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July 02, 2009

Pacifica Quartet brings its vast repertory to new series at Acorn - St. Joseph Herald Palladium (subscription)

Pacifica Quartet brings its vast repertory to new series at Acorn
St. Joseph Herald Palladium (subscription)
... the Pacifica Quartet is coming off its 2009 Grammy Award win for Best Chamber Music Performance for the recording "Elliott Carter's String Quartets Nos. ...

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 Jul 2, 2009 at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)

Loyal to the music - Hornell Evening Tribune

Loyal to the music
Hornell Evening Tribune
The Glassmen's show this year is “The Journey of ONE,” which features pieces by Joseph Curiale, Steve Reich, Michale Nyman, Cesar Franck and Harry Nilsson. ...

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Californication: Ears wide open during summer fellowship - Scene

Californication: Ears wide open during summer fellowship
Scene
Next to books by composers Pierre Boulez and John Cage are texts by the philosophers Martin Heidegger and Michel Foucault. While I haven't had the privilege ...

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Chamber Music in Norfolk - Litchfield County Times

Chamber Music in Norfolk
Litchfield County Times
He has collaborated with such eminent conductors as Abbado, Ashkenazy, Barbirolli, Blomstedt, Boulez, Chailly, Davis, Doráti, Fischer, Haitink, Kempe, ...

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the week in Dance w/ Showtrotta (July 4th weekend edition) - Brooklyn Vegan

Brooklyn Vegan

the week in Dance w/ Showtrotta (July 4th weekend edition)
Brooklyn Vegan
Steve Reich and Philip Glass meet Chicago House to create a pulsing, bleeping, and blipping techno baby. On Warm Up Saturdays, from 2:00 pm to 9:00 pm, ...

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Gleanings from the On-Line

Before popular music was invented, everybody had to listen to unpopular music.

I pray for dead people because they are dead—but I don’t canonize them.

I can’t hear the words Sgt Pepper’s without going back to my days as an academic quiz team coach. Once, in the final game of an interscholastic tournament (which we won), there was the following typically quirky question: “Given the name of a person, state whether he was on the cover of Sgt Peppers, a Nobel Prize winner, both, or neither.” One of my players had the cover memorized (remember this is like 1996), so he’d shoot “on the cover” over to another player who had all the Nobel laureates memorized. They nailed every one.

Amateurs built the Ark; professionals built the Titanic.

Do I read that right? You “listen with pleasure” to “Wanna Be Startin’ Something” and “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough,” but you feel no impulse to dance?

Jack, you dead.

Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 2, 2009 at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)

Here We Go Magic - The Quietus

The Quietus

Here We Go Magic
The Quietus
Sounding like Bon Iver covering Gomez with a Steve Reich choir burbling monomaniacally away in the background, it should be horrible but radiates a queer ...

and more »

Steve Reich's "2x5" Premieres in Sold-Out Manchester Festival ... - Nonesuch Records

Steve Reich's "2x5" Premieres in Sold-Out Manchester Festival ...
Nonesuch Records
Steve Reich's latest creation, 2x5, premieres tonight on a double bill with pioneering German electronic music group Kraftwerk, in a sold-out concert at the ...

and more »

Comments/Critiques/Rants about My String Quartet #5

I just deleted Adam's last comment on my blog, which was a quote from Dennis Bathory-Kitsz about how these forums have no real criticism, but mere back-slapping. Rather than continue the passive/aggressive circus that my blog has become since a few folks attempted to 'intervene' in my continuing use of tonality, I've decided to invite comments and criticisms about the piece here, in a public setting. I don't want my announcement, on my blog, to be a forum for ad generis critiques of my style(s). It is disrespectful of the great performers and it's disrespectful to me.

Instead, let's talk about it here. Maybe a little steam needs to be let out. But please, critique the piece and not me! FWIW, and as I posted on my blog, when I announced the piece in 2001 on rec.music.compose, similar fireworks occurred. Just for fun here they are. Now, just for the record, I was being a little bit snide in my response, because the critic, orangie, had been attacking me for months and was frankly a little bit weird.

Announcement from 2001 for Tetra-Mnemosyne VII on rec.music.compose

For those that haven't heard the piece, it flirts with classical tonality from the 19th century from time to time and this seems to freak people out. Are these harmonic gestures week and inappropriate? Do they add anything to the piece? Do they weaken the piece? Do I integrate those harmonic gestures succesfully into the motoric processes? Do the transitions work between the different stylistic spheres? Whatever questions you can think of - go for it.

