New Music reBlog

March 19, 2010

Paul Epworth: Worthy Contender - California Chronicle

Paul Epworth: Worthy Contender
California Chronicle
Talking through his back catalogue, he unselfconsciously namechecks Steve Reich and Laurie Anderson in the context of The Futureheads, Black Sabbath in 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 Mar 19, 2010 at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)

Wharton Music Center Spring Benefit Concert, March 28th at Drew University - TheAlternativePress.com

TheAlternativePress.com

Wharton Music Center Spring Benefit Concert, March 28th at Drew University
TheAlternativePress.com
ETHEL performs compositions by quartet members, as well as works by such luminaries as Julia Wolfe, Phil Kline, John Zorn, Steve Reich, John King, JacobTV, ...

Energy and intellect - Boston Globe

Energy and intellect
Boston Globe
One doesn't need to know the work of Stockhausen or Sun Ra to appreciate this music, which is full of swing and drones and interesting meanders, ...

The Classical Music Network - ConcertoNet

The Classical Music Network
ConcertoNet
This eight-minute work, which opened the program was a study which later would be used for Osiris, which was conducted here last year by Pierre Boulez. ...

Springboard Solo

Sound clip: Spring Board Solo by Eric Leonardson

Taken from the Clatterbox interview:

“What might appear to be a musical Zimmer frame is in fact the Springboard, an electro-acoustic coil spring instrument built by Chicago-based musician and instrument builder Eric Leonardson. Inspired by the sounds of metal springs retracting on the screen door at his home, Leonardson set about experimenting with no preconceived idea of what sort of instrument he would end up with, indeed even if an instrument would materialize.”

Read the Clatterbox interview
More on Eric Leonardson

Originally posted by Margaret from Sound is Art, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 19, 2010 at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)

Premiere

It’s Christmas, 1983 and Miss Mussel is 13 days in to 4 years old. That morning, she received a new purse, a notepad with alternating pages of pastel blue, pink, yellow and green and a pencil. The paper is coarse and the pencil doesn’t show up well.

It’s annoying but this is her first day on the job. Less-than-optimal equipment is not an excuse to bail on a story. Neither is not yet having the fine motor skills to form even vaguely legible letters. She is, after all, a professional.

For her first piece, Miss Mussel needs something original; a hook that no one else has. Christmas is the most cliché time of year and she wants to make her mark right out of the blocks.

Most of the day is disappointing. Everyone spends time with their family at Christmas.

Just as she was about to sink into a pit of despair, our intrepid cub hears a commotion in the kitchen. Her sidekick Frere Mussel comes along in case things get dicey.

There is no doubt her shoes mean business — Kidde Kobbler saw to that — and no one objects as Miss Mussel boldy pushes her way to the front of the scrum.

A man identifying himself as Uncle Tim approaches but immediately something seems out of place. Although she is not entirely familiar with all holiday customs, Miss Mussel is reasonably sure turkey is the traditional Christmas meal.

This man clearly has a fish.

Miss Mussel glances quickly at her calendar to make sure she hasn’t mixed up Christmas and Easter. It is definitely the 25th. Excitement bubbles and then overflows. The hook she has been looking for all day finally appeared — NOT EVERYONE EATS TURKEY AT CHRISTMAS.

Immediately she starts scribbling notes. What kind? how long? how heavy? from where?…every detail is carefully recorded in her unique shorthand. Frere Mussel does a thorough inspection and confirms that it is indeed a fish. Corroboration: check.

In order to be thorough, Miss Mussel insists on tasting the fish once it is cooked. She deems it equally satisfactory to a turkey but sneaks away before dessert. There is a story to be filed and she can’t afford to linger. It may be her first day, but the presses won’t wait for another slice of pumpkin pie.

Originally posted by Miss Mussel from The Omniscient Mussel on Classical Music & Culture, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 19, 2010 at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)

Lyceum Series hosts master pianist on campus - Baylor University The Lariat Online

Lyceum Series hosts master pianist on campus
Baylor University The Lariat Online
he School of Music brought master pianist Ursula Oppens to campus to perform Thursday night and to teach a master class today as part of its Lyceum Series. ...

Our Lady Of Perpetual Orthpedics -- Or How I'm Learning to Love My Alphabet ... - True/Slant

Our Lady Of Perpetual Orthpedics -- Or How I'm Learning to Love My Alphabet ...
True/Slant
Our MRI usually gives us headphones to listen to music but I could only use earplugs. (There are such things as open MRIs for those who just can't do one of ...

This is me talking about my piece on the show.

I find myself these days thinking about the end of empires. What was it like as the Lusignan dynasty folded into itself, overcome by the ascendant Ottomans? Did the courtiers sense what was happening? What did a court composer think of his work at a time like that? Did he question his purpose in a dusty, fading outpost, forgotten by the mainland? Perhaps he slowly turned the pages of a book of music, dreaming jealously of his more fortunate predecessors, questioning the importance of music at a time like his. Or maybe he redoubled his efforts, seeing himself as a musical witness to history. My piece for this concert, "My sorrow of rare proportion," a tiny thing, is based on the medieval rondeau, more or less. "Rare proportion" is an old-fashioned way of talking about irrational rhythms (like 7 into 3, etc.) and thus refers not only to a depth of feeling but also the supple means of its portrayal. Its two kinds of material, textures as much as tunes, evolve the way empires do. Meaning, one kind of music grinds to a halt under under the weight of its own excesses, while the other slowly disappears without a trace.

photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/antmoose/17433068/

Originally from counter)induction, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 19, 2010 at 05:12 AM | Comments (0)

Spielereien: The Baroque Organist's Playthings

Franz Haselbock - Spielereien: The Baroque Organist's Playthings performed on Gabler Organ at Basilica of WeingartenCollection of organ pieces from the Baroque period (approximately from 1600 to 1750) emphasizing accompaniment by devices such as a Zimbelstern, Glockenspiel, Tremulant, organ stops that imitate calls of the cuckoo and nightingale and more.Zimbelstern - The Zimbelstern is a musical

Originally from A Closet of Curiosities, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 19, 2010 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)

Shuffle du jour

A little peculiar that the shuffle on this beautifully sunny spring day, should be a Christmas carol:
1. Mannheim Steamroller, “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” (some Mannheim Steamroller Christmas album or other) [371/1172]
2. Genesis, “The Lamia” from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway [997/1172]
3. Mannheim Steamroller, “Good King Wenceslaus” (some Mannheim Steamroller Christmas album or other) [322/1172]
4. Captain Beefheart, “Frownland” from Trout Mask Replica [315/1172]
5. Prokofiev, Visions fugitives, Opus 22, № 18: Con una dolce lentezza (Michel Béroff) [1102/1172]
6. Astor Piazzolla, Contrabajísimo from Tango: Hora Cero [218/1172]
7. Shostakovich, String Quartet № 2 in A, Opus 68, ii. Recitative & Romance: Adagio (Emerson String Quartet) [760/1172]
8. The Bonzo Dog Doo/Dah Band, “Cool Britannia” from Gorilla [219/1172]
9. Shostakovich, Symphony № 4, Opus 43, First movement (Prague Symphony; Maksim Dmitriyevich) [731/1172]
10. Shostakovich, Symphony № 13, Opus 113 (Babi Yar), iv. “Fears” (Peter Mikulas, bass; Prague Symphony; Maksim Dmitriyevich) [712/1172]
11. Vivaldi, Le quattro stagioni: L’autunno, i. Allegro (Gidon Kremer & Kremerata Baltica) [477/1172]
12. Prokofiev, Piano Concerto № 5 in G, Opus 55, i. Allegro con brio (Michel Béroff, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Kurt Masur) [624/1172]

Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 19, 2010 at 05:10 AM | Comments (0)

Rowland S. Howard (1959-2009)

[january 23, 2010 | #344]

Just before the turn of the decade, on december 30th 2009, Rowland S. Howard died. Some thoughts and some relics: a couple of black and white pictures that I took on one of the evenings The Birthday Party hit the London Venue (july 16th, 1981).

Read more ...

Originally from HarSMedia (Feed and Podcast), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 19, 2010 at 05:10 AM | Comments (0)

Art fleas (puces de l'art)

[january 13, 2010 | #343 - sbpc/034] Hear Audio [ mp3 3MB ]

Pushing last Christmas we set up a table at the Parisian Generale's Puces de l'art. Even though we failed to sharpen my toppling cassettes world record, we still were the tropical spice in the art fleas' ice, and joined forces with Blenno and the Wurst-bruecke for a memorable rendering of the Dutch national anthem. Our Wilhelmus Van Nassouwe is the edition's podcast.

Read more ...

Originally from HarSMedia (Feed and Podcast), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 19, 2010 at 05:10 AM | Comments (0)

18 x 100 Sec. Sound [best_before] Letters

[february 01, 2010 | #345]

"Yesterday's a work in progress" ... Wrapping up the 2009 Best Before Sound Art Tour with a fine free CD for your download-ing pleasure, and the evocation of ghosts and voices from within the electromagnetic field on a path, rough 'n' lonely, towards an art built from sole fact and nil fiction...

