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August 31, 2009

Oriental Story

The pictures were often in black and white, but the music was always in .

Originally from 'notes' a composer's life by daron hagen, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 31, 2009 at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)

Chance music on internet radio

For some time I have I have been pondering on how to share with readers some of the huge selection of music that features here. My Overgrown Path programme on Future Radio, which ran for fifteen months, gained a good following and podcasts from some of the programmes are available on the right-hand side bar. But I felt the format was too rigid and production of the precisely timed programmes was very time consuming. So, as you can see from the header photo, I was back in the Future Radio studio last week preparing a pilot of a very different new programme.

When I was writing about Mario Formenti's superb linked piano cycle Kurtag's Ghosts in April I admitted:

I have always opposed the practice of breaking down complete works (e.g. Holst's The Planets) into audience-friendly samples (Jupiter). But Kurtág’s Ghosts has made me realise that, in the right context, the sum of the parts can be greater than the whole. This thought-provoking double CD has led me to question my own preconceptions, and a webcast project inspired by Marino Formenti's shuffling is under discussion. Watch this path.

Chance Music is the result of those discussions. I wanted a format that was not dictated by thematic or track timing constraints. So Chance Music is a 60 minute sequence of music and brief links determined by the 21st century equivalent of the I Ching, the iPod shuffle. Programme content is dictated 100% by the shuffle mode on my personal iPod which contains much of the music featured On An Overgrown Path. The many record company executives among my readers can relax, Future Radio is fully Ofcom licensed and is covered by a royalty agreement.

Playing truly Chance Music does bring some challenges for the presenter, such as key, tempi and level conflicts, works such as Stimmung and In C where the track bands are not linked to pauses in the music, not to mention that the shuffle mode of the iPod shuffle mode does not seem to be truly random. But there is some logic in the chance. The most substantial work in the pilot is the 13 minute Sacra d'llx by Maurice Ohana. He is a composer who desperately deserves airplay, and the random selection alighted on a self-contained work rather than a single movement. Also chanced on were works by Lou Harrison and Anouar Brahem, exactly the kind of music that I hoped the format would give exposure to. As Buddhists say 'All decisions are right'.

If the programme finds a regular slot in Future Radio's schedules I will not be listing the music in advance, because that spoils the chance element. But the pilot being aired next Sunday is a pre-record as I will have fled the country in advance of the Last Night of the BBC Proms on September 12th. So, here is the first programme of 100% Chance Music with some links to the paths the music featured in:

1. Penguin Café Orchestra - Steady State [CDV 2954]
2. J.S. Bach: Viola Da Gamba Sonata #1 In G, BWV 1027, Allegro Moderato - Jamie Laredo & Glenn Gould [SM2K 52615]
3. The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) - Simon and Garfunkel [MOOD CD21]
4. J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 - Aria Da Capo - Glenn Gould 1955 recording [S3K 87703]
5. J.S. Bach: Viola Da Gamba Sonata #2 In D, BWV 1028, Andante - Leonard Rose & Glenn Gould [SM2K 52615]
6. Lou Harrison: Suite for Percussion, Slow movement - Maelstrom Percussion Ensemble [ART 105]
7. Diego Pisador, La Manana De San Juan - Catherine Bott (soprano) & Abdul Salam Kheir (oud) [FREDCD1]
8. Maurice Ohana, Sacral d'llx - Elisabeth Chojnacka (harpsichord) & Béatrice Daudin (oboe) [1C1161]
9. Conte de l'incroyable amour - Anouar Brahem (oud), Barbaros Erköse (clarinet), Kudsi Erguner (nai) & Lassad Hosni (bendir & darbouka) [ECM 1457]
10. Here's that rainy day - Oscar Peterson Trio [557 462-2]

My Chance Music pilot on Future Radio will be webcast (and broadcast on 96.9FM locally in Norwich, UK) at 3.00pm UK time on Sunday September 6th (time zone converter here), listen online here. There should be a same day transatlantic friendly repeat plus 'listen again' facility. I will add details of the repeat time when it is confirmed. My thanks go to station manager Tom Buckham's team at Future Radio for once again supporting lean forward radio. Can you imagine BBC Radio 3 backing this?

Photo is (c) On An Overgrown Path 2009. 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 Aug 31, 2009 at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)

Man with Loaded Gun Nearly Shuts Down NH Concert Series

An incident on August 8, 2009, at the Monadnock Music concert series in Peterborough, New Hampshire, has forced organizers to hire security guards for their future concerts. A man identified as William Kostric was seen with a handgun strapped to his thigh and a sign that read, “It is time to silence the belltree of Marxism.” Kostric’s sign was likely referring to “Song and Dance,” a 1976 piece by the Marxist composer, Frederic Rzewski. “Song and Dance” was part of a percussion-oriented concert entitled “On the Beaten Path.”

Originally posted by Randall Scandall from The Cereal List, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 31, 2009 at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)

More things than are dreamt of in Terry Teachout's philosophy - Jazzblog.ca [del.icio.us]

"First of all, we’ve received very little recognition from the artists we are trying to promote. Most never answered our e-mails, we received very few words of encouragement and one even went as far as to tell us that we had no right to take the bio and the pictures from his website..." We’ve also had a ton of problems with record labels... Most of them haven’t answered our e-mails or returned our phone calls, but I was completely stunned when some of them started refusing. We aren’t even allowed to stream songs which are featured on the artists’ MySpace pages! How are we supposed to promote jazz artists and to create a new audience for jazz if people cannot listen to the music?

Originally posted by pbailey68 from paulbailey.us (beta), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 31, 2009 at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)

Bookmarks for August 23rd through August 29th [del.icio.us]

Bookmarks from August 23rd through August 29th:[del.icio.us]

• How To: Find Out How Much Your Insurer Sucks -”When you’re shopping for an insurance company, check the insurer’s complaint record — especially if it’s a small insurer that’s offering a good rate, but you haven’t heard much about its reputation. Saving a few dollars per year in premiums can backfire if the insurer hassles you at claim time.” To access this information, go to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ Consumer Information Source. Type in the name of the company, the state where you live and the type of insurance. (Under “statement type” and “business type,” click on “property/casualty” for home and auto insurance or “life, accident and health.”) The site then provides the insurer’s national complaint statistics.
• The Industrial Jazz Group » Put Another Nickel In -”Donate $50,000, and get a copy of the new CD, the high five, the shout-out, the photo, the bit part, the personal liner note “thank you,” plus my Volvo Station Wagon, a historic vehicle which was used in seven IJG tours on the west coast (and which still displays some of the wear and tear from same).”

• Stew is still stewing over L.A.’s snub of ‘Passing Strange’ — latimes.com -”When were we going through the classic L.A. club grind,” he begins, speaking of his days this decade with the Negro Problem, “at a certain point, we were selling out Spaceland like you’re supposed to do. But when we didn’t get handed the brass ring of the major label deal and we didn’t get handed the brass ring of the hip, indie label deal, it was like a lot of the powers that be were sort of looking at us like . . . ‘what good are you guys?’ “
• School board approves plan to open up schools to outsiders — latimes.com -”The Los Angeles Board of Education voted today to open up 250 schools, including 50 new multimillion-dollar campuses, to outside charter operators and others. The move came after a nearly four-hour debate on a 6-1 vote, with board member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte opposing. Under the proposal by board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, nonprofit charter groups and the mayor’s group that oversees 11 schools could compete for the chance to run these schools. Ultimately, it will be up to Supt. Ramon C. Cortines to select the winning bid for these campuses. Labor unions were especially opposed to the plan, with teachers union head A.J. Duffy saying the district needs to be collaborative if it wants to reform schools.”
• Dream of a Common Language. Sueño de un Idioma Común.: Texas Monthly September 2009 -”In traditional bilingual classes, learning English is the top priority. The ultimate aim is to move kids out of non-English-speaking classrooms as quickly as possible. Students in dual language classes, on the other hand, are encouraged to keep their first language as they learn a second. And Ysleta’s program, called two-way dual language, is even more radical, because kids who speak only English are also encouraged to enroll. Everyone sits in the same classroom. Spanish-speaking kids are expected to help the English speakers in the early grades, which are taught mostly in Spanish. As more and more English is introduced into the classes, the roles are reversed. Even the teachers admit it can look like chaos to an outsider. “Dual language classes are very loud,” said Steven Vizcaino, who was an early student in the program and who graduated from Del Valle High in June. “Everyone is talking to everyone.”
• Part 1: iTunes and the pen | theCLog -”What about all those other authors out there, banging away on their keyboards, giving life to characters, and telling stories that resonate in the lives of their readers? Do they need music to work? Is it simply a background, or does it find a way into their words? It wasn’t really a surprise to find a lot of the writers I spoke with had similar, lyric-less requirements when it comes to their own writing habits.”
• Alexey Steele, Classical Underground impresario — latimes.com – scott timburg on alexey steele’s los angeles classical underground series “Certainly, at the Classical Underground concerts, art and music seem vital indeed. Not only for the audience, but for the players. The August concert included an austere, resonant Bach Cello Suite, a Prokofiev piano sonata rendered with sterling clarity by a pianist raising money for her CD release, and several melodic pieces by lesser-known composers. Afterward, many of the musicians came back and played; the cellist improvised on Bach. (Some nights, these after parties go until dawn.) “I don’t play it! I don’t know notes!” Steele exclaims. “I didn’t get one music lesson in my life! And I need it. I’m proof that people need it. I’m living proof that classical music lives!”

Related posts:

1. Bookmarks for August 9th through August 17th [del.icio.us]
2. Bookmarks for August 17th through August 22nd [del.icio.us]
3. Bookmarks for the week: June 22nd through June 26th [del.icio.us];

Originally posted by admin from paulbailey.us (beta), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 31, 2009 at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)

"Glowing iconography in the mythology." - Tiny Mix Tapes

Tiny Mix Tapes

"Glowing iconography in the mythology." Tiny Mix Tapes Did you start making your own music before playing with Magic Lantern? What sort of stuff did you first start out doing? In a way. ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 31, 2009 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)

60x60 Dance @ Galapagos, NYC (4/7/09) [Gunn/Cox]

Lois
Music: David Ross Gunn
Dance: Ginger Cox



notes:

Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 31, 2009 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)

Poll: Give Us A Kiss (and vote for your favorite)!

Thanks to all our readers who submitted captions to last Friday’s Photo Finish. We’ve narrowed the captions down to five finalists and it’s up to you to choose the winner. Remember, there are 5 free CDs from Innova Recordings on the line. Cast your vote now! Polls will close at 11:59 p.m.

Originally posted by Milton Blabber from The Cereal List, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 31, 2009 at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)

Waterfowl in Art?

1. When is a Duke not a Duke? When he's a duck.
2. Viaduct?
3. Someone at an Italian publisher owes Piero della Francesca an apology.
4. Allusion to Zappa’s “Naval Aviation in Art?”
5. I love typos like this. Call it a failing.
   
   

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Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 31, 2009 at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)

The Percussive Phil Kraus

Here's another favorite percussion album, to go along with the Marimba album I posted a few months ago. This one is more varied, with Phil Kraus playing a variety of instruments - more than a dozen - in solo and...

Originally from WFMU's Beware of the Blog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 31, 2009 at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)

Anton Belov - Live at the Gardner Museum’s Tapestry Room

Baritone Anton Belov and pianist Lydia Brown play two classic works at The Tapestry Room of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Robert Schumann’s Dichterleibe is the composer’s best known song cycle and is performed in its entirely. The duo also performs selections from Songs of Travel by British composer Ralph Vaughn Williams.

This live performance is available from WFMU’s Free Music Archive in 128kbps MP3. You can download many other performances by equally talented classical performers from the museum’s web site.

Download

Originally posted by Marvin from Free Albums Galore, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 31, 2009 at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)

The Dallas Morning News Lawson Taitte... - California Chronicle

The Dallas Morning News Lawson Taitte Column: Classical Music ... California Chronicle Many controversial but undeniably important figures -- as diverse as John Cage, Lou Harrison, Leonard Bernstein, Frederic Rzewski and Philip Glass -- have ...

Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "philip glass" OR "john adams" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 31, 2009 at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)

Music in the Park Series -- St. Lawre... - Twin Cities Planet

Music in the Park Series -- St. Lawrence String Quartet Twin Cities Planet ... Ravel and the Midwest premiere of String Quartet No.2 by Pulitzer-prize winning composer John Adams, written especially for the ensemble. ... and more »

Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "philip glass" OR "john adams" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 31, 2009 at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)

Quickly out of the classical traps - Irish Times

Quickly out of the classical traps Irish Times While at college, Muhly worked part-time with Philip Glass, before taking a more full-time role on graduation as editor, keyboardist and conductor. ... and more »

Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "philip glass" OR "john adams" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 31, 2009 at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)

Goings On About Town Classical Music - New Yorker

Goings On About Town Classical Music New Yorker ... offering a diverting mix of US and European minimalist and avant-garde music—most of it new to New York—by Arvo Pärt, Terry Riley, Krzyztof Penderecki, ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 31, 2009 at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)

Roman Sketches, Op. 7/Piano Sonata

Charles T. Griffes - Roman Sketches, Op. 7/Piano Sonata LP format performed by Leonid Hambro - piano Charles T. Griffes (born September 17, 1884) was only thirty-six when he died, on April 8, 1920, following an attack of influenza that developed into a lung infection. Legend, however, attributes his tragic early death to neglect, want, even poverty but contains, in actuality, only a grain of

Originally from A Closet of Curiosities, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 31, 2009 at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)

Coming up next : 189 : September 4, 2009

We’re back producing another season of radio programs for KALW. The first new program is this Friday, Sept. 4, and it will feature The Minimal Piano: Piano music by David Toub and Ann Southam.

These are solo piano pieces like you’ve never heard before, and I’m really jazzed about being able to present their music.

David Toub’s TEXTBOOK, completed in 1987 but realized in 2006 by Steve Layton from Toub’s MIDI score, reminds you of Philip Glass, but without the romanticism. We’ll hear three sections from this 2 hour piece.

Then there’s Canadian composer Ann Southam’s pieces invoking the sounds rivers and creeks, recently released on Centredisques.

In the coming weeks we’ll also be presenting music freely influenced by Balinese music, primarily by Colin McPhee and Evan Ziporyn, as a backdrop to the Cal Performances premiere of Ziporyn’s A HOUSE IN BALI (see post below) later in the month.

Here’s the 30″ spot announcement for Friday’s program.  The program will be available for streaming from the MFOM website after broadcast. Hope you can catch it.

Originally posted by rchrd from Music From Other Minds, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 31, 2009 at 08:13 AM | Comments (0)

Friends, Colleagues Gather for a Memo... - Washington Post

Washington Post

Friends, Colleagues Gather for a Memorial Concert for Dina Koston ... Washington Post Usually there was a vocal piece or two, a pairing of Ligeti and Boccherini or Wolpe and Telemann. Koston brought in artists from around the world (violinist ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 31, 2009 at 08:13 AM | Comments (0)

Small Talk - WNYC

Small Talk WNYC Also tonight, music of Vivian Fung, Pierre Boulez and Anton Bruckner. View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 31, 2009 at 08:13 AM | Comments (0)

Alan Gilbert readies for New York Phi... - calendarlive.com

Alan Gilbert readies for New York Philharmonic debut calendarlive.com Cumming said Gilbert is making a particularly "bold stroke" by introducing New York to the late György Ligeti's one opera, "Le Grand Macabre," a dark piece ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 31, 2009 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)

August 30, 2009

The Pianist Is Casual in All Things b... - New York Times

New York Times

The Pianist Is Casual in All Things but Music New York Times (As originally announced, the program was also to have included works by Ligeti and Debussy, but these were dropped, apparently because the Highline had to ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 30, 2009 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)

Orpheus Music: The Electronic Music Time Machine - Going Down Permanently

Orpheus Music: The Electronic Music Time Machine, a great blog trying to rescue out of print electronic music is being shut down. Visit now before they do if you'd like Henry, early Moog records, etc.

Orpheus Music: The Electronic Music Time Machine

Originally posted by jeff from new music reblog plus, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 30, 2009 at 09:45 PM | Comments (0)

Finding a different way for the next generation

My two articles about the reincarnation of the Buddhist Lama Yeshe created an unprecedented amount of interest. Lost in Meditation described the background to the identification of the young Spaniard Osel Hita Torres as the reincarnation, and ended on a somewhat equivocal note. Found in Meditation was written a few days later after a reader supplied an update explaining that Osel was studying cinematography at the University of Madrid.

What I thought was an arcane but interesting story suddenly went global in June when the young reincarnation hit the headlines and my two Buddhist stories attracted the biggest ever readership for On An Overgrown Path, with more than ten thousand readers accessing the posts in a single day. Elsewhere big media had sensed a nice negative story, and the Guardian coverage with its punchy soundbites was typical:

'... the boy chosen by the Dalai Lama as a reincarnation of a spiritual leader has caused consternation – and some embarrassment – for Tibetan Buddhists by turning his back on the order that had such high hopes for him. Instead of leading a monastic life, Osel Hita Torres now sports baggy trousers and long hair, and is more likely to quote Jimi Hendrix than Buddha. Yesterday he bemoaned the misery of a youth deprived of television, football and girls.'

for the Guardian: the only problem was it did not reflect the facts. Late in June an article by Justin McElroy in the Canadian McLean's OnCampus magazine put the Guardian's journalism to shame; which, let's face it, is not difficult to do. Here is a key passage from the article:

Osel's position can't be explained in a soundbite. Parts of him have been pulled by the strands of destiny and reality, the past and modernity, for as long as he has lived. Yet another part of him is just another twenty-something, looking for a good job in a bad economy and figuring out what to do with his life. "I'm working on a masters degree in documentaries, afterwards maybe next year I'll do some course on cooking, become a cook, and then maybe I'll start doing something (with the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition), you know, but I'm taking it slow.

s more in an open letter on the FPMT website:

There is no separation between myself and FPMT - we are all working together in so many aspects and terrains. Humanity is our office. Besides, I don’t really qualify very much in Buddhist studies, because I didn’t finish them, so working together is the clue. So I’m trying to find a different way for this future generation. One of the ways is through music, movies and audio-visual techniques. (That is Osel in the header photo) In a movie you can condense so many different stories. You can put in music, you can put in different situations and messages. Even just the sunset can be enough to give you peace to find a moment of meditation in yourself. There are so many different millions of possibilities in movies.

is neither lost nor found in meditation. Rather, like many far older than him, he is still searching. These closing words in my original post proved to be uncannily prescient:

We must respect the privacy of Osel Hita Torres and hope that he finds his own personal path. But as Western interest in Buddhism increases, I can't help thinking there is another fascinating film waiting to be made with the title Lost in Meditation.

t looks as though that film may be made by the young reincarnated lama himself.

Philip Glass, who scored Kundun, Martin Scorcese's classic film about the Dalai Lama, talks about Buddhism here.
Photo credit Matteo Passigato via FPMT. 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 Aug 30, 2009 at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)

Sunday Links

Total Wipeout is currently on the television, so obviously Miss Mussel is not totally ready to let silly season go. Nevertheless, the weather has turned, concert brochures are strewn around the house and it seems the papers are turning their attention back to the proper news. Here’s a few items that have caught MIss Mussel’s eye.

• Sex And The Married Man – no matter what your thoughts are on the matter, this is just plain good writing.
• The Cerealist, a new website that is trying to be classical music’s Onion/Perez Hilton, comes up with their best post yet: The Automated Review Generator. Another in the genre is Jeremy Denk’s Concert Review Mad Lib. All Miss Mussel has to say is: if only it were that easy.
• No more free drinks for Condé Nast staff. Or massages. Or sushi. Guess the New Yorker job isn’t so great after all.
• There was some hoopla when Rufus Wainwright’s opera premiered about whether he did his own orchestration [he did]. Frank J. Oteri at the New Music Box wonders doing-it-yourself even really matters.
• Zing!
• Charlotte Higgins on the modern perils of being an opera singer.

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Originally posted by Miss Mussel from The Omniscient Mussel on Classical Music & Culture, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 30, 2009 at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)

60x60 Dance @ Galapagos, NYC (4/7/09) [Chausseau/Bettman]

James Bond vs the Venominator
Music: Nicolas Chausseau
Dance: Rob Bettman



notes:
Nicolas Chausseau has been interested in jazz improvisation since childhood. Influenced by Jose Evangelistaâs music, he studies at Universite de Montreal with Denis Gougeon. He is interested in the functional relationship of compositional processes to cultures and to zeitgeists. Some of his work for synthesisers and guitar is infected with popular culture memes that can be found, for example, in car or walkman designs, in video games, but also in various genres of pop music, like electroclash, indie rock, rave music and, folk rock, noise and grunge.

Rob Bettmann began dancing at Oberlin College, graduating with his BA in Environmental Studies. He trained on scholarship at the Ailey School and the School of the Washington Ballet, and has performed with Sudden Enlightenment Theater, the Alexandria Ballet, Jane Franklin Dance, and Maida Withers Dance Construction Company. His choreography has been performed in DC, New York, Boston, and North Carolina, and has been supported by grants from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. His MA thesis in Dance is being published by VDG, and will be available in May. He is the editor of the magazine, Bourgeon.
Performed by Robert Bettmann

Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 30, 2009 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)

60x60 Dance @ Galapagos, NYC (4/7/09) [Yarnell/Racho-Jansen]

METRO TRIBE
Music: Carolyn Yarnell
Dance: Krista Racho-Jansen



notes:
Yarnell's music encompasses a broad spectrum of style and mediums, ranging from orchestral works, solo and chamber music for both modern and early instruments, computer music, electronic soundscapes, multi-disciplinary works and improvisatory space music with a metal tinge. Educated at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Yale, she has received fellowships to Aspen, Tanglewood, and a Fulbright to Iceland. Most notable awards include the Rome Prize, Guggenheim and an NEA grant for composition and painting. METRO TRIBE is a brief urban study, layering multiple rhythms and glittering textures into a kaleidoscopic milieu.

Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 30, 2009 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)

Remain in Light, Revisited

The four unfinished outtake bonus tracks on the “DualDisc” reissue (“Fela’s Riff,” “Unison,” “Double Groove” & “Right Start”) are very interesting, ‘raw’ components which relate clearly to various songs on the finished album.

This is about what I was hoping for with these, so I am not ‘disappointed’ that there are not ‘four more’ tracks for an extended Remain in Light.

I’ve had this one around a bit, have listened to the original album (which I originally owned on vinyl back when it was a new release) a number of times. Yes, I took my time getting around to the ‘extras’.

Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 30, 2009 at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)

Album: Prefab Sprout, Let's Change th... - Independent

Album: Prefab Sprout, Let's Change the World with Music, (Kitchenware) Independent The lyrical and lush Let's Change the World with Music (the Sprout's first album for eight years and only their ninth in a career that began in Newcastle ... and more »

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 30, 2009 at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)

"...radically accessible..."

The Kansas City Star previews our minimalism conference. 

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 30, 2009 at 02:10 PM | Comments (0)

Counterpoint is the point of Aimard DVD - Detroit Free Press

Counterpoint is the point of Aimard DVD Detroit Free Press Aimard lends those same qualities to three high-modernist miniatures written in the past decade by 100-year-old Elliott Carter. These works -- "Matribute ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 30, 2009 at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)

Stefon Harris and Blackout - Urbanus ... - Audiophile Audition

Audiophile Audition

Stefon Harris and Blackout - Urbanus - Concord Jazz Audiophile Audition ... music is geared to a contemporary audience who don't find anything odd about listening to Radiohead and Ravel or Sam Rivers and Steve Reich with equal ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 30, 2009 at 05:12 AM | Comments (0)

Conference and concerts focus on mini... - Kansas City Star

Conference and concerts focus on minimalism Kansas City Star The newear contemporary chamber ensemble of Kansas City on Thursday presents an evening of eclectic new music inspired by 1960s minimalism. ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 30, 2009 at 05:12 AM | Comments (0)

Consider the Source Dept

That’s one viewpoint, of course. I’d be still more interested in the opinion of someone who doesn’t claim to be have been born in a different solar system, though.

Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 30, 2009 at 02:10 AM | Comments (0)

August 29, 2009

Prefab Sprout: Let's Change the World... - Times Online

Prefab Sprout: Let's Change the World with Music Times Online To hear mcaloon namecheck Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers of Chic, Pierre Boulez and Irving Berlin on the song I Love Music, and sing “She's richer than ... and more »

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)

Mendelssohn and Handel at the BBC Proms - Times Online

Times Online

Mendelssohn and Handel at the BBC Proms Times Online ... Berg's Chamber Concerto, and a “Proms Intro” at the nearby Royal College of Music, in which Barenboim introduced two pieces by his friend Pierre Boulez. ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)

The artistic influence of the East - The Japan Times

The artistic influence of the East The Japan Times The focus of the exhibition was on the visual arts, but materials on modern poetry and prose and on music and dance were included. If architecture, design ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)

Alan Gilbert readies for New York Phi... - Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

Alan Gilbert readies for New York Philharmonic debut Los Angeles Times The Phil's new music director has family ties to the orchestra and an 'unobtrusive' style. The conductor in Central Park. (Jennifer S. Altman, For the Times ... and more »

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)

The Dallas Morning News Lawson Taitte... - California Chronicle

The Dallas Morning News Lawson Taitte Column: Classical Music ... California Chronicle So far, only snatches of the 2009 winner, Steve Reich's Double Sextet, can be sampled online. Since Reich has generally been one of the most commercially ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 08:13 PM | Comments (0)

He died much too young

When I was about 10 years old, around 1947, I attended a series of music appreciation classes given by Dean Dixon in a private home in Queens, NY. It was a wonderful experience. It was in conjunction with those classes that I probably attended my first live orchestral concert (at Needletrades High School, in NY?) conducted by Mr. Dixon.

The last time I saw him was one summer when he conducted the NY Philharmonic in Central Park.

A wonderful man. Died much too young.

Some comments posted to archived articles need to be shared. This one was added by a reader a couple of days ago to Dean Dixon - I owe him a huge debt.

The photo is, of course, of Dean Dixon and is by Wolfgang Sievers from the National Library of Australia. 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 Aug 29, 2009 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)

How To: Find Out How Much Your Insurer Sucks [del.icio.us]

"When you're shopping for an insurance company, check the insurer's complaint record — especially if it's a small insurer that's offering a good rate, but you haven't heard much about its reputation. Saving a few dollars per year in premiums can backfire if the insurer hassles you at claim time." To access this information, go to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' Consumer Information Source. Type in the name of the company, the state where you live and the type of insurance. (Under "statement type" and "business type," click on "property/casualty" for home and auto insurance or "life, accident and health.") The site then provides the insurer's national complaint statistics.

Originally posted by pbailey68 from paulbailey.us (beta), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)

John Lennon & Yoko Ono, "John & Yoko"

“In my eyes, John Lennon was the most important mediator between popular and serious music of this century.” -- Karlheinz Stockhausen

Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 04:02 PM | Comments (0)

text-to-screech work in progress

towards ARTMUSFAIR/2009, for flute, horn, cello, marimba and 'tape'; this is me working towards the latter, the fixed audio part of the piece. Up to my usual text-to-screech tricks here; this shows some of the tools and methods I use to put things like this together.

(If you go to the original on vimeo you can watch it pretty much full desktop size.)

Originally from Space Age Puppets and Masks, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)

60x60 Dance @ Galapagos, NYC (4/7/09) [Dicke/Reilly]

Ranaat Eek
Music: Ian Dicke
Dance: Evangeline Reilly



notes:
American born composer and performer Ian Dicke creates works textured by overlapping musical cultures. His compositions have received many honors and distinctions including the Jim Highsmith Orchestral Award and a MetLife Creative Connections grant from Meet the Composer. His music has been presented by The Cabrillo Festival Orchestra under the direction of Marin Alsop, Capital M, the 16mm Orchestra, Gamma-UT, and the Midwest Composers Symposium. He is fascinated with the juxtaposition of simple pop tunes with strange timbres and intonations found in Southeast Asian music. A brief homage, Ranaat Eek is named for the high pitched metallophones of Thailand and Cambodia.

Alexis Hosea is originally from the Pacific Northwest, was a dance major at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle and got her B.A. in Theater Arts from University of California Santa Cruz. She most recently has been performing and studying at the Upright Citizen's Brigade here in NYC.
Dancers: Alexis Hosea and Evangeline Riely

Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)

Are You Still Blasting Out Press Releases & Stuffing Envelopes and Wondering Why You are Not Getting Reviewed?

Are You Still Blasting Out Press Releases & Stuffing Envelopes and Wondering Why You are Not Getting Reviewed?

An Interview With Deirdre Breakenridge, author of “PR 2.0” & “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations”

Public Relations Has Changed Forever- Part 1

If you haven’t already heard, Public Relations has changed forever. If you are still trying to get the word out about your music by writing press releases and blasting them out, or by stuffing hundreds of envelopes and mailing them to names on a “media list” I urge you to take a few minutes to read this interview.

It is both an honor and a privilege to have had the opportunity to interview the unstoppable Deirdre Breakenridge who’s books PR 2.0 & “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations,” (co-authored by Brian Solis) have given me chills on many pages. I asked Dierdre to talk to me from the perspective of the music business and she delivered the goods….

Ariel Hyatt: What is PR 2.0 and how is it different from regular PR?

Deirdre Breakenridge: PR 2.0 is a new approach. It’s the true convergence of public relations and the Internet, which creates a new breed of PR/Web marketers. We’re moving away from a broadcast model of pushing messages (top down) out to the market. Today, through PR 2.0, brands are able to use this new and better approach of listening directly to conversations in web communities and then engaging directly in dialogue with influencers/citizen journalists and customers. This is a very effective bottom up strategy, which enables PR professionals to develop customized stories and provide a brand’s public(s) with meaningful and relevant information through conversations. Of course, PR has always been about building relationships with various groups of stakeholders. Through PR 2.0 and social media communications, we are able to connect and build even stronger bonds that lead to long term value for a brand.

AH: Can you explain why writing a press release and blasting it out won’t work in today’s new online world?

DB: In the past, PR people would create a press release for a brand and then distribute the announcement over a wire service or blast it out to a large database of contacts. It’s a “throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks” type of effort. It’s not a targeted approach and, in more cases than not, if the journalist does not have a relationship with you, the release is overlooked or discarded. Press releases do not build relationships they are just tools. And, online, people are looking to connect in their communities with other like-minded people. It’s the people who build relationships and not the tools or technology that we use. If you are only blasting out press releases, then you are missing out on a tremendous opportunity to connect with people directly and to build a strong, loyal following through social media.

There are several common mistakes, as simple as they may seem. They include:

1. Don’t make the media search for you. I’ve noticed that many people doing their own PR programs inadvertently omit contact from important PR and marketing tools. As easy as this may sound, contact information, including an email address, telephone numbers, and even MySpace, Facebook and Twitter handles are excluded from important materials. The most common place that is overlooked is on a news release or in a newsroom (where contact information should be plastered on every page).

2. No additional materials or presence on the web. When someone finds you and makes that initial connection, you need to provide them with more information. For example, when you are at a concert or social gathering you should have a postcard or a flyer about your next event, or even just a business card to hand out. When someone learns about you and then goes on the Web, this could mean not being prepared with a website or a newsroom. You need a place where a person, interested in finding out more about your music, will be able to find a backgrounder on you and your band, information about your music, a concert calendar or samples of your body of work. Once you’ve captured someone’s attention, it’s important not to lose their interest. Having additional information will keep you top of mind.

3. Updating and maintaining your contacts. It’s imperative that when you make a “friend” in a journalist that you make a friend for life. Following up with that person, after initial contact, is important. You need to provide them with helpful information, touch base every so often to see if they need anything, offer relevant resources to build their stories, keep their contact information updated (should they move to another news outlet) and even just call to say, “Thank you for the great review.” I recommend investing in a software platform that enables you to manage your contacts and interact with them regularly and also allows them to access great information easily.

4. Not doing your media or blogger homework. If you are doing PR on your own, it’s critical that you take the time to research your influencer (whether it’s a journalist or a blogger), see what topics this person finds interesting, review any recent conversations he/she is having in social communities and get a feel for his/her personality before you connect. To avoid just jumping into a conversation too quickly or pitching inappropriately, you can set up searches using Google Alerts, search.twitter.com, BackType and Collecta. These searches will allow you to monitor the conversations and to listen carefully. You can also check out your influencer’s blogs for recent posts or and to review community member comments. For a minimal time investment, you will be able to offer meaningful information, build a better relationship and be viewed as a valuable resource by your influencer.

AH: I’m in a new band just starting out, and I have a Myspace, a Facebook, a Facebook fan page, and a Twitter account. How do I use these effectively from a PR standpoint?

DB: Using social networks are great so that you can listen to conversations and be there to share information that is valuable to groups of people that you want to become a part of your community. MySpace, Facebook and Twitter are good networks to keep fans in the loop of your concerts, new music, activities, and to give them a better picture of you and your personality. This allows your fans to connect with your personal brand. These networks are also very valuable because you have the ability to watch what not only your fans are doing, but what their friends are doing and saying as well, and how they interact with each other. This is the best form of research. It will tell you what kind of music they like, what events they prefer and how they want you to communicate with them.

As you interact and share your music, you then have the opportunity to connect and drive people back to your own website to become an active part of your music community. On your own site, they can engage more and become loyal fans that purchase and recommend your music. You’ve taken a new one-on-one approach, which through PR 2.0 turns into one-to-many communication on your behalf. Your fans are your greatest brand ambassadors and as they talk about you to their many friends, your brand and music becomes viral in the social media landscape.

AH: Artists call Cyber PR (My Music Digital PR Firm) all of the time completely overwhelmed by social media. They do not want to do their own and they want other people to manage their social media prescence for them. Is this a good idea?

Social media can definitely be overwhelming, but I’m not a big fan of having other people manage your social media presence. I believe that you have to be completely transparent in web communities, and, therefore, when you are blogging, posting comments and sharing information, it’s really you. Fans want to connect with musicians, not their PR people or social media managers. However, you can get some help from your publicist who can manage and post content on your fan pages, monitor conversations and suggest ways in which you can engage better with your fans, and most of all find more great connections for you. However, when it comes to the conversations with people, you really have to do this yourself. The more time you put into a relationship with your fans, the more you will get out of it. Then, you will see your fan base grow at rates that can’t be achieved traditionally.

AH: Are there any part of social media you think can be effectively outsourced?

You can outsource the monitoring of the conversations and also you can get assistance with building social tools for PR campaigns that build and grow your community. For example, Social Media Releases (SMR) are great for interactive, collaborative and sharing of stories about you’re music and concerts. The SMR template allows you to incorporate video, mp3, images, links to other resources, bookmarking and a number of social network sharing tools. A publicist should be able to help you to organize the material, get the news part of the SMR into an easy and digestible format, and work with you to post the release for your music community to share. I’ve written a couple of blog posts on the traditional news release vs. the SMR and the results of the SMR, which can be very effective.


AH: Do you think that a band or a music business brand has any chance of building an audience without using social media?

I do believe that a music business brand or a band will still use traditional channels to build awareness and for credible third party endorsements. However, if the music business or band chooses not participate in social media, it is missing out on a tremendous opportunity to connect with consumers, media, bloggers, and other interested parties in social networks. You can use social media to quickly showcase talent whether it’s through sharing video clips or podcasts. Social media expands a business’ reach to people who have the potential to become loyal enthusiasts and want to learn more about an artist’s music or business offering. I use the recent example of Dave Carroll and his video, United Breaks Guitars. Dave has now propelled his reputation and his band’s music to a worldwide stage. His YouTube video shared a situation that occurred when he and his band were on a trip from Nebraska to Chicago. The enthusiasm and passion that the video ignited simply would not have happened through traditional media, or it would have taken a lot longer.


About Deirdre K. Breakenridge
Deirdre K. Breakenridge is President, Executive Director of Communications at PFS Marketwyse. A veteran in the PR industry, Deirdre leads a creative team of PR and marketing executives strategizing to gain brand awareness for their clients through creative and strategic public relations campaigns. She counsels senior level executives at companies including Hershey’s, Infineum, JVC, Kraft, Michael C. Fina, and Secure Horizons.

Deirdre is an adjunct professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey where she teaches courses on Public Relations and Interactive Marketing for the Global Business Management program. She recently finished her fourth Financial Times business book, “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations,” co-authored by Brian Solis. She has also authored: “PR 2.0, New Media, New Tools, New Audiences,” “The New PR Toolkit” and “Cyberbranding: Brand Building in the Digital Economy.”
Deirdre speaks publicly on the topics of PR, social media communications and brand building and is a contributing editor of TechConnect, PRSA’s Technology Newsletter and also blogs about PR 2.0 Strategies at www.deirdrebreakenridge.com


Stay tuned for Part 2 Next Week…. Where Dierdre will talk about the key difference between doing PR DIY style now and five years ago, and what she would do if she only had $500 to spend on a digital PR campaign.

Originally posted by Ariel Hyatt from Music Think Tank (primary) RSS, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)

El Heath - Reflecting (Ambient and Loop Tracks, Autumn 2006)

If nothing else, Reflecting allows me to hear what a Ondes Martenot sounds like. The Ondes Martenot is one of the earliest forms of electronic instruments, having a sound quite similar to the theremin. El Heath aka Eric Heath uses this rather ghostly sounding instrument to good effect on his free online album of ambient electronic music from Phantom Channel. While decidedly ambient, it does have a rather cinematic feel and may sound to some like new age. Not the commercial new age crap passed off by the corporate music structures but New Age as in spiritually and intellectually uplifting. Of the five tracks, I especially like the somewhat spacey “Dragons Chasing Their Tails” and the lazily rhythmic “Macau”.

The album is available in 256kbps MP3.

Download

Originally posted by Marvin from Free Albums Galore, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)

Special Quartet - Namouche

Special Quartet from is well versed in the modern jazz of Coltrane, Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, So much so that you will swear these ten tracks of sophisticated sounds came straight off an old 60s vinyl. Yet Namouche is a new album that delivers mellow urban jazz custom made for a relaxing evening. The instrumentalists all play with expertise and a respectful reverence to this classic jazz sound. Highly recommended to all jazz fans.

The album is available as a free download from Jamendo in VBR MP3 format. If you enjoy the music, support the band by purchasing the better sound quality CD.

Download

Originally posted by Marvin from Free Albums Galore, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)

Can musicians and computers be like real chamber music partners?

I find the idea of treating a computer like an equal chamber music partner tremendously fascinating. What do you think, how homogeneous will the interaction between computer and human in music-making become? Can performing with a computer create a better feeling than with a real chamber music partner?

I tried to throw a first glance at this question from the perspective of a performer in the latest episode of my podcast. The episode is about Hans Tutschku's Zellen-Linien, a piece for piano and live-electronics that I have performed a few times over the last year.

I am looking forward to your thoughts!
- seda

Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)

Music at Night

Do we listen to music differently at night? What makes music that conveys a sense of the night "night-like?" Is the Satie Nocturne No. 4 less night-like than Bartok's many examples of nihg msuic? What makes Crumb's night music evoke a sense of night. I have been working on a couple of pieces ostensibly "about" the night. I started after my ten year old daughter got a radio with an ipod station for her birthday. I assembled a series of playlists for her to listen to at night when she is going to sleep. I hoped to introduce her to various music I love. Some of it purports to be about the night. Some is just rather quit music that I ended up putting on, but may not be particularly nocturnal. I put several pieces by Lou harrison, the McPhee Nocturne, Satie and Mompou Nocturnes, a piece by Leo Brower, a bit of the Musica callada and even a bit of Norgard.

What makes music evoke the night? What is some night music you love?

Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)

In classical music, Berlin Philharmonic returns to Bay Area for ... - San Jose Mercury News

In classical music, Berlin Philharmonic returns to Bay Area for ... San Jose Mercury News We keep hearing that classical music is in trouble. It's too expensive. Its audiences are too old. The lousy economy is putting the nail in the coffin. ... Fall Arts: Famed conductor Simon Rattle and Berlin Philharmonic ...Inside Bay Area all 7 news articles »

Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "philip glass" OR "john adams" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)

The Contemporary Classical Music Comm... - Sequenza21

The Contemporary Classical Music Community Sequenza21 This entry was posted on Saturday, August 22nd, 2009 at 9:00 pm and is filed under Chamber Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals. ... and more »

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)

The Industrial Jazz Group » Put Another Nickel In [del.icio.us]

"Donate $50,000, and get a copy of the new CD, the high five, the shout-out, the photo, the bit part, the personal liner note “thank you,” plus my Volvo Station Wagon, a historic vehicle which was used in seven IJG tours on the west coast (and which still displays some of the wear and tear from same)."

Originally posted by pbailey68 from paulbailey.us (beta), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)

The Last Melodica Reminder

This is one last reminder to send in your scores (PDF format, to djwolf -AT- snafu -DOT- de) for the first international online anthology of new music for melodica solo or ensemble.  This is shaping up to be a remarkable collection, to say the least.

[Addendum: If you're thinking of making a late entry, here's one idea I had, complete with title, but couldn't quite make work and you are free to use it: HAND TO MOUTH, for one melodica, two players, one of whom is assigned to the keyboard while the other manages the mouthpipe, allowing for some rhythmically complex cross-articulations. ]

Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)

The gold standard of TV arts programming

'The traditionalists won't like it, but Strictly [Come Dancing] is the new gold standard of what makes a very, very successful arts programme on mainstream TV'.

nstitues a successful arts programme on TV. Christopher Nupen's 1967 film Jacqueline du Pré supplies the image. Will Gompertz's January 2008 Guardian article supplies the quote. Yesterday BBC News appointed Will Gompertz to the newly-created role of Arts Editor. Read about Christopher Nupen's film in The Innocent Ear.

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 Aug 29, 2009 at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)

In the can

Above, the Double Sextet recording gang.

After two days and some 13 hours of recording session time, we’ve put down all of the tracks for Steve Reich’s Double Sextet, to be released on Nonesuch Records sometime in the hopefully-not-too-distant-future.

These were complicated sessions for 8bb as well as for the booth team, made up of Judy Sherman (superstar hard-ass producer), Steve Reich (superstar hard-ass composer) and Bill Maylone (engineer and all-around nice bloke). Ideally we would have recorded the 2nd Sextet part over the course of a day, had a couple of weeks break, during which time Judy could put together a fully-edited 2nd Sextet recording, then record the 1st Sextet part over the course of another day. Instead we had to jump from one sextet to the other (Judy: “Ok, time to transform yourselves into the 1st Sextet again!”), which meant in practice that we would lay down a mostly-correct 2nd Sextet then play along with our flawed recording.

