete program notes about the piece, visit http://www.judithshatin.com/compositions.php#. Hasse Borup performed the piece this Spring on a concert of the Society of Electroacoustic Music in the US (Seamus). This same piece, in a version for amplified soprano sax and electronic playback, was recently recorded by saxophonist Susan Fancher for her upcoming release on the Innova label.
You can hear a Noizepunk and Das Krooner podcast interview with Judith Shatin at http://www.kalvos.org/nkshows.html. Read her Hearing Things newsletter at http://www.jamesarts.com/releases/june08/JS_nws_061908.htm. Visit her online at http://www.judithshatin.com.
Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)
experimental & improvised music radio
Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 04:45 PM | Comments (0)
Featured Past Post #64 (Administrative Note)
A new Featured Past Post ("An Audience For Classical Music”) is now up on the right sidebar.Originally posted by ACD from Sounds & Fury, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 04:40 PM | Comments (0)
Copyright or copywrong?
'I would be bereft if Viacom succeeded in slimming or shutting YouTube down. Artists are not much bothered by its minor copyright infringements, as they were by file-swap sites, and Hollywood gets more promotion from it than violation. As an educational tool and creative resource, it has untold value' - The Lebrecht Weekly, June 25, 2008.
'The reproduction by whatever means of the whole or any part of any Image (including, without limitation, slide projection, artist's reference, artist's illustration, layout or presentation of Images) is strictly forbidden without our specific written permission' - Terms & Conditions of use of Lebrecht Photo Library, "The world's largest resource for music pictures and all the creative arts".
And Glenn Gould's copyright gets an extension here.
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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 04:39 PM | Comments (0)
Recommended for Coltrane loving Democrats
The problem with most jazz treatments of Bach is that creatively they are somewhere on the moderate side of Yo-Yo Ma. But not so a radical new CD which uses improvisation to bring together the music of Johan Sebastian Bach and John Coltrane.
Jazz saxophonist Raphaël Imbert has made an academic study of the spiritual elements of jazz and reveres John Coltrane, who said "my goal is to live a truly religous life and express it in my music", as the only true mystic in the history of jazz. For the CD Bach-Coltrane Imbert teams up with jazzers Jean-Luc Di Fraya (percussion) and Michel Péres (bass) for the Coltrane, the Manfred string quartet for the Bach, while classical organist André Rossi, counter tenor Gérard Lesne and Imbert spread themselves across a CD which is based on the saxophonist's credo of "wherever we come from, we are all musicians".
Bach-Coltrane departs from the world of Jacques Loussier and the Modern Jazz Quartet by its willingness to ignore comfort zones as well as stylistic boundaries. Just one example is Gérard Lesne who ranges from the first air from Bach's Cantata BWV 170 to an unforgetable rendering of Coltrane's 'He nevuh said a mumbalin word' which is the main highlight on a disc of many highlights .
Time for the punch-line, and regular readers will know what I am going to say. Bach-Coltrane is yet another outstanding release from a small independent label - Paris based Zig-Zag Territoires. Can't the major labels put the same rocket-juice in their water? The packaging is beautiful and supplies both my graphics. The header shows the session in the church of Saint André, Bouc Bel Air in France where the wonderful new 'Bach style' organ provided the canto fermo for the project. Zig-Zag's main man Franck Jaffrès delivers stunning sound, and a comprehensively documented CD includes excellent main notes from Raphaël Imbert and a full description of the organ of Saint André which is one of the real stars of the recording.
I bought a bundle of CDs on my recent trip to France and I have several more discs to share with you. But Bach-Coltrane has been played more than any of the others since I found it in the Harmonia-Mundi Boutique in Nantes. There are moments on it which transcend any musical category, particularly André Rossi's Choral de Mi and the Manfred Quartets concluding "O Welt, ich muss dich lassen", BWV 45. Recommended not just for Coltrane loving Democrats, but for anyone who wants to explore beyond their comfort zone.
Obama - Ohana.
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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 04:39 PM | Comments (0)
Giuseppe Giuliano, "Tempi della mente"
Giuseppe Giuliano"Tempi della mente" *
per saxofono e nastro
Daniel Kientzy, saxofono
concerto dell'l ottobre
Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 04:36 PM | Comments (0)
CBC/Radio-Canada's Strategic Direction Undermined
Broadcaster Magazine, 6/20/2008Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 04:36 PM | Comments (0)
Ed Prizant - three albums
I’m afraid I’m going to have to plead ignorance when it comes to Russian bard music. As I understand it, Bard Music is sung poetry usually accompanied by a guitar. The lyrics are centered on Russian life or has potilical concerns. One of my readers was kind enough to point out these three free and legal albums by Ed Prizant, a young musician that stays in the tradition of this music. The web site is in Russian but with the help of the not-so-reliable Babelfish I’ve translated the album titles to Step From The Love (2007), Fire of The Large City (2004), and My Clownish Desire (2001). Any Russian speaking readers are welcome to give me the more accurate titles. These albums are difficult to review as the lyrics are so essential to this music and my Russian vocabulary is limited to “Vodka”. However I find Prizant’s voice quite expressive and have no trouble enjoying these very melodic songs despite the language barrier. Check out these three albums. You will not be disappointed.
Again we have albums available in lower than usual bitrate; 64kbps Mp3. However they still sound pretty good and shouldn’t distract too much from your enjoyment.
Originally posted by Marvin from Free Albums Galore, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 04:35 PM | Comments (0)
"What's Rondo?" or The Nomenklatura
Discussions about what keeps people from listening to classical music generally pick up on the attributes of live concerts---the musicians' formal dress, the formality of concerts, the stuffiness and religiousity of concert halls, concerts starting too early or too late, being expected to dress up, and on (and on). Anything unique to the music itself tends to be left out, and that's a shame, because I think a pretty strong case could be made for listeners having a hard time finding a way in to classical music simply because of what pieces of music are called. The naming system of classical music is so far removed from popular music, or any other art form, that it's difficult to get a grip on what you are about to hear.
What if paintings weren't called by their titles, but by their materials? You'd have entire galleries stretching for miles, and each painting inside would be called "Watercolor." Monet would have a grand series titled Watercolor I, Watercolor III, and so on, and maybe some of them would be subtitled "Haystack," so that there would be Watercolor I ("Haystack"), the way we now write Symphony No. 6 ("Pastorale").
As far as I know, Franz Liszt and everyone else involved in the 19th century tone poem revolution wasn't revolting against the title scheme imposed by sonata, symphony, quartet, trio, octet, cantata, rondo, and more. It was more of a philosophical goal, and a desire to reflect a more literary taste and take a chance to tell a story. By the 20th century, it wasn't expected to use the old Beethovenian titles, so most people didn't. Yet as those forms fell out of favor, it became more of a challenge for listeners to know what was what on a concert program. And now today, when most of us enter phone numbers into our phones and don't bother memorizing those numbers anymore, it probably takes a little bit of effort to learn and retain the fact that Aaron Copland's Third Symphony is the one with Fanfare for the Common Man in it. You also have to learn what Fanfare for the Common Man is. Anyone want to contribute a mnemonic device for remembering what makes Mozart 40 different from 41, for someone who doesn't have a musical background?
I know how confusing this can be for someone with such a non-musical background only anecdotally, but it's pretty telling, regardless. It was a concert of the Israel Philharmonic at Orchestra Hall, and I'd given my extra ticket to an Australian commercial pilot who lived in Hong Kong, who was visiting Chicago on vacation. Andre Watts was playing Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto (or Concerto Number 5 in E flat Major), and before Watts started in, the pilot noticed the last movement was titled "Rondo."What's 'Rondo'?" he asked. I explained that it was a five- or seven-part form, usually (preceded by a brief description of musical form), and that it was usually humorous or at least lighter in character than other forms. He was satisfied with that answer, but I can't imagine he's the only person in the world who's mystified when he looks at a program and can't decipher three-quarters of it, and the other one-quarter isn't much easier.
Now, by the mid-20th century, you'd think this naming business would have been entirely sorted out. But this was the era of Darmstadt Titles, and everything was named in the plural, and usually an abstract noun at that, so you had works being named, as Alex Ross memorably put it in The Rest Is Noise: "Perspectives, Structures, Quantities, Configurations. Audiences enjoyed Spectrogram, Seismogramme, Audiogramme, and Sphenogramme." Where did the plural come from? The first Perspective was where, exactly?Or for a better and funnier example, this exchange between composer Sir Roy Vandervane and a critic in Kingsley Amis's Girl, 20:
"I can't see what so cosmically disastrous about this little Elevations 9 caper. You talk as if-"
"What's happened to the other eight elevations?"
"Oh, they're not real."
Compare this to pop music. You usually have a text, and the text gives you a title, and you can remember that title and associate it with the song after you've heard it. Chances are, it's reasonably memorable, and if it isn't outright catchy, there's some production element that focuses your attention and then ends up getting wed to the song in your brain. So, you remember. How many rondos do you have to listen to before realizing that they're generally light, and how many people will ever learn that they're in five (or seven, or whatever) parts without studying a score or reading a book on musical form? (Few.)
When I was in high school, I had a trumpet-teacher who mainly played jazz. As we (or I) worked through an etude book, he complained about the lack of titles. Each four-line etude was numbered, but no title was in sight. "This one's Red, this one's Yellow, and, I don't know, call this one Green," he said. No reason or inspiration could be found for naming them after colors, but that wasn't the point; his hope was to give them sort of character that each listener (I mean, aspiring trumpeter) could associate with it.
I don't know the answer to acquainting people with the varieties of forms long-dead composers used, and which form the bulk of instrumental music's repertoire even today. Maybe it just takes time, but I wish it was as easy as visual art to write "American Gothic" and have people know exactly what you meant when you write Symphony No. 5. (I know Mark Rothko changes this all up, but leave him alone.)
Whose Symphony No. 5? Who wrote five symphonies? What makes Sibelius's different from Bruckner's and different from Vaughan Williams's? People with musical backgrounds can take that for granted, but it might be something worth investigating in pre-concert talks or events or panel discussions or garden parties or program inserts or pages or monographs or...maybe those are the only ways it can be addressed. But it's worth looking into, because it feels good to know that Mahler's Fourth Symphony shares only a title with Bruckner's, and that the similarities end there. It's hard to wrap your mind around these names, but a way ought to be found to help all the curious concertgoers out there, and reward that curiosity.
Originally posted by MarcGeelhoed from Marc Geelhoed: Deceptively Simple, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 04:35 PM | Comments (0)
Primer: Pitch-Bending a Walkman
AOriginally posted by howsthatsound from OF SOUND MIND, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 02:13 PM | Comments (0)
Sharon Percy Rockefeller's Classical WETA-FM Bends To The Times; Will Devote Two Extra Hours To American Classical Music During Summer 2008
"You put your camera around your neck along with putting on your shoes, and there it is, an appendage of the body that shares your life with you. The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera."- Dorothea Lange
*
On Wednesday, July 2, 2008, at 9 PM, Sharon Percy Rockefeller's Classical WETA-FM, in the Nation's Capital, will broadcast the following National Symphony Orchestra performances of American classical music, taped during 2004 and 2005:
Paul Creston’s Frontiers
George Gershwin’s Concerto for F for Piano and Orchestra, featuring pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet
Alan Hovhaness’s Symphony No. 2, Mysterious Mountain
Samuel Barber’s Concerto for Cello & Orchestra, Op. 22, featuring cellist Lynn Harrell
Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1, Jeremiah, featuring soloist Mary Phillips
and a brief encore, Fin, composed by Leonard Slatkin and commissioned through a grant from the John and June Hechinger Commissioning Fund for New Orchestral Works.
This exceptionally rare evening will probably bring the total amount of time devoted by public radio, in the Nation's Capital, to American classical music during the Summer of 2008 close to three hours.