Read more ...

Originally from HarSMedia (Feed and Podcast), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 19, 2010 at 05:10 AM | Comments (0)

Medium Hang Esztetika

[february 04, 2010 | #346]

The first part of the ongoing study on EAI as a metalanguage, that, together with Rebus, I embarked upon a couple of years ago, just recently was published as part of an Hungarian book called "Medium Hang Esztetika - Zeneiseg a medialis technologiak koraban. (That Google-translates: "Medium Sound Aesthetics - Performance in the medial age of technology".)

Read more ...

Originally from HarSMedia (Feed and Podcast), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 19, 2010 at 05:10 AM | Comments (0)

Go Oxford! - Valley Independent Sentinel

Go Oxford!
Valley Independent Sentinel
Senior co-captain Gretchen Sciarrino said, “We added things to our routine. We have a stronger team and routine and we hope to do a lot better. ...

Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "scelsi" OR "sciarrino" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 19, 2010 at 05:10 AM | Comments (0)

Album: Goldfrapp, Head First (Mute) - Independent

Album: Goldfrapp, Head First (Mute)
Independent
... and by the Steve Reich-ian vocal sussurus pulsing mesmerically through the closing "Voicething", but overall this seems a step backwards.

and more »

Carter: 16 Compositions (2002-2009) - The Guardian

Carter: 16 Compositions (2002-2009)
The Guardian
Even in his 102nd year, Elliott Carter's creativity shows few signs of faltering. The 16 works from the last seven years that are collected in the latest ...

March 18, 2010

If Carnegie can't break 10k on a fundraiser... who can? And what good is it all?

NYTimes: More Cash to Go to a Hall Than to Haiti

There something disingenuous about arts organizations taking up disaster causes.

I mean, how can non-profits help other non-profits, when the needy-non-profits just need some *profits* to put towards the cause?

I worked with a small ensemble on a 'fundraiser' many years ago. It seemed more like an excuse to get a bunch of people to work for less/or free, and build good will towards putting on a concert. I mean, we raised peanuts, and everybody knew it.

And this thing about raising the profile of the disaster, so it doesn't leave the public's mind. Ok, I get that. But the organization/talent also gets an *association* with the idea of charity, and gets to be seen "rushing to the rescue," even if they're just tossing a rubber ducky to flood victims.

I'm not trying to pick on Carnegie, they're by far the most progressive large concert music organization I can think of. But it's really something to think about. Should there be a certain level to meet? It would have to be based on a sliding scale? But what scale? Non-profits can hardly be measured by their cash flow, it ignores the important cultural capital they trade in. And would decide...etc, etc.

Oh well. NY will be listening, eating, and drinking, and patting ourselves on the back for doing it all in the name of Haiti.

Originally from Fuck Classical Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)

Classical Music/Opera Listings - New York Times

Classical Music/Opera Listings
New York Times
(Smith) ★ SO PERCUSSION (Thursday) This inventive percussion ensemble revisits a classic score, Steve Reich's “Drumming” (though it is only playing Part 1) ...

NY Philharmonic Presents THE RUSSIAN STRAVINSKY 4/21-5/8 - Broadway World

NY Philharmonic Presents THE RUSSIAN STRAVINSKY 4/21-5/8
Broadway World
The three-week festival - one of several initiatives launched during Alan Gilbert's first season as Music Director - will offer an in-depth look at ...

and more »

Take in a show or two - Western News

Take in a show or two
Western News
By Communications Staff Enjoy a black box theatre experience as singers from the Don Wright Faculty of Music perform scenes from early and contemporary ...

Corrivideum

Oops! Mis-pasted in yesterday’s post, and so this video (the pride of the fleet) was missing) . . . .

Conclusion of the Crucifixion, and the Deposition from the Cross:

Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)

Marching to Shostakovich

With Shostakovich’s “The Nose” playing at the Metropolitan Opera, it seems a good moment to check in on the world of Shostakovich-playing college and high-school bands. Back in 2006, the composer-critic-blogger Matthew Guerrieri alerted me to the existence of the marching-band Shostakovich underground; he’d come across a video of the Austin Bulldog Band playing part of Schoenberg’s “Verklärte Nacht” and the Scherzo of Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony.

I’m not quite sure when Shostakovich began to catch on with bands across the country, but various companies offer arrangements of Shostakovich excerpts, such as this “Fire of Eternal Glory” package (complete with T-shirts). It’s surprising that some enterprising Congressperson hasn’t put a stop to what might be construed as blatant Communist propaganda, but one could always cite the “Shostakovich as dissident” theory in defense. In fact, the Shostakovich-at-halftime phenomenon puts an interesting spin on the debate over the composer’s political import. The Chicago-based blogger Seated Ovation has called upon the musicological community to pay greater heed to what he terms the “badass” dimension of Shostakovich’s music, with reference to the famous video of Gustavo Dudamel and his Venezuelan minions playing the Scherzo of the Tenth. Not coincidentally, the same furiously driving piece has hit it big with marching bands.

Who’s the badassiest Shostakovich band in the land? After reviewing various candidates on YouTube—the Stratford Marching Knights, the Centreville High School Marching Band, the Grandville Marching Band, the Mira Mesa High School Band, the Mehlville High School Marching Band (with a program titled “Torment: The Music of Dmitri Shostakovich”), the Donna High School Band, and the Herndon High School Band—I’ll give the palm to the Pearland High School Band, from Pearland, Texas. (Caveat: poor audio quality may have underserved some entrants.) The prize for Best Recovery after Momentary Pronunciation Panic goes to the announcer for the Basha High School Band. In the collegiate division, the winner is the Jacksonville State Marching Southerners, who really kicked out the finale of the Shostakovich Fifth at the 2008 J.S.U. vs. Georgia Tech halftime show. Another of the Marching Southerners’ videos heads this post. I’ll have to look into Sir Shostakovich another time.

Originally posted by Alex Ross from Unquiet Thoughts, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)

Interview with Derrick Jensen

“We need to bring down civilization, because it’s killing the planet,” says our guest, author and activist Derrick Jensen.

Formerly a college professor and a commercial beekeeper, Jensen’s prolific career as an author has given us A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, Endgame, Listening to the Land, Strangely Like War and Walking on Water. He also co-authored Railroads & Clearcuts and Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control. He has written for The New York Times magazine, The Sun, Audubon, and many other publications.

In 2008 Derrick Jensen was named one of Utne Reader’s “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World.”

We talked about:

or truth-telling ● Above ground and below ground activism ● The only language destroyers understand ● The essence of Derrick’s philosophy and passion ● Normalizing insane behavior ● Reform or revolution? ● What do we need to do? ● Living in the culture of make-believe ● The relationship between eroticism and violence ● Collapse and the shape of things to come ● Hypocrisy in the environmental movement ● Owning prejudices and shifting alliances ● Do we need to harden our hearts or to open them? ● Discernment, compassion, compliance and fierce love

Visit: derrickjensen.org

Enjoy the show! You may download the mp3 file, which will play in iTunes, RealPlayer, Windows Media Player and other media players or you may listen to it right here by clicking on the purple media player below. (The interview is about 52 minutes.)

Listen at your convenience! Use this link for download, not the one below the player. Download this episode (right click and save)

Click through to buy some of Derrick’s books on Amazon right from this site in the sidebar to the left.

This podcast episode contains explicit language.

Originally posted by jari from LIVING HERO, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 10:46 PM | Comments (0)

Alvin Lucier, "Still Lives: Chopsticks"

Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 10:46 PM | Comments (0)

Iannis Xenakis, "Dikhthas"

Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 10:46 PM | Comments (0)

Gateway: Reich - ChicagoNow (blog)

Gateway: Reich
ChicagoNow (blog)
These days, each composer embraces his or her own unique mix of beliefs regarding music's expressive and communicative potential. Steve Reich is a ...

Carlo Gesualdo: composer or crazed psychopath? - The Guardian (blog)

Carlo Gesualdo: composer or crazed psychopath?
The Guardian (blog)
... fascinatingly, to chart how the story of Gesualdo and his music has enthralled and inspired 20th- and 21st-century creatives, from Stravinsky to Boulez, ...

Guest Artists From Around the Globe to Perform at Northwestern - Article Ant (press release)

Guest Artists From Around the Globe to Perform at Northwestern
Article Ant (press release)
All are part of the Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music's spring concert lineup. A vocal master class by mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick (April 20), ...

Shadow Diplomacy

Wayang kulit (Javanese shadow puppet) figures of Barack and Michelle Obama, commissioned by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono from wayang artist Ki Ledyar, pictured, of Yoyakarta, in advance of next week's state visit.

Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)

Electric violin virtuoso Tracy Silverman brings the Pacific Coast to Nashville ... - Nashville Scene

Electric violin virtuoso Tracy Silverman brings the Pacific Coast to Nashville ...
Nashville Scene
"There's a certain rawness in folk music of most cultures that's part of my ideal sound, the gritty quality of Ray Charles or [Malian singer] Salif Keita. ...