Here's the recording:

String Quartet #5 - Performed by Quatuor de Orchestre 2021 Live in Paris May 2009

Here's the score:

Score to Harrington String Quartet #5

Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 2, 2009 at 12:20 PM | Comments (0)

Annotate music for your listeners using audio tag and JavaScript

I don't usually post here because I'm not a composer or a musician, just a (relatively uneducated) listener. However I'll beg your indulgence today, as I thought at least some of you may be interested in this topic and I do know something about it (I work for Mozilla).

As you may know, many modern browsers, including the latest versions of Firefox (3.5) and Safari (3.1 and later), support new HTML5 <audio> and <video> tags that allow easy embedding of audio or video content in a web page without the need to use Flash or other plug-ins. What you may not know is that you can use JavaScript in combination with other web technologies (CSS, XML, etc.) to build additional functionality around the playing of audio or video content.

As part of a "Firefox 3.5 for web developers" series of blog posts we've just published a post on exploring music with the audio tag highlighting a demo produced by Samuel Goldszmidt of IRCAM that shows how you can add text descriptions for the benefit of someone listening to a piece of music (in this case an extract from Florence Baschet's StreicherKreis).

In the demo the JavaScript code is tracking the current time within the piece to show an indicator of which segment is being played; by mousing over the segment the listener can get a text description, and by clicking on the segment have the segment be replayed from the beginning. Not anything you couldn't also do in Flash, but the point is that you don't need Flash, just JavaScript.

In this case the music is in Ogg Vorbis format (not MP3) because that's what Firefox supports natively; we're trying to encourage adoption of open audio and video formats on the web. You can play the demo in Safari as well (I tried Safari 4.0 on OS X), if you install the XiphQT component allowing playing of Ogg Vorbis in QuickTime-based applications.

If you look at the actual source for the demo page you'll see that at the moment doing this sort of thing is not for the faint of heart, as it definitely requires some JavaScript knowledge. I hope that as more people make use of the and tags developers will create toolkits and JavaScript libraries that will make it much easier for relative web novices to post their own music with text annotations and additional material to supplement the listening experience.

Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 2, 2009 at 12:20 PM | Comments (0)

about tonality

About tonality:
(BTW this is a pretty weird interview, David-Lynch-style)

(you see, Europeans always have this upper cat attitude - but that is only their problem!)

also, questionable views about democracy...

But I agree with him on tonality. At least I'm unable to hear anything (even Boulez) not-tonally. Probably that's because I was educated in Hungary, Kodaly-system, you know, ut-re-mi-fa sol-la, etc. In the smallest pieces of music instinctively searching for (or projecting into maybe?) tonal relationships. It is actually a hindrance, I feel, because there are pieces which are intentionally NOT tonal, and my tonality-based approach limits my understanding of them.

Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 2, 2009 at 12:19 PM | Comments (0)

This Friday Could be Interesting!

We've been having some fun these last few weeks with the addition of the collaborative improvs, and not to mention the great solo improvisations! Last week was outstanding! We don't have a seed yet, but if no one adds one, I should by Thursday evening.

This week in honor of ImprovFriday, I am proud to announce the premiere of the miniature opera, "The Man Who Lives Inside a Piano Finds a Hornets Nest." And by miniature, I mean just that. 6 1/2 minutes. Dennis and Lee are kind to let me go forward with this. I hope they like what I did!!!! It will look like this (plus or minus a few changes).

Premiering July 3, 2009, at 4 PM EST (an ImprovFriday Event)

The Man Who Lives Inside a Piano Finds a Hornet’s Nest
A Miniature Opera for Text and Audio – Dedicated to David Toub
by Lee Noyes, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz, JC Combs

The Players

Lee Noyes as Bartolomeo Cristofori
Piano - Improvisation

Dennis Bathory-Kitsz as Franc the Piano Tuner
Extended Voice – Improvisation

JC Combs
Sound Synthesis – Libretto

Libretto – by JC Combs

The Background: It had been no more than two years since Franc took up residence inside a piano. An unfortunate dwelling, but not by choice. You see Franc, a piano tuner by trade, was tricked and pushed into a Steinway Grand D by a concert pianist with a surprisingly sinister side. His name was Bartolomeo Cristofori. He had phoned Franc earlier in the day complaining that a penny had somehow dropped into the soundboard, apparently making somewhat of a persistent rattling noise. ”No, look further in, down there. You must retrieve the penny so I can sufficiently practice for the concert at the estate of Prince Ferdinando de Medici this coming Friday.” Those were the last words Franc remembered hearing before falling headlong into the gigantic grand. He passed out for some time and woke up only to find the piano nailed shut, with him in it! Inside, he realized that the piano had been converted into a sort of prison cell.