This was hardest on the Kap and the Duv, our capable “back row” of piano and percussion, who both had to pay keen attention to as well as ignore their own pre-recorded selves. Oh, and they had to play some bloody hard shit.

After having tackled the first two movements yesterday, our job today was to do battle with the final movement. The session progressed smoothly until we reached the final section of the piece, the moment where Steve gave full voice to his latent Indie Rock side in a full-tilt, headlong, mixed-meter rocking ending. The Kap, wanting to find the right groove for this funky finale, had plans for us to record it without a click track. We had one attempt at recording both sextet parts without click (which ended up a few metronome notches slower than the tempo marking), then one attempt with click, and finally compared the two in the booth. There were creative disagreements about the finished product, but we deferred to Steve and Judy who strongly preferred the version with click.

Even with the click, this most complicated section of the piece gave us quite a lot of trouble, as the both sextets spend the final 100 bars hocketing (trading off between the two sextet parts) in a quite intricate and unforgiving way. Difficult, and on such occasions one has to give over all responsibility to the producer. We are but drooling infants and Judy is our mother, giving us the tough love and guidance to be able to survive; we see everything “through her eyes,” and rely on her to know whether we are doing the right thing. Given the extent of our experience with and trust in her, Judy was the perfect person for this role.

Still, I have uncertainties: Did we get good, in-tune takes for all of the chords at the beginning of the piece? Was the quartet really together for all of the attacks at the end of the first movement? Did the slow movement really sound so good that we plowed through it in just over an hour? Did I ever give in to my need-to-play-louder side, and play in a forceful, ugly way?

This is the final horror of recordings. Our aim is for a perfection that is impossible to achieve. We are never content, never satisfied; anything that might seem “musical” in performance can tend to sound unacceptably rough-and-ready on recording, so we aim for pristine but instead get soulless.

So we had to constantly remind ourselves, in our preparations and during the recording, to give as much energy as if we were in performance. As if every take was occurring not in a studio at WFMT but onstage in Carnegie Hall. This is especially hard in music like Steve’s, in which the focus can too easily be on perfecting the “machine”-like pulsation, leading to a very mechanical-sounding finished product (this is what the Kap was passionately trying to avoid in wanting to ditch the click track).

Luckily we had Judy,  a producer that we trust implicitly. She comes in very handy with this problem: we focus on creating a “performance”-like energy rather than obsessing about the perfection of the finished product, and Judy takes on the role of our anal-retentive ears. The only problem? A “performance”-like energy maintained over two days of recording can be bloody, bloody exhausting. The only solution? Hopleaf.

I was going to post videos from today’s session, but I stupidly left my video camera recharger at the studio, so that will have to wait. In the meantime, you can find the videos I posted to Twitter here. (DJA, there’s an answer to your question in the videos about the “pods”. We were separated somewhat, but there was still a very small amount of bleed into each other’s microphones. We were only close-miked, and there were no “room” mikes.)

Below, the booth gang:

Below, our quartet setup (notice the look of hate between the Phot and the Mac):

The Alb at his most non-political:

Thanks again to the wonderful folks at WFMT!!

Our two days in the studio coincided with two horrific days of rainy, is-it-bloody-winter-already cold weather. But as we left the studio the sun was out, and the light was marvelous. The sort of light that somehow feels very, very CHICAGO. Below, looking north up Clark street – notice the wonderful Swedish flag-painted water tower:

Originally posted by Tim from thirteen ways, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)

Ojai reviews

Our fabulous webmaster Dave Belden has finished posting all of the reviews from the Ojai Festival on our Press page. Check them out!

Originally posted by Tim from thirteen ways, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)

Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain: Wuthering Heights Cover

It’s the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain with a delightful cover of Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush. They sang this at their debut Proms performance on 18th August and had 6,000 people eating out the palm of their hand(s). It was one of the best concerts Miss Mussel has been to in quite some time mostly because it was unagendaed, what-you-see-is-what-you-get fun.

If you’re like Miss Mussel and are crippled by an appalling knowledge of pop music here is the 1978 original.

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Originally posted by Miss Mussel from The Omniscient Mussel on Classical Music & Culture, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 02:22 AM | Comments (0)

November Already

Part 1 1:04:06
Part 2 1:09:11
Part 3 1:07:48
Part 4 36:56

Our guide there fidgeted about as if he had swallowed a spring mattress. He was full of animation - full of impatience. He said:

"Come wis me, genteelmen! - come! I show you ze letter writing by Christopher Colombo! - write it himself! - write it wis his own hand! - come!"

He took us to the municipal palace. After much impressive fumbling of keys and opening of locks, the stained and aged document was spread before us. The guide's eyes sparkled. He danced about us and tapped the parchment with his finger:

"What I tell you, genteelmen! Is it not so? See! handwriting Christopher Colombo!--write it himself!"

We looked indifferent - unconcerned. The doctor examined the document very deliberately, during a painful pause. - Then he said, without any show of interest:

"Ah - Ferguson - what - what did you say was the name of the party who wrote this?"

"Christopher Colombo! ze great Christopher Colombo!"

Another deliberate examination.

"Ah - did he write it himself; or - or how?"

"He write it himself! - Christopher Colombo! He's own hand-writing, write by himself!"

Then the doctor laid the document down and said:

"Why, I have seen boys in America only fourteen years old that could write better than that." 

"But zis is ze great Christo- "

"I don't care who it is! It's the worst writing I ever saw. Now you musn't think you can impose on us because we are strangers. We are not fools, by a good deal. If you have got any specimens of penmanship of real merit, trot them out! - and if you haven't, drive on!"

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 29, 2009 at 02:10 AM | Comments (0)

August 28, 2009

Texas Dance Theatre Announces 2009-10... - KERA

Texas Dance Theatre Announces 2009-10 Season KERA The program also will feature Eight Lines, a world premiere by Wil McKnight, Artistic Director of TDT, set to a Howie B remix of the Steve Reich music; ... and more »

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)

Columbia University

Columbia University has accepted me into the Postbaccalaureate program in music this fall. Studies will include classes in contemporary counterpoint and an advanced composition class taught by Tristan Murail. This will be an exciting opportunity to meet other composers, grow artistically and in technique, and perhaps have some performances. Regardless of what is in store, I will be taking classes with a true innovator of the last decade and I am thrilled at such an opportunity.

In other news, I have received word that the recording of Cataclysm was mailed today, and I’ll have it posted in the music section as soon as I get it. It will be entered into more calls and contests this fall, so future performances should line up soon.

The toy piano and percussion ensemble piece has been completed and now is undergoing final edits and type setting. A few people have already expressed interest in looking at the score and I truly hope a performance can be put together. This piece was one of the most intense writing experiences I’ve had in a long while due to how much melodic editing and form adaptation has taken place. Now I feel it is in a place where a final copy of the score can be made.

Most recently, I’ve been asked to score a short animation film to be placed in a film festival by Cornish University animation student, Scott Garner. The deadline is October 15 and I’ll keep posting on the status of the festival.

Moving to New York has been stressful and time consuming, which has taken time away from my posting and composing, so thanks to all of you that stay interested and check this site. More posts and results to come and since I have a job again, I can go to concerts and post about those too!

Originally posted by admin from Ryan Manchester, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)

Melodic sell

From 1956, Ernie Kovacs shows how to make a singing commercial.

Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 08:13 PM | Comments (0)

Music matters: Fifty years later Davi... - Edinburgh Evening News

Music matters: Fifty years later Davis is still Miles ahead of the ... Edinburgh Evening News "Notably including the key figures of early American minimalism: the composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Steve Reich," says Williams. ... and more »

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)

Classical music: Zilberstein, Kim, Si... - Providence Journal

Providence Journal

Classical music: Zilberstein, Kim, Siegel and Degrugillier, just ... Providence Journal ... the Wheeler School grad who has gone on to a successful composing career in New York. Music by Philip Glass and Steve Reich round out the program.

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)

Os Mutantes revived, along with the s... - OregonLive.com

Os Mutantes revived, along with the sounds of Tropicalia OregonLive.com Under the tutelage of Brazilian music greats Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, with production by composer Rogerio Duprat, they combined traditional ... and more »

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)

Urban Hiking Volume II

The first part of this hike was ruined by having to be somewhere at a certain time but over all it was another great use of what is surely one of the few remaining summer days. Over the last couple of days, it’s turned from full on summer to that awkward season where you feel obliged to bring a jacket knowing full well that you will only need it for the 15 minutes spend waiting for the bus home after the concert.

This hike went from Highbury to Piccadilly Circus via Upper Street Islington, through the jewelery district and, after a westerly jaunt on Fleet and Aldwych Streets, Covent Garden and Leicester Square. Unfortunately, iPhone batteries are total crap, so the camera ran out of gas in Covent Garden.

Click on any image to enlarge or to activate the slide show.

Share This Post:

Originally posted by Miss Mussel from The Omniscient Mussel on Classical Music & Culture, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)

60x60 Dance @ Jan Hus, NYC (8/26/07) [Newby/Barnhill]

One Minute Drama
Music: David Newby
Dance: Hettie Barnhill



notes:
A self-taught musician who got his first guitar at age 14. Prompted by a close friend two years ago to venture into home studio recording and has since composed over 500 pieces of varying genres. A musical contributor and forum moderator at naughtyaudio.com, and member with Vox Novus. Due to increased availability of recording software and engineering, Newby is at last pursuing his life-long passion to produce his own synthesized music. One Minute Drama is but one short example.

Hettie Barnhill is a graduate of Columbia College Chicago and the Artistic Director of The Just Movement Collective. Choreography Credits; International Wow Theater, Solar one and The Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festivals, MTV, The Ailey School and Dance Chicago, She was awarded the Young Artist Scholarship (American Dance Festival) & The Wiesman Grant for her Choreographic piece ÎHomegrownâ. Theater Credits; La Cage Aux Folles, My Fair Lady, Aida, Guys&Dolls, Meet me in St. Louis, Vagina Monologues, and Second City Chicago, Other Credits; Black Label Movement in Minnesota MN, Arroja in Lisbon Portugal, The Kennedy Center in Washington DC and Amici in Roma Italy. This Summer she excited to be choreographing for the United Nation's Human Rights "No Sweat Shop Tour", I'm truly grateful for this opportunity. Thank you to all! Title: Love Not Surely

Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)

The art of improvisation

Joglaresa perform most of the songs here with only one pitched instrument (vielle of oud) and add only voices or percussion. With this instrumentation, we not only get as close as possible to the descriptions of professional slave-girl performers, but also achieve the improvisational spontaneity so crucial to music of this period. Music performed with large ensembles of pitched instruments requires an 'arrangement' that Joglaresa feels contradicts all that we know about the improvisational spirit of medieval and traditional music.

irects medieval band Joglaresa and is professor of medieval song at Trinity College London, issues a challenge to string-centric early music ensembles in the sleeve notes of her new CD.

Dreams of Andalusia is a programme of the Jewish, Arabic and Christian songs that were performed by the professional singinging girls known as joglaresas or qaynay in Muslim Spain between the 8th and 15th centuries. Accompanying the voices of Belinda Sykes and Naziha Azzouz are oud, tar, vielle, bendir, Andalusian tar, darabuka, shawm and bagpipes. Joglaresa may be musicological purists, but they also describe themselves as 'sounding more like a street carnival band than a solemn early music group' and Dreams of Andalusia explains why. Early music with a strong percussive content always sounds well on disc, and this excellent recording, which was made in the splendid acoustics of East Woodhay Church, Berkshire, is no exception. There are MP3 samples here.

But there is one mystery: the otherwise very informative sleeve notes do not explain why the recording was made in January 2000 but has only just been released on the independent Metronome label, or why it is missing from the label's website. I suppose with music that old another nine years doesn't make much difference. So both sides of the debate get an airing, here is a disc of arrangements of music from Arab-Andalusia, which I have to admit to also enjoying greatly.

Dreams of Andalusia was bought from Prelude Records in Norwich. I notice that Joglaresa are performing at the ever-innovative venue of the King of Hearts in Norwich on 18th December. 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 Aug 28, 2009 at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)

The Futurists' assault on our lugholes - Spiked

The Futurists' assault on our lugholes Spiked While they are very different, Virginia Woolf, Peter Andre, Tracey Emin, Sylvia Plath, Stockhausen, John Barnes rapping and Katie Price's 'autobiographies' ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)

Friday Photo Finish: Give Us a Kiss

A picture may be worth a thousand words but often 990 of them aren’t quite the right ones. So each and every Friday we’re giving you a chance to set the story straight with our weekly caption contest. You submit your captions and over the weekend The Cereal List aggregate will convene a panel to narrow the field down to small set of finalists. The following Monday we’ll post the finalists and allow readers to select the winner.

This week’s prize for winning: Not one, not two, but FIVE Innova CDs!

Submit your captions in our comments section!

Editor’s Note: The Cereal List also encourages Photoshop modifications and has included a link to a larger version of the photo for such purposes. There are two ways to submit your Photoshopped images to us: 1) upload them to your Flickr account and tag them thecereallist or 2) email them to us at tips@thecereallist.com.

**Caption comments can be submitted without using real names but must include a working email address (which will not be published).

Originally posted by Miss Information from The Cereal List, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)

The First International Sex Opera Band - Anita (MP3s)

Supposedly only sold through sex shops in Amsterdam during a short time at the end of the 60s, this is a truly bizarre psychedelic freak-out of an album. There isn't too much information about it out on the net, but...

Originally from WFMU's Beware of the Blog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)

On CD: Critical "Mass"

A new "Mass," released this week. One of the highlights of Marin Alsop's tenure at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the exuberant performances of Bernstein's "Mass" that played in Baltimore, New York and Washington in the fall of 2008, was issued this week on a Naxos CD. I have already written about Mass so copiously that I've actually begun to spoil this piece for myself, and I have no need to weigh in yet again on its merits or failings, or on my own personal love of it. Suffice it to say that in my view "Mass: A Theater Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers" is a colorful relic of its time, energetic, sloppy, full of melody, at times simplistic, at times naive, and worth embracing. It's also moving into the canon after years of being more or less sidelined. Alsop's is the fourth complete recording of the work: the

Originally from The Classical Beat – Classical Music Forum – washingtonpost.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)

So How Do You Know When A Piece 'Works'?

Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)

ImprovFriday, August 27, 2009

Not much to add for this update.
1. If you don't want anyone to mix or use your work in collaboration, put (NMC) at the end of your work description. ie, impro8.89 - This is a piece I made in honor of Sasquatch (NMC).

2. I'm not re-tweeting or re-posting everyone's stuff since I'm fairly convinced I'll be viewed as spamming. But hey, its a good thing since it just means our little group has more participants than ever before. We have around 10-12, not bad! That makes for some nice listening and for a pretty large line up for the impromptu event and for the post-event listing at my blog.

See you tomorrow! Oh and a tiny Baldwin Acrosonic is being shipped to my apt. tomorrow. I will try to get pics since, as you probably know, I don't have anything to record it with yet! ;)

Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)

The Big Bloop - A Sound Without Explanation from a Being of the Beyond

The Big Bloop

That's the big bloop, sped up 16 times. In 1997, Bloop was detected by U.S. Navy "spy" sensors 3,000 miles apart that had been put there to detect the movement of Soviet submarines, the magazine reports. The frequency of the sound meant it had to be much louder than any recognised animal noise, including that produced by the largest whales.

Squid don't have the biological stuff necessary to produce sounds like this (air sacs). Yet scientists are convinced it is animal in origins.

Theories? Cthulhu?

Bloopwatch.org
Tuning into a deep sea monster

Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)

So Morton Feldman's "Piano and String Quartet" (1985)?

Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)

EIF: Scottish Chamber Orchestra Review - EdinburghGuide.com

EIF: Scottish Chamber Orchestra Review EdinburghGuide.com Battistelli is an Italian composer of contemporary classical music born in 1953 who specialises in works linked to the theatre. This is from Macbeth, ... and more »

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)

Ligeti's riot through history - guardian.co.uk

guardian.co.uk

Ligeti's riot through history guardian.co.uk Ligeti's own music put him on a different course to these two masters of avant-garde music. His central problem with both was their use of pre-compositional ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)

A lunch to remember - St. Joseph News-Press

A lunch to remember St. Joseph News-Press May is a pianist with a preference for contemporary classical music and has premiered more than 25 new works. May holds degrees from the Eastman School of ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)

BBC Proms - a job for life

Let us hope that Roger Wright, director of the BBC Proms, makes a success of programming the annual concert series. Because a BBC Freedom of Information response has revealed that he could be doing the job until he retires in 2021. As part of my research for What price the BBC Proms? I filed an FOI question about the terms of tenure of the director of BBC Proms. Here is the BBC's reply:

As confirmed in our previous response (RFI20091032), Roger Wright is contracted to undertake the combined role of 'Controller, R3 & Director BBC Proms'; therefore, each role is not treated separately in terms of length of the contract/conditions of service. I can conform that Roger Wright is currently on a permanent standard Senior Manager contract with the BBC in the above role; there is no fixed tenure associated with this role.

'Controller, R3 & Director BBC Proms', which has a 'permanent standard Senior Manager contract' controls:

1. An annual Proms budget of £.8.8 million. Presumably the largest budget for a classical music festival in the world.

2. An annual budget of £36.6 million for BBC Radio 3. Presumably the largest budget for a classical music broadcaster in the world.

3. An annual new music commissioning budget of £350,000, which is included in 2. above. Presumably the largest classical music commissioning budget in the world.

4. The New Generation Artist scheme, budget unknown, with its associated recording contracts. The BBC says 'the scheme has already acquired the reputation of being a world-leading scheme for young artists.'

Is it appropriate for one individual, no matter how talented he or she is, to exercise this degree of control over classical music? If so, are there sufficient checks, balances and visibility in place for the role?

Photo of Henry Wood conducting a 1922 Promenade Concert was used in my post Before there were mobile phones. 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. V1.1 28/08.

Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 11:24 AM | Comments (0)

“Cool Presentation”: Phil Kline's Daze DVD

Phil Kline’s Around the World in a Daze DVD has not only been praised for its adventurous music, but some have also enjoyed the custom packaging that contains the 2 DVDs as well. At Sequenza21, Jerry Bowles writes, “Our always adventuresome friends at Starkland have outdone themselves this time,” adding that “Daze is an amazing example of cool presentation.”


The first DVD contains Phil’s 65-minute Daze studio composition (commissioned by Starkland). The second DVD offers 44 minutes of Extras, including: Phil’s music video MEDITATION (run as fast as you can), a 34-minute interview (conducted by John Schaefer in Kline’s home studio), and a montage of related production photos, including studio shots where most of the music was performed, created, and mixed. The special packaging also holds a 24-page booklet.

Read more about this Phil Kline DVD.

_______________________________

Originally from Starkland, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 08:13 AM | Comments (0)

Classical Music/Opera Listings - New York Times

Classical Music/Opera Listings New York Times 1, Chopin's “Polonaise Fantasie” (Op. 61), Liszt's “Spanish Rhapsody” and selections from Ligeti's Études and Debussy's “Images.” At 8 pm, Highline Ballroom ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 05:13 AM | Comments (0)

Nonesuch recording

Today we had a sometimes rip-roaring-ly productive, sometimes stressful 9-hour recording session at in the wonderful recording studio at Chicago home of classical music radio, WFMT. (Wonderful? Clear, easy-to-hear, not-too-dry, nice piano.) We were laying down both sextet parts of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Steve Reich Double Sextet.

Some technical notes: After much too-ing and fro-ing via email, it was decided that we would work through the piece in 100-150 measure segments, recording the Sextet 2 part first (with piano and percussion listening to a click-track) then record Sextet 1 over the “best recording” of Sextet 2 (with everyone listening to this “best recording”). One small detail changed in the session today. After just one attempt at recording the Sextet 1 part with our pre-recorded selves piped into our ears, the “quartet” (flute, clarinet, violin, cello) decided to abandon the headphones and go it alone, relying for tuning purposes solely on live piano and percussion and our own stability of intonation (gulp!). The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, so we shall see if this turns out to be a good move!

Recording “momentum” is an elusive beast. After dragging our way through the first 150 measures (The Kap: “Probably the toughest part of the piece”), we were suddenly on a winning streak, gaining more and more momentum (200 measures done! Another 100! Hooray!). When you have that impetus, when everything seems so “in the pocket,” jokes are entertaining (not dark and tinged with bitterness) and people are good humored. A momentum-stopper can come from nowhere, but it always comes where you least expect it. This first movement is all piano and percussion madness, and, as the Kap said later, “That was actually much harder than I thought it would be.” They were doing amazing work, but the Kap decided to shift the tempo up very slightly for the last third of the first movement, and this eventually sent the recording booth into a technical tail-spin, and suddenly it was taking 5 minutes to begin a take in an unusual place. Now we’d suddenly lost momentum and were in the deep quicksand of recording limbo, where the adage “time is money” brought a heightened sense of stress to the proceedings, and jokes weren’t quite so good-natured and people easy-going.

We strained to the end of movement one, and then, after a quick break decided to begin tackling the slow movement (Nick: “Guess we have to play in tune now…”). Steve Reich dropped something of a musical bombshell from (one that we had mostly anticipated): “You’re playing it very romantically, which is totally justified given what I’ve written, but I’d really like it a different way.” He wanted significantly less vibrato, and for the middle-of-the-phrase eighth notes to more obnoxiously “stick out.” This needed a couple of takes to “bed down,” but with some very positive vibes coming from the booth, we made it over that hurdle and then appeared to be on a roll again. Very odd. Suddenly we were plowing through the slow movement, jokes were coming left and right, people were laughing again, and Judy even gave us a very nice compliment (during the “still center” of the movement: “That was really Vox Humana you guys”).

