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October 31, 2009
Mark Morris: a garden of earthly delights - Times Online
 Times Online | Mark Morris: a garden of earthly delights Times Online Some people might find the “spiky” music of Ligeti (a favourite composer of his) difficult. He says: “Don't be alarmed. It can also be charming. ... |
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 Oct 31, 2009 at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)
Music — the food of love, or maybe not - Daily Nation
 Daily Nation | Music — the food of love, or maybe not Daily Nation It's my kind of music, all right, not modern jazz or dreadful John Cage or Ligeti, and surely I should be grateful for free recitals twice a day. ... |
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 Oct 31, 2009 at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)
Alleluia in D at Harvard
Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 31, 2009 at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)
Canonical Rhythms
Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 31, 2009 at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)
Colour out of Space Festival 2009...
Down to Brighton for the Colour out of Space festival. First night (friday) was a great start - packed hall - and, for my money, Kodama shaded it. A stunning set... Review of evening to follow when time permits, hangover ebbs farther and the will to decipher illegible gonzo notes returns... Off soon for today's section...
Originally from wordsandmusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 31, 2009 at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)
Robert Erickson, "Fantasy for Cello and Orchestra" (1954)
-- LINER NOTES --In his own music, Erickson initially worked in a style influenced by the contemporary European masters that held his fascination, including Berg and Schoenberg as well as Krenek. Although he was never really a serialist, the twelve-tone method colored his harmonic language and contrapuntal textures. His early works, such as the Introduction and Allegro for orchestra, the Piano Sonata, and the String Quartet No. 1, reveal a strong respect for the traditions of his predecessors. The expressionistic, rhapsodic Fantasy for Cello and Orchestra, the earliest piece on this program, employs motivic retrograde and inversion and other such techniques not exclusive to but frequently encountered in the twelve-tone method. In fact we can find similar techniques in Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1, written more than a decade before the development of the twelve-tone method. This piece seems to stand as a particular model for the Fantasy: the harmonic and melodic sonority of the perfect fourth, which dominates Erickson’s piece, is prevalent in Schoenberg’s seminal post-tonal work.
Erickson wrote the Fantasy in 1954, partly as a reaction to the death of his Park House mentor Frank
Kearney. Ernst Krenek led the premiere with the Hamburg Radio Symphony in Hamburg later that year, and it was quickly taken up by the San Francisco Symphony. In a single movement of about fifteen minutes’duration, the piece can be seen as three big sections, A-B-A. An opening recitative in slow and free tempo, the cello well in the foreground with light accompaniment, primarily in the orchestra strings, takes about a third of the piece. The second section, although not always propulsive in its meter, is marked “Fast and Intense” at the start. The soloist for the most part keeps to the tempos established by the orchestra, which has a far more active and colorful role than in the first part. The final section is a return to the opening mood, but with far greater participation from the large and colorful orchestra.
The Fantasy was one of the first works Erickson wrote upon arriving in San Francisco, and it arguably hailed the end of a period of reliance on older models. By the end of the 1950s Erickson was deeply involved in the kinds of theatrical and perceptual experimentation of which John Cage was the most famous instigator. The use of technology in music, including pre-recorded and live electronic sound, was a part of many of concerts presented by Erickson and his San Francisco Conservatory colleagues. Erickson, fascinated by sound of any kind, built chiming sound sculptures that grew seemingly of their own volition and constantly tested materials for their use in new pieces, sometimes working with ancient or traditional tuning systems. Cardinitas ’68 was written for some of these hand-assembled instruments. Improvisational passages and graphic notation opened the door to a high degree of trust in Erickson’s many performing colleagues. Particularly notable in his works of the 1960s are the Concerto for Piano and Seven Instruments, a thorny, frenetic modernist work from 1963 that includes improvisation but otherwise bears comparison to Berg’s Chamber Concerto; Ricercar à 5 for trombone with four tracks of pre-recorded trombone, written for Stuart Dempster; and Ricercar à 3, a similar work for double bass written for Bertram Turetzky. The large-scale orchestra work Sirens and Other Flyers III loomed in the middle of the decade; his Pacific Sirens (1969) for orchestra incorporates pre-recorded and manipulated ocean sounds.—Robert Kirzinger
Robert Kirzinger is an active composer who writes frequently for the Boston Symphony Orchestra program book and is editor of the program book for the annual Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music.
Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 31, 2009 at 07:22 PM | Comments (0)
Topology, Taikoz, Karak and Riley Lee
Sound on Sound
TAIKOZ TOPOLOGY KARAK
featuring Riley Lee, shakuhachi
Brisbane Powerhouse
Fri 20 Nov, 7:30 (book tix)
Sat 21 Nov, 2pm & 7.30pm (book tix)
(and at The Enmore Theatre, Sydney Fri 27 Nov, 8pm)
TaikOz, Australia’s premiere taiko drumming group, will join forces with Topology, Australia’s most challenging and eclectic new music ensemble, and the virtuosic percussion duo, Karak.
Despite their surface differences, the groups share a common desire to push boundaries within their chosen art forms: they write and perform their own music as well as that of other composers, and are adept at improvisation and working in a variety of locations and mixed media. Sound On Sound features new works composed by members of each ensemble as well as a World Premiere by renowned WA composer David Pye.
Combining the dramatic theatricality of TaikOz, the ethereal tones of Riley Lee’s bamboo shakuhachi, the colour and energy of Topology’s amplified piano, bass, saxophones, violin and viola, and Karak’s percussive brilliance, Sound On Sound is a performance not to be missed.
Originally posted by Administrator from Topology, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 31, 2009 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)
10 hands 1 piano
Click here to view the embedded video.
The beginning of our new (still untitled) piece – we all wrote this together. Fun. 1st performance was last Sunday 25 Oct.
Originally posted by Administrator from Topology, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 31, 2009 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)
Free show Fri 6 Nov
If you’re in Brisbane, come along at 7pm for a free Topology show, featuring some of our best music – Chop Chop, Big Decisions, Generation after Generation, Pat’s Aria. Music about politics, speech melodies, big grooves.
QACI Concert Series at Qld Academy for Creative Industries
Level 1, 61 Musk Avenue, Kelvin Grove
Free admission
Originally posted by Administrator from Topology, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 31, 2009 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)
You have been warned
Holy health and safety at Mount Saint Bernard Abbey, in Charnwood Forest, Leicestershire. The Aeolian String Quartet's recording of the complete Haydn quartets, which featured in Unlocking the Sound Of Vinyl, includes The Seven Last Words interspersed with readings by Peter Pears.
Using spoken texts with The Seven Last Words follows the historical precedent of the first performance in Cádiz Cathedral in 1787. The sources for the readings by Peter Pears are John Donne, George Herbert, Robert Herrick, Edith Sitwell, Edwin Muir and David Gascoyne, and the texts were selected by Reginald Barrett-Ayres. Photo is (c) On An Overgrown Path 2009. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 31, 2009 at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)
Nonesuch Events for the Weekend of October 30–November 1 - Nonesuch Records (blog)
Nonesuch Events for the Weekend of October 30–November 1 Nonesuch Records (blog) Steve Reich joins the London Sinfonietta, Bang on a Can, and Synergy Vocals for an all-Reich concert at Royal Festival Hall in London's Southbank Centre ... |
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 Oct 31, 2009 at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)
The Return of The Score - New York Times
The Return of The Score New York Times The project debuted in the spring of 2007 with five composers of modern music (four who contributed writing, and one, Steve Reich, who offered an interview) ... |
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 Oct 31, 2009 at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)
Venezuela's classical music revolution takes Toronto by storm - Rabble.ca
Venezuela's classical music revolution takes Toronto by storm Rabble.ca ... Yehudi Menuhin and Pierre Boulez. The renowned music educator, whose broad based “classless” teaching pedagogy, known as “El Sistema,” relies heavily on ... |
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 Oct 31, 2009 at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)
... Baaba Maal - guardian.co.uk