Franc tried for days on end to kick the lid open but to no avail. However, a peculiar thing happened one day when his captor first played the piano while he was locked inside. As Bartolomeo played, Franco lost the ability to speak and all he could do was make vocal gestures, as if he had forgotten the English language altogether. Another strange thing happened when the pianist struck a note: Franc became extremely happy, and so it wasn’t long before Franc decided that should one day his captor free him, he would stay in the piano of his own will. Every day henceforth was wonderful for Franc, as he would wake up early and clean and tune the inside of the piano in preparation to play along with the pianist. Franc had become quite proud of his ability to pluck the strings and beat strong rhythms on the aged wooden walls which enveloped him. Together the sinister pianist and Franc the piano tuner created brilliant masterpieces. That is, until one day while carefully tending to the inner workings of the grand he came upon a hornet’s nest.

Where We Catch Up With the Players (turn on the audio): As Franc cannot call out for help, he attempts to befriend the hornets by singing softly without words. However, the pianist (not aware that a hornet’s nest is inside the piano) is busy playing and Franc, ever so frightened of the hornets, starts frantically plucking and hammering away at the strings. The hornets become curious and fly around and about Franc. Many sit on his shoulder. Sadly, the plan backfires when a hammer hits the nest. The hornets become angry and swarm and sting and sting and sting! Alas, the hornets stings are too much for Franc and as he sings one last note, he dies. His master finally hears the swarm of the hornets and rushes over to pry open the lid in the hope of saving his prisoner, but it is too late and as the lid opens the hornets sting Bartolomeo Cristofori without mercy.

The scene closes tragically with captor and captive together, dead inside the piano.

Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 2, 2009 at 12:19 PM | Comments (0)

VVAA Pioneers - The Beginning Of Danish Electronic Music - Neural

Neural

VVAA Pioneers - The Beginning Of Danish Electronic Music
Neural
... dating back primarily to the sixties-seventies, with a selection that accomplishes meticulous research into early Danish electronic avant-garde. ...

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Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 2, 2009 at 12:18 PM | Comments (0)

Contempory classical music has brought orchestra, Gier good luck - Sioux Falls Argus Leader

Contempory classical music has brought orchestra, Gier good luck
Sioux Falls Argus Leader
So he makes it a point to program about 20 percent contemporary classical music, too. "Once you start playing music of living composers and showing your ...

and more »

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 2, 2009 at 12:17 PM | Comments (0)

New York world-rock trio draws influence from both home and abroad - Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Pittsburgh Post Gazette

New York world-rock trio draws influence from both home and abroad
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
So even though the group as a whole are huge fans of avant-garde jazz icon John Zorn ("There was one show when we saw Electric Masada that was an ...

and more »

Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 2, 2009 at 12:17 PM | Comments (0)

Roger Bourland: St Stephen Counterpoint (1989)

Leonard Raver

A brief collaboration that I will never forget was receiving a commission from Juilliard faculty member and organist for the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Raver. Leonard was asked to give an inaugural concert for a new organ in a church named St Stephen Episcopal Church. Leonard suggested the notion of quoting the hymn tune “St Stephen” somewhere in the composition. You’ll hear it all over the place in “St Stephen Counterpoint.” Leonard performs this work in 1991 for an “Organists Against AIDS” concert.

Leonard Raver was to die the following year, 1992, of AIDS. Before he died, he recommended me to then Director of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, Jon Bailey, to compose the work that was to become “Hidden Legacies” — a work and an experience that changed my life. I am grateful to have known Leonard, even if it were for a short time.

Listen to the performance — such energy and power and drive. This recording is from the Pipe Dreams radio series.