It was a long day, but we ended it on a high note. Just one more day to lay down the final movement.

After discovering that my swanky, far-too-hip-for-my-lame-ass iPhone could post video directly to Twitter, I was tweeting clips all day today, until I realized I had been shooting everything sideways… So join our Twitter feed for some really awesome, 90-degree-wrong bits from our session. I’ll be trying to do a better job tomorrow.

Originally posted by Tim from thirteen ways, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 05:12 AM | Comments (0)

Just Jack the lad - Independent

Just Jack the lad Independent The son of an architect and a lecturer, he immersed himself in urban sounds that inspired his own music. Working at a TV company after university, ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 02:11 AM | Comments (0)

Korngold: Die Tote Stadt; Verdi: Otel... - guardian.co.uk

Korngold: Die Tote Stadt; Verdi: Otello; Tchaikovsky: Eugene ... guardian.co.uk The Boulez Wozzeck is patchy, but as Boulez's first-ever recording of an opera (in 1966), it has its own special niche. Though the sound has scrubbed up ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 02:11 AM | Comments (0)

Great Moments in Music History

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 28, 2009 at 02:10 AM | Comments (0)

August 27, 2009

Ligeti's riot through history - guardian.co.uk

guardian.co.uk

Ligeti's riot through history guardian.co.uk Ligeti's own music put him on a different course to these two masters of avant-garde music. His central problem with both was their use of pre-compositional ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)

Language Is a Virus

I swear, this was going to be the week I finally got back on a regular blogging schedule, so of course, this would have to be the week I was whacked by a norovirus, which has made me useless for the past few days. (Here's a great, gross norovirus fun fact for your inner 12-year-old boy:

Transmission is predominantly faecal-oral but may be airborne due to aerosolisation of vomitus

Ewwww. I spent a sleepless hour or two imagining ethereally audience-friendly Eric-Whitacre-esque five-part choral settings of that sentence, and the imaginary reaction of the equally imaginary bourgeois audience cheered me up.)

Anyway, one reason for the recent radio silence—though late-summer indolence has played a significant part, I'm not gonna lie—was in order to get a jump-start on a project which, now that all the glyphs have their requisite tittles, is no longer subject to my usual precipitately-announced-project jinx: a book on the cultural history of the opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony for Alfred A. Knopf (their logo is a dog! Moe approves). Is there anything at all more to be said about such an ubiquitous warhorse? Well, yeah, as it turns out—and a lot of what already has been said is long-lost fun, to say the least. Here's a bit from today's efforts:

Press corps parrot abducted

NICOSIA, Cyprus—A British journalist offered a $100 reward Wednesday for the safe return of Coco, the whistling parrot of the foreign press corps who was abducted by gunmen from a west Beirut hotel in last week's fighting.

The cash reward was made in messages sent by Coco's owner to west Beirut newspapers.

Coco, who for 10 years has lived at the Commodore hotel frequented by foreign journalists, was locally famous for imitating the whistling of an incoming shell. It also whistled the opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and the French national anthem.

—United Press International, February 25, 1987

As far as I can tell, Coco was never heard from again. For the near future, expect this space to be largely occupied by Beethovenian trivia.

Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)

Viola quartet performs Sept. 6 at App... - Appalachian State University

Viola quartet performs Sept. 6 at Appalachian's Hayes School of Music Appalachian State University Rawls is a professor of viola at UNC Greensboro, chair of viola studies at Brevard Music Center, and is a member of the group Steve Reich and Musicians. ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)

The Occasional Cereal List No. 2

MOVIES IN MY NETFLIX QUEUE ABOUT CONDUCTORS THAT I FINALLY GOT AROUND TO WATCHING THIS SUMMER INCLUDING ONE THAT MY KIDS WANTED TO SEE

Dudamel, Where’s My Car?

The Big Stokowski

Million Dollar Seiji

The Last Klemperer

Gone Neeme Gone

Muti Call

The Robert Shawshank Redemption

Tilson Thomas the Tank Engine

Cop Land

Originally posted by Franz List from The Cereal List, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)

One Single, Poisonously Disingenuous Sentence Dept

“It was former teacher Larry Mead’s love of classical music that led to an addiction to child pornography…” (The Monterey County Herald via RedOrbit)

---

Crikey, where to begin with this . . . .

Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)

When Goethe Saw Mozart

— Johann Peter Eckermann, Conversations with Goethe (vol. ii, I’m guessing)

Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)

Composers: Generate a NY Times Review of Your Work

cret that contemporary music is outside the lexicon of most music critics at the New York Times. Critics are very busy, and they simply do not have time to evaluate a piece of music with which they are not familiar. That’s why it’s up to composers to generate a pre-written paragraph and send it to the critic assigned to review their performances.

Fortunately, The Cereal List has created the Automatic Review Generation Helper (ARGH)! All you have to do is fill in the forms below and click the “Create Review” button.

rong>Your last name: rong>The appropriate possessive pronoun, his or her: rong>Your place of birth: rong>Your age: rong>Number of years you’ve been writing music: rong>Adjective describing your childhood: rong>Adjective describing your adulthood: rong>Adjective describing your relationships with musicians/performers: rong>Adjective describing your ideal audience: rong>Adjective describing your artistic philosophy: rong>A famous composer who has influenced you: able>

/center>

Your first name:

Originally posted by Miss Information from The Cereal List, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)

60x60 Dance @ Jan Hus, NYC (8/26/07) [Wreede/Durst]

Pretty
Music: Katrina Wreede
Dance: Kiley Durst



notes:
Katrina Wreede enjoys writing music for chamber ensembles, orchestras, dancers, protests, youth groups, and friends. In between she supports herself by sawing on the viola, including pretending to be a violinist for Prince Charles and serenading an office meeting at a Burger King. Last year she took three little girls from her neighborhood, ages 9, 10 and 12, to hear the 60x60 show at Mills College. They had never heard of a college before, and they had never sat in the dark listening to music. Afterwards she asked if they'd like to help make a submission for this year. With much enthusiasm, they created a montage of pre-teen-ness addressing girls' body image issues and, oh yes, silliness.

Kiley Durst graduated Summa Cum Laude from Slippery Rock University with a BA in dance. She is currently dancing with York Dance Works and has also worked with ACFDance, Attack Theatre, Michael Walsh, Gwen Hunter-Ritchie, Art Bridgman, Myrna Packer, and Amy Schnelle. Kiley has also presented her solo work at the Dumbo Dance Festival.

Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)

Errata (not mine)

Probably there were bad typos even in the LP days (even though record companies actually had editors on staff, and all).

A couple of mystifying typos I only noticed today, on CD reissues:

Trout Mask Replica (as if anyone but me cares): On the track list near the beginning of the booklet (but not on the tracklist on the back sheet of the case), the colon is peculiarly misplaced in “Hair: Pie Bake 1” (sic) Doesn’t make sense like that (though one could argue that sense is not the driver, wherever the punctuation is placed). No such problem with “Hair Pie: Bake 2.”

Chicago VII: The song is “Woman Don’t Want to Love Me”; Peter Cetera sings “Woman Don’t Want to Love Me”; the second line is She says it makes her cry, both of the pronouns singular; subsequent lines provide further affirmation. Yet, everywhere on the Rhino reissue, it is printed “Women Don’t Want to Love Me”; and now that bizarre erratum has multiplied on the Internet.

Ah, the Internet: breeding ground for bizarre errata.

Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 02:10 PM | Comments (0)

EMI - it's a dog's life

First the bad news. The fluctuating prospects of my EMI pension have been the subject of two previous posts. Now comes the news that Guy Hands, the new owner of ailing EMI, has removed the chairman of the company's pension fund and appointed his own nominee to the post. This is Money comments:

The move was unusual since chairmen of pension fund trustees must be seen to be able to represent the interests of pensioners without fear of censure from the company financing the fund.

have many principled small businesses left in the UK. But then there is the BBC and EMI, not to mention HBOS who have cost us, and many others, a serious amount of money.



But now for the good news. The fine etching above depicts that great conductor Sir John Barbirolli, who made many fine recordings for EMI. His masterly accounts of Elgar's First and Second Symphonies, recorded for HMV with the Philharmonia and Hallé Orchestras respectively, have been absent from their catalogue for too long. On August 31st they are being released in a 2CD set coupled with In the South and the Serenade for Strings. This important re-issue can be pre-ordered for just £6.98 UK postage paid from Amazon.co.uk. It is a pity though that EMI's lavish website does not explain who conducts what; Barbirolli conducts the symphonies and Norman del Mar takes over the baton for the Serenade for Strings. But neither of the two conductors listed on EMI's website conduct In the South.

If you look very carefully at the image of the CD box you will see that the conductor of In The South (which, erroneously is given a lower case 'i' on the website) is the Romanian Constantin Silvestri (1913-1969) This is the scintillating and unmissable recording of the Elgar work made with him directing the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Silvestri's uncle was the Austro/Czech composer Emil von Reznicek of Donna Diana fame. Silvestri also composed, and there is a rare video of the third movement of his Rhapsody for Piano here. And, just to complete the catalogue of EMI website howlers, the Philharmonia Orchestra, who play one of the two Elgar Symphonies on the new release, is also overlooked.

Under £7 for these truly great recordings (and compositions) is very good news for CD collectors. Even if you need to do some research to find out who is actually conducting what on the discs. But, is this really the best way for EMI's new owners to exploit their massive intellectual property assets?

'Glorious John' is in New York here. Mahler with such human warmth and soul is below, read about that great recording here.


* There is another later, and arguably better, recording of Sir John Barbirolli conducting the Hallé Orchestra in Elgar's First Symphony. This is a live concert recording made by the BBC at the King's Lynn Festival here in Norfolk shortly before Barbirolli died in 1970. It was available on BBC legends, now deleted.

* Constantin Silvestri was a very fine Elgar conductor. EMI planned to record both of the Elgar symphonies and Gerontius with him, but his premature death in 1969 prevented this. There is a BBC Legends mono release of Silvestri conducting Elgar's First. Still available and worth buying as these historic BBC CD transfers are being culled at a frightening rate.

* There are used copies of the essential BBC CD of Barbirolli conducting Elgar's First Symphony at the King's Lynn Festival available from American resellers via Amazon.com. But English customers are blocked by Amazon from buying this English recording of an Englishman conducting English music in England. So much for the frontierless internet.

I am afraid I cannot answer the question everyone will ask. The print seen in my header image hangs on my study wall, which is where I photographed it. But, to my chagrin, I do not know who the artist is. It was bought from a shop in King's Parade, Cambridge some years ago, that is all I can tell you. If anyone knows who the artist is or where copies can be bought I will happily publish the information. Meanwhile, apologies for this unattributed image. 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 Aug 27, 2009 at 12:13 PM | Comments (0)

October premiere for Jeyasingh's Brui... - Stage

October premiere for Jeyasingh's Bruise Blood Stage Bruise Blood is inspired by American composer Steve Reich's 1966 work Come Out, which he wrote at the request of civil rights activist Truman Nelson ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 12:12 PM | Comments (0)

The future is so yesterday: A synth-p... - CBC.ca

CBC.ca

The future is so yesterday: A synth-pop timeline CBC.ca 1953: Karlheinz Stockhausen composes Study 1, the first piece of music to use synthesized tones. The iconoclastic German composer's work is part of a flurry ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 12:11 PM | Comments (0)

Dance Flash: Liss Fain Dance - The San Francisco Appeal

The San Francisco Appeal

Dance Flash: Liss Fain Dance The San Francisco Appeal Resolved, an eight-minute collage accompanied by the music of everyone's favorite modern minimalist, Steve Reich, reflects upon individuals and choice in ... and more »

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 12:11 PM | Comments (0)

Hip-hop collaboration influences Pete... - Kansas City Star

Hip-hop collaboration influences Peter, Bjorn and John Kansas City Star Maybe our next album will be trash-metal mixed with Stockhausen.” Hesitant or curious fans won't have to part with much to hear the results. ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 12:11 PM | Comments (0)

The Blue Moment by Richard Williams - guardian.co.uk

guardian.co.uk

The Blue Moment by Richard Williams guardian.co.uk Neither did Steve Reich. Williams offers insightful accounts of what John Coltrane and Bill Evans went on to do after Kind of Blue; but while Evans explored ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 12:11 PM | Comments (0)

Hypercolor comes to Ann Arbor's Kerry... - Examiner.com

Hypercolor comes to Ann Arbor's Kerrytown Concert House Examiner.com The members of Hypercolor include Eyal Maoz, James Ilgenfritz, and Lukas Ligeti. On the band website, the most notable tracks are the moody “Forget” and the ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 12:11 PM | Comments (0)

Fulbright Music Concert to Feature Gu... - University of Arkansas Daily Headlines

Fulbright Music Concert to Feature Guest Oboist University of Arkansas Daily Headlines In 2005, Johnson spent the summer performing exclusively contemporary music under Pierre Boulez at the Lucerne Festival Academy in Switzerland. ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 12:11 PM | Comments (0)

No Shit - OffBeat Magazine

OffBeat Magazine

No Shit OffBeat Magazine He studied with the radical Greek avant-garde composer Iannis Xenakis. “I learned a lot of things through him,” Bingham says. “The school was wide open, ...

Originally from lutoslawski OR xenakis OR boulez OR Dutilleux OR ligeti OR "elliott carter" OR stockhausen OR "steve reich" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 12:11 PM | Comments (0)

Just say NO to putting an end to illegal music sharing.

There are plenty of artists that would like to rollback the clock to the days prior to illegal music sharing. I have come to believe that this would be a colossal mistake. I don’t say this because I believe that illegal sharing is justified; in fact I am against the ‘attitude’ entirely. Confused yet? This post is going to bring up a pile of unanswered questions like how would one solve the conundrum of enabling yet disabling? So please just consider the philosophical argument.

To eliminate or to throttle file sharing is an assault on your rights as an artists. Moreover, to eliminate or to throttle file sharing (in my mind) is an act that would reduce competition in the marketplace.

As detestable as you may think file sharing is, eliminating it or throttling it disables your rights to compete against other choices in the marketplace on the basis of price. And trust me, with a million songs being uploaded to the Internet a year, combined with advancements in music recommendation, you (the independent artist - and as a group) want to preserve every competitive option you have available to you.

Go back and read the about the Song Adoption Formula or the update to the formula titled Where Have All The Musical Geniuses Gone.

Any law, regulation or policy that prevents you or your songs from obtaining maximum listeners, spins, frequency or socialization - with the least amount of friction (translate: no perceived barriers between consumers and your songs) reduces your ability to compete (based upon price) against major label content.

You don’t want anything that prohibits you from charging whatever you want for your songs.

You don’t want anything that slows distribution, spins (within personal devices), frequency, or socialization.

Like I said at the top of the post, this brings up a list of other problems. However I would caution you all to truly consider if you want your government to act in a way that diminishes your rights.

I am traveling today.  It may be hard for me to respond to comments.

Originally posted by Bruce Warila from Music Think Tank (primary) RSS, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 12:11 PM | Comments (0)

Bourland chamber music: American Baroque (1992)

AMERICAN BAROQUE was commissioned by Mark Carlson and Pacific Serenades for their 1991-92 season. Like many of the music I was writing at that time, the form of the word is roughly palindrdomic, for instance ABCDEDC’B'A’. The sewing machine quality of the melody is something you will hear in this piece that vaguely evokes Baroque string music. I was in love with Ravel chamber music at that time, so you will hear a bit of that in the texture.

The chamber music I wrote in the early 1980s had a distinct Americana flavor to it. I say farewell to Americana in this piece, as my SEVEN POLLOCK PAINTING was an exorcism from atonality.

Download audio file (american_baroque.mp3)
American Baroque (1992) for piano trio
Music: Roger Bourland
Performers: Mark Kaplan, vln; Antonio Lysy, vcl; Walter Ponce, pno
Publisher: Yelton Rhodes Music

Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 12:10 PM | Comments (0)

NEA co-opting artists to support Obama agenda?

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/pcourrielche/2009/08/25/the-national-endowment-for-the-art-of-persuasion-patrick-courrielche/#more-209182

My take here:
http://jeffreyquick.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/no-hell-no-non-serviam/

The Obama-voting author of the first piece says:
"I’m not a “right-wing nut job.” It just goes against my core beliefs to sit quietly while the art community is used by the NEA and the administration to push an agenda other than the one for which it was created. It is not within the National Endowment for the Arts’ original charter to initiate, organize, and tap into the art community to help bring awareness to health care, or energy & environmental issues for that matter; and especially not at a time when it is being vehemently debated. Artists shouldn’t be used as tools of the state to help create a climate amenable to their positions, which is what appears to be happening in this instance. If the art community wants to tackle those issues on its own then fine. But tackling them shouldn’t come as an encouragement from the NEA to those they potentially fund at this coincidental time. "

Sorry for "starting stuff", but this shocks and scares the hell out of me. YMMV. Thoughts?

Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 12:09 PM | Comments (0)

So Henryk Górecki's "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" (1976)?

Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 12:09 PM | Comments (0)

Gay composers get their due - Bay Area Reporter

Bay Area Reporter

Gay composers get their due Bay Area Reporter All I could think as I listened to Padmore's Donne Sonnets the first time around was what poor vocal music John Adams' setting of Donne's "Batter My Heart," ...

Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "philip glass" OR "john adams" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 12:09 PM | Comments (0)

Artistic director opens up about his ... - Las Vegas Review - Journal

Artistic director opens up about his hopes for Nevada Ballet Theatre Las Vegas Review - Journal ... Glass Pas de Deux," an exotic blend of ingredients suggested by the creations of glass sculptor Dale Chihuly and the avant-garde music of Philip Glass. ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 12:09 PM | Comments (0)

Further Refresh

Chalk it up to true fling-it-on-out-there bloggery . . . I hit Publish Post too quickly, and my list of new items on the Sansa Fuze player was incomplete:

Tallis, Spem in alium &c., Oxford Camerata, Jeremy Summerly
Ginastera, Four dances from Estancia, Opus 8a, Orquesta Ciudad Granada/Josep Pons
Ginastera, Harp Concerto, Opus 25, Magdalena Barrera / Orq. C. Granada/J. P.
Ginastera, Obertura para el « Fausto » criollo, Opus 9, Orq. C. Granada/J. P.
Ginastera, Variaciones concertantes, Opus 23, Orq. C. Granada/J. P.

The player itself has 4gb of internal memory, and I’ve docked in a 4gb card for good measure. Although I have begun to load music onto the card, it seems I have not yet even loaded music enough to fill the internal capacity.

On first fetching in the device, I had the idea of listening to music while riding the bus/T/train. That would probably work better if I invest in noise-cancelling headphones . . . there’s enough ambient noise (especially on the bus), that attempts to listen to Debussy piano music in such circs is futile. I had not thought to load non-classical onto the Fuze, before the realization that such steady volume levels suit the commuting environment better.

In general, I remain loath to dedicate too much capacity to the non-classical. Looks to be plenty of space, though (maybe even more, if I do the re-load routine with, say, the Shostakovich Opus 87).

Plans for further sonic lading include:

Shostakovich quartets (Emersons)
Shostakovich symphonies, less nos. 11 & 12 — to which I don’t mind listening from time to time, but, don’t need them on a portable device (Shostakovich, fils)
Vaughan Williams symphonies, less A Sea Symphony & A London Symphony — where I do really like A Sea Symphony a great deal, that, too, is an elective work . . . and I prefer listening to it with unbound ears (Haitink/London Phil)
Hindemith, Kammermusiken (either the Chailly or the Abbado)
Nielsen concerti (maybe Springtime in Funen, too)

Maybe some Piazzolla

Fripp, Exposure

Actually considering Trout Mask Replica, as well.

Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)

Stew is still stewing over L.A.'s snub of 'Passing Strange' -- latimes.com [del.icio.us]

"When were we going through the classic L.A. club grind," he begins, speaking of his days this decade with the Negro Problem, "at a certain point, we were selling out Spaceland like you're supposed to do. But when we didn't get handed the brass ring of the major label deal and we didn't get handed the brass ring of the hip, indie label deal, it was like a lot of the powers that be were sort of looking at us like . . . 'what good are you guys?' "

Originally posted by pbailey68 from paulbailey.us (beta), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)

Minimalists Prepare for Counterattack

I have been too busy to draw timely attention to the nice attention that Galen Brown (whose paper on minimalist means and ends will be featured) has given to our minimalism conference over at Sequenza 21 via an interview with me, in my usual punchy style.

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 27, 2009 at 05:10 AM | Comments (0)

August 26, 2009

When classical music leads to child pornography

“It was former teacher Larry Mead’s love of classical music that led to an addiction to child pornography…”

-The Monterey County Herald via RedOrbit

The shocking story of Larry Mead received very little attention from classical musicians when it broke in May of 2006. It was a missed opportunity to address a difficult problem:

Classical recordings can facilitate the peddling of child pornography.

Mr. Mead was an avid fan of classical music. He used file-sharing networks to download the latest recordings, but one of the files he downloaded turned out to be child pornography disguised as classical music!

The Cereal List is horrified to learn that perverts have taken advantage of classical music’s innocent, young recording artists, but we must ask ourselves: Why do classical record labels insist on releasing CDs that feature attractive young artists, provocative photographs, and suggestive album titles? If labels employ these titillating promotional techniques to sell CDs, should we be surprised when listeners turn into sex offenders?