... Baaba Maal guardian.co.uk From one village to the next city across the sea, at ease with the situation, drawing music from his instruments without ever doing battle with 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 Oct 31, 2009 at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)
... Myleene Klass - guardian.co.uk
... Myleene Klass guardian.co.uk Get Me Out of Here, a recording session for a new album of romantic piano music, the recording of a TV show in Canada, the launch of some enterprise to do ... |
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 Oct 31, 2009 at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)
Press Release: 42nd POPS Dinner Concert at ENMU set - Portales News-Tribune
Press Release: 42nd POPS Dinner Concert at ENMU set Portales News-Tribune PORTALES--The 42nd POPS Dinner Concert, sponsored by the University Friends of Music, will be at 7 pm on Saturday, Nov. 14 in the Campus Union Ballroom at ... |
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 Oct 31, 2009 at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)
How conductors communicate - Examiner.com
How conductors communicate Examiner.com Even when the music is familiar, there can be a need to stress fidelity to what is actually in the notation of the parts. (Those who saw the rehearsal ... |
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 Oct 31, 2009 at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)
Press release: ENMU faculty oboe recital planned - Portales News-Tribune
Press release: ENMU faculty oboe recital planned Portales News-Tribune “The Dutilleux and Shinohara are quite modern, contemporary pieces and Shinohara is more wild mood music with a lot of technical passages for the oboe and ... |
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 Oct 31, 2009 at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)
Creatively Committed to Cool - New York Times
Creatively Committed to Cool New York Times The production features music written and performed by the West African pop-electronica group Burkina Electric and the composer Lukas Ligeti, ... |
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 Oct 31, 2009 at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)
Pianos make nice sounds. Can you please recommend piano music? - TheStranger.com
 TheStranger.com | Pianos make nice sounds. Can you please recommend piano music? TheStranger.com If you are up for a more mind bending journey check out Gyorgi Ligeti's "Continuum" for 2 player pianos. Bach, played by Glenn Gould: The Well-Tempered ... |
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 Oct 31, 2009 at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)
Interesting figures (worldwide distribution of musical royalties)
A newsletter from SACEM arrived in the post this week, and on page two was a little chart "Perceptions mondiales des droits musicaux par région en 2007" source cited as Cisac.Europe: 3909.95 M€
North America: 1394 M€
Asia: 777.98 M€
Latin America: 202.04 M€
Africa: 34.86 M€
Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 31, 2009 at 02:20 PM | Comments (0)
Seasonal item
If you had to choose a Hallowe'en costume of a famous composer, who'd it be? I'm about 16 inches too tall to pass for Richard Wagner and, as cool as his sideburns were, he had that weird under-the-chin beard going on. Rossini, especially as he reached my age, is a more attractive idea, between the pajamas, the tournedos and, presumably, some other conspicuous signs of a sinful old age. A choice more consistent with this particular holiday might be Gesualdo, sword and gun in hand (for more colorful and ghoulish parties, however, Gesualdo's cuckolding victim, the Duke of Andria, might make a more exciting apparation, bloodied and wearing Donna Maria Gesualdo's dress.) Or how about going soaking wet, as Robert Schumann, freshly fished out of the Rhein? Or all in black velvet, as Erik Satie? Perhaps because their images are still so fresh, contemporary composers don't appear to provide many more attractive alternatives, with Cage's denim uniform, fungi basket in hand, or a Brook's Brother-suited RCA synthesizer-operating Babbitt seeming harmless at best. But perhaps, in the right jack'o'lantern light, encountering a Morton Feldman imposter or La Monte Young double might just cause a fright.
Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 31, 2009 at 12:54 PM | Comments (0)
The Return of The Score
Reviving a forum for contemporary American composers.Originally posted by By The Editors from The Score, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 31, 2009 at 12:54 PM | Comments (0)
New Music Experience - guardian.co.uk
New Music Experience guardian.co.uk Performances of contemporary music can all too easily be forbidding affairs, but the Edinburgh Contemporary Arts Trust has hit on a winning formula with its ... |
Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "scelsi" OR "sciarrino" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 31, 2009 at 12:53 PM | Comments (0)
Mr. Bell goes to Washington (again)
After jazz, country, and Latin music, it's classical music's turn. The White House is presenting a day of classical music on November 4. The chosen quartet of performers (no overlaps with those who played at Obama's inauguration), Americans all, are Sharon Isbin, Alisa Weilerstein, Awadagin Pratt, and Josh Bell. An afternoon of master classes will include appearances by two young artists (or, as the official communiqué calls them, "child protégés" -- forget about prodigies; it's all in whom you know), Sujari Britt, a cellist, and Jason Roder, a marimbist. The subsequent evening concert by the four headliners will be streamed live on www.whitehouse.gov, and broadcast on Sirius over the weekend. As for the choices of musicians: much like the Inauguration quartet, it seems to signal openness and inclusiveness, bringing in a range of ethnicities, genders, and even instruments (the classical guitar, despite many worthy efforts, is still something of a
Originally from The Classical Beat – Classical Music Forum – washingtonpost.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 31, 2009 at 12:53 PM | Comments (0)
Jozef Van Wissem - A Priori
The lute is not exactly the first instrument I think of when someone says “avant-garde” or “contemporary music”. Yet Jozef Van Wissem uses his lute virtuosity to create exactly that. His compositions are clearly minimalist with the use of musical palindromes or mirror structures rather than precise compositional forms. Hearing a Jozef van Wissem compositions is a hypnotic trip down a rabbit hole. I think it is safe to say that most people have never heard the Renaissance minded lute in such a modern yet beautiful way.
A Priori is freely available through Ubuweb and is an excellent introduction to the the composer and lute virtuoso’s odd and quiet world. Very accessible yet very meditative, these tracks lulls you into a calm. Yet this is not casual listening but the kind that pulls you into the structure and gives rewards with every listen. While Van Wissem does work with electronics on some albums this is a pure acoustic effort and, in my opinion, the best way to experience his music.
The album is available in 192kbps MP3. If you enjoy the music, support the artist by buying his CDs.
Originally posted by Marvin from Free Albums Galore, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 31, 2009 at 12:52 PM | Comments (0)
Varese and the Jazz Men
A discussion at NetNewMusic provoked the question as to whether Varese had ever worked with Jazz folks. Turns out he had, in 1957 with some big names!
Varese and the Jazzmen with 19 complete tracks to download.
Originally posted by jeff from new music reblog plus, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 31, 2009 at 12:52 PM | Comments (0)
October 30, 2009
Violinist Jennifer Koh follows daring solo paths at Oberlin College - Plain Dealer
 Plain Dealer | Violinist Jennifer Koh follows daring solo paths at Oberlin College Plain Dealer An entire evening of solo violin music might appear too unvaried in tonal color to keep the ears engaged. But Koh's program was a daring and intelligent ... |
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 Oct 30, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
Search Search Go - Belfast Telegraph
Search Search Go Belfast Telegraph British violinist Tasmin Little will play Szymanowski's Second Violin Concerto, with its overtones of Polish folk music. It's said that Lutoslawski was ... |
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Students to show off skills in Parents Weekend shows - Bowdoin Orient
Students to show off skills in Parents Weekend shows Bowdoin Orient This Parents Weekend, music, dance and the sound of hefty drums can all be heard across campus. Following the traditions of the weekend ... |
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 Oct 30, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
Musical magician - The Birmingham Post
Musical magician The Birmingham Post For the Steve Reich piece he uses a chorus pedal which, he says, gives it an early Pink Floyd flavour. Interestingly these two classics of minimalism come ... |
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 Oct 30, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
Sunada
Karaikudi Subramaniam and Trichy Sankaran - Sunada released in 1992Performers:Karaikudi Subramaniam - vinaTrichy Sankaran - mrdangam and kanjiraLalitha Sankaran - tambouraInstruments:Vina - The vina is the major solo stringed instrument of South India. The present day instrument dates from the early 17th century and contains 24 copper frets which are held with wax to a hollow wooden soundboard.Originally from A Closet of Curiosities, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 30, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
8bb Halloween Weekend Sale Challenge
Take a break from preparing your dapper Don Draper or sexy Sarah Palin costume and check out this great deal on eighth blackbird’s December 8th Harris Theater concert.
From Friday through Sunday, all tickets for Pierrot lunaire are 30% off!
On December 8, eighth blackbird presents Schoenberg’s dark, creepy masterpiece, a work that wouldn’t be out of place on Halloween night! Haunted by the death-sick moon, Pierrot is preyed upon by giant moths, steals from blood-drenched graveyards and smokes tobacco from a skull.