Download audio file (St_Stephen_Counterpoint.mp3)
St Stephen Counterpoint (1989)
Music: Roger Bourland
Organ: Leonard Raver
Published by ECS Publishing, Boston

Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 2, 2009 at 12:17 PM | Comments (0)

Paired to perfection: Twin sisters on two pianos showcase each other - Philadelphia Inquirer

Paired to perfection: Twin sisters on two pianos showcase each other
Philadelphia Inquirer
The 20-year-old pianists from Madison, Wis., were part of the Curtis Institute of Music's contribution to this Mann season. Though the crowd wasn't nearly ...

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200th Anniversary of the Death of Josef Haydn - The Santa Barbara Independent

200th Anniversary of the Death of Josef Haydn
The Santa Barbara Independent
Last week, the program included music of Gyorgy Ligeti, and next Tuesday's menu includes Béla Bartók and Dimitri Shostakovich, with subsequent Tuesday ...

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Phil Kline's Daze DVD Reviewed at Lucid Culture

Another fine review for Phil Kline's Around the World in a Daze DVD appears today courtesy of Lucid Culture.

It begins by describing Kline as "One of this era’s most fearlessly relevant composers."

They note the DVD offers "a mix of compositions which run the gamut from challenging to confrontational to playfully fun." And they conclude: "New music fans will salivate over this."

Read the full review.

Visit Starkland.

Originally from Starkland, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 2, 2009 at 08:10 AM | Comments (0)

Benjamin Jay Womack 1975-2009 R.I.P.

A great friend and an amazing human being.

Originally from deerhunter / atlas sound / lotus plaza, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 2, 2009 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)

60x60 Dance @ the Winter Garden, NYC (11/14/08) [Kuntzel/Smith]

Wenn ich ein Voglein war
Music: Tilman Kuntzel
Dance: Hadley Smith

notes:
Hadley Smith is a senior at Barnard College majoring in Dance and Sociology. She is a founding member of CoLAB (Collaborative of the Ludicrous and Beautiful) a performance art collective for students at Barnard and Columbia University and enjoys nothing more than making art happen. Thanks to Mary Cochran for giving me this opportunity and to all the glorious Barnard Dance peoples. Dancer: Hadley Smith

Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 2, 2009 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)

60x60 Dance @ the Winter Garden, NYC (11/14/08) [Mukherjee/Pride]

Kronecker Delta
Music: Tim Mukherjee
Dance: Erin Pride/EDP Dance Project

notes:
The Kronecker Delta is an electronic through-composed piece using enhanced orchestral and synthetic timbres. Tim Mukherjee is a composer living in New York City and divides his time between artistic and monetary pursuits. EDP DANCE PROJECT a NJ based Modern Dance Company and the resident company of Silk City Arts Festival. The mission of both the festival and dance company is to rebuild the arts in inner- cities through exposure. EDP DANCE PROJECT prides itself on bringing the individual to the movement. Erin Pride graduated from Montclair State University with a B.F.A. in Dance and is currently attending NYU for her M.F.A. in Dance Education. Erin, a New Jersey native, is the Director of Dance at Rosa Parks High School of Fine and Performing Arts and the Artistic Director of Silk City Arts Festival/ EDP Dance Project all located in Paterson New Jersey. Michelle Puskas recently received her B.F.A. degree, Magna Cum Laude in Dance from Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts. She was the recipient of the Garden State Arts Foundation 2007 Thomas H. Kean Scholarship. Michelle is currently a scholarship student with Jennifer Muller/The Works in NYC. Dancers: Erin Pride and Michelle Puskas.

Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 2, 2009 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)

60x60 Dance @ the Winter Garden, NYC (11/14/08) [Merrell/Patchett/Gac-Artiga]

Sixty Second Serenade
Music: Todd Merrell
Dance: Kate Patchett and Melina Gac-Artiga

notes:
Sixty Second Serenade represents my continued fascination with discovering the soul that humans design into their machinery, and coaxing humanity from technology. It is a love song to those who have remained so devoted and sympathetic to me over the years: my beautiful machines. Todd Merrell studied composition and voice at Berklee College of Music, and with James Sellars of The Hartt School, and works primarily with single sideband shortwave radio, granular synthesis, and processing. He has been reviewed in The Wire and other publications, and recorded for labels including Archive and Mode.

Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 2, 2009 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)

60x60 Dance @ the Winter Garden, NYC (11/14/08) [McLean/RETTOCAMME]

Inside the Hadronron Collider
Music: Jordan McLean
Dance: Emma Cotter / RETTOCAMME

notes:
INSIDE THE HADRON COLLIDER for 9 trumpets and ring modulator Inspired by the National Geographic article about the world's largest atom smasher. Jordan McLean has been a band leader and trumpeter for over 15 years and lead trumpeter and charter member of Antibalas. RETTOCAMME is a process-oriented dance/art/design group, founded in NYC, 2003, by Emma Cotter. Recent performances have included 60X60 at Galapagos, the Solar Powered Dance series at Solar One and collaborations with Manhattan Samba at the Jonathan Shorr Gallery and McCarren Pool. Dancer Emma Cotter

Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 2, 2009 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)

Closing Out June

The recording of Bullish Upticks (I) is now in hand.

Work continues on Heedless Watermelon; it will be important to keep it to six (or even five) minutes. That’s a good bit of discipline, after writing several expansive pieces.

Delighted at the prospect of a harpsichord adaptation of Lost Waters (after all, for years there has been a guitar adaptation somewhere in the back of my mind).

And I’ve sent a copy of the score for the Passion According to St John to a doctoral candidate in the Netherlands who is doing a study on 20^th- and 21^st-century Passion settings.

Good night all!

Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 2, 2009 at 05:10 AM | Comments (0)

Industrial Jazz Group - ReverbNation [del.icio.us]

now that i'm on break i'm looking forward to listening to their latest album LEEF. "Frustrated by the limitations of “Jazz, the Institution,” but equally resistant to the confines of modern pop, the Industrial Jazz Group has slowly pioneered a middle way. Its music is an idiosyncratic blend of rock, bebop, cartoon soundtracks, blues, funk, Balkan music, doo wop, and, well, a lot of other stuff. (In the end, it’s neither “industrial” nor “jazz,” so don't let the name fool you.)"

Originally posted by pbailey68 from paulbailey.us (beta), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 2, 2009 at 05:10 AM | Comments (0)

Los Angeles Eat+Drink - Snook Attack: La Chente [del.icio.us]

johnathan gold again tempts me with his food porn. "Have you ever encountered pescadoZarandeado? Because it is as intimidating as an entrée can get, a vast, smoking creature split open at the backbone and flopped open into a sort of skeleton-punctuated mirror image of itself, wisps of steam rising around the onions and lemon slices with which it is strewn, served on the kind of plastic tray you may remember from your high school cafeteria, which is probably the only vessel broad enough to handle the fish. As served at Mariscos La Chente, a Westside restaurant specializing in the seafood dishes of Sinaloa and Nayarit, it is so menacing that you scarcely know whether to eat it or beat it to death with a stick."

Originally posted by pbailey68 from paulbailey.us (beta), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 2, 2009 at 05:10 AM | Comments (0)

From the Kol Israel Orchestra to a Pygmy Choir - Forward

From the Kol Israel Orchestra to a Pygmy Choir
Forward
Asked by interviewers to cite sources for his rhythmically variegated piano music, Ligeti would later claim: “Chopin and Pygmies. ...

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Adès: The Tempest - Musical Criticism

Musical Criticism

Adès: The Tempest
Musical Criticism
The point of setting poetry or drama in music is to transfigure that text with sound, and if five acts of thickly conceived poetic marvels doesn't stand in ...

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Gig review: Chick Corea - Scotsman

Gig review: Chick Corea
Scotsman
That arrived in the second half, when Corea set aside jazz and turned to notated music. Following his own Spanish-inflected The Yellow Nimbus, ...

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Aldeburgh festival closing weekend - guardian.co.uk

Aldeburgh festival closing weekend
guardian.co.uk
Collaborating with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra over two concerts, Aimard drew parallels between the methods of Haydn and Ligeti, Birtwistle and Stockhausen ...

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July 01, 2009

A city of culture - The National

A city of culture
The National
... Rufus Wainwright's debut opera; a double-bill performance by the pioneers of contemporary music Kraftwerk and Steve Reich; the immersive theatre of It ...

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And then there were two - The Herald

And then there were two
The Herald
Plus great music by the likes of Robert Wyatt, Steve Reich, Steely Dan, Nancy Sinatra and the fabby Bon Iver. What's not to like?

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Passion, precision and passages at Summer Stages Dance Series in ... - Daily News Transcript

Passion, precision and passages at Summer Stages Dance Series in ...
Daily News Transcript
... music of Hungarian master composer Gyorgy Ligeti; “The Watteau Duets,” with music by David Linton and the high-energy keyboard and drum duo, TALIBAM!, ...