Field Laborers, Coachella Valley, California, 1935
"We are on relief. We are getting $14 and $15 a week
now because we have a very good President."
Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange Photography Archive
Oakland Museum of California
Gift of Paul S. Taylor.
Photo credit: (c) Copyright controlled Estate of Dorothea Lange. All rights reserved. Via Dorothea Lange Photography Archive of the Oakland Museum of California.
*
"The insightful and compassionate photographs of Dorothea Lange (1895 - 1965) have exerted a profound influence on the development of modern documentary photography. Lange's concern for people, her appreciation of the ordinary, and the striking empathy she showed for her subjects make her unique among photographers of her day.
The Art Department of the Oakland Museum of California holds the largest and most comprehensive collection of the work of Dorothea Lange, representing every facet of a long and varied career."
Originally from Renaissance Research, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:19 PM | Comments (0)
Bagatellen Reviews
From Bagatellen:
Cy Touff & Sandy Mosse - Tickle Toe - 24 Jun 08
Milford Graves Percussion Ensemble - 24 Jun 08
Henry Grimes - The Call - 24 Jun 08
Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:19 PM | Comments (0)
Ahleuchatistas in Baltimore
From Cuneiform Records:
Saturday, June 28, 9:00pm
The Baltimore Progressive Rock Showcases
at
Orion Studios, 2903 Whittington Ave, Baltimore, MD
Present:A H L E U C H A T I S T A S
with guests:
P L A N E T S
Here’s your chance to see two young and very good modern avant rock
bands in a single night! Some of you likely caught The Ahleuchatistas
when they played here last fall. Think really tight, lightning fast,
punky math rock. Planets! is a drum and bass guitar duet from Napa,
California, that, given what might seem like a limited palette,
deliver a surprising range of sounds.$8.00 cover charge
Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:18 PM | Comments (0)
Philip Glass in Dallas
Originally posted by Richard Guerin from Glass Notes, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:18 PM | Comments (0)
and the beat goes on...
The PhilipGlass.com calendar has just been updated with a slew of interesting additions. That's right, a slew. Philip Glass and musicians are about to perform BOOK OF LONGING in Italy, Istanbul and Greece. Glass will perform two dates in Ireland, including one chamber music concert with cellist Wendy Sutter performing SONGS & POEMS. In July, there's SYMPHONY NO.3 in London, the premiere of FOUR MOVEMENTS FOR TWO PIANOS in Germany, worldwide screenings of the Scott Hicks documentary, the VIOLIN CONCERTO by the Los Angeles Philharmonic with Leonard Slatkin, Book of Longing continues to tour in September in Italy and Australia, the premiere of LOS PAISAJES DEL RIO in Spain, EINSTEIN ON THE BEACH in Belgium, the SMITH QUARTET is touring the world performing the Glass String Quartets, the BRUCKNER ORCHESTER LINZ performs the VIOLIN CONCERTO in November with Dennis Russell Davies, and in the beginning of 2009 there will be a new production of HYDROGEN JUKEBOX performed in France, the PHILIP GLASS ENSEMBLE will do MUSIC IN 12 PARTS in San Francisco, SYMPHONY NO.6 "PLUTONIAN ODE" in Holland, "THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER" in Germany...and the beat goes on...check your local listings. Keep in mind most orchestras haven't announced their 2008-09 seasons.
Originally posted by Richard Guerin from Glass Notes, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:18 PM | Comments (0)
Tonal music and Atonal music– what are they really?
I know I tend to sound like a broken record in my diatribe against atonal music, but the truth of the matter is I'm not opposed to atonal music. A number of great composers have written music I very much enjoy which can be considered atonal in terms of design or at least nothing like the classical definition of tonal (as Mozart or even Mahler might recognise).So, what am I really railing about? Mark Stryker put it perfectly, "The problem was never atonal music per se but bad atonal music and an ideologically driven musical culture that distrusted overt references to the past and composers committed to communicating with audiences." His article speaks about four American composers who have made their mark in the classical world by writing expressive music that appeals to an audience. They also accept the influences of previous great tonal composers, rather than feel they need to create something wholly new.
Part of what I object to is the notion that an audience needs to be educated in order to enjoy a piece of music. Yes, a musical education has helped me gain a greater respect for Mozart and Beethoven, but their music was enjoyable before my education.
In an article by Tom Jacobs, he remarks "I think it's possible a wider audience would fall in love with this music if we had the kind of education that taught us how music history works and what a composer is trying to say. You may not get the warm response people have with Mozart, but I think you'd get respect. People would be intrigued by it."
A number of Webern's pieces are like this. When you understand the intricate workings behind the composition there is a mathematical fascination with his music, but I still don't particularly enjoy listening to much of it. I personally think he had some interesting ideas, but the music feels ugly and disjointed (even though it is incredibly tightly woven together), so IMHO much of his music fails to be good music.
Not every one agrees with me - and that's ok. In the blog The Detritus Review Sator Arepo rants against a critic who obviously doesn't like 12 tone music. I'd hate to think what the author would think of my article, although I doubt I would ever want to call myself a critic - a composer with an opinion, certainly, but to go so far as to feel qualified to actually critique someone's performance and or work as if I had some greater authority to judge whether something is good or not - well, I'm just not there yet!
Ok, I'm not a fan of 12 tone music either, but I gather that Sator is. Cool! There is a lot to be said about 12 tone music and composers (like myself) have learned a lot about creating new worlds of sounds because of it. The serialism that followed it and the various other forms that are still taking place in music all because of the "Big Bang" of Schoenberg and his cronies. As much as modern music owes to this music and as necessary as it is for new composers to strive for even more and distant musical worlds (atonal music isn't lacking tone, it is just a new way of looking at how tones are put together) - what I am trying to stress that it is just as necessary for other composers (like myself) to keep striving for a new sound that still has audience appeal, appeal to an audience that doesn't require a masters degree in music to appreciate it, an audience that enjoys it at the first hearing, and is eager to hear it again (and again).
What I rebel against are the critiques who say the music I write isn't worthy because it isn't new enough, or that is has a melody or parts of it follow recognisable chord progressions. I like melodies! And so do a lot of other people. Using recognisable chord progressions is like writing a story referencing other fairytales; it gives the audience an immediate reference point from which to jump off. For me the joy is in the twisting of the recognisable into a new form, telling a new story that is only enhanced by the recognition of the old.
Originally from Interchanging Idioms, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:18 PM | Comments (0)
Young song tangos with cello
Lee Hyo-won, Korea Times, 6/24/2008Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:17 PM | Comments (0)
Speaking truth to power.
I promised on Monday that I wouldn't subject you to a tirade regarding the horrible compromise that the current version of the FISA bill, passed by the House and now under Senate consideration, represents, and I won't.
I will, however, urge anyone interested in this critical piece of legislation, and the genuine threat to civil liberties that it represents, to read the text of the speech that Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd delivered yesterday. The stakes have seldom been spelled out so clearly, or so eloquently.
One brief excerpt:
Because of this legislation, none of the questions will be answered, Mr. President. Because of this so-called “compromise,” the judge’s hands will be tied, and the outcome of these cases will be predetermined. Because of this compromise, retroactive immunity will be granted and that, as they say, will be that. Case closed.
No court will rule on the legality of the telecommunications companies activities in participating in the president’s warrantless wiretapping program. None of our fellow Americans will have their day in court. What they will have is a government that has sanctioned lawlessness.
Well, I refuse to accept that, Mr. President. I refuse to accept the argument that because this situation is just too delicate, too complicated, that this body is simply going to go ahead and sanction lawlessness.
We are better than that.
(Per Daily Kos)
Originally posted by NightAfterNight from Night After Night, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:16 PM | Comments (0)
Central Park in the dark.
The Brooklyn Philharmonic at the Naumburg Bandshell
The New York Times, June 25, 2008
Originally posted by NightAfterNight from Night After Night, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:16 PM | Comments (0)
And so it begins...
...the Unsafe Bull Podcast Anniversary-Spectacular-Palooza!Guest mancala variations every day this week!
Friday, the final cut of my own Mancala Variations!
Next week? Who knows.
Originally from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:16 PM | Comments (0)
Competition Judge
Anyway, I’ve been sent ten scores, the finalists, along with a CD of realizations using Notion software, which uses samples of the London Symphony Orchestra for its sound library. Instead of being asked to pick a winner, I’ve been asked to rank the ten pieces in order of preference.
Creating these rankings really puts me in a tight spot, as far as measuring my own priorities as a composer. For example, in the middle of the pack I have one work that has some really terrific ideas but serious notation and orchestration issues, and another piece that is all cliché from beginning to end, but the most technically polished of the bunch. Which one will be number five, and which one will be number six?
A personal peeve is the ridiculously high horn writing in almost all of the finalists’ scores. But who is to blame them? A computerized horn can hit a hundred high Cs over the course of ten minutes without blinking. But I definitely wouldn’t want to be in the room when the fourth horn player in the LSO attempts the same.
Originally from Sequenza21/Composers Forum, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:16 PM | Comments (0)
David Rose: The Stripper
My father had an LP of David Rose and his orchestra during my childhood. Every once in a while, he’d put on “The Stripper” and crank it up. No, my mother didn’t come dashing through a door with a rose in her teeth, ripping off pieces of clothing. It just made us want to dance. Do big body gestures. I quoted this in HOMER IN CYBERSPACE, and when I mentioned it to some, few knew the music. So I put it here to fill our your knowledge of musical repertoire.
Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:15 PM | Comments (0)
Today's suggested tattoo flash
子曰：「人而不仁，如禮何？人而不仁，如樂何？」
Zǐ yuē: rén ér bù rén, rú lǐ hè? rén ér bù rén, rú yuè hè?
The Master said, "If a man be without the virtues proper to humanity, what has he to do with the rites of propriety?
If a man be without the virtues proper to humanity, what has he to do with music?"—The Analects of Confucius, III.iii
(trans. James Legge)
Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:15 PM | Comments (0)
Die Meistersinger von London, aka...
...the Worshipful Company of Musicians, which rather remarkably invited me to their gala Midsummer Banquet last night and asked me to make a speech on behalf of the guests.For the benefit of our friends overseas, I should explain that the City of London's Livery Companies date back to the 15th century if not earlier, and were a form of early trade union. The musicians' organisation started off as a Fellowship of Minstrels (read about its history here). These Companies still exist and range through everything from Stonemasons to Water Conservators; each has its own tradition of medieval pageantry and ritual, and you kind of have to be there to believe it's true.
The evening was held in Stationers' Hall - an exquisite building tucked away behind St Paul's Cathedral, rebuilt in the 1680s after the Great Fire. It was an astonishing affair - like something straight out of Die Meistersinger, complete with ceremonial robes, a fanfare to play us all in, a sung Grace, extremely good food and a Ceremony of the Loving Cup. During the course of the evening we enjoyed a fine performance by two extremely gifted young musicians - soprano Laura Mitchell and guitarist Milos Karadaglic - and the Master, Leslie East, presented the Company's Gold Medal to Sir Richard Rodney Bennett. Among the other guests we were delighted to encounter such distinguished beings as conductor Stephen Barlow and his absolutely fabulous wife Joanna Lumley, violinist Madeleine Mitchell, conductor Ronald Corp and a number of the musical philanthropists who help to make the musical world go round - part of the Company's raison d'etre is to help fund scholarships for young musicians.
In his own excellent speech, Leslie speculated on the way that, in 300 years' time, researchers looking into the history of the Company might discover a report on a blog by a novelist and music journalist describing the evening in terms not so far removed from that which graced reports of its dinners three centuries ago. And perhaps not much has changed.