Don’t miss this opportunity to witness eighth blackbird share the stage with dancer Elyssa Dole and soprano Lucy Shelton in a captivating new production from director Mark DeChiazza that blurs the boundaries between music, dance and theater.
AND, if we sell 100 tickets over this Halloween weekend, everyone who buys a ticket is entered into a drawing for 10 free tickets to eighth blackbird’s March 24th Harris Theater performance of Slide (including entrance into a special invitation-only pre-show event!).
Tell your friends, family, neighbors, enemies and strangers, because if we can sell 100 tickets, you may win!
Click here to get your Pierrot tickets now. Use offer code HALLOWEEN when purchasing.
Click here for more information (including videos) about this production.
What: Pierrot lunaire
Where: Harris Theater, 205 E. Randolph Drive, Chicago
When: 7.30pm December 8th
Originally posted by Tim from thirteen ways, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 30, 2009 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)
Who Interviewed Amanda Palmer?
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Amanda Palmer (photo by Martin Foster)
Amanda Palmer (photo by Martin Foster)
Amanda Palmer is a bona fide rock star. She first made her name as half of The Dresden Dolls, and has since struck out on her own with a solo album called “Who Killed Amanda Palmer.” In June of 2008 she teamed up with the Boston Pops for two nights, and this December they’re doing it again for a New Year’s Eve concert. Amanda has also been pioneering new models of how the rock music industry can work (staying in nearly constant contact with her fans via Twitter plays a key role), and I wanted to see if that ingenuity could be translated into advice for the classical scene. I interviewed her by phone last week, and we talked about the upcoming Pops show, her musical background and training, and her impressions of the classical music industry:
Part 1:
Originally posted by Galen H. Brown from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 30, 2009 at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)
Portico Quartet November Tour Dates - Glasswerk.co.uk
Portico Quartet November Tour Dates Glasswerk.co.uk By Leanne, Friday 30th October 2009 12.05pm (2 views) “Isla feeds on Steve Reich mathematics, Radiohead dread, African desert grooves and ECM northern ... |
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 Oct 30, 2009 at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)
The Dakota turns 25, and this week's jazz picks - MinnPost.com
The Dakota turns 25, and this week's jazz picks MinnPost.com ... it “a mysterious blend of jazz and chamber music” that brings together “the visceral power of Charles Mingus and the sparse textures of Steve Reich. ... |
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 Oct 30, 2009 at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)
Top 100 defining cultural moments of the noughties - Telegraph.co.uk
 Telegraph.co.uk | Top 100 defining cultural moments of the noughties Telegraph.co.uk Karlheinz Stockhausen dies: The great guru of new music combined a mystical megalomania, a showman's theatrical canniness, an inventor's practical ... |
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 Oct 30, 2009 at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)
Xi/Perspectives: Frankenstein?
by Doug Laustsen
When I first sought out Xenakis’ music, I made a trek to my favorite new music record shop. I discovered that the few albums present in the racks lacked the details I hoped would give me an idea of which album to pick. So, naturally I picked the album with the coolest artwork. On the back of the album was a picture of Xenakis looking like a mad scientist at work over a large sound board.
The music on that album, Mode’s release of the electroacoustic work La Legende d’Eer, sounded like the work of a mad scientist. The label, I also found seemed to fit the composer pretty well – armed with well refined complex mathematical principles, he was working to create a sonic landscape previously unthought-of. I’m sure his detractors would relish in the idea of his music being the auditory equivalent of Frankenstein, but to me his music is able to find a distinct balance between the grotesque and gorgeous all at once. The bursts of motion and angular a-lyrical sounds – both in the electro-acoustic works and ones for conventional instruments – sound like the way the world we live in looks. I wouldn’t expect anything much else from an architect, of course.
Doug Laustsen is a musician and host of Endlesss Possibilities on WRSU-FM in New Brunswick, NJ. He blogs at epmusic.