Originally posted by Randall Scandall from The Cereal List, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 26, 2009 at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)

Knuckles and Digits (4)

My musically gifted older brother Kevin gave piano lessons. I remember one exquisite summer day he played Debussy's for me. I thought I would swoon. This is my first memory of hearing the piano played.

Originally from 'notes' a composer's life by daron hagen, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 26, 2009 at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)

CMC 50th Anniversary

CMC 50th Anniversary

From Podcast: Sounds New.

Originally posted by jeff from cacophonous.org, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 26, 2009 at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)

Inside Notations 21

Weighing in at 300+ heavily inked pages, Notations 21 carries both the intellectual heft of an academic text book and the intrigue of a good coffee table read.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 26, 2009 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)

Expat

During the fall of 1989 I resolved to become an expat. I had moved to France, was living at the Camargo Foundation, in Cassis, having sublet my apartment on Saint Mark's Place to one of my students, and cavalierly sprung at the last moment on Joan Tower — the chair of the music department at Bard College, where for five years I had been teaching part time — the news that I wasn't coming back in the autumn. 'How long will you be gone?' she asked. 'Forever,' I vowed, savoring the promise. 'Well, let's take it one semester at a time,' she answered. 'I'll find someone to take your place. Just let me know in a few months whether you'll be back.'

Originally from 'notes' a composer's life by daron hagen, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 26, 2009 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)

Opera tribute to minimalist pioneer

A new opera by Evan Ziporyn based on Colin McPhee's memoir A House in Bali is being premiered on September 26 & 27th at the University of California, Berkeley. Richard Friedman has more details. You can read about McPhee, who was an early pioneer of minimalism and who recorded piano transciption of Balinese ceremonial music with Benjamin Britten, in my 2007 article Colin McPhee - East meets West.

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 Aug 26, 2009 at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)

Hump Day Hottie: Emmanuel Pahud

That is one lucky flute. There’s no sexier combination than a gentle kiss and a slight whisker-burn. The tie loosened, the shirt unbuttoned, the incorporation of mirrors! The mind reels with possibilities! Pahud has a wife and two sons, but, hey, that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s monogamous. His French/Swiss heritage guarantees that he is passionate and diplomatic, the two most important qualities for an open marriage.

Originally posted by Miss Information from The Cereal List, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 26, 2009 at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)

60x60 Dance @ Jan Hus, NYC (8/26/07) [Dick/Burns]

On Simak Pond
Music: Robert Dick
Dance: Marsi Burns



notes:
Robert Dick is best known as the composer/performer who is the leading light in the world of new music for flutes. His compositions have been recognized with a Guggenheim Fellowship, two NEA Composer Fellowships, a Koussevitzky Foundation Commission, two Meet the Composer Commissions, and many others. In addition to his flute music, Dick writes chamber music and has a lifelong interest in low-tech musique concrete. Inspired by the science fiction writings of Clifford J. Simak, On Simak Pond is meant to conjure apparitions that float in the magical dusk at the shore of a real and imaginary pond where memory, sentiment, conjecture, fear and joy all overlap.

Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 26, 2009 at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)

Refresh

Loaded some ‘new’ music onto my Sansa Fuze player tonight.

Before listing the ‘new’ stuff, though . . . I have needed (practically from the beginning, so getting on for 14 months, now) to ‘fix’ some sound files which have somehow ended in a short glitch of a ‘spike’. So the following have always been on the Fuze, but now their tracks end with becoming silence:

Palestrina, Missa Papae Marcelli, Oxford Camerata, Jeremy Summerly
Palestrina, Missa Aeterna Christi munera, O. C., J. S.
Palestrina, Stabat Mater, O. C., J. S.
Allegri, Miserere, O. C., J. S.
de Victoria, Missa O magnum misterium, O. C., J. S.
de Victoria, Missa O quam gloriosum, O. C., J. S.
Ravel, Sonata for violin & cello, Members of the Nash Ensemble
Ravel, Piano Trio, Members of the Nash Ensemble
Debussy, Sonata for violin & piano, Members of the Nash Ensemble
Debussy, Sonata for flute, viola & harp, Members of the Nash Ensemble
Debussy, Syrinx for flute solo, Member of the Nash Ensemble
Debussy, Sonata for cello & piano, Members of the Nash Ensemble

In addition, I loaded up music genuinely new to the player:

Debussy, Six epigraphes antiques, Michel Béroff & Jean-Philippe Collard
Debussy, Lindaraja, Béroff & Collard
Debussy, En blanc et noir, Béroff & Collard
Ravel, Entre-cloches, Béroff & Collard
Ravel, Ma mère l'oye, Béroff & Collard
Ravel, La valse, Béroff & Collard
Ravel, Frontispice, for five hands, Béroff & Collard & Katia Labèque
Ravel, Rapsodie espagnole, Béroff & Collard
Dukas, L'apprenti sorcier, Béroff & Collard
Hindemith, Konzertmusik Opus 50 for strings & brass, NY Phil/Bernstein
Hindemith, Symphony in E-flat, NY Phil/Bernstein
Hindemith, Konzertmusik Opus 49 for piano, brass & two harps, Siegfried Mauser, Members of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Werner Andreas Albert
Prokofiev, Toccata, Opus 11, Eteri Andjaparidze
Prokofiev, Ten Pieces, Opus 12, E. A.
Prokofiev, Sarcasms, Opus 17, E. A.
Prokofiev, Visions fugitives, Opus 22, E. A.
Prokofiev, Four Pieces, Opus 4, E. A.

Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 26, 2009 at 11:34 AM | Comments (0)

Dogs in English Porcelain

I'm an enthusiastic listener of Vanessa Rossetto's new 40Mins (with the above title)!
(I don't like the word 'album')

It
makes me feel more courageous
and
more at home in the world...



She seems to work in arbitrariness, still, all the sounds, all the new musical events happen in a significant, momentous way as the piece forwards. It is music you can't not concentrate on. Grabs your attention in the first chaotic two minutes and never lets you go until the end. Mozartian sense of time.
A genius balancing between several opposites: form/formlessness, continuity/abrupt change, beauty/neutrality, logic/chaos, sense-of-presence/timelessness, alienation/intimacy - and clears all these opposites from their potential markedness.

plus some tasteful and funny classical music allusions (in the end)

For me listening to this has a liberating, even cathartic effect. That's great art!

Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 26, 2009 at 11:34 AM | Comments (0)

Picking a studio, engineer or producer - discount the silly list of names.

How many of you have read a resume or bio from someone in the music industry such as a studio, an engineer or a producer and run into a strange list of names. You know, “I work with This Person who worked with That Person.” While this impresses a few fans and friends, it actually makes you look worse to the industry. The name dropping doesn’t fool anyone….anyone = the people who matter. Yeah, I’m talking to you, studios and producers. Instead of just appearing strong, why not funnel that energy into actually being strong?

There is referencing that is beneficial and then there is just outright bragging. Like I said, come off strong, but let’s clearly define that. Ego, bragging and arrogance are overdone. In a way, by going over the top, instead of standing out, you are just dropping yourself in to the bag with a truck load of other mediocre studios, engineers and producers. Instead, showcase what you have really done and how you really do things.

Too many musicians are presented such a line of crap when it comes to booking a studio or hiring a producer or an engineer. They spend the time, the money and the effort and then find out they were not able to get what they wanted or what they thought they would get for their recording.

It is the responsibility of the studio, producer and engineer to showcase what they have done. It is the responsibility of the artist to find out exactly what has been done at the studio and the reliability of the resume that the producers and engineers offer. Market yourself and/or your studio to its strengths. Be up front about what you are bringing to the table so when someone checks up on you, you still look honorable.

How does it really work in your favor to lie or exaggerate?

Studios talk about how so and so recorded there twenty years ago. Should that really be something that compels someone to want to use that studio? Was it the same engineer, the same producer, the same budget or the same session players? A lot more should go into the decision for someone who is choosing a studio. It comes down to what is happening now. People brag about recording in the same studio as this musician or that musician, but this really doesn’t help the musician.

It is basically the equivalent of someone saying, hey, I pitched two innings of baseball at Fenway Park in Boston for a little league championship. Now, while it is cool to be in the same room, that is nowhere near the caliber of the Red Sox pitchers that play professional baseball. It is like giddy-happy joy that “I recorded where Personal Musical Hero of Mine recorded!” Which is great, but doesn’t really do much for someone who isn’t them.

Instead

Listen to the most recent stuff from that studio. Find out who is engineering there now and their abilities. Find out what the budget was for the recordings and demos you hear.

I have done a great deal of over-produced and excessively budgeted albums that I do not use as samples these days. I play people the samples from the studio I use now, the team I work with now and under the budgets that I work with now. Hearing a two-hundred thousand dollar recording when you’re after a budget that is ten percent of that or less is the equivalent of a car salesman saying, “Hey, I know your price range is a Hyundai but let’s test drive the BMW to give you a sense of it.”

That makes no sense does it? Would you test drive the BMW? Hell, no. You’d find a salesman who actually listened to what you wanted and could afford.

When a studio says that this band or that band recorded there, make sure you know the details. Just because someone has recorded in a room or a studio or worked with a producer or engineer does not mean they that particular artist liked it. I have been credited with working in studios that I went in to as a favor for someone else or was paid to do a session in that I would personally never choose to return to. I know there are people I have worked with where I didn’t click with them and they didn’t click with me, so in turn, I don’t reference them as I am sure they don’t reference me.

The point is make calls, send emails, ask questions and make sure you know what you are getting into before you invest into it. Make sure you can find out all the information you can to secure the right choice.

Conclusion: Replace the soft BS with the hard facts.

Find out the facts about the rooms, the engineers, the producers. Find out what has been recorded there and find out the details, like what kind of budget was involved, how many days, what other aspects played a part of the recording. In the end, your recording is a key part of presenting your sound, your songs and music. Make sure you are doing it right, and with the right people and in the right places.

© Loren Weisman 2009

www.braingrenademusic.com

Originally posted by Loren Weisman from Music Think Tank (primary) RSS, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 26, 2009 at 11:33 AM | Comments (0)

Fulbright Music Department to Present... - University of Arkansas Daily Headlines

Fulbright Music Department to Present Guest Concert Sept. 14 University of Arkansas Daily Headlines He founded Ensemble Phoenix Basel, a group specializing in contemporary and avant garde music. Since 1988, Henneberger has been an instructor of chamber ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 26, 2009 at 11:33 AM | Comments (0)

How to listen - Florida Weekly

How to listen Florida Weekly The maestro would also love to put on concerts of contemporary classical music. "Wouldn't it be nice if they would think of that kind of music as a language ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 26, 2009 at 11:33 AM | Comments (0)

On the fly

Alex Ross has a very good article on traditions of improvisation (ornamentation and cadenzas especially) in classical music.   The article is subtitled "reviving the art of classical improvision" and Ross means it literally, as in bringing back the dead.  And there really is a sense that the improvisatory tradition is not only moribund, but was murdered: Ross quotes conductor Will Crutchfield's characterization of a Caruso cadenza so widely duplicated as to have become the canonical cadenza for the aria into which it is inserted as the “death-of-tradition”  and Ross himself describes Beethoven's written-out cadenza for the Mozart d minor Concerto as helping to "kill" it.   

I'm of two minds about improvisatory elements in music.  I agree that they can make a performance more fresh, more lively and, in effect, open up the musical text, but that doesn't remove the composer's responsibility to compose a score that is, on its own terms, fresh, lively, and rewarding of repeated play and listening.  Also, the simple inclusion of improvisatory elements does not automatically make the performer an interesting or musically convincing improvisor.  Further, it is one thing to consider improvisatory practices which are part and parcel of a musical style, in which the particular turns and figures chosen will be understood rhetorically in terms of that style, and it is quite another to consider improvisatory elements in the context of new music, in which the stylistic background radiation is highly diffused.

Nevertheless, the project of re-opening the musical work to the extemporaneous has been an important part of the radical music.   The examples of music which invite or require improvisatory elements — Christian Wolff's cuing pieces, the variable forms introduced in Feldman's Intermission 6 and widely expanded upon, particularly in the European avant-garde, or the animation of small cells of music common to many pieces in the West Coast experimental tradition, or Richard Maxfield's concert works using soloists improvising against tape works based on their own recorded improvisation, for example — continue to be rich in potential for new music.  There is nothing (yet) like the thick tradition of French baroque agréments, ornaments for which a composer can appeal to a body of figures and their shorthand notation  as well as a tradition for their appropriate placement within a piece of music which will be understood by a broad community of musicians as the point of departure for improvisation, but there are still recognizeable elements of a tradition in the works in which, for example, the cues of Wolff scores from the 1950's are echoed in the game-structure works of John Zorn or in the networked improvisations of small computer-based ensembles.

The project of recovering historical examples of improvisation is musicologically interesting and musically useful if, at the very least, it brings alternative cadenzas and ornamentations into the concert hall.  But performances of these revived examples are still not a restoration of improvisation to classical music, and the repetition, from a notated transcription of a historical example of improvisation is definitely not improvisation either.  Early music performers are, in general, further along this route than mainstream classical players.  The best recorder and gamba soloists today are gifted, inventive improvisers as well and when they play a set of divisions their fidelity to style is so high that it is often very difficult to know where composition ends and improvisation begins.  One is clearly hearing "the piece", but "the piece" has also been made anew through the extemporaneous elements. 

A parallel project, of recovering, through transcription, landmarks of more recent improvised music, raises lots of questions.  Again, this is musicologically interesting and a player can learn a lot from it, but as successful as a particular improvisation may have been, the composer/improviser is fallable, and more than likely to harbor some doubts about some or all of it.  But more critically, isn't simply reproducing the transcription out of the spirit of the initial enterprise?   It would be entirely possible, for example, to play a transcription of a single performance of La Monte Young's The Well-Tuned Piano, but a performance of the transcription would not be responding to the particular set and setting in which the original performance unfolded and would not be open to the possibilities for alteration that the composer always allows himself.  The better way, it seems to me, is to learn the piece as the composer prescribes, rehearsing with him directly until such a point that one has the confidence (one's own as well as that of the composer) to make one's own realization.  Even more so with works of music in which the composer's own open notation is available: while it would be possible to learn to play a Christian Wolff piano piece by transcription of a David Tudor recording, the composer's notation was specifically designed to create an indefinite number of realizations, so freezing the piece around an old Tudor recording is introducing an unwarranted restriction on the work itself, the avant-garde version of the "death of tradition."  The notational tools for a very precise, closed musical text are readily available to composers and when a composer makes a deliberate decision for a score in which elements are not all precisely or decisively described or are to be defined in real time by the performer, then it is a plain misreading of the score's notation not to reserve these elements for the improvisational domain.     

       

Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 26, 2009 at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)

School board approves plan to open up schools to outsiders -- latimes.com [del.icio.us]

"The Los Angeles Board of Education voted today to open up 250 schools, including 50 new multimillion-dollar campuses, to outside charter operators and others. The move came after a nearly four-hour debate on a 6-1 vote, with board member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte opposing. Under the proposal by board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, nonprofit charter groups and the mayor's group that oversees 11 schools could compete for the chance to run these schools. Ultimately, it will be up to Supt. Ramon C. Cortines to select the winning bid for these campuses. Labor unions were especially opposed to the plan, with teachers union head A.J. Duffy saying the district needs to be collaborative if it wants to reform schools."

Originally posted by pbailey68 from paulbailey.us (beta), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 26, 2009 at 08:10 AM | Comments (0)

August 25, 2009

Where Greatness Lies

One defining quality of a truly great musical imagination is a body of work that we feel has something to offer us at nearly every stage in life.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 25, 2009 at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)

The Dirty Little Secret of Timbre

How important is it to maintain full control over every aspect of your music? And is such control actually possible?

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 25, 2009 at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)

The Muse of Distraction

The distraction of an unfamiliar setting can also be extremely provocative and that is often the catalyst for brand new ideas whatever their format.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 25, 2009 at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)

Ruby Fulton—Write What You Like, Take Delight. Repeat.

Ruby Fulton radiates a sort of "ask me anything" energy, so when the Baltimore-based composer stopped by the Counterstream studio to chat about her work, questions were fired and she unloaded the details behind some of the stories that have inspired her and the philosophies underneath the musical choices she's made.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 25, 2009 at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)

Music, with a Side of Distraction

Part two of a daring exposé on the twittering lives of large, well-respected classical music organizations.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 25, 2009 at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)

Daniel Bernard Roumain sues Gustavo Dudamel

Daniel Bernard Roumain, the crossover violinist known for his fusion of classical, funk, and hip-hop, has sued Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel, accusing him of violating the copyright he holds on having crazy hair.

“He used to have normal hair,” said an infuriated DBR during a phone interview, “but then I guess he saw me on CBS Evening News, and since then there has been a steady progression and escalation over time. It’s gotten to a point where I feel it’s necessary to take action.” Indeed, a quick glance at the chilling photo array below reveals that his accusations may be well-founded.

“It’s not just a look, man. It’s a lifestyle,” Roumain added. “I mean, you got to feel it!  I play with Lady Gaga, he just conducts some orchestra in L.A.”

Dudamel has reportedly sought legal counsel from Kenny G, who has successfully fended off similar lawsuits from DBR in the past.  In response to The Cereal List’s request for comment, Dudamel’s spokesperson writes:

Maestro Dudamel has the right, indeed the responsibility, to tend to his own hair free from anyone else’s stipulations.  It happens that Maestro Dudamel is very fond of exotic hair products, his favorite being a combination of clay and algae shampoo.  Wearing dreadlocks would go against almost everything he’s ever believed in.

Originally posted by Milton Blabber from The Cereal List, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 25, 2009 at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)

Metaphor

Originally from Theater of Found Sounds, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 25, 2009 at 05:53 PM | Comments (0)

Mahler, Marin & more...

Noah Weber aired his concerns about Marin Alsop's conducting on his blog. His post steers clear of invective, and he's heard her conduct enough times to form an intelligent judgment about her. His conclusion that she doesn't have much insight into the standard repertoire is common enough that it doesn't provoke much controversy, but whoo boy, does he go off the rails when he trys to support his argument:

"I believe that in an attempt to be the leader that people look for in a conductor, she has removed any elements of femininity and tenderness in her music. Everything is meticulous, never becoming overwhelmed with emotion, never losing oneself entirely in the music (there are a few videos of Carlos Kleiber, one of my favorite conductors, where he is so overjoyed that he is literally unable to control himself, and the orchestra feeds off of his joy). She conducts a bit like she is in front of a student ensemble. The area where she really lacks in capability is the core of the orchestral repertoire; the 19th century romantic works. Remember, these composers were effusive, emotional, unstable men. They were often flamboyant and fiery, drunk and reckless. The automaton on stage. who never varies and never lets herself into the minds of these men, can never really capture what they were saying."

A female conductor has no obligation to be 'feminine and tender', and the implication that one cannot lead with either of those characteristics doesn't stand up to the slightest scrutiny. He may have seen her over a dozen times, but Noah certainly has no idea whether or not these elements are absent from her conducting because she threw them overboard in order to lead an orchestra. That's an impossible conclusion for anyone to support.

His notion of how Mahler must be interpreted is also sketchy. Great art stands up to multiple interpretations. 'To be or not to be' is just as effectively delivered by a scruffy Ethan Hawke in a Blockbuster video store as it is by Kenneth Branagh skulking in the great hall of a palace. It is possible to give a reading of Mahler without the effusiveness. A conductor needn't give in to Mahler's histrionics to give an effective performance of his music, and we've all sat through countless shitty performances of his music which suffered from too great an indulgence of this very facet.

Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 25, 2009 at 05:52 PM | Comments (0)

What price the BBC Proms?

My life was changed by a Henry Wood Promenade Concert on 4th August, 1975. In the second half Sir Adrian Boult gave us Vaughan William's Fifth Symphony, and the blazing intensity of that performance remains unmatched, in my experience, in the concert hall or on record. Sir Adrian's 86 years had no relevance to his music making. Music, not age, was what mattered then.

In the summer of 1975 punk was at its peak and the Vietnam War had ended after Communist forces took Saigon in the spring. Back with classical music, Pierre Boulez was in his last season as principal conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, which was at the top of its game, while William Glock's golden period as BBC controller of music and Proms administrator still informed music making in London. Your life could be changed for £1.30, which was the price of a balcony seat in the Albert Hall. All of which set me thinking, what price today's BBC Proms?

In 2009 Promenade Concerts are one of few remaining great British institutions. The British Empire and Princess Diana have gone. But the Proms, with their signature Last Night, live on. And just as with the Royal family, it is still considered ungentlemanly to question their role. But On An Overgrown Path was born for opposition. So the following is a rare attempt to discuss the role and price of the BBC Proms.

This article has been prepared by information in the public domain, supplemented by a small amount obtained by me via BBC Freedom of Information Requests. My sources are identified below. If errors have been made in my calculations I apologise, and corrections will be acknowledged. But, some time back, based on the surprisingly extensive readership of On An Overgrown Path, I requested via the correct channels access to BBC Radio 3 controller and Proms director Roger Wright for an interview. My request did not even receive the courtesy of a rejection. That is the price, I assume, for not posting the Wright stuff.


In an April 2009 article (source 1) Roger Wright explained that 'of the £8.8m budget for the [Proms] festival, approximately £6m comes from BBC subsidy'. In 2009 there are 95 ticketed Prom concerts, of which 19 are for chamber music. Dividing the BBC subsidy by the number of concerts gives an average subsidy of £63,158 per concert. That word average is important; 20% of the concerts are for small forces so the subsidy for the larger performances will be considerably higher, and probably in excess of £75,000 per concert.