James's Gotta Brand New Blog - London Free Press (blog)

James's Gotta Brand New Blog
London Free Press (blog)
Audience members were saying what a fine job Bruce Smith, who directs the ensemble does as a clinician etc. at music fests . . . he told a funny story about ...

and more »

A Musical Homecoming in Hanoi - Wall Street Journal

A Musical Homecoming in Hanoi
Wall Street Journal
... to present contemporary music in a meaningful context. Today, his ensemble will give the Asian premiere of "Conversing with Paradise" by Elliott Carter, ...

and more »

What's Happening - The Patriot Ledger

What's Happening
The Patriot Ledger
8 pm March 19, Les Folies Françoises, Great Parisian Masters Under Louis XV: Music of Leclair, Barrière, and Royer. $19-$64. 617-661-1812, www.bemf.org. ...

and more »

2010 American Music Center Awards Announced

The American Music Center has announced that Francis Thorne, Jack Beeson, Fred Ho, Meredith Monk, Esa-Pekka Salonen, The Society for New Music, and International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) will be honored at the American Music Center's 2010 Annual Meeting and Awards Ceremony.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)

Hiring an Orchestra on Someone Else's Dime

If a concert came along where over 80 or 90 percent of the concert's costs were covered, would the administration of an orchestra jump at the chance? I'll bet you they would!

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)

Coastal Shift

By Dan Visconti
In all creative lives there's a necessity to balance the internal and external

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)

Le son de l'art a sa naissance (Art's Birthday 2010)

[march 18, 2010 | #354]

It was only at the very last moment that I realized the full range of Ars Acustica's Art's Birthday event organized in cooperation with the European Broadcast Union. ab logo 17 European national broadcast organizations commissioned audio works, each of a duration of 20 minutes. For Art's Birthday, january 17th, these were presented live on location in the participating countries, between 20h and 00h, according to a strict schedule. The EBU had set up two satellite channels, via the European Radio Satellites Ravel and Verdi, which offered all these contributions ready-to-broadcast, along with signature tunes and broadcast identifications, to the participating national radio organizations, which could use and mix them 'live' and ad libitum, each in their own, national, 4 hour Art's Birthday broadcast.

It was a nice surprise to find the Swiss radio, Radio Suisse Roumande Espace 2 granting me its 2010 Art's Birthday commission. Also - but not only, of course - because very early on january 16th it had me easy-jet over snowy mountains, from Amsterdam to Geneva, and then roll on by train along the lake, to Lausanne.
The Swiss live Art's Birthday party took place there, in Lausanne, at Cinema Oblo, co-produced by Rue Du Nord.

know that the idea of Art's Birthday was proposed in 1963 by the French Fluxus artist Robert Filiou. One million years ago, Filiou decided, there was no art yet. But then, on a january 17th (which - it's only logical - is also Filiou's own day of birth), someone dropped a dry sponge into a bucket of water, and art was born. From 1963 onwards Filiou has been celebrating Art's Birthday along with his own. It was only after Filiou's demise, in 1987, that more and more artists and organizations world-wide began celebrating Art's Birthday, in many different forms and formats, but always on the 17th of january.

It hardly can be a coincidence that Robert Filiou was a close friend of Daniel Spoerri's. A long passage in the Topographie Anecdotee du Hasard consists in a transcription of a tape - as Spoerri writes, recorded almost by accident' - that captured a conversation between Filiou and Spoerri, on october 7th, 1961, in which the idea for the Topographie - as it then was executed by Spoerri ten days later - is taking its definite shape. At the time the Swiss radio commission was confirmed, I had already planned that this spring, with A Table!, we would re-construct Spoerri's table as it was on october 17th, 1961 at 15h47, in room 13 in the Rue Mouffetard in Paris. This will be our A Spoerri Table! (demon-table Carcassonne: 'Car ca sonne'). The table and the documentation of its re-creation will be realized with support of Les Ateliers Claus in Brussels (Belgium), and Extrapool in Nijmegen (the Netherlands). Later this year the re:table will be exposed, and used as A Table!'s instrument in a series of performances later this year.

Early on I knew the title of my Art's Birthday present: "Le son de l'art a sa naissance, etait-il le meme que le son de l'art aujourd'hui ?" But what in the end it became still was quite a surprise, also for myself. The piece developed into a 20 mins 10 secs audio-faction, a sonico-musical reflection on the concept of being born. Its abstract & summary could be thus: "Art's birth - like any other 'coming into being' - corresponds to a fall and to its dual: a hole. It is a passage, from an α/ω to an ω/α; it is as much an end as it is a beginning." All the sound and music that together make up the piece either literally or metaphorically correspond to at least one of these three notions: fall, hole, passage. Key-ingredient is a recording I made one summer night in 2003, when I suddenly found myself tumbling into a hole in the floor of a dark garage somewhere in Paris, while my dictaphone was running and recording.

At the Cinema Oblo in Lausanne, during the broadcast, I live 'subtitled' the part of the piece that re-counts my adventures during that night in Paris, for the local viewers to read along. Clicking the pictures below leads to a pdf-file corresponding to a picozine that I made to accompany the piece. You may use the pdf to make your own physical copy of the 'Le son de l'art a sa naissance'-pico.

"Le son de l'art a sa naissance" is many-layered, with lots of intricate inter-relations, meanings and cross-references. It combines dictaphone/field recordings and found sounds from my archives (some dating back as long ago as 30 years, some from only yesterday), and music I composed in the 1990s, the time that I was not-a-musician; these are curious pieces, that live in a temporal vacuum, unrelated (in my personal history) to all music that was before and all that came after. It is a not-music; or rather, sort of a musique-de-passage, that perfectly fitted the story of my fall on that summer night in Paris, some ten years later.

Art's Birthday's event at the Cinema Oblo in Lausanne started with a live performance by the German duo Pirx (Marion Worle, laptop, and Maciej Sledziecki, guitar). My piece was broadcast between 22h40 and 23h local time (GMT + 1), on Swiss Espace 2, and relayed by the EBU satellite Ravel. I missed the second of two short performances by the Ensemble Rue du Nord (for this occasion consisting in Luc Muller, Dragos Tara, Raphael Raccuia and Jonas Kocher), as Espace 2 director Alexandre Barrelet drove me up to the RSR studios in the Avenue du Temple, to participate in the last half hour of the Art's Birthday emission, presented by Anne Gillot and Yves Bron.

In the studio, with Anne and Yves, we embarked upon a long chat - about sound, tapes, music, meaning and blogging - that was a pretty much seamless follow-up and elaboration of the live telephone interview I did with Anne for RSR Couleurs 3 last summer, and which concentrated on foundtaping and the story of Greek Eloise and Dutch Abelard that was on the blog around that time.

And while we're talking about foundtaping: the next day Lausanne bathed in mid-winter sunlight. I took the metro down to the lake, which is an interesting thing to do by itself, if only to hear the customized jingles announcing each of the metro's stops.

From Ouchy I walked in western direction out into the suburbs, and from there made a big round before descending again in the direction of the center of town. Underway in the streets, I found an electronic drum-pad, a nice black umbrella, and a brand new iPod/iPhone USB Power Adapter. But, as during my earlier visit to Switzerland, not a single tape was waiting there for me.

That of course is the way it is. Hardly a disappointment, but a - more or less remarkable - matter of fact, as finding can not be forced.

...

My Swiss Art's Birthday party started at Cinema Oblo already on saturday, with the second edition of OHRWURM, a micro-festival dedicated to radiophony and the arts of sound co-organized by Oblo, Kabak and ARN. Special guest at the OHRWURM evening on saturday january 16th was the Cellule d'Intervention Metamkine, with Jerome Noetinger, Christophe Auger and Xavier Querel. As part of their 'carte blanche' that evening, the Metamkine's projected a couple of classic sound pieces: extracts from Pierre Henry's "La ville. Die Stadt" (1984), Hildegard Westerkamp's "A walk through the city" (1981) and Walter Ruttman's "Weekend" (1930). The (Oblo) cinema proved to be a great place for concentrated listening to these classics, that were preceded by a projection of Luciano Berio's "Visage" (1961), and followed by two radio-documentaries produced for Arte Radio: "La Muette", by Mehdi Ahoudig (2008) and "L'usine et ses fantomes" by Nicolas Ruffault (2005). The pretty obvious 'sonic difference' between the radio documentaries and the sound pieces we had been listening to before, gave rise to a lively discussion on musicality, musical listening and the creation of sound based works, a discussion that hit upon thoughts and ideas that we encountered before here and there in these SoundBlog's writings and that for now I will leave you to reflect upon yourself. We will surely come back to this, one way or another.

OHRWURM came to an end with a spectacular sono-cinematographic presentation by the Cellule d'Intervention Metamkine, who to this end had brought with them an impressive collection of - mostly vintage - sound- and image-machinery, well-suited to emerge victorious from the fiercest of audiovisual battles.

Whether they did unbruised and with little or no collateral damage shall have to remain a matter of opinion. The battle is not over yet.

tags: Art's Birthday, Lausanne

Originally from HarSMedia (Feed and Podcast), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 02:10 PM | Comments (0)

Artemis Quartett: Dissonance, Forensic Evidence, and Knowing

L et’s make nonfiction that is more thrilling than fiction. Let’s use the best of what fiction has to offer and make it more exciting because what happened was real.”
Ellen Windemuth, founder, Off_the_Fence Productions, Amsterdam.