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Guest Lists Sunset Rubdown - Pitchfork Media

Pitchfork Media

Guest Lists Sunset Rubdown
Pitchfork Media
... but I've been really into Steve Reich lately. I first started listening to him around 10 years ago when I was in music school, but I was listening in ...

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From the Kol Israel Orchestra to a Pygmy Choir - Forward

Interview: Robert Ponsonby - A life among the stars - Scotsman

Interview: Robert Ponsonby - A life among the stars
Scotsman
... flat with Daniel Barenboim and former SNO leader Sam Bor playing piano trios), Yehudi Menuhin, John Ogden, Pierre Boulez, Michael Tippett and many more. ...

and more »

School of rock: Q is for Quixotic - guardian.co.uk

guardian.co.uk

School of rock: Q is for Quixotic
guardian.co.uk
Sounding as much like Boulez as Basie, Sun Ra coaxed the sounds of the known universe from his synths and his band until the music escalated into a cosmic ...

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Boston Modern Orchestra Project Launches The Score Board

Thirty-six composers have joined forces to form The Score Board in support of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. The Boston-area composers have committed themselves to "sustaining, generating, and organizing composer activities" in support of the ensemble.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 1, 2009 at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)

Go Ahead, Second Guess Me

The conviction—one under which I labored for some years—that the resistance to commodification inherent in ugly, bleak sounds was an imperative, that the only way to raise one's voice against the totalizing, alienating press of the market was to shrivel and wither that voice so completely that nobody would ever want to hear it, blinded me to the possibility that good music, ethical music of high integrity, can sound good too.

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 1, 2009 at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)

Gunther Schuller: Multiple Streams

Gunther Schuller has had profound importance as a jazz arranger and historian as well as a twelve-tone composer, conductor, publisher and record producer, and at 83 years young he's still going strong. Read the interview...

Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 1, 2009 at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)

Up and Down

Too much Grau und Drang for proper blogging today. Here's a story instead:

Jean Martinon, spare, white-haired conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, last week tried to explain his two favorite sports—skiing and mountain climbing—to his ancient counterpart, Conductor Charles Munch. "In both," he said, "You are in the mountains, where you become a freer man. But, psychologically, skiing is a sport in which you must go downhill. Mountain climbing is a sport of ascent. In skiing there is much more competition, which spoils something of it for me. In mountain climbing nobody praises you for what you do well. You do it well for the beauty of the thing."
—Sports Illustrated, March 22, 1965

Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 1, 2009 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)

Hadid's Bach pavillion isn't the first architectural music box - guardian.co.uk

guardian.co.uk

Hadid's Bach pavillion isn't the first architectural music box
guardian.co.uk
The most famous is probably pavilion that Iannis Xenakis designed for Edgard Varèse's Poème électronique at the Brussels World's Fair in 1958. ...
A city of cultureThe National

all 4 news articles »

Making The Score Come Alive

">Hoedown from Rodeo from Eleanor Stewart on Vimeo.

@sinclairmusic from Greenwood Lake, New York brought these three minutes of loveliness to Miss Mussel’s attention this morning via Twitter. The video is a stop motion representation of Aaron Copland’s Hoedown from the ballet Rodeo (1942) created by Eleanor Stewart as her final degree project at the Glasgow School of Art. Well done, Eleanor!

Share This Post:

Originally posted by Miss Mussel from The Omniscient Mussel on Classical Music & Culture, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 1, 2009 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)

What’s wrong with the German Petition against Music Collecting Society GEMA

Yesterday I came across this petition on the website of the German Bundestag. It is a petition to the parliament that has been signed by over 83,000 people yet. The main point is to check whether the German music collecting society GEMA is operating accoding to the German constitution. The idea behind it is that the fees for hosting a concert are too high for small concert organizers and that at the same time only a small portion of the royalties actually reaches the composers.

<div xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" about="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gbullard/3446403328/"><a rel="cc:attributionURL" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gbullard/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gbullard/</a> / <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">CC BY-NC-SA 2.0</a></div>

Image by Bullard

So far so good. I am somewhat surprised that the petition does not address the most apparent problem that concerns *all* collecting societies (ASCAP, BMI, GEMA etc.)

At a time when most performers are trying to market themselves via websites and social networking platforms, the ability to stream their own recordings becomes crucial. After all, you want to showcase your talent, so that more and more people will take notice of you and come to your concerts.