What do the words 'BBC subsidy' mean? Quite simply £6m from the BBC TV license fee, which is currently a £142.50 annual poll tax on every UK household with a TV receiver, is used to pay for the Proms. Now, not even I would dispute that £6m of license fee revenue is better spent on classical music than on more episodes of Holby City. But that is not my point, even though an average £63,158 subsidy per concert makes those famous BBC expenses look like small change. My concerns revolve around why the BBC is so generously subsidising the Proms, and what transparency and controls operate over that subsidy.

For the reason why the BBC subsidise the Proms look no further than my header montage. In 1975 it was 'The BBC presents the 81st season of HENRY WOOD PROMENADE CONCERTS', their capitals not mine. In 2009 it is simply the 'BBC PROMS'.

During the 2009 Proms season there will be 25 TV broadcasts on either BBC TV Two or Four, that is more than a quarter of all concerts. So why are the Proms so appealing to the TV planners? The reason can be found in a document in the BBC Governor's archives (source 2). This shows that in 2005/6 the average cost per hour of BBC Two TV programming was £99,300. My calculations above, assuming two hour concerts, show an average cost per hour of £31,579 for televising the Proms. That is less than one third of the average network programming cost before a proportion of the charge is allocated against BBC Radio 3.


The Proms are a low cost source of programming, both for TV and radio, during the summer months when broadcast audiences are small and repeats dominate the schedules. This is the main reason why the BBC Proms have been expanded to almost 100 concerts with more than 25% of these televised. An additional benefit is that cultural content helps the BBC to justify its requests for never ending increases in the TV license fee. Plus there is the old chestnut that televising classical music creates new audiences for live music. Sadly, there is no evidence to support that. Today's televised classical music simply produces an audience for more of the same, arguably at the expense of live performances.

The lie to the cultural content argument is also given by the fact that the recent commendable Indian Voices Day at the Proms was denied either a live or recorded TV broadcast, unlike the MGM Film Musicals concert. Cultural content is only champion until it meets ratings. And that is my key concern about the BBC Proms. They have moved from being an independent music festival with its own unique DNA to just another programme source, with all the attendant pressures related to audience size and ratings.

Further proof of this is provided by the role of the director of the BBC Proms. If you can actually pin that role down. An FOI request (source 3) to give the salary band for the director of the Proms, to compare it with similar positions, received this response:

I can confirm that Roger Wright holds the combined role of Controller R3 and Director BBC Promenade Concerts, for which he receives a salary in the band disclosed in the previous response. There is no separate salary band for the role of Director BBC Promenade Concerts.

uest for the terms of tenure of the director BBC Proms post has so far been met with an extended silence. The BBC are doubtless puzzling over how to explain the contract terms of a post that scarcely exists on paper, yet alone in practice.


To all intents and purposes the BBC Proms are run by the executives responsible for radio and TV scheduling. Missing from today's Proms is the passion and vision brought by a daring artistic director which is the hallmark of other distinctive and successful music festivals. For what drives the BBC Proms look no further than BBC Radio 3's service license issued in 2008 (source 4). The first, and longest, parameter in the network's performance measurement framework is:

Reach: Radio 3 should contribute towards the maintenance of combined BBC weekly reach at over 90% by aiming to maintain its own weekly reach. It should contribute towards on-demand consumption of content. This will be measured by weekly reach of non-DRM audio downoads over the internet.

he Henry Wood Promenade Concerts, and, as described above, they have changed my life. But I have very considerable concerns about the BBC Promenade Concerts and in particular their transformation into a programming strand of BBC broadcast and internet networks. My concerns extend to the lack of accountability and tangibility of the role of the director of the BBC Proms.

This article is an expanded version of the notes I prepared when I was invited to take part in a BBC Radio Five live discussion about the Proms. Unfortunately I was not allowed to air these views because, as the programme presenter explained, Roger Wright was not on the programme to answer my points. The BBC's unique dual position of both making and controlling the news about the Proms allows them to implement a policy of publish the Wright stuff and you get your interview. Not to mention the dual roles played by a number of leading music journalists.


It would require another extended article to suggest how the future of the Proms and the BBC can be untangled without jeopardising the many invaluable benefits brought by the annual Albert Hall concerts. But here are some brief bullet points:

- Separate the Promenade concerts from the BBC and establish them as a stand-alone non-profit organisation.
- Negotiate a 5 year contracted annual fee for broadcast rights with the BBC or another broadcaster, including minimum coverage and publicity clauses.
- Appoint an independent and innovative Proms artistic director answerable to a board of trustees on a fixed term contract.
- The BBC, or other appointed broadcaster, to have one seat on the board of trustees, but no other control over concert content.
- Contract a London orchestra and principal conductor to provide a minimum quota of concerts, and reduce the appearances by touring orchestras.
- Forge partnerships between the Proms and other arts festivals, including the visual arts.
- Publish artists' fees for concerts using banded scales.
- Question all other current assumptions about the Proms, including the use of the Royal Albert Hall as principal venue.

These changes would almost certainly mean less Proms concerts. But that is a fair price to pay to create an independent future and identity for the Promenade Concerts. Which is what is missing today, despite the BBC's spin. For when the fickle TV audience tires of the Maestro Cam what will the BBC move on to? What guarantee is there that the BBC Proms will not then be consigned to the ever expanding graveyard of intelligent broadcast arts coverage?

Sources:
1. Guardian article 8 April 2009.
2. BBC Governor's Archives, Broadcasting Facts and Figures 2006.
3. BBC FOI RFI20091032
4. BBC Radio 3 service license 2008.


All photos were taken by me at the first night of the 2006 BBC Proms season. Yes, I do still sometimes go. Read my article here.
All photos (c) On An Overgrown path 2009. 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 Aug 25, 2009 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)

David T. Little regrets voting for Obama

The Cereal List has uncovered some surprising information about David T. Little, the composer from Princeton who has built his entire musical career on leftist politics and anarchistic subversion.

According to our sources, Little deeply regrets voting for President Barack Obama in the November 2008 election and wishes John McCain had won the presidency.

Although we had assumed that Little’s ironically titled compositions — Red Scare Sketchbook, Soldier Songs, and sweet light crude — employed the smugly detached, anti-American attitude of the average Princeton graduate student, we now believe that he intended no irony whatsoever.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, one of the members of Little’s ensemble, Newspeak, told us, “David confided in me about this. He wishes the McCain/Palin ticket had won. He said he’d rather have a foreign-born veteran than a foreign-born community organizer as his Commander in Chief.”

Our source went on to say that Newspeak will no longer perform their cover version of “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath. Instead, Little has composed an accompaniment for John Ashcroft’s “Let the Eagle Soar” and hopes to convince Mr. Ashcroft to appear in a performance with Newspeak.

Our source sent us a recording of Little (who plays drums) practicing with a video of Mr. Ashcroft:

Originally posted by Milton Blabber from The Cereal List, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 25, 2009 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)

60x60 Dance @ Jan Hus, NYC (8/26/07) [McLean/Huran]

Things
Music: Jordan McLean
Dance: Daman Huran



notes:
Suma cum laude in composition, SUNY Purchase, under the guidance of Dary John Mizelle and Joel Thome. Charter member, lead trumpet, featured soloist and contributing composer, Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, DROID. Founder, Fire of Space, Piano Music and Song Trio. Travelled to 20 countries and 40 U.S. states for dozens of major jazz, rock, world music, and cultural festivals over the last decade. Recent recordings on Agni Records and 482music. Things 2004 is constructed by orchestrating a transcription of a clandestine recording of a few friends talking, laughing and screaming.

Daman Harun has been dancing and choreographing in this world since 1990.

Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 25, 2009 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)

NetNewMusic Composition Competition

Suggested format:

Nominees must be NNM members. Voters must be NNM members.

1. Creation of categories - Chamber Music, Video, Electronic Music, etc.
2. Nomination process. Everybody votes to nominate a piece for a category.
3. Final vote. People are still allowed to nominate new pieces by write in, if some new piece comes along during the contest.
4. You can change your vote up until the last day of voting.
5. No entry fees. I don't want to get into taxes, currency transactions. Unless somebody else offers to hold the money.

Questions:

1. Do you folks care if the MP3 URL of your submission is exposed? If I have to hide, I'll have to write some Javascript.
2. I'm thinking once we get past the submissions that a page with all of the pieces, click to play and then click to vote. Maybe one page per category with a page linking to all of the categories.
3. I have to decide whether I should participate or not.
4. Prize? Beside bragging rights, NetCD? Promotion through the reBlog? Anything else? Press release?
5. Promotion. How to promote.

Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 25, 2009 at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)

MaestroCam

It would be unfair of me to restrict mention of the BBC Proms this summer to a mere offhanded gibe, particularly since it's an institution well worth supporting (as one is reminded in Britain whenever one turns on the television during prime time in summer and finds a full-blown orchestra concert rather than old CSI reruns). But it took an editorial in today's Guardian to draw my attention to one of the more worthy features of the Proms Website (and of its live broadcasts, for households properly equipped): Maestrocam, a commentary feature that elucidates the conducting of selected conductors for selected pieces. So far, Sir Charles Mackerras, Vasily Petrenko, Ilan Volkov and Daniel Barenboim have come in for the close-up treatment, and it makes edifying watching. Next up: David Robertson, on August 28th. The BBC has already done a commendable job of raising the popular understanding of a conductor's job

Originally from The Classical Beat – Classical Music Forum – washingtonpost.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 25, 2009 at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)

The future is always re-imagined.

The German industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten, 1993. Blume, Einstürzende Neubauten The Italian sound artist Luigi Russolo with his assistant Ugo Piatti, 1913. The complex and sometimes destructive relationship between the old and the new is central to Einstürzende Neubauten’s oeuvre. In the “Blume” music video, Neubauten pays homage to the iconic intonarumori/noise intoners invented by Luigi Russolo. Additionally, [...]

Originally posted by Joanne K. Cheung from Performa, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 25, 2009 at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)

The Bacchae - Financial Times

MiamiHerald.com

The Bacchae Financial Times Was this a plea on the part of all Park mini-mammals to have the band of off-stage musicians cease playing Philip Glass's original music at once? ... A tale of vengeance flourishes in Central ParkThe Associated Press all 90 news articles »

Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "philip glass" OR "john adams" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 25, 2009 at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)

'Classical' Doesn't Equal 'Old' -- Lu... - California Chronicle

'Classical' Doesn't Equal 'Old' -- Luna Nova Ensemble Focuses on ... California Chronicle "One of the most played contemporary composers in the country is John Adams. I happened to randomly meet his neighbor one time, and she told me he was ...

Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "philip glass" OR "john adams" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 25, 2009 at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)

Classical Music/Opera Listings - New York Times

Classical Music/Opera Listings New York Times On Monday the impressive Japanese pianist Taka Kigawa plays works by Bach, Ligeti, Boulez and Tristan Murail. And on Thursday the cellist Zuill Bailey and ... and more »

Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "philip glass" OR "john adams" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 25, 2009 at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)

An Opera Can Take Its Time, or Yours - New York Times

New York Times

An Opera Can Take Its Time, or Yours New York Times From left, Russell Thomas, Eko Supriyanto, Astri Kusuma Wardani, front, Jessica Rivera and Sanford Sylvan in a scene from John Adams's “Flowering Tree. ... and more »

Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "philip glass" OR "john adams" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 25, 2009 at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)

We’re back!

8bb’s back to the grind. We played in gorgeous, GORGEOUS Santa Fe last week, and we have a crazy new season of various highjinks coming up.

Check out our newly posted schedule for all the details, but here are some highlights:

• The World Premiere performances of Jennifer Higdon’s Concerto for 8bb and orchestra with the Atlanta Symphony on June 3, 5 and 6!
• A mini-tour of Eckert/Mackey Slide taking in Chicago, Richmond and Maryland during March
• Our first home-town performance of our crazy new Pierrot Lunaire production, at the Harris Theater in Chicago
• A residency and concert at the Curtis School of Music
• First 8bb performances of some fabulous pieces: Mark-Anthony Turnage’s balls-to-the-wall Grazioso!, Bent Sorensen’s otherworldly Deserted Churchyards, Mayke Nas’ funky Twelve Hands, Marc Mellits’ Spam and Pierre Boulez’s wall-of-trills Derive 1
• The return to an old favorite 8bb piece, Critical Moments 2, to honor the life and work of George Perle
• Debuts in a bunch of places, including Winnipeg (Canada), and performances and residencies across the country (KY, AL, GA, PA, IL, NY, OH, CA, MN, MD, VA)

This week is a busy one. On Thursday and Friday we will be recording Steve Reich’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet with Judy Sherman, in the presence of the composer. We will in essence be recording two pieces, as there are two sextet parts that are heard simultaneously, so that’ll no doubt be an interesting process for all concerned… Look out for a session report next week.

Originally posted by Tim from thirteen ways, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 25, 2009 at 02:11 AM | Comments (0)

Right Name, Wrong Campaign

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 25, 2009 at 02:10 AM | Comments (0)

August 24, 2009

Ana Maria Martinez’s Glyndebourne fall “no accident”

The Cereal List has received a tip from an insider at the Glyndebourne Festival in England stating that soprano Ana María Martínez’s tumble into the orchestra pit during a performance of Dvorak’s opera “Rusalka” last Friday was “no accident.” According to our source, there had been considerable tension between Ms. Martínez and her jealous understudy. During one rehearsal the understudy was reportedly overheard muttering to herself, “She thinks she’s so great with those two accents in her name. I’m going to make her wish she was singing in Falstaff.”

Originally posted by Randall Scandall from The Cereal List, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 24, 2009 at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)

Music as the last bulwark against barbarity

The desire to bring People's, cultures and religions together and especially to draw East and West closer, such is the inspiration behind the production of Ad Vitam Records. The collections under the label comprise vocal and instrumental, classical or traditional music. All the recordings bear witness to the real power of Music, not only as the last bulwark against barbarity, but also as the ultimate expression of the sensitivity of the heart. These are records "For Life". They build bridges of expectation, hope and trust.

carried on every CD released by a remarkable new record label. I stumbled across Ad Vitam Records by accident recently while browsing in the pilgrim's bookshop at Le Mont Saint Michel in Normandy. Ad Vitam could only be French; it positions itself as 'a label to bring peoples, cultures and religions together' and has been described by the influential Haute Fidélité magazine as 'an extreme audiophile label'.

Ad Vitam is the brainchild of Anne Dieumegard and Jean-Yves Labat de Rossi. Producer and sound engineer Jean-Yves Labat de Rossi, who is seen below, has a chequered musical history. Born in and educated in France, his first musical love was the organ. But in 1967 he formed the Anglo-French psychedelic band Baba Scholae, whose members included guitarist John Holbrook, before moving to Woodstock in upstate New York in 1970.


In Woodstock in 1971 Jean-Yves Labat de Rossi started experimenting with a Synthi-A portable synthesizer produced by EMS. A chance meeting with Bob Dylan's manager Albert Grossman (who also managed Peter, Paul and Mary, the Band and Janis Joplin) led to the release of the young Frenchman's first album in 1973. Grossam decided the name Jean-Yves Labat de Rossi would not play well with non-cheese eating, non-surrendering audiences and suggested the more punchy Maestro Frog, this was humourously abbreviated by Labat de Rossi to M. Frog, and became the title of his first album. Below is the sleeve of the LP which uses the synthesizer notations for the graphic design.


M. Frog was later remixed into discrete four channel sound and became one of Warner Brothers first releases in the short-lived quadraphonic format. In the 1970s Labat de Rossi played synthesizer in Todd Rundgren's prog-rock ensemble Utopia which also included multiple keyboards and brass, and went on to release several solo electronic albums made with leading Woodstock area session musicians. Labat de Rossi worked as a record producer in America in the 1980s and recorded his last electronic album, En Voyage, in 1987.

His work as a record producer brought Labat de Rossi into close contact with recording technologies, and at the end of the 1980s, in partnership with former Baba Scholae guitarist John Holbrook, he created HDRS (High Definition Recording System), one of the first portable digital recording systems. HDRS was used to make several pioneering organ recordings and was used for location recordings in Sarajevo and Azerbaijan in 1995 and 1997. Components of the portable HDRS system are seen below.


In 2003 HDRS was used to record the first release for the new Ad Vitam label. The album's title D'une seule voix - Juifs, Chrétiens, Musulmans, says it all - With One Voice - Jews, Christians, Muslims. This remarkable disc, which is seen below, brings together vocal music from the three great monotheist religions, and all the tracks were recorded either in Israel or Palestine. On the CD Jews, Israeli Arabs, Palestinian Moslems and Christians, Roman Catholics, Greek Melkites and Armenians perform music which comes from very different cultures, but which is linked by the shared desire for peaceful co-existence.


As mentioned earlier I came across D'une seule voix quite by chance in the excellent pilgrim bookshop at Mont Saint Michel in France. Never having heard of Ad Vitam records, being sceptical about the current vogue for East/West musical collabarations, and being mindful of the daunting 23.70 euro price I hesitated before making the random purchase.

Oh, randomness is a very precious thing! Just a few minutes listening told me that something very special had been captured on this disc. The programme does not try to force diffferent cultures into the paradigm of Western art music. Instead it is a celebration of differing musical styles united by a common humanitarian vision. I played the CD before I read the sleeve notes and was completely unprepared for the demonstration quality of the sound. Location recording usually means sonic compromises, but the HDRS technology perfectly captures the spirit of place as well as the spirit of the music. Some of the magic of D'une seul voix is captured in the video of the project.


It is invidious to highlight individual performers on what is a singularly outstanding disc. But the tracks by Israeli born Hezy Levy, pictured above, whose songs for voice and guitar combine Western elements with Jewish Ladino and Yemenite styles, led me to his solo album Singing Like the Jordan River, which is seen below. On this haunting disc, which has made many return visits to my CD player, Jean-Yves Labat de Rossi captures beautifully the solo voice of Hezy Levy in the resonant acoustics of the Abbey Church of the Resurrection of Abu-Gosh in Israel. Singing Like the Jordan River will undoubtedly be one of my CDs of 2009.


Rather different, but no less powerful, is the CD of Sufi inspired improvisations by the three musicians seen below. The jazz influenced Bab Assalam brings together clarinetist Frenchman Raphaël Vuillard, who normally plays in early music ensembles, and the Syrian brothers Khaled Al Jaramani and Mohannad Al Jaramani on oud, percussion and vocals. Recorded by Jean-Yves Labat de Rossi in the ancient city of Aleppo in northern Syria in 2008 this CD is important as a musical exploration. But it should also serve a model for aspiring recording engineers; very few recordings these days place the performers securely and believably in an arc between the speakers. There is also a noteworthy CD by the Ensemble musical de Palestine on Ad Vitam, but I will unpack that delicate delight in a separate post.


This article was written over a weekend dominated by the shrill media coverage of the BBC Proms appearances of Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. I do not dispute that the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, whose programmes ranged from Beethoven to Boulez, is a wonderful achievement, both in musical and humanitarian terms. But their remorselessly hyped Proms became, for me anyway, yet another case of 'You are shouting so loudly I cannot hear what you are trying to say'.

Ad Vitam Records will never achieve the profile or importance of Barenboim and his cross-cultural band. But remarkable things are happening on this fledgling independent record label with its committment to bringing 'peoples, cultures and religions together'. Hopefully, this article will help bring some of the attention this project so richly deserves.


Sources
1. Excellent Haute Fidélité article on Ad Vitam. Unfortunately in French and resists machine translation.
2. Background to 1973 album M. Frog.
3. Todd Rundgren biography.

Notes
1. As recounted above, this post originated with a chance purchase of D'une seule voix in France. All the other Ad Vitam CDs mentioned were bought by me online. They are available via Amazon France (resellers have some bargains) or from the Ad Vitam website either as CDs or as downloads. The website also offers excellent quality audio samples. Distribution to retailers is handled by Harmonia Mundi Distribution. I have had no contact or review discs from Ad Vitam Records, but a link to this article has been sent to them for information.

2. The header and footer images have no direct connection with Ad Vitam Records, although they would make rather fine CD sleeves. They are acrylics by the Iraqi artist Sadiq Toma, who moved to London in 1978. I came across his work on the same French trip that I discovered the Ad Vitam CDs. Sadiq Toma was one of the artists whose work was displayed in an excellent exhibition Artistes en exil - Irak (Artists in exile - Iraq) in the public library (Médiathèque) of the small French seaside town of Saint Hilaire de Riez. The population of Saint Hilaire is just 8,767 and it is located 300 miles from Paris. Bearing this in mind try searching their online CD database for, say, John Cage. You can certainly tell the state of a nation by the quality of its bookshops and libraries.

3. I see from their address that Ad Vitam operate out of a restored priory in Saint-Avit-de-Tardes in the beautiful and undeveloped Limousin region of central France. There is a photo of their offices here. I can think of worse places to work.


Now read about the secret life of an Arab record label.
Photo credits, 1 and 10 Sadiq Toma, 2 and 4 Haute Fidélite, 3 Head Heritage, all others Ad Vitam Records. 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 Aug 24, 2009 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)

Poll: Vote for your favorite Friday Photo Finish caption

Thanks to all our readers who submitted captions and/or photoshopped images to our inaugural Friday Photo Finish. As you’ll recall last week’s photo was a delightful east coast meets west coast shot of John Adams and Steve Reich. We’ve narrowed the captions down to four finalists and it’s up to you to choose the winner. Polls will close at 11:59 p.m.