A rtemis Quartet’s performance in Kansas City last Friday night received a warm reception here.

Natalia Prischepenko, violin
Gregor Sigl, violin
Friedemann Weigle, viola
Eckart Runge, cello

hoven program consisted of Op. 95 (F minor) “Serioso”, Op. 127 No. 12 (E-flat major), and Op. 59 No. 3 “Razumovsky” (C major): supple interpretations throughout, without excesses of any kind, either radical or conservative. In this way, what the Artemis are doing sounds perpetually spontaneous, as though each member is reconsidering the ‘evidence’ that is expressed in her/his part—considering it anew each time they play.

I n fact, one of the qualities that impressed me especially was Artemis Quartett’s emphasis on the dramatic tensions between the parts—discourse between the instruments, yes, but as though the instruments (and the scores) have long-lasting disagreements, and express points of view that are founded on different evidence, profoundly different life-histories, irreconcilably different politics, and so on. Each player/part is not about to renounce what he/she ‘knows’.

[50-sec clip, Artemis Quartett, Beethoven, String Quartet in F minor, Op. 95 II, ‘Allegretto ma non troppo’, 1.6MB MP3]

T he exciting (and thought-provoking) result is a durable refractoriness to “nice” conclusions—a richness of trans-indivdual tension and dramatic complexity, even in works that are very familiar to us from repeated listening or performances.

T he encore, Astor Piazzolla’s ‘Suite del Ángel: Milonga del Ángel – Melancólico’, was another 6.7-min illustration of this.

T his Piazzolla suite is part of his series of “ángel” compositions from the 1950s and 1960s, usually performed with bandoneon or other instrumentation instead of this gorgeous arrangement for string quartet. Piazzolla had studied with Nadia Boulanger and famously alleged that his unusual counterpoint methods, for better or worse, could be blamed on her insidious pedagogy. In the “ángel” movement that the Artemis performed as an encore, we have lyrical elements that are passed among the quartet members, some of whose musical ‘testimony’ is corroborative of others’ testimony and some of whose testimony is discorroborative or contradictory. The scordatura-governed dissonance is earnest but not fierce; laconic, not agitated and verbose; and, as noted above, its rhetoric is serious, not whimsical or anecdotal.

T his peculiar Piazzolla suite is similar in narrative technique and orchestration methods to the 1949 ‘Sonata for Double Bass’ by Paul Hindemith. In that work, the bass player uses scordatura, tuning up a whole-step, which lends an unsettling, destabilizing effect to the sonata. In this Piazzolla movement, the cello’s C-string is tuned, I think, a whole-step down. In both works, the parts conjure a song in the form of a dialogue between the instruments. Hindemith: creator of ‘disharmonious counterpoint’ in which traditional combinatorial rules are subverted by a ‘decoupled system’ of tonality, or, maybe more accurately, a novel with an “unreliable narrator” point-of-view character. Piazzolla: creator of ‘testimonial dissonance’, with similar “unreliable” point-of-view characters.

T he same melody can be sung either alone or together with other players/characters, or entirely different melodies can be enunciated at the same time, or with variations that substantially alter the sense that the melody makes—the very embodiment of subjectivity and multiple, unstable points-of-view.

W hile we can recognize that the point of view of the “ángel” cello is constitutionally dour or sometimes irritable/unsympathetic, the subtlety and the disputes among the other parts’ responses prevent us from deciding that the cello-narrator, for all his vividness and probity, is more than just a figment of Piazzolla’s imagination. Our drive for certainty is flouted again and again, but we continue to listen, and there arrive more clues. We continue our listening with feelings of prolongèdly heightened suspense. Or ‘suspense-mingled-with-poignant-sense-of-loss-plus-optimism’.

T he result is that we get a riveting, realistic depiction of what may happen to human psyches when they are self-styled and unrelenting. They each know what they know; they each agree to disagree. Such complexity is emotionally engaging and believable, not confusing. In other words, read the quartet as you would read a good novel—as though it were real.

[50-sec clip, Artemis Quartett, Piazzolla, ‘Milonga del Ángel-Melancólico’, 1.6MB MP3]

T he Beethoven the Artemis offered was remarkably cogent and organic. The group dispatched the agitated, mercurial first movement of the Quartet in F minor (Op. 95) with a deft combination of rhapsodic vigor and cool control.”
Anthony Tomassini, New York Times, 02-MAR-2010.

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Originally from Chamber Music Today, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 12:14 PM | Comments (0)

Movies, music and art you won't understand, at the Contemporary Museum and ... - St. Louis Post-Dispatch (blog)

Movies, music and art you won't understand, at the Contemporary Museum and ...
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (blog)
Prima is a sometime member of the legendary avant-garde ensemble The Red Krayola, a band that for 40 years has been suspected of not knowing how to play its ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 12:13 PM | Comments (0)

Southwest Chamber Music's further adventures in Hanoi - Los Angeles Times (blog)

Southwest Chamber Music's further adventures in Hanoi
Los Angeles Times (blog)
Arts-world assists for new music are nothing new. American avant-garde music, for instance, pretty much began with John Cage's New York debut concert at the ...

and more »

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 12:13 PM | Comments (0)

Polish composers: radical innovation - National

Polish composers: radical innovation
National
It is that rare thing: a piece of contemporary classical music that ordinary people actually relate to. The same can be said of the music of Poland's other ...

and more »

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 12:13 PM | Comments (0)

Music Notes: Ethos Percussion Group, Classical Guitar Society, jazz showcase - The State Journal-Register

Music Notes: Ethos Percussion Group, Classical Guitar Society, jazz showcase
The State Journal-Register
The group performs contemporary classical and non-Western percussion music. Friday's concert will include an arrangement of Guido Haazen's “Missa Luba,” a ...

and more »

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 12:13 PM | Comments (0)

What's on in Germany: March 18 - 24 - The Local

What's on in Germany: March 18 - 24
The Local
This Week's Highlights: Joan Baez arrives in Düsseldorf, Romeo and Juliet take a turn through Munich, and there's lots of music in Berlin. ...

and more »

Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "scelsi" OR "sciarrino" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)

Coming Up Next: Friday 19 March :: Electroacoustic:Acoustoelectronic

Grab your headphones for an evening of:

Electronic Music with Acoustic Instruments and Acoustic Music That Sounds Electronic

Natasha Barrett: Moblis in Mobli (2006); Fetters (2002)
Unreleased 2-track remixes

Natasha Barrett was one of the composers at this year’s Other Minds 15 Festival in San Francisco

Two string quartets by young Danish composers that sound as if they were electronic:

Simon Steen-Andersen: String Quartet (1999)
The Silesian Quartet

Jexper Holmen: Intend/Ascend (2002)
The Silesian Quartet - DaCapo (DK) 8.226530

The classic MEV group, who flourished in and around Italy in the 60’s and 70’s are back for a reunion of sorts with a live electronic improvisation:

Musica Elettronica Viva: Mass. Pike (2007)
Alvin Curran, Frederic Rzewski, Richard Teitelbaum
Live recording, Tangelwood, MA
New World Records 80675

Originally posted by rchrd from Music From Other Minds, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 08:13 AM | Comments (0)

The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton - All About Jazz

All About Jazz

The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton
All About Jazz
Words like "ambitious" often suggest bolder, sweeping music, and while a larger cast of characters augmenting Clogs' longstanding line-up does allow for a ...

A Saint-Saëns cello concerto - The Spokesman Review

A Saint-Saëns cello concerto
The Spokesman Review
He was a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra and the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra playing under such conductors as Pierre Boulez and Bernard ...

Alda, Steinhardt to dissect Bach - Detroit Free Press

Alda, Steinhardt to dissect Bach
Detroit Free Press
Cranbrook Music Guild: with oboist Nermis Mieses performing works by Schumann, Dutilleux, Silvestrini, Bach and Poulenc, 3:30 pm Sun. ...

A-list, Bs top '10-11 - The Spokesman Review

A-list, Bs top '10-11
The Spokesman Review
In addition to the standard repertoire of symphonies and concertos, next season will include less familiar works by Bohuslav Martinu, György Ligeti and Paul ...

Passion play - Bay Area Reporter

Bay Area Reporter

Passion play
Bay Area Reporter
Another element in the legend surrounding the piece is that, when Helmut Rilling gave Golijov the commission for it (also extended to Wolfgang Rihm, ...

Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "scelsi" OR "sciarrino" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 08:10 AM | Comments (0)

Milwaukee Event Calendar - OnMilwaukee.com

Milwaukee Event Calendar
OnMilwaukee.com
Chamber Music Milwaukee joins the Music Department's celebration of composer Libby Larsen with a concert that features several of her works and one by her ...

Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "scelsi" OR "sciarrino" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 08:10 AM | Comments (0)

Music Feature - Artvoice

Music Feature
Artvoice
Kolor explains, “We decided to replace Interchange with Un fruscio lungo trent'anni, a work by the Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino. ...

Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "scelsi" OR "sciarrino" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 08:10 AM | Comments (0)

A little Ligeti goes a song way - London Free Press

A little Ligeti goes a song way
London Free Press
... the opera workshop at UWO's Don Wright faculty of music perform a brief scene from contemporary Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre. ...

and more »

Take this detour

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!

Originally posted by Steve Layton from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 05:10 AM | Comments (0)

"Science Meets Art.. and Grief": Zukerman Plays Berg Concerto in NY March 18-20 - PlaybillArts

PlaybillArts

"Science Meets Art.. and Grief": Zukerman Plays Berg Concerto in NY March 18-20
PlaybillArts
In 1972 Mr. Zukerman didn't know a note of Berg's music. He was introduced to it that year by Pierre Boulez, then the music director of the New York ...

Champignon Mushrooms

champignons

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.

Floating in Free Pitch Space

Microtonal theorist Timothy Johnson, of whose theoretical skills and even more his work ethic I stand in awe, has sent me the MIDI file he made of the first 30 measures of the final movement of Ben Johnston's Seventh String Quartet, of which I wrote in my last post. At 2:41, this represents about a sixth of the third movement, which must total 16 minutes. I can't listen to it enough: exotic consonances floating in a totally free, gridless pitch space. This is truly the music of the distant future. He made the file with piano sounds, since MIDI string sounds are vulgarly inadequate, so you'll have to imagine this played by a string quartet. I wish I thought I would live long enough to write music like this, but I'm too pragmatic, not visionary enough. The score is published by Smith Publications, if you're interested in studying it yourself.

Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 02:00 AM | Comments (0)

"COSMIC WOMB" for 2 Pianos with Digital Delay (Somei Satoh) - Margareth Leng Tan

Originally posted by jeff from new music reblog plus, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 18, 2010 at 01:59 AM | Comments (0)

March 17, 2010

Polish composers: radical innovation - National

Polish composers: radical innovation
National
In fact, he was an arch avant-gardist for much of his early career, influenced by atonalists and 12-tone serialists such as Anton Webern and Pierre Boulez ...

and more »

UWO Don Wright music faculty opera workshop students rawk Reaney's Pick with a ... - London Free Press (blog)

UWO Don Wright music faculty opera workshop students rawk Reaney's Pick with a ...
London Free Press (blog)
It's about three minutes from Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre. Off-stage is Prof. John Hess. When John & I talked about this, he suggested the students could do ...

Thielemann Confesses

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.

Originally posted by Alex Ross from Unquiet Thoughts, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 17, 2010 at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)

Preview calendar: Clubs and concerts for March 18-24 - North County Times

Preview calendar: Clubs and concerts for March 18-24
North County Times
San Diego IndieFest 6: Metric, Far and the Nappy Roots ---- The three groups headline this two-day, outdoor concert festival with live music on seven stages ...

and more »

Talujon Percussion performs Friday - The Daily News Online

Talujon Percussion performs Friday
The Daily News Online
Based in New York City, Talujon performs regularly for such highly regarded organizations as the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, Bang on a Can, ...

The Hartt School Announces Upcoming Events For April 2010 - Broadway World

The Hartt School Announces Upcoming Events For April 2010
Broadway World
The Ensemble presents new and unusual works, including music by John Cage, Donald Erb, and Steve Reich, as well as premieres by Hartt composers. ...

Julia Fischer cancels concerts; UMS rebooks dates with new artists - AnnArbor.com

Julia Fischer cancels concerts; UMS rebooks dates with new artists
AnnArbor.com
Both appear unaccompanied, and both play concerts that, in the spirit of Fischer's planned recitals, take the music of Bach as a central focus. ...

Theatre Review: Soap at Riverside Studios - Londonist

Londonist

Theatre Review: Soap at Riverside Studios
Londonist
The range of music, from Gnarls Barkley to Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies, to something that sounded very like londonist fave's Rage Against ...

Do It For the Children

By Colin Holter
A cunning strategy: Build in some psychological headroom with pieces for which the audience will have to extend good faith, then fill in that space with pieces that are less conceptually foreign.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 17, 2010 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)

Shut Up ’n’ Let the Music Do the Talkin’ Some More

The start of the Crucifixion section:

ily:Georgia;color:#25383c;">Conclusion of the Crucifixion, and the Deposition from the Cross:

Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 17, 2010 at 02:10 PM | Comments (0)

Thomas Adès Features Three World-Premiere Recordings on latest Album, Available March 23rd

Thomas Adès: Violin Concerto, Concentric Paths; Tevot; Couperin Dances
Berlin Philharmonic/Rattle; Anthony Marwood, violin, with Chamber Orchestra of Europe/ Adès; National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain/Paul Daniel
CD and downloads available March 23 from EMI Classics

“Five stars out of five. Tevot (2007), written for the Berlin Philharmonic, is Adès’s largest orchestral work. It shows a Sibelian mastery of development and transition – even when the harmonic material is, like Sibelius, relatively conservative and the melodic content reminiscent of 20th century neo-romantics. Like a latter-day symphonist, Adès takes the listener on a vivid sonic journey, juxtaposing tensile motifs on woodwinds, strings and percussion with constantly moving, seductively textured blocks of sound.” — Financial Times [Andrew Clark]

EMI Classics presents the world-premiere release of three of Thomas Adès’s new works recorded live, partly conducted by the composer himself, and, in the case of Tevot, by Sir Simon Rattle with the Berlin Philharmonic.

“Tevot” means “arks” in Hebrew but another meaning is “bars in a piece of music.” In an interview with The Guardian, Adès said: “I liked the idea that the bars of the music were carrying the notes as a sort of family through the piece. And they do, because without bars, you'd have musical chaos. But I was thinking about the ark, the vessel, in the piece as the earth. (…) It sounds a bit colossal, but it's the idea of the ship of the world." The work was commissioned by the Stiftung Berliner Philharmoniker and the Carnegie Hall Corporation; it was premiered by the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle at the Philharmonie in Berlin in February 2007 and received its US premiere, also with the Berlin Philharmonic and Rattle, at Carnegie Hall in November 2007. Sir Simon Rattle considers Adès “perhaps the most extravagantly gifted (of young UK composers),” and he and the Berlin Philharmonic program Adès’s works frequently.

In September 2005 Adès’s Violin Concerto written for Anthony Marwood was premiered at the Berliner Festspiele and the BBC Proms, with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by the composer.

The album is rounded out with Adès’s Three Studies after Couperin (2006) and a three-movement suite (2007) from the opera Powder Her Face.

Since the release of Adès’s opera The Tempest on EMI Classics in June 2009, the recording has received attention on a global scale. In France, the disc was recently awarded the prestigious Diapason d’Or de l’année, and in the U.S. the album was a ‘Critic’s Choice’ pick in Opera News.

Originally from Interchanging Idioms, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 17, 2010 at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)

Philip Langridge: fun cut short

It is still difficult for me to believe that tenor Philip Langridge is no longer with us. On March 5 he died of cancer—apparently a very aggressive form—just weeks after appearing as the Witch in Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel at the Met. I saw him in this deliciously disturbing production (by Richard Jones) when it first appeared in 2007, and Langridge stole the show. Wearing a body suit with sagging arms and some serious matronly poundage, all plopped atop high heels, he looked like Julia Child's nutty evil twin.

Langridge was also an electrifying Aron opposite John Tomlinson's Moses in Graham Vick's vivid conception of Schoenberg's Moses und Aron, which I reviewed in 2004. These disparate operas not only gave Langridge magnificent music, but the chance to etch characters that one recalls for months. The sobriety of his Aron was countered by the waves of laughter he produced in the Humperdinck.

Barry Millington's obituary in The Guardian is here. During the final run of Hänsel und Gretel, Langridge said, "I don't think I've ever had so much fun in my whole career."

[Photo: Philip Langridge as the Witch in Hänsel und Gretel in 2009, photographed by Beth Bergman]

Originally posted by bhodgesnyc from Monotonous Forest, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 17, 2010 at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)

An interview with Alfred Darlington, modern-day dandy and experimental ... - Weekly Alibi

An interview with Alfred Darlington, modern-day dandy and experimental ...
Weekly Alibi
Your work is concerned with innovation and new media art—do you think there is any true avant garde happening now? As in answering above, just surviving is ...

and more »

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 17, 2010 at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)

Review | Chinese composers show Western influence - Kansas City Star

Review | Chinese composers show Western influence
Kansas City Star
... Souls Unitarian Universalist Church enjoyed the music of avant-garde, Western-trained Chinese composers inspired by thousand-year-old Buddhist concepts. ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 17, 2010 at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)

From Jazz to Avant Garde at Carnegie Hall - All About Jazz

From Jazz to Avant Garde at Carnegie Hall
All About Jazz
Making Music: Louis Andriessen on Saturday, April 17 at 7:30 pm Details about the US premiere of Andriessen's new work have been announced: Entitled Life, ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 17, 2010 at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)

New Music festival features contemporary classical composers - Palm Beach Post

New Music festival features contemporary classical composers
Palm Beach Post
It's a modest price to pay to hear so much new music, and concertgoers interested in contemporary classical composition should make a point to attend. ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 17, 2010 at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)

Composer Lowell Lierbermann to Conduct Concert of His Works - NorthcentralPa.com

Composer Lowell Lierbermann to Conduct Concert of His Works
NorthcentralPa.com
By Feed: Mansfield University News MANSFIELD, PA— The Mansfield University Music Department will present Lowell Liebermann conducting faculty chamber groups ...