So - if you're reading this in 2308, a very warm greeting from us all here in the 21st Century! And a huge thank-you to the Company for a truly splendid evening.
Here's my speech.
Master, wardens, aldermen, liverymen and fellow guests!
It’s a great honour to be here tonight and to speak at such a sumptuous dinner.
It’s a special delight, too, to see Sir Richard Rodney Bennett here as the Company’s special guest. Like all of us, I’ve been enjoying his music for many years in all its shapes and forms – he must be one of the most polymorphous composers working today. And his presence is a wonderful excuse to take a very brief look at what it means to be a composer at all, but especially now, in the first years of the 21st century, an era of extraordinary change.
It goes without saying that if it wasn’t for composers, none of us would be here tonight, because western classical music wouldn’t exist. Music may be a God-given gift, but it’s also a man-made art: every tune you whistle, every mobile phone jingle you hear, every song you sing with your kids in the car, has at some point been thought up and written down by a composer. It’s so easy to take music for granted these days that it’s equally easy to forget what an extraordinary phenomenon the ability to compose good music really is.
It’s peculiar enough to create a substantial piece of work in any medium. Writing novels can feel like an insane undertaking at times, especially when you find you have to research 80 years of Hungarian history, but at least words and language are everyone’s staple diet of communication. Writing music is a more extreme sport, because music begins where words end. To create music means working with a raw material that is much more elusive yet also much more direct in the way it reaches the audiences’ emotions. That’s why composers often leave me feeling quite simply awestruck.
For about two minutes, when I was about 17, I thought I wanted to compose. Actually I was put in a corner at metaphorical gunpoint and ordered to write a setting of a psalm for a big school event. But when I got to university, it started to look like a less appealing option. This was the mid Eighties. First, I was a girl, and the rather monastic atmosphere around the composer cliques left one in no doubt that one was not precisely welcome. But even if you got past that, the resistance to the idea of melody or harmony was another matter. A composer friend knocked on my door one day badly in need of tea – his teacher had just told him he ‘thought too much about the way his music sounded’. I know there’ll be resistance and dispute over this, but I am speaking according to my own experience and observations: a quarter of a century ago there was a distinct feeling that there were party lines to toe. We were all in thrall to a perceived sort of historico-political imperative to write serialism, modernism et al, and if you didn’t, you were A Bad Person. The fact that not many people wanted to listen to the results didn’t seem to be a problem, because Beethoven was misunderstood in his day and alienated his audiences, therefore if nobody likes your stuff, you are obviously the next Beethoven... Fuzzy logic, perhaps, but certainly the secret was to épater les bourgeois. Shock those dreadful middle classes out of their appalling complacency!
Anyway, the bottom line was that I had no talent. So I gave up and sat back to see whether this new batch of would-be Beethovens would be Beethoven. Most of them weren’t. My friend who needed tea ended up appropriately enough in China... learning to play folk instruments. I’d loved his music and it still breaks my heart that he – and innumerable others – were so alienated by their supposedly educational experiences that they fled the country, or composition, and sometimes music itself. It wasn't serialism or modernism that was to blame, of course - some of the greatest composers of the 20th century used these - but rather the stranglehold they were permitted to exert over all possible alternatives. Living composers desperately need support, and prime among that support must be open ears and open minds on the part of the people who make the decisions.
Meanwhile, everyone seemed to have forgotten that while 'epateeing' les bourgeois may be fun, les bourgeois are on the whole the ones who buy the tickets. And sooner or later, they vote with their feet – and their wallets. Musicians, contrary to popular opinion, are human beings and have to eat.
In the last fifteen or twenty years, there’s been a radical shift in the new music world. First, if you’re a girl, it’s not such a problem any more. The roster of women composers is growing fast – while the Judiths Weir and Bingham have blazed an inspiring trail in this country, younger composers like Roxanna Panufnik, Errollyn Wallen and Tansy Davis aren’t far behind. Meanwhile the range of styles available to composers has never been greater. Back in the seventies and eighties, composers with the versatility to range from jazz to classical to film to pop used to keep their activities strictly separated. That’s no longer the case.
One of my special passions is the music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who started off as a child prodigy in Vienna a hundred years ago and ended up becoming the founding father of the Hollywood film score. He once said: “Music is music, whether it is for the stage, screen or rostrum. Form may change, the manner of writing may vary, but the composer needs to make no concessions whatever to what he conceives to be his own musical ideology.” He was speaking in 1946, but even if he was right, the attitudes of the time didn’t perceive it that way. He was dismissed as ‘a Hollywood composer’ – back then a deeply damning term – because his serious music sounded like film music; although the truth was actually that film music sounded like Korngold, who invented it in his own personal style.
It took decades to break down that barrier, but Korngold’s best opera, Die tote Stadt is now firmly back in the international repertoire and will have its UK stage premiere at Covent Garden in January – an indication that those proscriptive attitudes have relaxed. So, how did this change happen? First, the Minimalists in America essentially went back to the drawing board and created a new, basic and accessible language which caught something of the eighties and nineties zeitgeist and achieved a huge impact with audiences; secondly, the fall of the Iron Curtain meant that composers from the eastern bloc could come to the west and we could explore the richness and spirituality of their works; thirdly, cheap air travel has – while it lasts – meant extraordinary ease in exchanging ideas with a wealth of musical traditions around the world. And information is so easily available on the internet, in print and in person that the range of potential influences open to a composer is infinite.
We’re poised, I reckon, on a kind of communicative cusp – our means of disseminating information and art is changing faster than we are, and part of the challenge for any creative artist is simply keeping up and making the new mediums work with you rather than against you. Youtube is just the beginning and ten years from now it will look antiquated. Probably two years from now it will look antiquated. Finding a personal voice in the face of an world that’s so fragmented and varied may never have been harder – but as ever there’s nothing that stimulates creativity so much as a challenge. Maintaining artistic individuality in the face of globalisation isn’t easy. But as ever, the ones who will succeed are the ones who can meet the challenges of their times head on in the strongest way and with the greatest integrity.
All this is really just a long way of saying that music remains the greatest gift and the greatest miracle of human creativity. Therefore musicians are a worshipful company indeed. It’s a joy to celebrate with you tonight the art that we all love so much.
So, on behalf of your guests I am very grateful for your hospitality this evening and I would ask my fellow guests to join me in a toast to the Company!
Originally from Jessica Duchen's classical music blog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:15 PM | Comments (0)
bellini as a series of ones and zeroes
What looks to be the Next Big Thing coming from the Met: offering their audio and video content for download a la iTunes. La Cieca is not clear on the details of this new program, but a job listing has just gone up on metopera.org for a Digital Producer who will be responsible for the web interface for “Met Digital subscription and rental sales.”
Originally posted by La Cieca from parterre box presents La Cieca, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:14 PM | Comments (0)
Kosky replacing Homoki replacing Pereira
Australian director etc. Barry Kosky will replace Andreas Homoki as Intendant of Komische Oper Berlin, as Andreas Homoki will replace Alexander Pereira as Intendant of the Zurich Opera. Kosky will start his work in Berlin in 2012.Barry Kosky´s previous work as a stage director includes the controversial Lohengrin production at the Vienna State Opera (which I rather liked though, as opposed to Christian Thielemann who reportedly refuses to conduct it...).
Komische Oper Berlin has build a reputation as one of the most innovative and progressive European opera companies during Harry Kupfer´s leadership (ending when Homoki took over around 2000).
Originally from mostly opera..., ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:13 PM | Comments (0)
Metawon - Electric Dyslexic
Metawon’s brand of instrumental hip-hop reminds me a bit of those great soundtracks from classic Blaxploitations films like Shaft and Foxy Brown. The free online Electric Dyslexic from new and promising Neferiu netlabel has that same urbane gritty feel. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the samples came from similar 70s soundtracks. However there is a definite turn to the 21th century with its hip-hop beats and deft sampling. The first track “Unite Them” grabbed me with the soulful vocal sample and soaring guitar while “Metasoul” blends pulsing percussion with teasing rap refrains. Throughout the 31 tracks Metawon creatively combines samples and beats to make each tune an unique musical environment. My only gripe is that the tracks are too short, usually under 2 minutes, As soon as I start to get into the groove the plot changes. Standout tracks include “Tear Shit Up”, “Psalm 23″, and a dreamy “The Ecstacy”. This album get a major fist bump from me…or is that a “terrorist fist jab”? Fox News gets me so confused sometimes…
The album is available in 192kbps MP3.
Originally posted by Marvin from Free Albums Galore, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:12 PM | Comments (0)
D.F.A.
D.F.A. - 4th
I’m very particular about new progressive rock these days. While there’s a lot of good albums from the modern era, there aren’t a lot of great ones, at least not a lot of great ones on the level of the original 70s groups. One aspect in particular is I think there’s a real gap in musicianship between the first wave and later waves. Part of this is now that the genre (or ethic even) is a niche interest, there isn’t quite as much support for newer musicians. Nowadays most bands are made of amateur self-taught musicians when in the 70s there were many greats coming fresh out of music colleges. Comparing, say Italian progressive drummers of the 70s to those in bands of the 90s and 00s really doesn’t look so good for the latter, who often seem to be missing the jazz and classical skills that made the original drummers so professional.
So a band like D.F.A is a very rare breed because they’re one of the few modern bands whose skills are really up to the more professional groups in the style. All of the musicians have either had some training or started with a unfair share of talent and at least one or two of them operate in other bands, all aspects of keeping the chops up. The results showed an unusually strong debut album that was one of the highlights of the 90s and a reasonably good follow up that showed them moving to an even more professional level, even if some of the new elements (echoed sequencer moves akin to space rock) moved them in a less distinctive direction. A live album followed from NEARfest, but it’s been several years since we saw a studio work from the band. And given that gaps like this can often lead to a musical stagnation (I think there’s a window where a new song keeps it freshness, but the life can be practiced out of the material), I was surprised at how confident I was in grabbing this upon release. It’s a rare thing these days.
Fortunately the 4th DFA and 3rd studio album is the culmination of all of this band’s efforts, a work that doesn’t lose the freshness of the material while increasing the maturity and sophistication of the work. The result is a near picture perfect album. Not only have they shucked the Ozric-like synth workfrom their second release, but they’ve pulled more from their debut, particularly the long, twisty and complex compositional works that still manage to have well thought out melodic work and a tendency to go into some of the most insanely intense grooves you’re likely to hear. It kept me thinking, why do so few bands try to make this sort of thing work? No matter how far off the charts D.F.A. manage to go, there’s a focus to their compositional work that ties the digressions to consonant themes and exciting vamps that make the blood flow really fast. And they never overstay their welcome, building up to a crescendo and then taking it all down again for another work up.
That’s one of the biggest differences between this D.F.A. and the previous incarnation. The band have really managed to get the softer, delicate parts so right that they’re almost as compelling as the rave ups. They’ve done this in part by some rather obvious Canterbury copping in parts, but in a very genuine, respectful way. Part of this is the guitarist really seems to have some Phil Miller-isms creeping into his playing. Another part is the electric piano-led, light sequences are very evocative of Hatfield & the North or National Health, both by feel and notes. It hasn’t so much changed their style, but altered it enough to make it difficult to classify D.F.A. among many of their symphonic/romantic contemporaries. Another aspect of this “downtime” is the addition of a female vocalist (Andhira) to the final track, giving all the previous compositions an unsual, but somehow successful wrap up, almost wistful or melancholic, with a melodic structure that reminds me of Mike Oldfield in the early 80s.
It’s really a credit to D.F.A. that it’s very difficult to compare them to anyone else. The closest analog to my mind would be Kenso in that this is the sort of progressive rock that tends to be classified (inaccurately to my mind) as jazz rock, which I think is often just an aspect of the professionality and fluidity of the musicianship compared to those without the abovementioned training (or conversely practice). It’s the idea that when the chemistry is so good, all of the intangibles and ineffables show up in bunches, elements that transcend the notes and rhythms and let the vibe through, qualities less expressed by emotion and physicality and more through intuition.