Originally posted by Franz List from The Cereal List, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 24, 2009 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)

Information suggests classical music is reaching new demographics

Information released today shows that classical music is reaching new demographics. As part of an initiative to bring classical music to underserved and underprivileged inner city youth, publisher Boosey & Hawkes sponsored the commission of a new work that was premiered at the program’s opening event in Washington, DC.

The Cereal List has obtained a video excerpt of the performance:

o Bling Bling appeared to be overwhelmingly positive, The Cereal List has uncovered some information that suggests a hint of animosity. It seems that just after the work’s premiere a new term found its way into the Urban Dictionary. No word yet on what Hawkes is street slang for.

Originally posted by Ludwig Van from The Cereal List, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 24, 2009 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)

60x60 Dance @ Galapagos, NYC (4/7/09) [McCartney/Knopf]

Moving Water
Music: Andra McCartney
Dance: Carol Knopf



notes:
Andra McCartney is a soundwalk artist, who works with her own field recordings to create websites, CD ROMs, tape works and performances. Her most recent project is a collaborative soundscape work focusing on the area surrounding Lachine Canal in Montreal. McCartney is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University, teaching Sound in Media. Moving Water brings together treatments of water recordings from Vancouverâs Queen Elizabeth Park creek, Ontarioâs Crowe River, the Caribbean Sea in Grenada, and Montrealâs St. Lawrence River.

Carol Knopf is an an aerialist/ dancer. My choreographic works explore both the air and the ground. As a poet of dance, any genre of movement could find its way into my work since all that matters is the expression of the moment. I explore movement until it reveals to me some new aspect of the life always bubbling within.

Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 24, 2009 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)

Part 1: iTunes and the pen | theCLog [del.icio.us]

"What about all those other authors out there, banging away on their keyboards, giving life to characters, and telling stories that resonate in the lives of their readers? Do they need music to work? Is it simply a background, or does it find a way into their words? It wasn’t really a surprise to find a lot of the writers I spoke with had similar, lyric-less requirements when it comes to their own writing habits."

Originally posted by pbailey68 from paulbailey.us (beta), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 24, 2009 at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)

‘Keys to the Future’ and Contemporary Piano Repertoire: The Critical Role of Festivals

T    here is a huge range of new piano music being written right now, and a huge range of new pianists to play it. I am very impressed with the ‘Keys to the Future’ festival, which fills a giant hole in New York’s musical life. This festival is an explosion of piano music of all types, played by a new generation of virtuosi.”
  —  David Lang, composer and co-founder of ‘Bang on a Can’.

T    he ‘Keys to the Future’ [festival] is one of the most inclusive and thoughtfully curated piano series anywhere. The repertoire encompasses composers from ‘uptown’ and ‘downtown’; the U.S., Europe, and South America; and the worlds of jazz and contemporary songwriting.”
  —  Fred Hersch, pianist/composer.

T  he plight of new music for solo instruments is inherently and substantially different from the plight of other new music forms for ensembles. Solo piano music is particularly vulnerable.

A  s any repertoire ages, its impact on audiences gradually diminishes. In all the arts except serious music, audience growth is cultivated by new works. In principle, the sustainability of serious music (including piano music) must depend at least partly on the excitement and energy that a continual supply of, and performance of, new works provides. But these can’t be just any works. They must be new works that successfully stimulate and broadly resonate with the concert-going audience segments, both young and old. To alienate the existing bread-and-butter audience segments in a quixotic pursuit of new audiences is the worst of all possible worlds.

V    ery often I get the impression that audiences seem to think that the endless repetition of a small body of entrenched masterworks is all that is required for a ripe musical culture… Needless to say, I have no quarrel with masterpieces. I think I revere and enjoy them as well as the next fellow. But when they are used, unwittingly perhaps, to stifle contemporary effort in our own country, then I am almost tempted to take the most extreme view and say that we should be better off without them!”
  —  Aaron Copland, 1941.

F  or a professional pianist who is not primarily an academician, the market pressures to confine one’s performance repertoire to a relatively restricted range of well-known ‘war-horses’ exceed all bounds. Jeremy Denk has remarked several times about this in his blog, as he himself rails against those pressures. No instrument is more competitive than the piano, and this fact weighs heavily on every working pianist.

F  or a professional composer not primarily employed in academe, it’s similarly a question of going where the money is, where the greatest number of commissions and the biggest commissions and the highest-profile commissions are—and focusing your energies on those. The pressures are huge.

A  nd for both, there is the practical matter of disturbing the peace, for those performers whose personal living quarters are the primary place for practice or writing. In other words, if your innovations in composing or rehearsing new frontiers of pianism are too bold and aggressive, ordinary neighbors and family members within ear-shot will exert powerful ‘normative’ pressures of their own, long before the new work ever greets the light of day.

S  ponsors to commission new solo piano works are fewer in number than for other genres. Presenters who program solo piano series are a subset of the chamber music presenters in each country. All of these are strong ‘filters’ that effectively limit the rate of commissioning of new solo piano works.

T  he net consequence of all of this is that specialized piano festivals are the way to go, and KttF gets the multi-genre marketing ‘mix’ exactly right, to beautifully address all of the factors mentioned above. With regard to something like new solo piano works, festivals (and competitions) are the best way to connect all of the constituencies—the audience market segments of people who will subscribe to the program series; the presenters who can host such a program series; the funders who will financially underwrite programs of this type; the performers; the composers.

T  o a greater extent than most other instruments and ensembles, I suppose, it is difficult to compose music for solo piano without great proficiency in the instrument. Close collaboration with a concert artist may get you by for composing for other instruments or voice, but piano? Not so much! As a result, a large part of the new piano repertoire consists of works by pianist-composers who are pianists first and foremost or who are very strong pianists in any case.

T  he 1980s to the end of the century yielded a great deal of fine music, but piano music seemed to have remained alien to many of the composers of that period. Most of them composed only a handful of piano pieces, peripheral to the rest of their oeuvre. And solo piano music prior to the 1950s tended to be composed by composers whose main output was orchestral or otherwise very diverse, and whose main instrumental skills may have been on non-keyboard instruments. Since then, however, the solo piano literature has depended more crucially on composers who are themselves superb pianists. Frederic Rzewski is one such example.

R    zewski’s 70th birthday [occurred in 2008], but the occasion [was] not ... marked with the sort of fanfare previously bestowed on Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and John Corigliano. This is kind of instructive—Rzewski primarily writes for the piano, and is clearly the most important and influential composer of works for piano of the past 25 years. In the 19th century, if you wrote great piano music you were a titan. But in the 21st century, you’re ... some sort of a marginalized ‘cult’ figure.”
  —  Darcy James Argue, SecretSociety blog, 09-MAR-2008.

J  ouni Kaipainen’s ‘Je chante la chaleur désespérée’ (1981) and ‘Conte’ (1985) are quite wonderful solo-piano pieces. Also, Esa-Pekka Salonen's ‘Dichotomie’ (2000), say. Juhani Nuorvala’s ‘Viisi bagatellia’ or Veli-Mati Puumala’s ‘Fuga interrotta’ (1997) or ‘Hommages fugitives’ (2002). Hmmm...

J  ukka Tiensuu and his piano pieces ‘Solo’ (1976) and ‘/L’ (1981) make use of live sound-reinforcement, to color the piano sound as desired. Tiensuu’s ‘Prélude non-mesuré’ and other works also push the envelope. An essential aspect of Tiensuu’s music is that he is an accomplished pianist and harpsichordist, who performs works of the Renaissance and Baroque as well as contemporary music.

A  h, maybe that’s it! … At least one reason for the pre-2000 relative dearth of solo piano music that’s easy to find. In the present era of sensory overload, timbre has become a progressively more important element of contemporary music that can attract mass audience—audiences that crave more and more sensory overload. But what the piano offers to you as a composer in the way of ‘color’ is pretty subtle, and how to make the most of what piano can do is only adequately understood if you are tremendously proficient as a pianist yourself. Notes sounded with force are colored with many harmonics, while notes sounded quietly are more flutey, holding only hints of harmonic complexity… The biomechanics of what is practical and achievable on the keyboard can scarcely be taught in conservatory classes... And so on. Therefore, it’s monumentally difficult to devise virtuosic solo piano pieces that will be playable and be accessible to concert-going audiences and simultaneously be emotive/demonstrative enough to capture audiences’ tattered, overloaded imaginations—more monumentally difficult than composing virtuosic pieces for most other solo instruments. Can we infer that, lacking adequate pianist ‘chops’, many composers have followed a ‘path of least resistance’ and have therefore preferred to work with various chamber ensembles or orchestral music, or with other ‘celebrity appeal’ solo instruments? An issue for the educators/pedagogues to continue to work on, going forward!

A  t any rate, the ‘Keys to the Future’ festival illustrates just how much excellent writing and collaboration between composers and pianists, and commissioning is going on today, and over the past several years, as attested in the blockquote from David Lang above. Cool!

P  ianists who will be performing at this year’s KttF include:

• Amy Briggs
  
• Stephen Gosling
  
• Manon Hutton-DeWys
  
• Marina Lomazov
  
• Blair McMillen
  
• Lisa Moore
  
• Molly Morkoski
  
• Tatjana Rankovich
  
• Joseph Rubenstein

ented include:

• John Adams
  
• Chester Biscardi
  
• William Bolcom
  
• Ryan Brown
  
• John Corigliano
  
• Daniel Felsenfeld
  
• Philip Glass
  
• Robert Helps
  
• Fred Hersch
  
• Aaron Kernis
  
• David Lang
  
• Lowell Liebermann
  
• Andrew List
  
• Henry Martin
  
• Eric Moe
  
• Nico Muhly
  
• Doug Opel
  
• Carter Pann
  
• Arvo Pärt
  
• Radiohead/arr. O’Riley
  
• Steve Reich
  
• Joseph Rubenstein
  
• Howard Skempton
  
• Elliott Smith/arr. O’Riley
  
• Bruce Stark
  
• Karen Tanaka
  
• Lois Vierk
  
• Mischa Zupko

ale.edu/music/alum/alumnr2.html" target="_blank">Joseph Rubenstein, DMA Yale 2001.

T  he festival runs from Tuesday through Thursday, 19-21 MAY, at Greenwich House, Renee Weiler Concert Hall, 46 Barrow Street. (West of 7th Ave. Take the "1" train to Christopher Street, walk south two blocks and make a right on Barrow. BHMS is about a half block down on the right.) Each concert begins at 20:00, but the Renee Weiler Concert Hall doors open at 7:30 on the evening of each concert. Seats are general admission, $15 per concert, and are not sold in advance, only at the door, first-come, first-serve. The events were entirely sold-out last year, so be sure to get there early if you can.

• ’Keys to the Future’ contemporary piano music festival website
  
• ChamberBase search at Earsense.org [select ‘Ensemble=Solo’, check ‘Instruments’, select ‘Includes’, select ‘at least 1’, select ‘piano’, select ‘After 2000’]
  
• Muhly N. Repertoire-building is the only adventure. Arts Journal, 06-APR-2008.
  
• Nico Muhly website
  
• Sandow G. Myths. Arts Journal, 15-OCT-2008.
  
• MeetTheComposer.org (MTC) [New York State Council on the Arts]
  
• NewMusicBox [American Music Center]
  
• American Composers Forum
  
• Axford E. Traditional World-Music Influences in Contemporary Solo Piano Literature. Scarecrow, 1997.
  
• Burge D. Twentieth-Century Piano Music. Scarecrow, 2004.
  
• Dubal D. The Art of the Piano: Its Performers, Literature, and Recordings. Amadeus, 2005.
  
• Gordon S. A History of Keyboard Literature: Music for the Piano and Its Forerunners. Schirmer, 1996.
  
• Hinson M. Guide to the Pianist’s Repertoire. 3e. Indiana Univ, 2001.
  
• Todd R. 19th-Century Piano Music. 2e. Routledge, 2004.

-size:80%;">    avorite solo passage? The ending of the 2nd movement of the Schumann Fantasy, with all the right notes!”
  —  Jeremy Denk, , 27-MAR-2007.

Originally from Chamber Music Today, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 24, 2009 at 11:30 AM | Comments (0)

Play with your instruments and toys, learn them inside and out

Many artists strive to get the best gear, the top equipment and the most stuff that they can possibly cram onto stage or into the studio. Whether it’s that drum or this toy or that additional instrument, many musicians today have too much stuff, and most of them don’t even know how to use half of what they have. So play with your toys. Mess around with buttons, sounds, tunings, setups, etc. You may know the basic sounds, but what else can you do to find out even more about your gear?

In some ways, when you purchase a certain effect or instrument, it’s like you have purchased a kitchen’s worth of supplies and food. When you only use a certain configuration or a certain set up, it’s the same as only using one kind of food from that kitchen. I have a favorite food, but I also like variety and I like to know what all my options are before I prepare or order what I want to eat. Why not apply the same ideas to your gear?

Play with your gear, change the settings, do the unusual to get out of the usual mode. You never know what you may discover. Take a little time to experiment each day with your gear and/or instrument to find out what might inspire something new and different.

Missing a string or not missing it at all.

This goes for tuning, setting up, and practicing. Guitarists? Have you ever worked on your songs with one string missing? How would you rephrase the chord or substitute for that chord if you are missing a string? How does it make you approach your soloing in a different way? Do you find yourself creating or finding new licks from having that string missing?

Why not try it over the period of six weeks where each week you remove a different string? Run through your tunes, your practicing and improvisation to see what happens. You may find you’re more prepared and able to continue playing during performances even if you break a string.

Write it down

Don’t spend time worrying about losing your settings and the ones you like the most. Write them down. List where you have knobs turned to or settings placed at. You can take pictures if that helps as well. Then write down the different settings you discover while playing with your toys. Keep a little diary of different settings and their effects, what you like, what you don’t like. Jot down both the good and the bad. Alyssa, a good friend of mine has a quote I like on the topic too. “Sometimes what doesn’t work is more helpful than what does. It’s so easy to skip over the discord, but, even though it’s not pleasing, it can turn into something beneficial and, ultimately, beautiful.” It will help you learn how to find and remember the sounds you like as well as help you learn what you don’t like and how not to avoid it.

Conclusion

It really is simple. Play with your food. Don’t just settle for the sounds you know. Take chances, take time and add some effort to learn the full array of the gear you have. Understand how you can change sounds and how those sounds can change your playing. From turning knobs, to taking away a string, to removing a drum to anything and everything in between, research, listen and think of different ways you can express yourself. You already invested the money in the gear. Invest the time to know it inside and out.

© 2009 Loren Weisman

www.braingrenademusic.com

Watch out for Loren Weisman’s “Realistic Music Careers 101 Seminar” coming to a city near you and Loren’s book “The Artist’s Guide to Success in the Music Business” coming in 2010.

Originally posted by Loren Weisman from Music Think Tank (primary) RSS, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 24, 2009 at 11:30 AM | Comments (0)

8 Bit Beefheart

Originally from WFMU's Beware of the Blog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 24, 2009 at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)

Do Awards Mean You're Better?

Hi again,
I wanted to tack this discussion on to my last inquiry about academic/outsiders, since this concern of mine IS related to the academic GAME.

Since beginning my DMA studies (which I have abandoned, temporarily), I have been exposed to the whole "awards" craze. Since I started composing late in life, 30, and obviously needed time to grow, I discovered at ages 36-39 that I was exempt from most competitions due to my age.

1. Are there no opportunites for oldies like me because I've expired? (What about Bruckner, and he's NOT the only one)

2. Are "Guggenheim" winners really better than the rest of us?

3. The term Winner repulses me.


Maybe I have low self-esteem problems, but I am actually afraid of these competitions. Since I lowered my guard earlier, I will continue to be as honest as possible, since I do not want my own potential for self -deception to creep in as pride and ego and destroy what truth may come from this.

Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 24, 2009 at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)

The (Continuing) Nasty Politics of Modernism

The right wing and often fascist politics of Pound, Elliot and, yes, that fallen aristo Igor Stravinsky fit so nicely with the high modernist philosophy that I must often ask if in attempting to perpetuate some form of the modernist creed whether we are not inadvertently advancing an unpleasant authoritarianism in the musical world. The pseudo-Hegelian historicism has always been a part of modernism. I wonder if we are not doing so even when we pooh-pooh the orchestra as dying remnant of some evil past. Isn't that to fall into the historicist trap; isn't it to assert that we know what the future is and that there is one path to the future and we know what it is?

Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 24, 2009 at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)

MIDI

Lets talk about it. MIDI.

One thing I noticed today listening back after using piano samples in a MIDI template was that whenever I released from a chord or note, the silence was too pronounced which multiplied everything artificial at least two fold. Even though the sample had the noise of the piano key lifting, the silence ruined everything.

It seems that the pallet of MIDI is a problem. Its quiet in another atmospheric way.

I wonder if it would be a good idea to introduce a very quiet hiss to compensate as a template. Or a large room in "silence." Reverb without hanging on to the performance.

Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 24, 2009 at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)

So We Ask Ourselves: What Would George Hamilton Do?

Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 24, 2009 at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)

The Week Ahead: Aug. 23-29 - New York Times

New York Times

The Week Ahead: Aug. 23-29 New York Times The Greenwich Village Club LE POISSON ROUGE has fast become an alluring space for cutting-edge classical music. The lineup this week includes two piano ...

Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "philip glass" OR "john adams" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 24, 2009 at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)

Commissions and Premieres at SummerFest - SanDiego.com

SanDiego.com

Commissions and Premieres at SummerFest SanDiego.com It is easy to forget that the most beloved chamber music, from Beethoven's “Kreutzer” Sonata to the Ravel String Quartet and Aaron ... and more »

Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "philip glass" OR "john adams" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 24, 2009 at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)

Symphony dives into season with a 'bl... - Arizona Republic

Symphony dives into season with a 'blockbuster splash' Arizona Republic And there's the symphony's continued dedication to contemporary music. Superstar John Adams will be one of the season spotlights this year. ...

Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "philip glass" OR "john adams" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 24, 2009 at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)

NY Times: John Adams Leads "Vigorous, Richly Detailed Performances ... - Nonesuch Records

NY Times: John Adams Leads "Vigorous, Richly Detailed Performances ... Nonesuch Records John Adams, the artist-in-residence for this year's Mostly Mozart festival at Lincoln Center, followed the highly successful three-night run conducting his ...

Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "philip glass" OR "john adams" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "tristan murail" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 24, 2009 at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)

The Contemporary Classical Music Comm... - Sequenza21

The Contemporary Classical Music Community Sequenza21 Here's your heads-up that the Second International Conference on Minimalism is fast approaching! It runs Sept. 2-6 and Kansas City gets the honors this time ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 24, 2009 at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)

Chamber festival energizes pianist - Kentucky.com

Chamber festival energizes pianist Kentucky.com In those two new works, Bax says, listeners hear some of the diversity of contemporary classical music composing. "The style is completely different," Bax ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 24, 2009 at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)

August 23, 2009

Bookmarks for August 17th through August 22nd [del.icio.us]

Bookmarks from August 17th through August 22nd :[del.icio.us]

• On Becoming Less Dumb About Wordpress (Subhead: H-E-L-P.) – ihnatko’s posterous – Andy Ihnatko blogs about some of the limitations on running a wordpress blog: “Not really. There are thousands of free, professional themes for Wordpress that’ll take you 75% of the way, but that’s a bit like a ship that will take you 75% of the way to the Sun. You’re still about 25,000,000 miles short so pack a lunch and wear comfortable shoes”
• Networked Music Review — Join the Chiptune Marching Band [Berlin] -”Chiptune Marching Band (CMB) is a participatory DIY workshop/performance. CMB is a public workshop and actual public performance where participants make a sensor driven sound instruments, self-powered by a kinetic power source, and perform with their instrument with the band. With instruments at the ready, the group heads outside, bringing an event to the streets as the Chiptune Marching Band! The course invites any members of the general public, offering them the opportunity to explore localized resource communities, sound making circuitry, and collective sound performance through their realization.”
• Create Digital Music » Alternative Music Distribution: Moldover’s CD Case as Circuit Board Noisemaker – “Moldover is the latest artist to experiment with ways of re-imagining the musical object. Already a fan of custom sonic circuitry, he made his CD into a circuit board. Some of it is just aesthetic, like the printed lettering. But there is also integrated noise-making circuitry for a very simple optical Theremin (well, at least, a light sensor-driven oscillator), plus a headphone jack. There’s actually quite a lot of function you can get out of that when plugging into a computer ” http://moldover.com/quicklinks/buy.html
• Jazz: The Music of Unemployment: Watts Ensemble – “What follows is an email interview with Brian Watson, founder of / composer for the Watts Ensemble. Never heard of them? How’s this? (The tune is called “Funny Cigarettes.”) Based in LA, and supposedly created on a dare, Watts is an impossible, outlandish creature after my own heart, a kindred spirit if ever I met one. The group recently released their first album, Two Suites for Crime & Time. N.B.: I recommend reading the Chris Ziegler interview over at L.A. Record before reading this one.”
• Critic’s Notebook – Nightly Guests Give an Insight Into Their Quirks and Tics – NYTimes.com -”I learned that the world is divided into the hoarders and the sharers, and into the perpetually slighted and the eternally grateful; that the diners who eat the least are the ones who pretend to eat the most; and that no manner of advance instruction can prevent guests from saying your real name and even referencing your last three reviews loudly, repeatedly and in direct earshot of the restaurant manager. There’s a reason most people don’t go into the spying business. They have no aptitude for it.”
• Pajamas Media » L.A. Police Chief Jumps Ship “So he has earned his admirers, but as anyone who has followed his career will tell you, William Bratton has no greater admirer than William Bratton himself. Which brings us to the curious timing of his departure, coming as it does only two years into his second five-year term as chief. When Bratton came to Los Angeles, a friend in the NYPD described him as the P.T. Barnum of law enforcement, a handle that seems just as apt today as it did then. Like Barnum, Bratton knows how to put on a show, and also like Barnum, he knows to leave the audience wanting more as he exits the stage.”