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 17, 2010 at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)

Not Learning to Read Finnegans Wake - CBS News

CBS News

Not Learning to Read Finnegans Wake
CBS News
Not satisfied with the wholesale distribution of wholesome texts, the agency pressed forward into the no man's land of the avant-garde, seeking to show its ...

and more »

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 17, 2010 at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)

David Byrne's avant-garde dance film makes sense - Reuters

David Byrne's avant-garde dance film makes sense
Reuters
Working with multiple cameras on many nights of the "Music of David Byrne and Brian Eno" tour, Hillman Curtis caught that production -- in which the band, ...

and more »

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 17, 2010 at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)

Artistic prominence and social responsibility

Part of the genesis of my Yo-Yo Ma feature on Sunday was my curiosity about how artists deal with the responsibilities of assuming a political role. I make a distinction, here, between taking on a self-appointed function as a spokesman for human rights or Darfur or green living or whatever cause you believe in, and achieving a stature through your work that leads to your being regarded as a figure of authority. Obviously, there are artists who have crossed the line and gone into politics altogether: Ignacy Jan Paderewski, the pianist who became Prime Minister of Poland, and Vaclav Havel, the playwright who became president of Czechoslovakia and then of the Czech Republic, are two obvious examples. But I was curious about artists who find themselves for one reason or another in a figurehead position: like Casals, whose refusal to perform under Franco made him a symbol of heroic resistance,

Originally from The Classical Beat – Classical Music Forum – washingtonpost.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 17, 2010 at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)

Meeting Horner

JHatUCLA
When I first came to UCLA, many of my colleagues referred to this chap as “Jamie”–a nickname he now supposedly loathes. He did his Masters work at UCLA, was a TA, a classmate of Mark Carlson, and was on the way towards getting a PhD, but the Roger Corman films started coming fast and furious. Juliana was an undergrad with him at USC. My dear friend and patron, Ronnie–who lets me stay in her Palm Springs house to compose and goes with me to new music concerts in LA–is his cousin. And despite all these connections, I had never met James until last Thursday when he came to speak to our composers about his work on Avatar.

He was soft-spoken at first, and as the two hour session went on, he became more forceful and clearly enjoyed talking and teaching these young and eager students–also his biggest fans. Many of them stayed afterwords to have their picture taken with James. He graciously stayed late to pose and speak with them.

Some memorable quotes and paraphrases:

He has tremendous respect for John Williams. “In a class by himself.”
Cameron was clear that he did NOT want any themes or melodies. “A tuneless score.” [WOW!]
JC kept a tight hold on the reins for the entire score.
JH graciously acceded that it is JC’s vision, his movie, his world. He pushes until it’s right.
He spoke about his collaboration with Wanda in their effort to find a sonic palette “unlike anything we’ve ever heard.” Of the 25 instruments he culled, JC rejected 20 of them. JH ultimately blended these sampled instruments into his orchestration.
He seemed proud of that his orchestration, “which I do myself” is rooted in tradition, but adding these new [sampled/world] instruments transforms it.
JH, when asked what his favorite score was, admitted that he couldn’t pinpoint one film, rather cues from a variety of films.
Juliana asked whether he would ever write an opera; he said ‘no’ but he would LOVE to write a ballet.
“I could never make people cry in my concert music. In my music for film, I can. [...] I loved having the opportunity [in TITANIC] to help the audience fall in love with two characters; and knowing that they will both die offered me a unique musical challenge.”

I found James to be a true gentleman; a smart businessman; an excellent teacher; an sensitive artist with a big heart; and a composer who loves the art of collaboration, despite not always getting his way.

When the composition area at UCLA interviews perspective undergraduate students in composition, one of the questions we ask them is “Who are your favorite composers?” James Horner has been at the top of that list for five years running. I confessed that statistic to Horner as the session wound down. He was clearly touched. Another student [winner of this year's Jerry Goldsmith Award] confessed that James was his childhood “hero.”

For someone who had been described as quiet, shy and private, I saw a gracious, generous, sensitive but outgoing and humble man. He promises to come back for a future visit.

Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 17, 2010 at 11:25 AM | Comments (0)

The Winter War In Tibet - Eurasia Deluxe

Part ambient and part minimal post-rock, Eurasia Deluxe by The Winter War in Tibet is a great example of riffs looking for a melody. The tracks titled Eurasia 1-7 are parts of melodies lifted along by drifting drones and lilting beats. There is a feeling of Zen and magic throughout this hour-long album. “Eurasia III” actually sounds a bit U2-ish to me. The ensemble is a collaboration of musicians from Minsk, Belarus and they appear to have a gift for creative teamwork. This is a good collection of instrumentals for both active listening and intellectual background music.

The album is available from Clinical Archive in 320kbps MP3.

Download

Originally posted by Marvin from Free Albums Galore, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 17, 2010 at 11:24 AM | Comments (0)

Going It Alone - San Francisco Classical Voice

Going It Alone
San Francisco Classical Voice
The rest of the first half was a swift roundelay of new music. Two short pieces, each memorials to other composers, demonstrated in their different ways ...

Heading south to play loud - Ottawa Citizen

Heading south to play loud
Ottawa Citizen
You walk on Sixth Street and it's something like a gigantic Stockhausen noise experiment, with all the bands playing in different bars and bleeding into ...

and more »

Top live show - Time Out New York

Top live show
Time Out New York
The material floats between ethereal rounds such as the Steve Reich–goes-madrigal “Cocodrillo” to the intricately arranged aural cinema of “Adages of ...

Now Thank We All Our God - quite the crowd

This is a work in progress. Tonight, as I was enjoying my evening alone in the Salt Lake City Hilton near the airport, Omar showed up with his spinet, a blind guy who played the vibes, and a one armed marimba player. Next thing you know, the guy in the room down the hall knocked on the door. He said he could play four clarinets at once. In 72 EDO! I have never seen that before. So I had to record one more take of the first seven chords of Now Thank We All Our God. Heavenly. Fake but accurate...

Play it:

Originally from Podcast Bumper Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 17, 2010 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)

Duncan Campbell and the Bruce High Quality Foundation Take A Bumpy Ride to Utopia - Village Voice

Duncan Campbell and the Bruce High Quality Foundation Take A Bumpy Ride to Utopia
Village Voice
Listening to Xenakis's music on an iPod provided by the Drawing Center while examining his scores and architectural plans, which look pretty similar, ...

Now Thank We All Our God - loud piano

This is a work in progress. I used the FF piano samples this time. I need to figure out a way to chose the samples based on the volume.

Play it:

Subscribe here:

Originally from Podcast Bumper Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 17, 2010 at 02:11 AM | Comments (0)

To the Moon, Alice

The awesome Ensemble Pi is performing the latest collaboration between artist William Kentridge and composer Philip Miller at Arts World Financial Center on March 21 and 22 at 8 pm

Sounds From the Black Box will feature the world-premiere live performance of Miller’s new compositions for Kentridge’s recent film animations. Joining Ensemble Pi will be the South African vocalist Tshidi Manye (who plays Rafiki in Broadway’s The Lion King) and Miller will also be onstage sampling sound clips to create the audio landscapes that are so integral to his scores.
Here’s a two-minute preview clip of one of the films, Journey to the Moon:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 17, 2010 at 02:10 AM | Comments (0)

March 16, 2010

Samuel Interview: SXSW 2010 - Spinner

Spinner

Samuel Interview: SXSW 2010
Spinner
My dad was into really into experimental sounds, like John Cage and Steve Reich. I grew up listening to my own music, which focused on pop-punk, hardcore, ...

and more »

Music News - San Francisco Classical Voice

Music News
San Francisco Classical Voice
Stay up to date with weekly classical music news from the Bay Area, across the US, and around the world. Events at Berkeley's Crowden ...

Soap at Riverside Studios, W6 - Times Online

Soap at Riverside Studios, W6
Times Online
This extremely adept dude strips down to his pants while keeping a battery of bright orange balls bouncing in time to the music. ...

Garrett Fisher—At the Hawks Well

There is a fluid back and forth motion across continents and centuries that impresses when it comes to the work of Garrett Fisher. It's showcased once again in his latest piece At the Hawks Well.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 16, 2010 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)

The Aesthetes vs. the Omnivores

By Frank J. Oteri
The classical music business and the wine business in the United States have both traditionally marketed themselves on the elite and ultimately somewhat pretentious conceit of masterpieces whose unchallengeable provenance would be determined by aesthetes; but in a world where everything is relative, there are no masterpieces.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 16, 2010 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)

Fun with Google Books, Part 1

I’ve been happily exploring all the free stuff available on Google Books, including complete runs of out of print magazines like Life. Check out what Igor Stravinsky used to do when he visited his buddy Charles Chaplin in 1937. Of interest, Stravinsky is described primarily as “the famous conductor,” although in all fairness to Life, they mention an upcoming concert in Manhattan where three of his ballet scores will be performed.