Overall it’s difficult to want to give anything this new top marks, as one will not be aware of an album’s potential for growth. But in the last 10 years I can count on one hand the times I’ve wanted to do so to a new album and I don’t think any of those impressed me as much out of the gate as this new album. Anyone even remotely interested in the genre needs this one last week. It’s a minimum Gnosis 14 and mostly likely will be a record talked about in hushed voices and cries of “overrated” in ten years, just like everything brilliant.
Originally posted by MM from Outer Music Diary, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)
Growing up under a musical shadow
I remember the first time I heard the word "personage." Someone (I cannot remember who, although I do remember that he was male and that he was older than I was at the time) introduced me to another person as the daughter of a famous "personage." I thought that this guy was being insulting--suggesting that my father was something other than a person. I spent most of my childhood being referred to as my father's daughter.I certainly knew from a very young age that he was the principal violist of the Boston Symphony and that he was an important person. He wasn't like other people's fathers. He kept different hours from the other fathers I knew, and other people's fathers didn't spend hours in the basement practicing. Other people's fathers wore suits to work, and mine wore tails. Other families went to the cape in the summer, but our family always went to Tanglewood. I never understood the "lure" of the cape.
When I came of musical age it became important to me for grown up people to appreciate me for what I could do, and not for who my father was, but it was not really possible. My teachers let me slither along in high school without doing much work (I spent my time practicing rather than doing homework), and I got into regional high school ensembles that I probably should not have gotten into because the directors expected me to be "something special" because of who my father was. There were a lot of great high school flutists in the Boston area at the time, and I was a relative beginner when I was playing in the New England Conservatory Youth Symphony and the Massachusetts Youth Wind Ensemble. I know that I got into Juilliard because of who my father was, and there were people at Juilliard who probably wouldn't have even talked to me if it weren't for the fact that I was my father's daughter. It was a serious stigma and it took me a long time to get over it. It took me a couple of years of blogging to "out" myself, but I imagine that regular readers of this blog have not been coming here because of my family legacy.
There were many children of Boston Symphony Orchestra players in my high school. I even sat next to my father's stand partner's son in a few classes. None of the other BSO children were interested in becoming musicians. I envied their "normalcy."
I remember that during my first year at Juilliard there were three daughters of principal violists from major American orchestras who were students. Along with me as the daughter of the BSO's principal violist (me), we had the bassoon-playing daughter of the principal violist of the New York Philharmonic (her flute-playing sister entered Juilliard the next year), and the harpsichord-playing daughter of the former principal violist of the Cleveland Orchestra. I thought it would be cool to form an ensemble, but it never happened.
I have found that as an adult I share a special bond with musical adult children of well-known professional musicians. Many of us had the same childhood, though we had different mothers and fathers. As an adult I still share a musical bond with my father, who is now retired from the BSO and is living in a Boston where he is recognized less often as a local "personage." There is a whole new generation of musicians in Boston's musical foreground, many of them who are younger than I am. Some of the people I grew up with might even think of him as "Elaine's father." Who knows?
Originally from Musical Assumptions, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)
Life Imitates Art on Arroyo Parkway
In this heavily Photoshopped picture you can see some of palm trees which have been added to Arroyo Parkway here in Pasadena. Arroyo Parkway begins where the Pasadena Freeway ends and has a lot of old art deco and streamline moderne architecture.
The palms have been bound like this for some months.
On Tuesday I walked a few blocks on Arroyo Parkway and noticed that some of the palms had finally been unfurled.
There are a lot of new and very big residential units being built on this street because it is near the Gold Line. Many of them are designed in what I call the "big buildings designed to look like several different future slum dwellings" style. That's very big in Pasadena these days.
This palm tree is in front of the sales office for one of them, The Dalton.
The tag line for The Dalton is "Life Imitates Art". Why would anyone want their life to imitate art? I suppose they want their lives to be Romantic or Classic or Impressionistic or Serial. Maybe there are even people who want their lives to be Mimimal.
Personally I've always preferred it when Art Imitates Life. But obviously that line won't sell real estate.
Here's someone complaining about the new pink and black zebra crossings on Arroyo Parkway.
Here's the most information I could find about the Arroyo Project at the Pasadena city website.
Click the pictures for enlargements.
Arroyo Tags: Arroyo Parkway. . . Pasadena California. . . palm trees. . . urban design
Originally from Mixed Meters, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)
Thorny composer breaches pop culture firewall
Amid all the commentary on Charles Wuorinen's upcoming opera, Brokeback Mountain, I missed the brief mention on The Soup (E! Entertainment Television's weekly digest). But thanks to this post (and this one, with the actual clip) on Counter Critic, you can see it for yourself. In the words of CC's Ryan Tracy:
"In other words, [Gerard] Mortier has managed to get an atonal composer and The NYC Opera mentioned on a show the regular topics of which are Britney, Paris, Lindsay, Oprah and Tyra."
Originally posted by bhodgesnyc from Monotonous Forest, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)
Thorny composer breaches pop culture firewall
Amid all the commentary on Charles Wuorinen's upcoming opera, Brokeback Mountain, I missed the brief mention on The Soup (E! Entertainment Television's weekly digest). But thanks to this post (and this one, with the actual clip) on Counter Critic, you can see it for yourself. In the words of CC's Ryan Tracy:
"In other words, [Gerard] Mortier has managed to get an atonal composer and The NYC Opera mentioned on a show the regular topics of which are Britney, Paris, Lindsay, Oprah and Tyra."
Originally posted by bhodgesnyc from Monotonous Forest, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)
That's what's made, well made is on my workshop
Originally from Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:10 PM | Comments (0)
Secret Society @ (Le) Poisson Rouge, July 9
Originally from Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:10 PM | Comments (0)
Kosky to head Berlin opera house - Sydney Morning Herald
 | Kosky to head Berlin opera house Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - He has staged four productions in Berlin, including his 2003 European opera debut with the highly-praised production of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre, ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)
Why should we listen to modern music? - Hudson Valley Press
Why should we listen to modern music? Hudson Valley Press, NY - Notable in this regard were Iannis Xenakis, Luigi Nono, Giacinto Scelsi, György Ligeti, Krzysztof Penderecki, Henryk Górecki, Toru Takemitsu and Julio ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)
Music: The Hebrides Ensemble - Scotsman
Music: The Hebrides Ensemble Scotsman, United Kingdom - By SUSAN NICKALLS THE HEBRIDES ENSEMBLE IS 18 years old – and, appropriately, it feels like Scotland's most innovative contemporary music group is growing ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)
DOCUMENTARY ABOUT HRANT DINK TO BE SCREENED IN YEREVAN - HYE-TERT
DOCUMENTARY ABOUT HRANT DINK TO BE SCREENED IN YEREVAN HYE-TERT, Turkey - Matossian published the first biography and critical study of the Greek composer Iannis Xenakis, the source book on his life, architecture and music based ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)
Library Lines - Blue Mountains Courier-Herald
Library Lines Blue Mountains Courier-Herald, Canada - In addition, historic musical scores by Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage, Gordon Mumma and others will be on display. TD Summer Reading Program - Laugh out ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)
Matthew Barley: addicted to innovation - Telegraph.co.uk
 | Matthew Barley: addicted to innovation Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom - Sometimes he'll play a piece by, for instance, the avant-garde composer György Ligeti and ask them to use its structure or scales as a model. ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)
Zappa legacy lives on - Times Colonist
Zappa legacy lives on Times Colonist, Canada - However, Zappa -- influenced by such composers as Stravinsky and Stockhausen -- is today recognized as one of rock's best and most innovative songsmiths. ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)
Music Preview: PNME embarks on ambitious season of dramatic works - Pittsburgh Post Gazette
 | Music Preview: PNME embarks on ambitious season of dramatic works Pittsburgh Post Gazette, PA - The first half of that concert will be solo percussion works by Brian Ferneyhough, Iannis Xenakis and others, and the latter a piece by composer Kurt ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:08 PM | Comments (0)
Stockhausen's Whirlybird Masterpiece Takes Flight: Alan Rich - Bloomberg
Stockhausen's Whirlybird Masterpiece Takes Flight: Alan Rich Bloomberg - ... where a rapt audience listens to the tremulous new music as it is piped in. Also present is the composer, Karlheinz Stockhausen, the German idealist, ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:08 PM | Comments (0)
From bliss to Bedlam - guardian.co.uk
From bliss to Bedlam guardian.co.uk, UK - I made an effort to understand how much there is in the music; seeing a revival of Glyndebourne's famous 1975 production, designed by David Hockney, ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:07 PM | Comments (0)
Home is where the music is - Colorado Springs Independent
 Colorado Springs Independent | Home is where the music is Colorado Springs Independent, CO - In fact, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Paris, female patrons of art would invite avant-garde musicians into their homes to perform for groups ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:07 PM | Comments (0)
Bassist is as strong as ever - The Gazette (Montreal)
Bassist is as strong as ever The Gazette (Montreal), Canada - His CD Forget Me Not, with classically trained drummer David Rozenblatt and bassist Matt Fieldes, is a stunning cohabitation of the contemporary classical ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:07 PM | Comments (0)
Hot Steamed Jazz Benefit For Newman's Camp - Hartford Courant
Hot Steamed Jazz Benefit For Newman's Camp Hartford Courant, United States - Hartley, who has worked with Wesleyan Professor Anthony Braxton and trumpeter Eddie Henderson, is a musician filled with ideas that range from avant-garde ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 01:07 PM | Comments (0)
Terezín
Originally from Ionarts, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 08:15 AM | Comments (0)
Norfolk New Music Recitals
New Music Recitals
Thurs, June 26 - 7:30pm
Fri, June 27 - 7:30pm
Norfolk’s acclaimed New Music Workshop, under the direction of composer Martin Bresnick, invites composers and instrumentalists to study the interesting dynamics of taking a piece from the composer’s imagination to the performance hall. Experience the creative process in person as Fellows of the New Music Workshop perform brand new music in the context of 20th-century masterpieces.
Thursday night: Works by Steve Danyew and Joe Rubinstein.
Friday night: Works by Chris Rogerson, Stephen Feigenbaum, Ted Goldman
Tickets: Free and Open to the Public
Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)
Boston Landmarks Orchestra
Green Masterpieces
Wednesday July 16 at 7:00 PM
Hatch Shell at the Esplanade, Boston Directions
- Overture to The Thieving Magpie Gioachino Rossini
- Nocturnes: Nuages and Fêtes Claude Debussy
- “Menuetto” from Cassation in G (Toy Symphony) Leopold Mozart
- The Seasons: Autumn Alexander Glazunov
- Speak, Sing, Whale (World Premiere) Stephen Feigenbaum
- “The Moldau” from My Fatherland Bedrich Smetana
- Water Music Suite George Frideric Handel
Originally posted by s21concerts from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 26, 2008 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)
June 25, 2008
Can David Foster Save Symphony Orchestras?
David V. Foster, whose management firm Opus 3 Artists represents many top performers, conductors and Osvaldo Golijov, has come up with an idea for an annual festival at Carnegie Hall that will recognize leading orchestras for the the “creativity and distinctiveness” of the programs they propose to perform. Called Spring for Music, the festival is scheduled to begin in May 2011, at Carnegie Hall. According to the Center of the Universe Times:
The Festival of North American Orchestras, as the organizing entity is called, will rent the hall and handle production and marketing, and the orchestras will bear their own costs for travel and soloists but share the proceeds, with a guarantee of at least $50,000 per appearance. Tickets — $25 each except for 100 or so seats in the top balcony at $15 — will be sold on a first-come-first-served basis two months before the event.