Related posts:

1. Bookmarks for August 9th through August 17th [del.icio.us]
2. Bookmarks for the week: June 22nd through June 26th [del.icio.us];
3. Bookmarks for May 17th [del.icio.us]

Originally posted by admin from paulbailey.us (beta), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 23, 2009 at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)

House of Keys

Instrumental to his work and play. Peter Sykes and his keyboard arsenal. (Photos by Suzanne Kreiter.)
Boston Globe, August 23, 2009.

Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 23, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)

60x60 Dance @ Galapagos, NYC (4/7/09) [Vernon/Williams]

The Indecisive Moment
Music: Mark Vernon
Dance: Jessica Wiliams



notes:
Mark Vernon is a Glasgow based sound artist, musician and radio producer with recordings released on Gagarin records, Staubgold, Textile and Pickled Egg. He was a founding member of Glasgowâs pirate art radio collective, ÎRadio Tuesdayâ, a community radio station which broadcasts innovative mixes of art and music. The Indecisive Moment is composed from field recordings taken at Recyclart, a multi-functional arts space in Brussels. An imaginative young man with aspirations to news reporting tells some pretty tall tales. Over a backdrop of sirens and circling helicopters he gives the latest update on the kidnapping of Jean-Pierre, or perhaps a ransom demand?

During precious free time, Jessica Williams has had the pleasure of presenting choreography in various venues throughout NYC including Dance New Amsterdam, Triskelion Arts and the DUMBO Dance Festival. Jessica derives her artistic influences from contemporary ballet and Merce Cunningham's chance elements. Randomly assigned isolations of the body initiate a chain-reaction of fluid momentum. By coinciding chance with pre-determined repetition, her work illustrates the dialectics of free will versus destiny.
Collaborator: Alexis Maxwell

Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 23, 2009 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)

A treasure in the heart of every man

The ethos of the whole exercise is that every work of art is an individual achievement. Achievement develops self-esteem. Self-esteem is a vital ingredient of rehabilitation and the ability to lead a useful and law-abiding life. Therefore, because they are a means to that vital end, which amounts to protecting the public, the arts are, or should be, a compulsory ingredient in the programmes available in every prison. Armed with new skills and burgeoning self-esteem, offenders may go on to engage with the work, education or training that are essential for successful rehabilitation.

I was therefore delighted when, in 2002, I learned that Aldeburgh had embarked on a most imaginative venture, involving the boys of Carlford Unit at the nearby Her Majesty's Prison and Young Offenders Institute Warren Hill and the children of Debenham High School under the guidance of Phillipa Reive. Those who came to the Aldeburgh Festival that year may remember the remarkable video made by the two groups in which they declare their hopes, fears and apirations to a background of music they had written themselves. It marked the beginning of an ongoing relationship between Aldeburgh Music and the Unit, to the credit of both and the benefit of many.

Carlford Unit contains young people serving long sentences for very serious offences, many of whom have lived Dickensian lives in conditions that the press love to sensationalise. Winston Churchill once said that those involved in the criminal justice system must be aware that 'there is a treasure in the heart of every man, if only you can find it'. The media's curent vogue for demonising young people suggests otherwise, but the programmes that Aldeburgh has initiated and run are living proof to its validity. The enthusiasm of the staff of the unit for the benefit to those taking part in the Aldeburgh ventures is a testament to their value.

ikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ramsbotham,_Baron_Ramsbotham">David Ramsbotham, former Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons writes in the recently published New Aldeburgh Anthology, edited by Ariane Bankes and Jonathan Reekie. A less enlightened approach is the prison for the end of time.

Image credit, Fidelio prisoner's chorus from 2008 production at Palais Garnier, Paris, director Johan Simons. A review copy of the New Aldeburgh Anthology was supplied at my request by Boydell & Brewer. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 23, 2009 at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)

On Becoming Less Dumb About Wordpress (Subhead: H-E-L-P.) - ihnatko's posterous [del.icio.us]

Andy Ihnatko blogs about some of the limitations on running a wordpress blog: "Not really. There are thousands of free, professional themes for Wordpress that'll take you 75% of the way, but that's a bit like a ship that will take you 75% of the way to the Sun. You're still about 25,000,000 miles short so pack a lunch and wear comfortable shoes"

Originally posted by pbailey68 from paulbailey.us (beta), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 23, 2009 at 02:10 AM | Comments (0)

August 22, 2009

Create Digital Music » Alternative Music Distribution: Moldover’s CD Case as Circuit Board Noisemaker [del.icio.us]

"Moldover is the latest artist to experiment with ways of re-imagining the musical object. Already a fan of custom sonic circuitry, he made his CD into a circuit board. Some of it is just aesthetic, like the printed lettering. But there is also integrated noise-making circuitry for a very simple optical Theremin (well, at least, a light sensor-driven oscillator), plus a headphone jack. There’s actually quite a lot of function you can get out of that when plugging into a computer " http://moldover.com/quicklinks/buy.html

Originally posted by pbailey68 from paulbailey.us (beta), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 22, 2009 at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)

Networked Music Review — Join the Chiptune Marching Band [Berlin] [del.icio.us]

"Chiptune Marching Band (CMB) is a participatory DIY workshop/performance. CMB is a public workshop and actual public performance where participants make a sensor driven sound instruments, self-powered by a kinetic power source, and perform with their instrument with the band. With instruments at the ready, the group heads outside, bringing an event to the streets as the Chiptune Marching Band! The course invites any members of the general public, offering them the opportunity to explore localized resource communities, sound making circuitry, and collective sound performance through their realization."

Originally posted by pbailey68 from paulbailey.us (beta), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 22, 2009 at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)

Choice comments

The Feuilleton in today's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung led with an article about the phenomena of audio guides in museums.  The article closely mirrors the discussions online and elsewhere about Twittering realtime program notes during concerts.   The critique of concert twittering has mostly centered around annoyance that audience members might be looking at their cell phones instead of "really paying attention" during the concert.  I think that critique is somewhat misplaced, as the deeper issue is not the degree to which Twitters and those who sit next to Twitteres are distracted but the degree of uniformity and control which the narrtive medium reinforces.  For popular museum exhibitions, the most important function of the audio guides is probably their ability to regulate the speed of visitor traffic, as earplugged visitors do tend to move to the next room whenever the little voice tells them to move.  I like traffic jams as little as anyone and so I appreciate this, especially when the technology allows the listener to linger or rush to the next gallery at will.   (Actually, I find the choreography of a crowd of gallery visitors suddenly taking flight to a cue inaudible to me to have a certain post-Judson Dance beauty; though there isn't much to be said for a concert audience concentrating on their crotches, there might even be some beauty in the faces of an audience lit by the glow of little cell-phone screens).

However, this practical function comes coupled with the packaging of an official-seeming narrative or interpretation of the images they see and, presumably, Twittered concert commentaries will do the same.   At present, as far as I can tell, concert twitters and museum sudio guides alike represent only single points of view.  (An especially odd case is that of the conductor who pre-programs a Twitter feed to narrate, or even justify, his or her own performance.  There's so much meta-weirdness in that.)  There's no market choice before a concert as to whether the comments will come from a stuffy old-fashioned musicologist with the standard bits about standard forms and a handful of favorite anecdotes or from a new musicologist with some formal deconstruction and semi-appropriate pop-cultural references accompanied by some really juicy anecdotes or from some experimentalist with commentary chosen via chance operations from a library of thousands of possible program notes... the possibilities are endless.  (Much more interesting than the conductor's auto-narrating Twitter is the possibility of audience member's own Twittered messages.)  I want my relationships to art in a gallery or to music in a concert to be intimate, and if I wish to share that intimacy, I want to choose my partners, even my virtual partners.  No, I'm not going to take a Twitter feed in concerts or put one of those earphones on in a gallery until I have some substantial choice about the voices I might hear.    

Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 22, 2009 at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)

60x60 Dance @ Galapagos, NYC (4/7/09) [Yang/Kriegel]

My Visiting Card
Music: Xiting Yang
Dance: Karen Kriegel



notes:
Xiting Yang was born in China and has lived in Russia since 1996. She graduated from Moussorgsky Urals State Conservatory of Music with two specializations, piano and computer music. She studied with Natalia Pankovas and Tatiana Komarova. Yang is a member of Yekaterinburg Electroacoustic Music Studio (YEAMS) She took part in the international festival ãV:NMä (Austria, 2003), and the Russian festival ã15 years of the Electroacoustic Music on the Uralä She currently works in Chinese stage university Hua-Qiao. My Visiting Card includes text from a visiting card in Chinese language with musical and concrete sounds.

Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 22, 2009 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)

Back to touchy-feely music

Is there a swing away from the anonymity of digital files and back to the touchy-feely music formats of the past? This Wednesday (Aug. 26) sees the release of a 4CD definitive edition of Woody Guthrie's mid-1940s recordings. The discs come packaged in the replica vintage suitcase seen below, complete with handle and latches. Inside is a full-color 68 page book and there are also facsimiles of Woody's business card, a postcard sent from Florida to his wife, and a booking card from the 1940s, as seen above.

And yes, the sound did matter then, so the CD transfers are made from newly discovered original metal masters. This touchy feely release comes from Rounder Records and retails for $75.99.

Could touchy-feely be the salvation of the ailing record industry? Will we see LSO Live releasing a definitive Valery Gergiev edition packaged in a carry-on flight bag complete with Lonely Planet Guide to Ossetia and facsimile frequent flyer card? Watch this space while reading more on Woody Guthrie here.


Valery Gergiev conducts the London Symphony Orchestra in a programme of Schnittke and Shostakovich at the BBC Proms on Monday (Aug. 22). Unless he misses his flight.
With thanks to reader Tim McCarthy for the heads up on the Woody Guthrie box. No review sample has changed hands, so I am putting it on my Amazon wish list. 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 Aug 22, 2009 at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)

August 21, 2009

Jazz: The Music of Unemployment: Watts Ensemble [del.icio.us]

What follows is an email interview with Brian Watson, founder of / composer for the Watts Ensemble. Never heard of them? How's this? (The tune is called "Funny Cigarettes.") Based in LA, and supposedly created on a dare, Watts is an impossible, outlandish creature after my own heart, a kindred spirit if ever I met one. The group recently released their first album, Two Suites for Crime & Time. N.B.: I recommend reading the Chris Ziegler interview over at L.A. Record before reading this one.

Originally posted by pbailey68 from paulbailey.us (beta), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 21, 2009 at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)

60x60 Dance @ Galapagos, NYC (4/7/09) [Barreca/Danitz]

Cinder Cone
Music: Marc Barreca
Dance: Marilynn Danitz



notes:
Marc Barreca has been composing and performing electronic music for over twenty-five years. In the late 1970âs and early 1980âs he performed with the Seattle-based electronic music group Young Scientist and released recordings on Palace of Lights and Intrepid labels. He was also a member of K. Leimerâs studio group, Savant. Marc uses digital and analog synthesizers, digital samplers, environmental field recordings and computer processed audio loops to create multi-layered compositions. Cinder Cone was recorded at Drab Studios, Bainbridge Island on a computer using sampled and synthesized sounds.

Marilynn Danitz is the Artistic Director, High Frequency Wavelengths; President Ex Officio, American Dance Guild Awards: Jacob's Pillow Artist Residency, Dance Brew's Outstanding Dance Theatre Work of the Year, Choreography Award of Distinction, Real Art Ways National Residency. Presentations: Japan, Australia, Italy, China, Taiwan, Korea, Bulgaria, Colombia, Cyprus, Greece, Poland, Russia, Belarus, the Philippines, Canada, 14 international festivals New York Broadcasts: NBC, ABC, and in 9 countries Collaborations with: poet-laureate, Allen Ginsberg; photographer, Jerry Uelsmann; composer, Jesu Pinzon Juror: National Choreography Competition,Vitebsk Invited guest speaker in international conferences, and with Mikhail Baryshnikov in a television interview
Dancers: Meredith Blouin, Jessica Burns

Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 21, 2009 at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)

Goulash in August

Found by a neighbor, Somewhere Out in the Internet:

Smooth Jazz recipe:

1. Pour jazz into a bowl.
2. Extract jazz rhythm; replace with pop rhythm.
3. Add extra backbeat.
4. Whip until smooth.
5. In a small pot, boil solos until they’re soft and have turned the color of Don Johnson’s T-shirts in Miami Vice. Strain and remove.
6. On a cutting board, cut boiled solos to approximately ¼ normal length.
7. Blend into whipped mixture to a smooth, even consistency.
8. Scoop into small desert dishes and chill in the refrigerator for roughly 20 minutes.
9. Start the Jacuzzi and change into your Speedo. Enjoy!

---

It’s me that’s been a-doggin’ your shadow.
It’s me that’s been a-shadowin’ your dog.
— 10cc, “Iceberg” (How Dare You!)

Time to stop this dreaming,must rejoin the real world
As revealed by orange lights and a smoky atmosphere.
— Phil Collins (with Genesis), “Heathaze” (Duke)

[It] caused a friend to say that I must have been having tea with Debussy.
— Ralph Vaughan Williams, of his own string quartet,
written on returning to England from Paris in 1908

ass="blogger-post-footer">

Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 21, 2009 at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)

On Blogging, Generally

The coming-out stories of anonymous bloggers.

Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 21, 2009 at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)

Further Excerpts from the Minority Report

(1) "... nothing wrong with failure.  Experimental music is all about accepting the risk of failure.  And I'm not just talking John Cage-experimental.  You want to know an experimental musician who failed?  Wagner failed, that's who.  Wagner failed bigtime. He wrote music dramas that are unsingable and unstageable.  You don't believe me?  Name one production in which the singing and staging get all-round praise.  I'm talking praise from card-carrying Wagnerites.  When the vocal and orchestral writing demands voices that don't exist, and probably, without some form of amplification, will never be able to exist and the staging requires old-fashioned stage magic that no one believes in anymore, you've got a big recipe for failure... ...being a Wagnerite, even a Perfect Wagnerite, means not just the ordinary operatic suspension of disbelief, it means the perpetual suspension of complete satisfaction, the Tristan chord extended forever, having to be satisfied with small tidbits and morsels because no performance will ever succeed as a whole, voices, orchestra, acting, staging.."

(2) "...unable to write a piece of significant length.  Not every piece needs to be as long as the Hammerklavier or the second Feldman quartet or The Well-Tuned Piano.  And we certainly don't need programs filled with twenty-to-thirty minute pieces.   The Debussy Prélude is ten minutes long, the faun's orgasm included.  Ten minutes.  Ionization isn't seven minutes long and it's still a "sock in the jaw". The great dirty secret of the 10-minute-plus and the 20-minute-plus piece is not that they are automatically more significant, it's that, once you get past the 10-minute mark, the piece earns you more points with GEMA or ASCAP, and it happens again at 20-minutes.  We need more shorter pieces.  Serious music needs to reclaim the three-minute piece from pop music. Make the world safe again for the three-minute piece full of depth and wonder..."

(3) "...and the he started in on some business about 'Can the artist really draw?' He said that making the music I made was a sign that I couldn't write purdy, tonal music, "real music," in a traditional, classical style. Of course I can.  I'm a musician.  I've played purdy, tonal music in traditional styles all my goddamned life and I went to conservatory and learned to imitate dozens of styles of purdy, tonal music.  I wrote hundreds of counterpoint exercises and four-voiced chorales and then the canons and fugues and minuets and sonata movements and then I graduated to grading thousands of harmony and counterpoint exercises.  If that's drawing then, yeah, I can draw, but maybe I want to paint, and print and sculpt... ...the belief that no music that goes beyond the technical and stylistic of some arbitray point in the past is hopelessly pessimistic, necrophilia... and that ain't purdy..."

     

Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 21, 2009 at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)

Lament for Lockerbie

Lament for Lockerbie - Threnody, December '88 was conceived by the Scottish composer Gordon Lawson as a spontaneous reaction to the disaster which destroyed both the small Scottish town and Pan Am flight 103. Scored for strings and based on the hymn Dundee by Charles Wesley, Lament for Lockerbie was premiered in its final form in 1991. The ten minute tonal Threnody is both accessible and very moving with its hints of English pastoralism and early Tippett, and the arch-like structure of the work is reminiscent of that greatest of twentieth-century laments, Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen.

As I write Lament for Lockerbie plays on the CD seen above, which was released in 2000 by the composer. Sadly the disc seems to have disappeared completely from the catalogue, and there is little biographical information on Gordon Lawson available other than in the CD booklet. As the furore over the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi resounds on both sides of the Atlantic, Gordon Lawson's sleeve note from nine years ago is strangely prophetic.

As the soloist's melismas descend, the tension slackens, but the resignation hoped for in the final D major chord is influenced by some added notes, as if to suggest that the tragedy will never really be obliterated from the memory.

A requiem for eleven victims of a different tragedy here.
A personal connection. When the Lockerbie tragedy happened we were living in Scotland 75 miles north of where the Pan Am jet crashed. The 21st December 1988 was a wild, wet and windy night and I was actually driving north of the crash site returning from a business function when the disaster occured. 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 Aug 21, 2009 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)

60x60 Dance @ Galapagos, NYC (4/7/09) [Ashley/Bufferd]

They Saw That They Were Naked
Music: Dwight Ashley
Dance: Emily Bufferd



notes:
Although Dwight Ashley has been a composer and recording artist for more than 25 years, he made none of his work public until 1991, when his first collaboration with Tim Story, "A Desperate Serenity," was released on the Multimood label. In June 2004, Ashley made his solo debut with "Discrete Carbon," released by Nepenthe Music. Ashley followed with two more solo projects, "Four" in 2005, and "Ataxia" in 2006, and has done additional collaborations with Story. They Saw That They Were Naked is an orchestral piece, written for strings, bass trombone, and glockenspiel.

Since 2008, BEings has been presenting dance meant to engage its viewer on an intimate level. We aim to produce work that is relevant and relatable in order to leave the viewer with a feeling of understanding. It is of utmost importance to allow our audience to experience the vulnerability that is produced by putting a feeling onstage and become relatable on a human level. From this principle, our name is found. BEings aims to put our thoughts into action by integrating a wide spread dance vocabulary towards the work
Dancers: Missy Wujek, Jessica Chou, Cat Cogliandro, Philip Northington, Kyle Vaughn, Jonathan Hoover

Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 21, 2009 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)

60x60 Dance @ Galapagos, NYC (4/7/09) [Alexandra/Buwalda]

Barcarolla
Music: Liana Alexandra
Dance: Kelly Buwalda



notes:
Liana Alexandra is a professor at the National University of Music of Bucharest. She is a member of Duo Intermedia and co-director of the Nuova Musica Consonate-Living Music Foundation Festival. She received the Prize of the Union of Romanian Composers, Gaudeamus Prize, First Prize "Carl Maria von Weber", and Prize of Beer-Sheva, Israel. ãLiana Alexandra is regarded as the leading Romanian composer of her generation. Her compositional vocabulary is wide, ranging from cluster and aleatoric technique to broad lyric melody based on folk elements from her native culture" (Grey Youtz, Michigan University)

Kelly Buwalda enjoys teaching, dancing, running, and biking all over NYC. She recently performed at P.S. 122 with MEI-BE WHATever and is currently creating solo works to be performed in a site-specific venue in 2010.
Dancer: Kelly Buwalda

Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 21, 2009 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)

Friday Photo Finish: Adams v. Reich Stalker Edition

A picture may be worth a thousand words but often 990 of them aren’t quite the right ones. So each and every Friday we’re giving you a chance to set the story straight with our weekly caption contest. You submit your captions and over the weekend The Cereal List aggregate will convene a panel to narrow the field down to small set of finalists. The following Monday we’ll post the finalists and allow readers to select the winner.** The prize for winning: One of The Cereal List’s contributors will write a post on a subject of your choosing.

Our inaugural Friday Photo Finish is a double delight. An anonymous reader sends us this doozy featuring John Adams and Steve Reich. Wow, um, where do we start? Submit your captions in our comment section!

Editor’s Note: The Cereal List also encourages Photoshop modifications and has included a link to a larger version of the photo for such purposes. There are two ways to submit your Photoshopped images to us: 1) upload them to your Flickr account and tag them thecereallist or 2) email them to us at tips@thecereallist.com.

**Caption comments can be submitted without using real names but must include a working email address (which will not be published).

Originally posted by Luciano Paparazzi from The Cereal List, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 21, 2009 at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)

Philip Glass, "Serra Pelada"

Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 21, 2009 at 12:47 PM | Comments (0)

Rendezvous with Ra - The Herald-Sun

Rendezvous with Ra The Herald-Sun ... (he worked with the Fletcher Henderson band in the 1940s), but his experimental music made him a major influence on the avant-garde music of the 1960s. ... and more »

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Aug 21, 2009 at 12:46 PM | Comments (0)