Charlie and Igor having some laughs

Originally posted by Christian from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 16, 2010 at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)

Roland Berger Strategy Consultants hosts classical music concert - Consultant News

Roland Berger Strategy Consultants hosts classical music concert
Consultant News
He often collaborates with many modern composers, including Wolfgang Rihm, Jörg Widmann, Rodion Shchedrin, Mikis Theodorakis and Hans Werner Henze. ...

Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "scelsi" OR "sciarrino" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 16, 2010 at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)

Minneapolis Trombone Choir 37th Annual Concert: On the Emotional Lives of Once and Future Brass Players

A frisky spirit makes my trombone sing.”
Chris Barber, trombonist.

T he thirty-seventh annual concert by the Minneapolis Trombone Choir (MTC) was an exotic and thrilling experience. The performance this past Sunday evening at Judson Church in Minneapolis featured approximately 40 trombone players, some of them alternately switching to euphonium or tuba for several of the works that comprised the evening’s program. The pieces were conducted by Jim ten Bensel, Mike Bratlie, John de Haan, Tom Huelsmann, and Stan Bann.

S everal pieces of new music were performed, including Eric Ewazen’s ‘Concertino for Bass Trombone’, conducted by John de Haan, with soloist Derek Crosier and a trombone octet consisting of Neil Baumgartner, Doug Coleman, Zach Friesen, Lauren Husting, Scott Kruse, John Metcalfe, Greg Michnay, and Brian Wistrom. The 11-minute piece begins with an atmospheric chorale section, giving way to more aggressive, virtuosic, up-tempo writing. Crosier’s cadenzas (at 7 minutes and 9 minutes) were heart-felt, luminous things. Beautiful!

J im ten Bensel, who has directed MTC for many years, is a Yamaha trombone artist with Bachelor and Master degrees in music education from the University of Minnesota. He is currently on the faculty of MacPhail Center in Minneapolis, specializing in low brass and jazz combos. As a performer, Jim has toured with Stan Kenton, Henry Mancini, Ralph Marteri, and other bands. Jim currently plays with the Barbary Coast Dixieland Band, the Bella Gala Big Band, and the George Maurer group, among others. As a classical trombonist, Jim was in 1988 awarded ‘Best Classical Brass’ by the Minnesota Music Academy Awards.

S ome 40 years ago I’d received some lessons from Jim (who was then at U of M), and, through all these years, I’ve vividly remembered his engaging teaching methods. I’ve lived away from Minnesota most of the intervening years and have been logistically unable to attend his performances, so I looked forward to Sunday’s MTC concert with much anticipation.

M y anticipation was well-rewarded.

H earing a concert by Jim ten Bensel and his colleagues is a lot like having a heart-to-heart with a good friend. You alternately laugh and get misty-eyed, and, when it’s over, you feel a sort of renewed sense of what matters. Jim’s energy for putting sounds in the air is so genuine—so real—that you find yourself hoping it might linger in the air longer than is physically possible. Hoping.

I attended this event with family members, including my parents who are in their eighties. My dad has always held low brass instruments dear, having played euphonium in high-school band when he was a kid. When I was a child, my dad used to hum/improvise a hidden baritone part whenever a piece of classical music was playing on the stereo. Often, his humming would enable me to hear a part that was actually there in the score but was too colored-over by other, brighter instruments for my inexperienced ears to notice. At other times, his humming would be revealed to be completely spurious—an extemporized harmonizing with whatever else the composer had written. The mystery of how my dad was able to fluently/synchronously impute and hum a part into a piece of music that was unfamiliar to me (and to him?) fascinated me. Was part of what convinced me that music deeply made ‘sense’, despite the fact that it was pure magic.

A t any rate, with all the years of these built-up neuroendocrine ‘triggers’, and with all of us emotionally ‘locked-and-loaded’ just so, the MTC’s inspired performance of ‘Pilgrims’ Chorus’ from Wagner’s ‘Tannhäuser’ (well, not just that one, but other works on the program as well) proved more than sufficient to raise tears in the eyes of many in the audience, particularly us once-and-future brass-players. The MTC’s powerful transgenerational evocation of what music has meant to us—to each of us, throughout our lives, separately and together—was most welcome, handkerchiefs and all.

M inisters and priests, take note: the acoustic persuasiveness of 40 low-brass players pouring their hearts out in a modest-sized church sanctuary is a spiritual force to be reckoned with, one not unlike that of the world’s great cathedral pipe organs.

T he MTC encore (Meredith Willson’s ‘76 Trombones’) was icing on the proverbial cake for the enthusiastic 150+ lovers of brass ensembles and low-brass in attendance. Bravo!

day.blogspot.com/2010/03/minneapolis-trombone-choir-37th-annual.html">

Originally from Chamber Music Today, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 16, 2010 at 07:27 PM | Comments (0)

Allô, soleil!

This sunshine thing: I could quite take to it.

Here at King's Chapel to hear Paul Cienniwa play Couperin's Huitième Ordre.

Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 16, 2010 at 07:27 PM | Comments (0)

Nic Bommarito - three albums

My big discovery of 2010 just may be Nic Bommarito. His mixture of electronica, post-rock and Americana folk influences is one of the fresher sounds I’ve heard while perusing the internet for better than average music. Nic Bommarito clears better-than-average like a pole vaulter clears an anthill.

There are three of his albums, that I know of, available freely on the web. His latest one is Harp Fragments and the appeal of his music is obvious from the first track, “Hymn For 200 Sugar Packets”. There is a combination of the melodic with the majestic surrounded by impeccable arranging. While some of the tracks sound a bit lo-fi, that doesn’t take away from the virtuosity of this music. “Folk Psychology” displays his love for Americana and folk elements, an influence that is never too far away in any of his compositions. Another stand-out is “Way Better Than Too Much Post-Rock”.

Taciturn is the album before Harp Fragments and, while not as outstanding, it is still an excellent collection of instrumental sounds. Both of these album are from the 12rec netlabel.The artist’s sense for the right sound at the right time is extraordinary. The two “Taciturn” tracks are the longest on the album at almost 10 minutes each but they never get boring. “Badly Asbestos-Covered”, despite the odd name, is quite pretty with traces of indie rock in it. I also like Bommarito’s same named tribute to composer Arvo Part.

Lastly, there is a briefer (21 minutes) EP titled Paranormal is Normal which is available in the Open Source Audio section of The Internet Archives. “Mixed during a period of insomnia in Lhasa, Tibet,” it is five tracks of music that is slightly more experimental than the first two albums. The title track and “Ambulance Sonata” are a bit minimalist and meditative while I like the jerkiness of “One Kind of Redshift” and the droning peacefulness of “Pure Sound”. Nic Bommarito is an artist to watch.

Download
Harp Fragments
Paranormal is Normal EP
Taciturn

Originally posted by Marvin from Free Albums Galore, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 16, 2010 at 07:27 PM | Comments (0)

Guest composers visit UIndy - University of Indianapolis

University of Indianapolis

Guest composers visit UIndy
University of Indianapolis
With influences ranging from rave music to the American avant-garde to Chinese folk song, Ching-chu Hu creates stunning music of consummate craftsmanship. ...

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Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 16, 2010 at 07:26 PM | Comments (0)

Enter the Dragon's new soundtrack - Stuff.co.nz

Enter the Dragon's new soundtrack
Stuff.co.nz
Avant garde rock veterans Pere Ubu set a benchmark in 2004 when they performed a live score to B grade sci-fi classic It Came from Outer Space, ...

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Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 16, 2010 at 07:26 PM | Comments (0)

Harvest: Trombone Concerto premiere

Well, it’s done. The premiere — and recording session! — for my new trombone concerto has come and gone, and it couldn’t have gone better…

I blogged about my personal trombone master class with Joe Alessi back in June, then blogged about the concept for the concerto back in July, and then set to writing actual notes, which I finished in early November. The Ridgewood Concert Band in New Jersey gave a “preview” performance in early December, but I didn’t hear it. In fact, I’d never heard the piece, straight from start to finish, until I sat in the audience for the official premiere on Friday night. But I need to backtrack a little more.

The West Point Academy Band was the co-organizer of the consortium to commission the concerto, and from the beginning, they were the ensemble stuck with the “official premiere,” which they were to present with Joe Alessi (principal trombonist with the NY Philharmonic — and generally considered to be the greatest trombonist ever to walk the earth) at the Eastern Division CBDNA (college band directors national association) Convention. I knew I was writing a concerto for the best trombonist ever, meaning I could write literally anything. If Alessi — for whom Christopher Rouse wrote his Pulitzer Prize-winning trombone concerto! — couldn’t play the part, it simply wasn’t playable. Also, um, Joe f*ckin’ Alessi. So, uh, no pressure. (Did I mention that he premiered the Rouse concerto?!)