Streaming music from your website is technically no big problem anymore, but this is where the GEMAs, ASCAPs, and BMIs of this world come into play.

Say you recorded three CDs with 15 works by 3 different composers. You host your website in the US. 2 composers are registering their works with ASCAP, one is registered with BMI. In order to stream your own recordings from your own website you would have to pay annual fees in excess of over $600 to ASCAP and BMI.

Why that? None of the collecting societies offers licenses for individual works or for all works by one composer only. If you want to stream one work, you have to get a comprehensive license that would allow you to stream all (!!) of the works that have been regeistered with that collecting society. That includes millions of works: all of Van Halen, all of Frank Sinatra, all of Motörhead, all of Björk, all of …. and also the 15 works that you want to stream from your website.

How crayz is that? Let me know what you think.

Here is a link to the petition again.

PS: if you are composer and you wanted to stream recordings of your own music, you would have to buy the comprehensive license, too!

PPS: I think composers should definitely get paid when their music is played, downloaded, and streamed. I am just questioning the practice of not making the purchase of licenses more flexible.

Originally posted by Matthias Röder from Zeitschichten, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 1, 2009 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)

With Glowing Hearts We See Thee Rise

It’s our day for wearing red and white clothing, listening to atrocious tribute bands in the park playing Canadian songs people have only vaguely heard of and mangling the national anthem in two languages before the fireworks begin.

Here’s a few things that make Canada what it is – practically perfect in every way. *cough*

Hover on each image for a superfun Canada Day message. You know you want to. What else are you going to do?
Click this ad indefinitely? Ok…well have fun then.

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Originally posted by Miss Mussel from The Omniscient Mussel on Classical Music & Culture, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 1, 2009 at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)

July 2009 CMC Composer of the Month -- Episode 1 [mp3]

Michael McGlynn, composer and director of Irish choral group Anuna, talks to Michael Quinn about composing for orchestra, choral music in Ireland, and current and future projects.

Music excerpts used with kind permission:

Episode 1 [19:48]

Music excerpts used with kind permission:

0:00 An Oiche, Michael McGlynn [Anuna, director Michael McGlynn] copyright Michael McGlynn

2:30 Dulaman, Michael McGlynn [Anuna, director Michael McGlynn] copyright Michael McGlynn

6:45 Silver River, Michael McGlynn [Anuna, director Michael McGlynn, Kenneth Edge (sax), Noel Eccles (perc.)] copyright Michael McGlynn

13:30 Visions, Michael McGlynn [Kenneth Edge (sax)] copyright Michael McGlynn

19:50 Shining Water, Michael McGlynn [Lucy Champion (S-solo), Anuna, Michael McGlynn (low whistle), Maire Breathnach (va), Andreja Mahlir (hrp), Noel Eccles (perc)] copyright Michael McGlynn

From Podcast: Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland: Monthly Podcast.

Originally posted by jeff from cacophonous.org, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Jul 1, 2009 at 08:10 AM | Comments (0)

Patrick Wolf, Plastiscines, and Jaguar Love - Austin 360

Patrick Wolf, Plastiscines, and Jaguar Love
Austin 360
The roots of Wolf's music embrace everything from PJ Harvey to Stockhausen and English folk music to the legendary jazz trumpet player and singer, ...

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Because It’s Just So Jolly

Miss Mussel has a weakness for large groups of homogenous instruments – string quartet, cello ensemble, bassoon quartet, horn octet and even tuba choir, as long as the range and timbre variance is large. Saxophone ensembles are begrudgingly admired but groups of flutes, clarinets or oboes are avoided like that porcine influenza that seems to be popping up all over creation.

Here’s the horns of the Berliner and Vienna Philharmonikers hashing through a movement of Haydn’s String Quartet Hob.Ⅲ 38 “The Joke” It’s a lovely idea except for the small technical problem of French horns not being built to play very high relative to, say, the violin. The highest note in orchestra horn literature can easily be reached in first position on the violin.

All goes well until 1:27 when the gentlemen third from the right decides to play his line in the correct octave. His valiant reach for a super D (G on top of the treble staff in concert pitch) goes a bit awry. At that altitude, the notes are attainable but only just and very unreliably. The odds are better for him than Icarus but the end result is the same.

Here are eight Berliners rocking Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmilla Overture. Say what you wish about French horns – that opening lick is pretty impressive stuff.

And finally, one for the kids.

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