The principals– Foster, Thomas W. Morris, a former executive director of the Cleveland Orchestra and the artistic director of the Ojai Festival; and Mary Lou Falcone, a public-relations consultant describe the festival as an “idealized musical laboratory designed to see what kind of programming an orchestra can concoct when mundane considerations like marketing are taken out of the equation.”
Sounds a little Jerry Jeff to me, but we can hope for the best.
Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
Cy Touff & Sandy Mosse - Tickle Toe
Delmark Childhood friends, the two Chicagoan principals on this date followed similar paths through jazz. Touff was arguably the better known of the two, primarily because of the relative exoticism of his chosen axe and Pacific Jazz date he...Originally from Bagatellen, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)
Scott Wheeler: The Construction of Boston
WHEELER: The Construction of Boston. William Hite, Charles Blandy, tenor; Krista River, mezzo-soprano; Marcus DeLoach, Christòpheren Nomura, baritone; Christine Swistro, Sharla Nafziger, soprano; Elizabeth Anker, contralto; Chorus & Orchestra of The Boston Cecilia/ Donald Teeters. Naxos 8.669018. 60 minutes.
Scott Wheeler’s The Construction of Boston (libretto by Kenneth Koch; 1989, r. 2002) is a delightful one-act allegory on, well, the building of the city of Boston. As is the case with many recent American operas, it is stylistically eclectic, but there is no feeling of pastiche, and the composer’s musical personality is evident throughout.
The music is accessible, edgily tonal most of the time, with a feeling of Bernstein-style Broadway in some of the choruses. The vocal writing is idiomatic and the words come through very clearly. Wheeler’s rhythmic style is beat-oriented but also free and striking. His orchestration is inventive—bright and arresting.
The vocal performances are solid to excellent, with standout performances by tenor William Hite (as “The Opera” and Jean Tinguely), soprano Sharla Nafziger (as Niki de St Phalle), and baritone Christòpheren Nomura (as Robert Rauschenberg; I told you it was an allegory). The chorus and orchestra of The Boston Cecilia, led by Donald Teeters, give very good accountings of themselves. The sound in this concert performance is very good. Everything is audible and the balance is as good as you would find in a studio recording.
All in all, a very pleasant way to spend an hour.
Originally posted by Steve Hicken from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)
Selling It: Your Name Here (TM)
Would it be hopelessly superficial to market composers based on their personalities, making the case that their traits and quirks necessarily inform their music?Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)
Dark World International releases 'Chapter One - Remastered' from ... - Free press releases (press release)
Dark World International releases 'Chapter One - Remastered' from ... Free press releases (press release), UK - Compared to the works of avant-garde composer Gyorgy Ligeti, and masters of twentieth century music John Cage, Penderecki, and Schoenberg, Stygian Tars' ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)
Yusef Lateef... Francis 'Scrapper' Blackwell... Max Roach...
Yusef Lateef recorded 'The Centaur and the Phoenix' in 1961. This is 'Every day (I fall in love),' a slow, gorgeous reading, bursting with sonorities and colour. Lateef features his flute here, against a plangent backdrop of three brass and two reeds (the unusual combo of baritone sax and bassoon). The theme unfolds in thick dense streams, as if conjuring the movement from deep sleep to slow awakening – when the flute solos, it has that sprightly morning feel of something new reborn again. What the hell, I'm in a soft and soppy mood, spending the morning with my extremely pregnant daughter. (Not long now!).
Back to the blues... Francis 'Scrapper' Blackwell has been a favourite of mine since I first heard his music in Dublin circa 1970, at the apartment of Merve the Perve who had an extensive collection of blues and sundry other unusual musics ( which I think he had brought back from his sojourn in the States). And where I first stayed with Veronica K (wonder where she is now? Ah, regrets... sigh... ). Blackwell achieved much fame and some fortune playing with Leroy Carr in the late twenties but is a fine performer on his own, his snapping single string guitar breaks proving his musicianship and influencing many guitar players to come. This is 'Kokomo Blues,' a steady rolling twelve bar, solid guitar chording alternating with those famous Blackwell breaks. His voice reminds me slightly of Bukka White... Fascinating interview with him in the sixties here...
Out on wings of fire... where bebop and Afro-Cuban rhythms intersected with the early sixties avant garde and Afro-American politics of the day – Max Roach leads a tempestuous band through the album 'Percussion Bitter Sweet' whose title gives a strong hint of the storms raised here. This track: 'Marcus Garvey's Ghost.' Abbey Lincoln's voice blends wordlessly with the ensemble over the rising thunder of the drums and added percussion, threaded on an insistent cowbell rhythm. Art Blakey was noted for being a powerhouse drummer but Max is just burning here – savage AND subtle. Booker Little solos, then Clifford Jordan, but good as they are, the torrential drums are the focus. Roach takes a fizzling solo, imperious rolls, slashed cymbals. Art Davis is a bit buried in the mix but his bass makes itself known. Mal Waldron not much in evidence here, some occasional comping. And the wild card of the session, Eric Dolphy, who takes some stunning solos on other tracks, is not featured either. Not that it matters – this is a classic track from a classic album. Anger filed to a razor's edge of instrumental brilliance... More of this with some Dolphy soon, I think...
'We are the bearers of the world's bright torch
To light our civilization as we go:
No one should fall or lodge at darkness' porch;
Right well we teach the people all to know:
There's much for us to do in toil of love,
In helping others as we climb the heights;
It is for us to reach and lift above
Those who are struggling up through gloomy nights.'
Marcus Garvey, from 'The Bearers' (1927), quoted from here...
Yusef Lateef
Richard Williams (tp) Clark Terry (flh, tp) Curtis Fuller (tb) Josea Taylor (basn) Yusef Lateef (ts, fl, argol, ob) Tate Houston (bars) Joe Zawinul (p) Ben Tucker (b) Lex Humphries (d)
Every Day (I fall in love)
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Scrapper Blackwell (v, g)
Kokomo Blues
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Max Roach
Booker Little (tp) Julian Priester (tb) Eric Dolphy (as) Clifford Jordan (ts) Mal Waldron (p) Art Davis (b) Max Roach (d) Carlos "Patato" Valdes (cga) Carlos "Totico" Eugenio (cowbell) Abbey Lincoln (vo)
Garvey's ghost
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Originally from wordsandmusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 02:10 PM | Comments (0)
Piano music from a contemporary icon
While Deutsche Grammophon brings us "The Gustavo Dudamel album the world has been waiting for" and the NY Times confirms things can get worse at EMI it is left to savy labels like Naxos to challenge and inspire. Released this week is an album that challenges and inspires quite magnificently - the piano music of John Tavener played by Ralph van Raat. If you think Tavener is just 'holy minimalism' this Naxos CD will make you think again. The influences range from Chopin to the Orthodox Liturgy. No requirement for marketing-speak from me, at budget price the best thing to do is buy it.
Tavener's music and Ralph van Raat's performance are magnificent, as is the sound captured by producer and engineer Michael Ponder in Potton Hall, Suffolk, just down the road from where I write and, ironically, a venue for many fine EMI recordings. A credit is also needed for the excellent sleeve notes by the pianist. But one small moan if I may. I know I am the only person in the world who still buys CDs, and I am also aware that sleeve and label graphics are a dead art in the age of the download. But I will still say that, once again, the Naxos sleeve design and blue label don't do the contents of the CD justice. So instead of a pack-shot I offer my own header photo of a far from contemporary icon taken in the beautiful 9th century Carolingian Abbey at Saint Philbert de Grand Lieu in France.
EMI's new boss Guy Hands may think that all artists are lazy. But the pile of extraordinarily challenging and inspiring new CDs on my desk which are waiting to be shared with you, and not one from EMI or DG and all from independent labels, proves otherwise. And before the Dudamel lobby springs into action let me explain I've paid for tickets to see the man himself when the mountain comes to Mohamed and he plays our village hall in a few weeks. His programme with the Gothenburg Symphony at Snape on August 14 is Ravel La Valse, Anders Hillborg Clarinet Concerto and Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique.
Gustavo's New York agent amicably turned down an interview request due to 'schedule pressures' but OAOP will be at Snape Maltings anyway as that Hillborg concerto with Martin Fröst is not to be missed. And Guy Hands could certainly learn a few things from young Dudamel, not least how he persuaded the Gothenburg management to promote his other new DG release which he recorded, not with his Swedish band, but with the more marketable LA Phil.
And yes, I did mean Tavener with only one 'r'.
Photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:52 PM | Comments (0)
it was NOT a good trip
Originally from the search for artistry, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:52 PM | Comments (0)
Crosscut
he 1978 Saw Festival in Santa Cruz.
Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:52 PM | Comments (0)
Become an Artist
rvice Announcement for the San Francisco Art Institute with Father Guido Sarducci (Don Novello), produced by George Manupelli and William Farley (1982)
Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:52 PM | Comments (0)
Looking for Libretti
There is much chatter about libretti these days and, in particular, the lengths to which composer-folk are going to mine other media for workable opera scenaria & libretti. One fashion these days is to mine novels of the nineteenth and early 20th century, another fashion is to mine films, still another is the documentary opera, with legitimate pedigree in operas based on historical rather than mythical events as well as in the oratorio, but now charged with all the possibilities of non-fiction, liberating the composer from such conventions as character & narrative.An observable rule of thumb has long been that superb material in a given medium rarely becomes a superb opera, but interesting-but-not-quite-superb material in another medium can sometimes excel as opera. On the other hand, superb opera libretti rarely stand alone -- stripped of musical context -- as readable literature, although one can certainly make a case for anything by Da Ponte*, Verdi's Otello, some of von Hofmannstahl, or, more recently, Alice Goodman's Nixon in China.
*****
In the early 90s, a German composer friend & I would get together to talk shop every couple of months. The conversation would eventually turn to our parallel searches for opera libretti. My friend really needed to find a libretto, as he had not yet secured a professorship and an opera commission was a good way to guarantee paid work for two or three years. Under no illusions about my prospects for getting such a commission, I harbored the fantasy that I could nevertheless make something interesting for the stage. And, to be honest, and honestly unfashionably, the two of us shared the goal of writing a libretto that "women would like". We ended up sharing a lot of interesting reading material, but neither of us ever found the perfect libretto. My colleague finally got his professorship and I ended up doing a lot of childcare, so libretto hunts eventually disappeared from our conversations.
Since then, I've had more than a couple of ideas with potential -- The Winter's Tale, or Blake's satire The Island in the Moon, or -- following a suggestion in one of the Stravinsky-Craft conversation books -- Maximillian & Carlota, or Paul Auster's Mr Vertigo, with a perhaps too-obvious part for a yankee-English swearing treble, or (my favorite) the story of Byron the lightbulb that never goes out from Gravity's Rainbow. Lots of very good, and simultaneously very bad ideas, if you know what I mean...
Part of the problem was (and is) that I suspect that I'm probably best suited to writing a comic opera. My literary tastes are comic. I like the fact that comic opera can enjoy all of the conventions of the form without embarrassment, and I like numbered arias and ensembles, and I do think that recitative can pace and give a motoric and melodic assist to dialogue. But face it, comic opera -- with a few, very special exceptions, and even they don't always work: Von Heute Auf Morgen, The Rake's Progress, Le Grande Macabre, Europeras I & II -- has not been the leading genre of the last century. In fact, sometime after Rossini, comic opera just gave up the ghost when it came to being, well, funny. Serious music became exclusively serious and "comic" was largely left to "entertainers".
In late 1999, I stumbled upon a webpage with excerpts from handpuppet plays by Edward Gorey.
