I’ve written before about the one and only Alex Temple, late Yalie and NYC denizen, later studious University of Michigan grad, currently working his thing in the windy city of Chicago.
Well, Alex is back in New York for a moment, joined by fellow composers Brian Mark, Seth Bedford, Angélica Négron, and Jeremy Howard Beck. DETOUR presents works by all these up-and-comers, made to accompany archival films found in the Prelinger Archives, this Saturday, March 20th, at 8pm, at the Gershwin Hotel (7 East 27th Street, 9pm / Cover $10)
The videos range from airline ads to political propaganda. Some have been edited and others left intact. The music that’s been added to them covers a wide variety of styles and languages, from electronic soundscapes to live chamber music. Alex’s own offering is called A Presentation to the Board, and uses electronic music and a live speaker to turn a 1950’s public service announcement about life in the suburbs into a pitch by a representative of an evil conspiratorial corporation to a despotic government.
Alex has also been muy busy with other projects that involve both voice and smart deconstructions/meldings of pop and high culture. A recent favorite is Imogene, which lucky yous can hear in two different versions at Alex’s works page. Go ahead, try it, you’ll like it!
Sound Clips: Champignon Cutting and Champignon Cutting Phase Shifted by Michael Peters
The first clip is close mic recording cutting champignon mushrooms for dinner. The second recording is phase shifted it using granular synthesis.
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What does Christian Thielemann think of the music of Gustav Mahler? The German conductor, possibly the most convincing Wagner interpreter of our day, was recently asked that question at a Munich press conference, and it was a charged query: for some years, Thielemann has been trailed by rumors of reactionary political sympathies, even of anti-Semitism, and his avoidance of Mahler has in some places been taken as evidence of his alleged views. (Jane Kramer reported on the Thielemann controversy in a New Yorker article in 2001.) Jens Laurson, of the ionarts blog, attended the press conference, and notes that Thielemann’s response to the Mahler question took a surprising twist. The conductor said: “Mahler’s music lends itself most to those conductors who know how to hold back, who are good at understatement. That doesn’t exactly accommodate my conducting style; I’ve not been terribly successful at that yet. The music of Mahler is already so full of effects, if you are tempted to add anything, you only make it worse. I admire those conductors who achieve that certain noblesse—which is what I desire to achieve, eventually. Not always to enhance something.” Laurson’s entire post is, as they say, worth reading.
Photo: Thielemann in a Bayreuth bookstore, 2004.
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