Alessi had rehearsed with the West Point Band on Tuesday, March 2, but I was still home in Austin. I didn’t fly out to West Point until Wednesday, and I worked with the West Point Band on Thursday morning. (Alessi had rehearsal with the Philharmonic, so he wasn’t there.) I was wearing shiny driving moccasins and a black zippered cardigan-like sweater, so I fit right in.

I was relieved that I had these two hours with the band but without Alessi because it gave me the opportunity to find and fix some big errors — like completely wrong notes in the horn parts. (Remember, kids: horns are in F.) The horns, by the way, were incredible. The parts in the piece are extremely demanding, but you’d never know it hearing these players.

(Speaking of which, in case anybody was wondering, the West Point Band is a professional ensemble — a permanently-stationed Army Band. They’re stationed at the Military Academy, but these aren’t students — they’re pros. And boy howdy, you can tell.)

The concerto has a prominent double bass part, loaded with percussive “Bartok pizzicato.” I put snap pizz. in most of my bass parts, but how often is it actually the loudest thing in the entire band? Never. Until SSG Phillip Helm plays the part. I have never heard (and seen!) such a powerful snap pizzicato. I thought he was going to rip the bass in half. I love this guy.

The next morning, I was up bright and early. Good thing my army housing had coffee (and artwork) in the lobby!

Why was I up so early? Because that day — Friday, March 5 — was the day of the recording session. On a piece that I had still never heard in person with the soloist.

I’ve had recording sessions with ensembles prior to their individual performance, but never prior to even hearing the piece — that is, recording the piece before it even premieres. What if something was just awful, or I found that I hated a particular measure? Well, too late to fix it now!

We started by recording the end of the piece, because it’s probably the most demanding chop-wise for everybody. The last note of the piece, per Joe Alessi’s request, is a gliss-hit off of high F. As in, the F at the top of the treble clef. As in, the note that is the top standard note on a French horn. But this ain’t a horn concerto — it’s a trombone concerto. That F is a ridiculous note. I’d originally written the piece to end on the F an octave lower, but Alessi asked if I’d mind if he took it up an octave. “After 18 minutes of non-stop playing, you want to end with that high F?” I asked. His reply: “Well, if I don’t do it, somebody else will.” Right on.

So we run and record the last 24 bars or whatever, and Alessi nails the high F (of course), and then says, “I’d like to get a few more takes of that. I think I can do about 10 more, but that’s it.” Dude. 10 more takes — of high F. High “F,” as in, “Joe F-in’ Alessi.” And we’re just starting recording! (The session ran from 10am until 5pm, after which Alessi had to go perform with the New York Phil. Jeez. Monster.)

The session was pretty incredible. I think the CD — which we’re going to release as a free download on my website as soon as it’s ready — will be a stunner. Here I am with Alessi and LTC Timothy Holtan, the director of the band.

Then I flew home for a few days, and then flew back to the east coast — to West Chester, Pennsylvania, for the premiere of the concerto. West Point’s concert also included the premiere of “Points of Departure” by Roshanne Etezady. Here’s Roshanne during the sound check for her (very fun) piece.

Here, Alessi and Holtan go over a few things during the sound check.

The premiere performance that night was the best premiere I’ve ever had, and possibly the best performance I’ve ever had. (It’s tough to judge, being a premiere, where it’s the first time I’m hearing the piece start-to-finish, and the first time I’m hearing it without following a score. My brain is going so crazy trying to process everything I’m hearing that I sort of become mush.)

Alessi and the West Point Band were flawless. There’s one especially demanding moment in the slow movement where Alessi works his way up to high D — a note so high that I had to create a new sample for it in my MIDI playback, because trombones aren’t supposed to play that high — and he hits this D just perfectly and beautifully, coming at the end of this long legato line. He hits it mezzo-forte, holds it while the ensemble drops out, leaving him alone with this insane note, which he then shapes dynamically down, then back up again, holding it seemingly forever until the band comes back in, and he continues playing — in the same register. It was perfect. The audience audibly gasped when he did it. (That moment was topped only by the end of the first movement — and the movements are all connected, so there was no pause — when Roshanne’s dad let out a “wooo!” from the back of the hall.)

It was an amazing night. Alessi is coming to UT Austin in September to perform the piece with Jerry Junkin and the UT Wind Ensemble, but that performance can’t come soon enough. I want to hear him play it again now! I’d heard all about how brilliant Alessi is, but I didn’t know what that really meant until Friday. He’d be a brilliant artist on any instrument. I’m just so happy that through some insane bit of fortune on my behalf, he’s the person who was tasked with premiering this concerto and making my little 18 minute doo-dad sound like something important. (Also, if you want to get a whole lot of applause and pretend it had something to do with you, have Joe Alessi play your piece. Holy shit.)

Originally posted by HoytBlum68 from John Mackey's Blog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 16, 2010 at 07:23 PM | Comments (0)

Rake leaves during dinner? He does what he pleases (3,8)

Reviewing New England Conservatory's Don Giovanni.
Boston Globe, March 16, 2010.

Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 16, 2010 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)

Prior engagement

Reviewing the Boston Symphony Chamber Players.
Boston Globe, March 16, 2010.

Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 16, 2010 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)

Footnotes: Carnegie Orchestras

In this week’s issue of the magazine, I write about a remarkable procession of international orchestras that tied up Carnegie Hall for much of the month of February. The results of the notorious Gramophone orchestra poll, in which I participated, can be seen here. If you’re curious about Sibelius’s “Kullervo” Symphony, you can hear excerpts from Osmo Vänskä’s recording with the Lahti Symphony courtesy of the BIS label.

I wasn’t the only one to be bowled over by Vänskä’s rendition of the piece with the Minnesota Orchestra; Sedgwick Clark, the editor of Musical America, wrote on his blog, “If this was an example of their standard level, the orchestra’s subscribers may be the luckiest in the nation.” I first heard the Finnish conductor in 1994, when he led musicians from Lahti at Saint Peter’s Church. Two years later he conducted the Iceland Symphony at Carnegie; I don’t ever expect to hear Sibelius’s Second Symphony played more powerfully than it was that night. And in 2005 I ventured to Minneapolis to hear the Minnesotans on their home turf. Why they don’t sell out Carnegie on every visit is a total mystery to me.

Originally posted by Alex Ross from Unquiet Thoughts, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 16, 2010 at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)

"Shutter Island" showcases new classical music - Denver Post

"Shutter Island" showcases new classical music
Denver Post
But this time it was the sound of a foghorn, and it had the rich, compelling texture of music. It was music. It was also a real, old-fashioned foghorn. ...

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Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "scelsi" OR "sciarrino" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 16, 2010 at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)

Polar bears beat finches in music-off - The Guardian (blog)

The Guardian (blog)

Polar bears beat finches in music-off
The Guardian (blog)
And as YouTube and music history tells us, it's no new idea to expose animals to musical instruments. Marvel here at Nora, the piano-playing cat, ...

and more »

Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "scelsi" OR "sciarrino" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 16, 2010 at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)

The Codex Torino J.II.9 - a digital edition

counter)induction's upcoming concert features composers reacting to, responding to and generally engaging with music from the Codex Torino J.II.9, a fascinating book of music from 15th century Cyprus. We'll be posting more about the new works and the codex itself in the next week and a half, but first I thought it would be great to post a link to this incredible digital edition of the codex.

This webpage is organized and hosted by the Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo Unico delle Biblioteche Italiane e per le Informazioni Bibliografiche in Rome, and contains images of the entire codex, as well as a great deal of information about the codex itself, if your Italian is up to it.

There are some great recordings of this repertoire out now but I thought it might be nice to start off highlighting the physicality of the codex. It is many things, a chant manuscript, a liber motetorum, and a chansonnier, but it is also quite beautiful. The time, fire and water have weathered it, certainly, but have also given its colors and clarity that much more power through contrast— in the long fight against entropy, we have at least one exquisite survivor.

More on the music within the covers and the new works counter)induction will be performing in the next few days.

LINK: http://www.internetculturale.it/upload/sfogliatori/franco-cip/francocip.jsp?s=6&l=en

Originally from counter)induction, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 16, 2010 at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)

Dress Rehearsal

Gosh, what a blast last night was. The imminent performances of the Passion are going to transport the audience to another and a better world. In addition to all the [good kind of] chills which were vibing in abundance . . . as I listened to the Deposition from the Cross, it brought me back almost physically to a warm visit to a southerly friend. This was as I conceived the piece, as I hummed it back to myself from the MS., on that day 26 months ago, when the ink was only drying on the page.

Listening to Sine sing the piece through last night, was a larger-than-my-musical-grasp experience, and it seemed to me as if I had written the piece for this very collection of musicians. There are no words for the feeling a composer gets, of so profound an attunement with the universe, a ‘condition’ to which his work has somehow attained, yet not (apparently) any mere result of exercising his own sonic will, as it depends upon the participation — indeed the dedication — of other free beings.

There are no proper words for it, but it is certainly an exalted joy.

Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 16, 2010 at 11:47 AM | Comments (0)