I had known his small books and drawings, the stage design and costumes for Dracula as well as a ballet, and the fine details of both image and text in that work had not prepared me for the radically reduced world of his puppets and their plays. His puppet plays were essentially dances for hands, accompanied by disturbing words. His puppets were basically rough lumps of paper mache, usually painted white, with a pair of holes for eyes, sometimes a nose, and female figures sometimes had a smaller lump -- a hair bun -- sitting on the back of the bigger lumps. These heads were simply placed on top of simple hand-sewn gloves, and would, with some frequency, fall off during performances (one evening of puppetry carried the title "Heads Will Roll"; when a puppet would lose its head, the other puppets on stage would give comfort to the stump). I immediately wrote to Gorey on Cape Cod, and a few weeks later received a libretto, an "opera seria" for handpuppets in 13 scenes of rhymed verse based on the "Lake of the Dismal Swamp". The opera -- despite Gorey's label, it was definitely a comic affair -- practically wrote itself, and I found myself writing tonal music and real songs for the first time since high school. The performances, in an old clapboard hall in Cotuit, Mass. were done by local players who had worked with Gorey for years, amateurs in the best sense of the word. It had a run of good ten performances, but the performances were also, sadly, a memorial to the librettist, who -- unusually but deservedly -- got top billing over the composer.The White Canoe, my opera for handpuppets with Gorey, is a great little piece, but I've since been reluctant to allow another performance. It doesn't require a lot: four singers, three instruments, and four puppeteers, but it has to be done right, and I can wait. In the meantime, I'm still looking for another good libretto.
_____
* Here's a question: Has anyone ever made an opera based on the life of Da Ponte?
[Parts of this post were mined and revised from an early post with the same title. If you can't steal from yourself, from whom can you steal?]
Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:51 PM | Comments (0)
A fitting end
The Cincinnati Enquirer published a review of Sunday’s final concert of CCM’s Music08 Festival, which - due to funding cuts - may be the last hurrah of an annual festival that has been a staple of 8bb’s calendar for almost a decade. I will write more posts about last week’s festivities in the coming days. (This will include a much-anticipated report on a visit the Phot and I made to the Creation Museum. A sneak preview: the great flood explains everything.)
Here are some excerpts from the piece, written by Mary Ellyn Hutton:
Music08 went out on a high… [In the Reich, p]ianist Lisa Kaplan took off with a be-bop flair after her recorded self, setting the energetic work in rapid, ostinato motion. Succeeding this was a tender violin melody (a touch of romance?) that got fragmented and traded among the musicians. It was back to white-hot motion then, ending like a slam against a wall. Reich, in his trademark cap, rushed to the stage, where he hugged the players and acknowledged the crowd’s ovation…
In Wolfe’s “singing in the dead of night,” a table (bed) was covered with bird seed, which swished and spilled audibly to the floor as Kaplan and Duvall tossed and turned on it. Each rose sleepless and there were some chaotic-sounding “nightmares.” You could hear the blustery “Winter” of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” and a chorale-like passage suspended as Kaplan crawled back “in bed.”
Originally posted by Tim from thirteen ways, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:51 PM | Comments (0)
we need more beef!
Hybrid Groove Project (aka Brian Sacawa and DJ Dubble8) has created a self-proclaimed
number one summer jam, HGP Anthem. In the grand tradition of the great hip-hop conflicts like Tupac v. Biggie Smalls, Dr. Dre v. Eazy-E, and 50 Cent v. Kanye West, “HGP Anthem” brings some much needed antagonism to a new music genre more accustomed to passive aggressive behind-the-back cattiness than drive-bys and street corner stompings.
(Yeah, not a lot of drive by shootings in the polite, liberal, middle-class world of American new music ensembles. I gather Europe has its own “new music mafia,” and I love to imagine them all equipped with black suits and semi automatics. The Ensemble Modern folks would cruise the streets of Paris waiting for Pierre Boulez to show his face…)
In HGP Anthem (posted with the skit “we need more beef”), the Baltimore-based Hybrid Groove folks parody the ICE ensemble (”Berio… Sound original? Nope!”), So Percussion (”So Perussion! So what?!”), Bang on a Can (”We ain’t a flash in the pan, like Bang On A Can”), Alarm Will Sound (”Call Aphex Twin he’d know what’s down in that town. Nah, he wouldn’t hang with people like that…”), Kronos (”West coast! Kronos! Pimpin’ all kinds of cheap tricks”) and many others.
The 8bb verse:
eighth blackbird we can play your music backward
Then chop it up and serve it to you 13 Ways!
Y’all stuck on Kronos carbon copy new music cliches
Straight pimpin’ Fred Rzewski for that Grammy mo-NAY.
I was rolling around on the floor laughing, but damn if they didn’t sink the knife in!
8bb used to be majority vegetarian. Clearly our current position as 5-1 carnivores hasn’t yet equipped us with enough “beef” for these folks…
Originally posted by Tim from thirteen ways, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:51 PM | Comments (0)
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU: Gabriel Prokofiev and Nonclassical
Sergei Prokofiev wrote Neoclassical, and his grandson, Gabriel, writes Nonclassical. The elder was and is still a huge figure in instrumental music, and the younger will certainly be hailed as one of the most important figures in updating the classical tradition.Gabriel Prokofiev has set up concerts in clubs that include chamber works and remixes, as well as a record label that puts out albums with an instrumental work and a series of remixes. The upcoming release, Cortical Songs, includes mixes by Thom Yorke and others:
Prokofiev describes his frustration with classical music in an interview at timesonline:
I got very frustrated because I knew that at least 50 per cent of the people who came to hear my music had white hair and the other 50 per cent would all be composers or academics themselves...I wanted my friends to hear my music. Classical music has kept itself isolated in a lot of ways. It’s time to loosen up and take a look around and stop being afraid to embrace other genres.Another producer of 'club classical' talks about his path towards this type of concert setting in the same article:
When Matt Fretton set up This Isn’t For You, he realised he was in uncharted territory. “I felt it needed to be done,” he says. “Someone had to take the initiative and look at the way classical music was being presented. I hated the fact that people were not allowed to clap or make any noise during concerts. And I don’t like the ridiculous waiters’ outfits. Musicians are not there to serve people; they are artists and should be respected.”So Britain has its counterpart to what Mason Bates and company are doing on the U.S. West Coast. Prokofiev wrote a Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra recently (video below); the orchestra makes vocal noises and plays motives as DJ Yoda scratches similar sounds on his tables. Violinist/composer Daniel Bernard-Roumain has made a lot of music with DJ Scientific, including a piece for turntables and orchestra (performed by Scientific and the ACO) in 2006. Hip things are happening...
again, like nonpop, in nonclassical, we have a term of negation rather than a new word in itself, but I think in this case, it's an important first statement in the postgenre era - the stuff is an embrace of classical music, but a conscious rejection of the entire culture that still surrounds it.
Originally from Sound and Space, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:51 PM | Comments (0)
Down a Country Lane
The Boston Symphony Orchestra e-mailed out a press release today detailing a curious promotion.Tanglewood, Gulf Oil, and the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority are teaming up this summer for a special promotion at Gulf gas stations along the Massachusetts Turnpike between Boston and Tanglewood. For every $50 of gas purchased at participating Gulf gas stations, travelers can earn a free lawn pass to Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The promotion will run June 30 through August 22.The participating Gulf stations, it should be noted, are those actually on the Mass Turnpike. So this is targeted primarily at people who use the Pike to get to and from Tanglewood, or who possibly have a regular commute that involves a big enough stretch of the Pike that they would be buying gas. (My own commute into Boston, for example, never passes any of the participating stations.)
It's interesting to break this down a little. How many people would even spend fifty bucks on gas getting to Tanglewood and back? Let's say that the Boston-to-Tanglewood commute is 130 miles, and we'll go with today's AAA average of $4.07/gal in Boston. At that rate, if it's costing $50 for a round trip, you're getting at best just over 21 miles per gallon—for almost totally highway driving. (I think we all know what kind of cars those are.)
Is it worth it, environmental concerns aside? Kind of, actually—a year ago, gas was, on average in Boston, $2.94 a gallon; if you're driving a 21 mpg vehicle, it's costing you $13.88 more in gas to get to the Shed and back this summer. A Tanglewood lawn ticket is 19 bucks. So that trip, all told, is $5.12 cheaper than it would have been last year, keeping ticket prices level for sake of argument. (The break-even mileage on that calculation is 15.46 mpg; worse than that, and you're still paying more compared with 2007.)
But here's the odd thing: if you have a car with decent mileage, it's not much of a deal at all. Think of it—if it doesn't cost you $50 in gas to get to Tanglewood and back, you're going to need to go twice in order to get the free pass. The break-even for two Boston-Tanglewood round-trips in order to collect one free pass is 30.92 mpg; if your mileage is between 22 and 30 mpg, you lose money compared with last year. Here's the breakdown for the official vehicle of Soho the Dog, the 1999 Honda Civic (29 mpg):
260 miles round trip x 2=520 miles(Mileage is from Boston for comparison; in reality, I'd be coming from Framingham, which is only 111 miles one-way, but even then, I'm only saving $1.70 over last year.) Above the 30.92 threshold, you're saving money, but in order to match the 21 mpg one-trip savings of $5.12, you'll need to be getting at least 42 mpg.
520 miles/29 mpg=17.93 gallons
(17.93 gallons x $2.94/gal) + $38 [two tickets] = $90.71 [2007]
(17.93 gallons x $4.07/gal) + $19 [one ticket] = $91.97 [2008]
So this is a promotion tailored to people who own cars that get a) lousy but not abysmal mileage, or b) spectacular mileage. I'd be more inclined to regard this as a good idea if all Massachusetts Gulf stations were participating; even trying to drive less, I'll almost certainly be buying two or three free passes worth of gas this summer. But by limiting it to stations on the Pike, it's clearly aimed at those people driving the Pike to get to Tanglewood.
This will probably be a boost for sales at those participating Gulf stations and Pike toll revenues. Is it all that good a deal for Tanglewood? Here's the thing—parking at Tanglewood is, to its credit, free. In other words, Tanglewood's take doesn't depend at all on how people actually get there. The argument is that, by making it less of a financial hassle to cover the distance, more people will show up (and presumably buy at least one more ticket in addition to the free one). But might that subsidy be better spent enlarging the Tanglewood bus service? The BSO actually runs buses out to Tanglewood for $30 round-trip—a deal if your vehicle gets less than 35 mpg these days—but it's a limited schedule, Fridays and Saturdays only. Make that schedule more flexible, and I'd bet they'd get a lot of takers. (Including those prospective patrons with no car at all, who might be more inclined to buy a lawn ticket than someone who could afford to blow fifty bucks on gas.) And it's a somewhat greener option to boot.
And if that doesn't get people in the door?
Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)
Chapter Three
I’ve been in Virginia for a week now, after a wonderful ten days with B (trying on a new role: supportive opera girlfriend. I think it might be my favorite role to date!) and a quick trip up to NYC for an audition. Candide rehearsals have started and are going well. I’m getting to work on my other summer assignments - a Blier recital and Ariadne - and starting to format my Zerlina text pages. B gets here this evening, and then the summer will be fully underway. In short, life as normal!Except... I’m not sure where blogging fits into the picture anymore. I’ve titled this post “Chapter Three” because it feels like the blog is coming into it’s next phase, its third. The first was the beginning, obviously, writing about auditions and small gigs. Fresh-faced and naive and idealistic, I wrote about my life as a singer without really getting into the tough stuff, glossing over growing pains and hurdles on the blog the same way I did in my life. In Chapter Two, after my divorce, I wrote (and lived) with a bit more candor. Auditions and jobs got bigger, and I blogged my journey into the heart of the young new music community. Blogging was as much a part of my life as warming-up, as learning new music. I became “ACB.” (It is funny how widely this nickname has spread; strangers know and address me by it, showing that not all nicknames come from familiarity.)
I’ve heard from young singers that they have appreciated me sharing my journey, even hearing from some that they consider me a mentor. A handful of opera administrators have indicated that they read or have read the blog, and most have been complimentary, saying they’ve enjoyed my insights into “the biz.” I’ve made some really great friends through the blog, and I have given industry outsiders a window into life on and behind the stage. All these are results - side effects, maybe - of keeping a regular public journal, and I am grateful and blessed!
Personally, I think I relied on the blog community over the past couple of years. I wrote regularly not only because I had lots to write about, but because I needed a confidante. I never kept a diary as a kid (or as a teenager); this blog has been the most regular journal I’ve ever had. And even though I didn’t work through personal issues here (you heard only the faintest whisper of my NYC dating dramas, for example), I nevertheless came to rely on having a place to put my thoughts down. I have great friends and family, but I don’t talk to them everyday and see them even less frequently. But I could “talk” to the blogosphere everyday if I wanted to. I think it might even be safe to say that the blog was my primary relationship!
And now, well, I have a boyfriend. (Silly word, boyfriend, when we’re in our 30s, but what can you do...) I talk to him every day about everything. For the past three months, there hasn’t really been anything left for the blog! I had to force myself to sit down and write. I even entertained the thought that the days of The Concert might be over... haven’t I said everything I wanted to say? What else is there to share?
Time will tell. I don’t think I’m ready to throw in the towel, but I think there will be a big change in content, at least in the quantity of it. I’ll probably spare you all the “soup to nuts” entries of role preparation; I think I covered that pretty darn thoroughly with Susanna and Rosina! I’ll continue to talk about rep and technique hurdles and trials of life on the road as they come up. I’ll post fun stories when I can, keeping in mind that my colleagues are also “bigger” these days and have their own rights to privacy. I have no doubt that there could be lots of interesting posts on the challenges and joys of being involved with another singer, but I’m afraid I won’t be “going there.” I’m sure B will pop up in a post from time to time, but how we make it all work, logistically and otherwise, will stay private. Overall, I’m only going to write when I really have something to say.
Thanks for sticking around during this station break. Chapter Three of The Concert will begin shortly...
Originally from the concert, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)
What the new audience wants
In the arts -- and certainly in classical music -- we spend a lot of time talking to each other, and I've just about typed myself blue in the face trying to say that we need to talk to people from the outside world. Especially if we want to reach a new young audience!One of the people I've long thought ought to be invited to talk to the classical world is J.D. Considine, a veteran pop and jazz writer whom I've known for some years, and currently writes about jazz for the Toronto Globe and Mail. He likes classical music (we used to talk about Baltimore Symphony concerts when he was pop critic for the Baltimore Sun),.and just sent me an e-mail that everyone who wants to extend the reach of classical music should read. I'm reprinting it here with J.D.'s permission. Note two important things: the parts about the audience liking difficult music, and about the limited appeal for this audience ("limited" being an understatement) of musical beauty. These are things the classical world doesn't understand at all (beauty, after all, being one of its favorite selling points, just as J.D. says).
Last week, I had the chance to hear (and cover) a performance of Cage's HPSCHD. It wasn't quite the "standard" performance, as it only ran only three hours and relied on just five actual amplified harpsichords (the other parts were covered by a Yamaha digital piano and a Hohner D6 Clavinet). The quality of the players was wonderful-- Eve Egoyan corralled the group -- and they did a great job with the pre-recorded electronics and the projected art. But the smartest thing they did was to stage it less like a concert than a happening, encouraging people to walk around the room, or even in and out, instead of sitting solemnly and stoically for three hours. (They stressed the freedom of movement in the pre-concert publicity, too.)He's not nuts at all, of course. He's talking about a market (to put this in business terms) that I've identified, too, a market of younger people who like challenging music and would respond to challenging classical programming, as long as that doesn't smell like the concert hall. In New York, as I've noted (most recently in my post about this year's Bang on a Can marathon), they do respond, but the mainstream classical institutions don't seem to notice. I'd love to see an orchestra flexible and aware enough to give standard concerts for their standard audience, and indie concerts for the indie audience (not that he uses that word) that J.D. describes.
And it was amazing. People wandered through the room, listening to the various harpsichords, occasionally chatted with the players, sipped wine or beer, and had a terrific time. The crowd was also mainly young boomers and older X-gens -- just the people symphony boards pray for -- as well as a smattering of seniors and 20- somethings. I swear, I even saw a kid wander through carrying a skateboard!
Now, you and I both know that this isn't the sort of thing a major orchestra can do three times a week. Still, three times a season wouldn't hurt. And this program (which was part of the SoundaXis Festival) pulled a pretty good crowd despite minimal publicity and a major competing arts festival (Luminato).
This made me think about something else. A big part of the attraction for the crowd at HPSCHD was that the music was difficult. Now, I ask you -- would a symphony programmer ever imagine that offering challenging, difficult, abstract music would be a marketing plus? My sense is that most of 'em still believe that the way to bring in new listeners is to emphasize the beauty and melody of classical music.
Here's the thing, though: For anyone who grew up in the rock radio era, the aesthetic "strengths" suggested by such thinking evokes nothing so much as Easy Listening Music. And can you imagine any serious music fan who'd pay money to listen to that crap?
Maybe that's why much of the classical music that has crossed over, like the Kronos recordings or the Gorecki 3rd, hasn't been sweet and lovely, but emotionally powerful and aurally challenging. Just like the rock and jazz also adored by such listeners. (Of course, this is where I'm drifting into stuff you already know.)
But I think the thirst for adventure is there waiting to be exploited. The internet hasn't killed classical sales -- it has helped it, in part I think because people can find what they want or discover new things, instead of having to paw morosely through a limited selection of the same old same old. And I know a lot of people fear the net because of file sharing and the notion that music should be free. But what if an orchestra decided to see that as an advantage, and offered one or two free concerts per season? Concerts full of daring and contemporary music? Concerts they promoted the way rock gigs are promoted (postering isn't just for kids)?
Or am I just nuts?
Originally from Sandow, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)
London Theater Journal: Time for a Ganja Break at 'The Harder They Come'
“Fifteen minutes for a ganja break.” Thus was intermission signaled by a deep-voiced, dredlocked man with a head mike at the end of the first act of “The Harder They Come,” a stage adaptation of the film that launched a thousand spliffs in cult movie houses in the 1970s.Originally posted by Ben Brantley from ArtsBeat, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)
szot out
According to the blog AfterElton.com, Tony Award-winning barihunk Paulo Szot “is an out gay man.” Writer Brian Juergens says the blog “contacted his publicist and were told that yes, he is gay, and we’re welcome to say as much.”
Originally posted by La Cieca from parterre box presents La Cieca, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)
boy meets girl
Two superstars of the 21st century, Diana Damrau and Juan Diego Flórez, bring exciting new life to a classic of the 19th century, Verdi’s Rigoletto. This new production of the warhorse was heard Saturday night in Dresden. Regie is by Nikolaus Lehnhoff and musical direction is by Fabio Luisi.
Originally posted by La Cieca from parterre box presents La Cieca, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)
Quiz #22 Coming Soon
Well, not soon as compared to tomorrow but soon as compared to the day we send a spaceship to Jupiter.
The OM Quiz is going on a summer hiatus. The blog will continue as normal and will hopefully include more essays and actual opinions “the state of things” rather than just links, cartoons et al. Books for the summer reading session are stacked high and mostly resemble those set aside for the Winter 08 session.
Your feedback on the quiz is most welcome in the comments or via email and will be taken into consideration for the new season starting sometime around Labour Day.
Thanks to all those who listened, played along and wrote in with anecdotes, random factoids and anything else that popped into mind. It’s been a pleasure discovering music with you.
Like this? Why not try:
Originally posted by Miss Mussel from The Omniscient Mussel on Classical Music & Culture, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)
Open Ears Music Audio Archive - Free Jazz, Bruh!
More free, live improv from Open Ears Music:
This is the audio archive from 18 June 08. The files are 128k VBR mp3s. The band is Free Jazz, Bruh!.
Musicians: Sasha Masakowski (vocals), Jesse Morrow (bass), Nathan Lambertson (bass), Chris Nobles (percussion), Paul Thibodeaux (drums)
Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)
Two New Aum Fidelity Releases
From Improvised Communications:
Two noteworthy, and very different, recordings get their official release on AUM Fidelity.
Legendary trumpeter/composer/educator Bill Dixon’s 17 Musicians in Search of a Sound: Darfur (AUM046) is the first recording of all original orchestral music released under his name since 1967’s momentous Intents and Purposes (RCA Victor). This live concert recording is the second in a series of three CDs, released in parternship with Arts for Art, Inc., documenting specially commissioned world premiere performances from Vision Festival XII in 2007. The series also includes the Roy Campbell Ensemble’s Akhenaten Suite (AUM045), released on March 11th, and William Parker’s orchestral recording, Double Sunrise Over Neptune (AUM047), coming August 12th.
Duologue (AUM048) is pianist/composer Eri Yamamoto’s new album of duets with fellow New York scene mainstays, Daniel Carter (alto and tenor saxophones), Hamid Drake (frame drum), William Parker (bass) and Federico Ughi (drums). For this special project, her first recording as a leader without her longstanding trio, she handpicked four of her favorite collaborators and wrote two original pieces to record with each of them. This is the first of two forthcoming releases from Ms. Yamamoto for the label this year, and will be followed by her fifth trio recording, Redwoods (AUM049), on September 23rd.
Originally posted by Mike from Avant Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)
Harvey Sachs
I am a writer, lecturer, music historian, translator, and arts administrator. Early in my career, I worked as a conductor, albeit at modest levels, for about a dozen years, and this gave me some insight into the practical side of music-making.Originally from Overflow, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:48 PM | Comments (0)
Moving on up
Get the new RSS feed for Classical Musings or be in the dark!Originally from post-gazette.com - Classical Musings, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:48 PM | Comments (0)
'Brokeback Mountain' fixin' to become opera
Peter Dobrin, Orlando Sentinel, 6/24/2008Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:47 PM | Comments (0)
Anti-gang music schools in Venezuela
UN News Centre, 6/24/2008Originally from Classical Music News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:47 PM | Comments (0)
Hardly avant-garde at all - Examiner.com
 | Hardly avant-garde at all Examiner.com - ... documentation available on Lutoslawski. For one thing, he was a fine conductor and therefore we can both hear and see him interpreting his own music. ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:47 PM | Comments (0)
La Biennale di Venezia - Danza Ballet
 | La Biennale di Venezia Danza Ballet, Spain - ... brings a diptych focusing on the pairing of dance and music - Eldorado (Sonntags Abschied), arising from a piece by Karlheinz Stockhausen, ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:47 PM | Comments (0)
Finding new music among the dead - Los Angeles Times
 | Finding new music among the dead Los Angeles Times, CA - A lot of the music had a mesmerizing, monotonous quality, like when the William Winant Percussion Group played Steve Reich. Often my kids, 2 and 5, ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:47 PM | Comments (0)
Aldeburgh Festival - Financial Times
Aldeburgh Festival Financial Times, UK - Topped and tailed by masters (Lutoslawski and Lindberg), seven works by composers under 30 combined exuberant imagination with tight control to electrifying ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:46 PM | Comments (0)
BOWING OUT - Baltimore Sun
BOWING OUT Baltimore Sun, United States - "That was a huge challenge," Slatkin says, "as complicated as anything Elliott Carter writes. At first, I think the attitude in the orchestra was, ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:46 PM | Comments (0)
Zappa legacy lives on - Times Colonist
Zappa legacy lives on Times Colonist, Canada - However, Zappa -- influenced by such composers as Stravinsky and Stockhausen -- is today recognized as one of rock's best and most innovative songsmiths. ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:46 PM | Comments (0)
Musical adventure at Aldeburgh Festival - This is London
 | Musical adventure at Aldeburgh Festival This is London, UK - Another virtuosic set of voices, Exaudi, shone in Byrd, Rihm and Xenakis at Aldeburgh Church, while the Philharmonia, on top form, gave an exciting concert ... |
Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:46 PM | Comments (0)
So there he was, flirting with Beyoncé
Asymmetrical haircuts and ironic clothing just not your thing? If the prostelizations coming out of the Church of How Indie Rock Will Save Concert MusicTM leave you cold, perhaps it's time to look elsewhere.
With faces as straight as Stephen Colbert, the gentlemen of HGP take a few cues from their hometown club scene, slide everything off the table, and throw down. Destined to be the #1 Hot Summer (New Music) Jam of 2008, come on, boyz, shake it up (but watch your language).
Originally from Mind the Gap, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:46 PM | Comments (0)
Philip Koutev: Polegala e Toudora
One of the great songs by the late Philip Koutev, a brilliant composer and choral arranger, is called “Polegnala e Toudora.” David Crosby turned me on to this amazing song in the early 80s. This appears to be a later performance of the song.
Download audio file (toudora.mp3)
“Polegala e Toudora” by Filip Koutev, sung by the Bulgarian Women’s Chorus
I’ll never forget the last time I heard this group. It was at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s. We were up in the nose-bleed seats, row XXX. It was half way through the second half. An small ensemble of eight women came out and sang a long plaintive an highly ornate folk arrangement. Suddenly, there was an earthquake. I swear to you, being at the top, I saw a sine wave slowly move across the balcony. People, especially in the balcony, were terrified and got up and ran. The poor octet on ground level seemed oblivious to the quake but looked but later baffled as to why there were so many people in the balcony were suddenly leaving. They looked at each other: “are we singing flat?” “is the microphone off?” They finished the number. We stayed and moved forward into better seats and came home satisfied with a great concert and an amusing LA story.
Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:45 PM | Comments (0)
We need to make new symbols, make new signs
Originally from Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:45 PM | Comments (0)
Secret Society @ (Le) Poisson Rouge, July 9
Originally from Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:45 PM | Comments (0)
Frank Corcoran Composes ‘Quasi Una Perla’ for Basso Moderno Duo
Originally from Basically Modern, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:44 PM | Comments (0)
We need more beef
Summer’s just beginning and Hybrid Groove Project, the genre-bending new music duo from Baltimore, is already heating things up with their number one summer jam, “HGP Anthem.” In the grand tradition of the great hip-hop conflicts like Tupac v. Biggie Smalls, Dr. Dre v. Eazy-E, and 50 Cent v. Kanye West, “HGP Anthem” brings some much needed antagonism to a new music genre more accustomed to passive aggressive behind-the-back cattiness than drive-bys and street corner stompings.
“By droppin’ this track we’re showing all these new music fakers who the real playaz are,” say Sacawa and Spangler. “It’s like we’re telling everyone, ‘Yo, we’re hot, and you’re not,’ you feel us? Like, y’all need to get out of the game. Plus, we need to show love for Bmore, you know what we’re sayin’?”
Indeed, new music will soon regret its unofficial partnership with indie rock with the release of Hybrid Groove Project’s latest hit, the number one summer jam of 2008. But don’t call it a comeback, HGP’s been making heads nod since 2004. Just hope it’s not too late to return those skinny jeans.
Click below to hear “HGP Anthem” along with the skit “We Need More Beef”:
VERSE:
Conversin’ in a dialect, not what you’d expect
We’re from a city that’s too gritty for the New York set.
Mobtown! Gets down to the sound that makes you move
Listen up, worldwide, we’re known as Hybrid Groove Project.
We’re so hot we melt ICE from Chicago to Manhattan.
We got Claire chasin’ her tail ’cause they lookin’ like has beens.
Mad kings, Berio… Sound original? Nope!
We’re putting new dope twists on licks that Philip Glass wrote.
So Percussion! So what?! Think they’re in touch with the street.
On your minimalist tip we got that champion beat.
Iannis Xenakis. What? You think you bad playin’ hard shit
with nested triplets and septuplets?
You down with MTT? Yeah you know me!
S.F. Symphony, but that’s not all that he be.
American Marvericks, spinnin’ fab shit,
like Milton Bizabbitt, but HGP’s so past it.
Like our last hit, where we extended our reach
and sent Mike packin’ down to Miami Beach.
New World, same game with HGP off the chain,
gonna dis you other suckas but first check the refrain!
CHORUS:
The chamber music insurgents with an urgence to earn it,
We’re steppin’ forth in new directions cuttin’ beats like a surgeon.
With the sound causin’ all these flat composers to flee,
it’s the Mobtown Modern and HGP.
Knockin’ ivory towers down, bringin’ it straight to the hood,
it’s Dubble8 and SLN and we’re up to no good.
Spinnin’ wax, playin’ sax and makin’ music with poise,
we’re the best, oh so fresh, and all the rest is noise!
VERSE:
We ain’t a flash in the pan, like Bang On A Can.
We keep our sets tight not like a marathon, man.
You’re makin’ music for the people, we feel you, no doubt,
But if you do step to us, my friends, we will take you out!
Who’s that Eastman group known for rockin’ Nancarrow
and makin’ unplayable arrangements that sound like a player piano?
Call Aphex Twin he’d know what’s down in that town.
Nah, he wouldn’t hang with people like that… oh wait, Alarm Will Sound!
Eighth Blackbird we can play your music backward
Then chop it up and serve it to you 13 Ways!
Y’all stuck on Kronos carbon copy new music cliches
Straight pimpin’ Fred Rzewski for that Grammy mo-NAY.
Now that Boston’s got Levine and playin’ Wuorinen all the time,
They’ve got a lot of people sayin, “Oooh, that’s so divine.”
But HGP’s on the scene and we’re gonna shake it up,
So mind you’re business, Gil Rose, or we’ll BMOP you up!
West coast! Kronos! Pimpin’ all kinds of cheap tricks.
What’s next summer of love, like Haimovitz covering Hendrix?
From San Diego to Frisco we’re leaving bit playaz bereft.
Like Del Sol, CMP and the EAR Unit who must be deaf!
CHORUS:
The chamber music insurgents with an urgence to earn it,
We’re steppin’ forth in new directions cuttin’ beats like a surgeon.
With the sound causin’ all these flat composers to flee,
it’s the Mobtown Modern and HGP.
Knockin’ ivory towers down, bringin’ it straight to the hood,
it’s Dubble8 and SLN and we’re up to no good.
Spinnin’ wax, playin’ sax and makin’ music with poise,
we’re the best, oh so fresh, and all the rest is noise!
Originally posted by brian from brian sacawa | sounds like now, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:44 PM | Comments (0)
Calling Brother Mouzone
The Baltimore-based new-music duo Hybrid Groove Project may be relatively new to the scene, but they're poised to stir up some major-league, headline-grabbing, Daniel J. Wakin trouble with their explosive summer jam, "HGP Anthem." Emulating epic hip-hop feuds on the order of Jay-Z vs. Nas, Tupac vs. Biggie, and Wagner vs. Brahms, HGP is calling out and taking down rivals such as the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), So Percussion, MTT, Bang on a Can, Alarm Will Sound, Eighth Blackbird, Levine and the BSO, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and Kronos, among others. Wisely, they don't mess with Esa-Pekka. You may have to listen several times to catch all the in-jokes. I especially like the chorus.
Originally posted by Alex Ross from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:43 PM | Comments (0)
Hardly avant-garde at all - Examiner.com
Examiner.com | Hardly avant-garde at all Examiner.com - At festival's close, we lead the audience out into a wide field, with the entire collection of Joe Schmoe music — published and in manuscript — in tow. ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:43 PM | Comments (0)
Masterpiece for Prepared Piano - Maui Weekly
Masterpiece for Prepared Piano Maui Weekly, Hawaii - A pioneer of chance music, electronic music and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 12:43 PM | Comments (0)
À mon chevet: Opera and the Morbidity of Music
Originally from Ionarts, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 08:14 AM | Comments (0)
Jason Stein’s Locksmith Isidore: A Calculus of Loss (Clean Feed - 2008)
Ancien guitariste passé à la clarinette sous l’influence d’Eric Dolphy, Jason Stein a, depuis, étudié auprès de Charles Gayle et Milford Graves avant de se faire remarquer au sein du Bridge 61 de Ken Vandermark. Sur A Calculus of Loss, il fait état de ses prétentions à la tête d’un trio que forment avec lui Kevin Davis (violoncelle) et Mike Pride (batterie).
Pas pressé d’en démontrer, Stein expose sa pratique expérimentale – à l’influence de Dolphy (qui lui conseille d'ailleurs la compagnie d'un violoncelliste) ajouter maintenant celle de Braxton – sur la suite de pizzicatos angoissés servis par Davis. Dérangé par la progression chaotique de ses deux partenaires, le batteur ponctue leurs interventions avec sagacité, pour parfaire chacune des déconstructions lentes exposées sur le disque.
That’s Not Closet, par exemple, que Stein ouvre en répétant une phrase mélodique jusqu’à la faire tomber dans l’oubli pour laisser toute la place à un développement qui rappelle l’usage que faisaient, à la fin des années 1960, Steve Lacy ou Jacques Coursil du free jazz. D’un genre ancien rattrapé par le silence, Locksmith Isidore fait une nouveauté irrésistible.
CD: 01/ Nurse Ellen 02/ Miss Izzy 03/ That’s Not Closet 04/ Caroline and Sam 05/ 167th St. Ellen 06/ J.H. 01 >>> Jason Stein’s Locksmith Isidore - A Calculus of Loss - 2008 - Clean Feed. Distribution Orkhêstra International.
Originally posted by Grisli from Le son du grisli, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 02:13 AM | Comments (0)
Phil Nimmons
Phil Nimmons
From Podcast: Sounds New.
Originally posted by jeff from cacophonous.org, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 25, 2008 at 02:11 AM | Comments (0)
June 24, 2008
Putting Up an Edifice
As a rabid fan of (and some might say relentless proselytizer for) new music, I'm somewhat disturbed that I am so often drawn to the old and annoyed by the new when it comes to architecture.Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 24, 2008 at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)
Plasma Globe Meets Theremin
Timothy Renato of The Bad Hand sends us this amazing video of his invention - a plasma globe controlled theremin!
Originally posted by jeff from new music reblog plus, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jun 24, 2008 at 09:48 PM | Comments (0)
Dream Steps by Dan Locklair to Be Presented on June 25 at American Harp Society Conference in Dearborn, Michigan
American composer Dan Locklair’s Dream Steps, A Dance Suite for harp, flute and viola will be performed on Wednesday, June 25 – 1:30 pm at the Hyatt Regency Dearborn, 600 Town Center Drive in Dearborn, Michigan. This Michigan Artists and Composers concert is presented as part of the American Harp Society National Conference.
Harpist and Michigan native Jacquelyn Bartlett will lead the ensemble performing this five - movement work, which was written in 1993 and recorded by Ms. Bartlett along with flutist Anna Ludwig Wilson and violist Jonathan Bagg for Dan Locklair Chamber Music (Albany Records Troy 701-02).
For more information about this concert, please visit http://www.ahsdetroit.org/ or contact the American Harp Society at ahsdetroit@yahoo.com.
Naxos has issued a CD of Locklair’s Symphony of Seasons, Harp Concerto (with soloist Jacquelyn Bartlett), In Memory H.H.L. and other works, performed by Kirk Trevor and the Slovak R