Originally posted by Whit Bernard from ICE/Xenakis, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 30, 2009 at 12:32 PM | Comments (0)
Name that Tune!: Nos. 21 & 22
Well this has been a great World Series thus far. Series even, over to Philadelphia for the next three, then back to to the Cathedral for the grand finale (yes, I am predicting seven games). And here are some more tunes, not baseball related but what the heck (I would have considered "Some Southpaw Pitching" by Charles Ives).Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 30, 2009 at 12:31 PM | Comments (0)
Next Music International Festival of Actual Music 2010
We would like to announce that Next Music Festival of Actual Music 2010 will take place on September 23-26, 2010 (Buenos Aires, Argentina)You are invited to submit applications (CDs, programs and other information materials) and proposals.
visit them
via Pierrot Lunaire Ens on facebook
Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 30, 2009 at 12:31 PM | Comments (0)
Better than working in McDonald's
Vivaldi's Cello Sonatas are among the great Baroque works for the cello. But it is surprising how many CD collections do not include these nine magnificent sonatas. No excuse now though, because Dutch budget specialist have just released two newly recorded CDs of the sonatas played quite winningly by early music specialist Jaap Ter Linden and captured in excellent sound in the warm acoustic of Hervormde Kerk, Rhoon, in the Netherlands. I paid £6.79 delivered for the two CDs from amazon.co.uk. Enough said?
Any opportunity to quote from the irrepressible Ron Butlin must not be missed. So here, from the title story of Vivaldi and the Number 3, is il Prete Rosso in training:
Over the caffè latte and panetto next morning Vivaldi remembered his strange dream, and had a good laugh. After a night like that he deserved a leisurely breakfast. He was late already, but so what? Becoming a junior-priest had never been his first choice - all that kneeling and standing, elevating the host and benedicting. His was a delicate constitution, a full-length mass often had him feeling pretty wrung out by the end, as well as a few kilos lighter from sweating under the holy vestements. But as the eldest son of a poor family - what were his options? He kept reminding himself it was better than working in McDonald's; and, at least, he wasn't expected to smile as he dished out the host and holy wine, or tell them to have a nice day.technology here, and more Brilliant Baroque bargains here.
Breakfast over, he stood up, brushed off the crumbs, donned the holy overalls, called goodbye to his mum and set off for San Giovanni's.
By the time he arrived, his twenty fellow-apprentices were standing in front of the altar, a chorus-line of swaying robes and bobbing hats, practising the day's routine. A priest was calling out, 'Father-Son-and-Holy-Ghost...Father-Son-and-Holy-Ghost...' Vivaldi slipped to the end of the line and, having caught the beat, joined in at making the sign of the cross.
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 30, 2009 at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)
Visit montrealgazette.com/arts to read our expanded listings or search for an ... - The Gazette (Montreal)
Visit montrealgazette.com/arts to read our expanded listings or search for an ... The Gazette (Montreal) Schulich School of Music - Tomorrow: Society for Music Theory Concert, with coordinator Stephen mcadams, 8 pm, Tanna Schulich Hall, free by reservation at ... |
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 Oct 30, 2009 at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)
Orchestra begins new chapter - Kingston Daily Freeman
Orchestra begins new chapter Kingston Daily Freeman She said Bard College composer Joan Tower is the reason she and her husband ultimately relocated to Red Hook. Initially, he commuted to Mississippi on the ... |
Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "scelsi" OR "sciarrino" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 30, 2009 at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)
Passages of amazingly sure insight - Philadelphia Inquirer
Passages of amazingly sure insight Philadelphia Inquirer Other quartets now project that quality; the Juilliard view looks backward from the Elliott Carter generation and finds surprising consolidation in Bartok's ... |
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 Oct 30, 2009 at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)
Claudia Quintet at REDCAT - Los Angeles Times
Claudia Quintet at REDCAT Los Angeles Times Though the group often swerved through dense ensemble playing that at times resembled the New Music compositions of Steve Reich, it was also perfectly ... |
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 Oct 30, 2009 at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)
Symphony brings 'Spooky Sounds and Scary Tales' to Kennedy Center - Washington Examiner
Symphony brings 'Spooky Sounds and Scary Tales' to Kennedy Center Washington Examiner ... he has rarely repeated a work owing to his fondness for exploring new music. His love of variety has paired him with such artists as Elliott Carter, ... |
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Violinist Joshua Bell is big Vegas fan - U.S. Daily
Violinist Joshua Bell is big Vegas fan U.S. Daily You've got Bach, Stockhausen, Gershwin ... Actually, Gershwin is not considered classical, yet his music has more in common with the classical music that I ... |
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Keeping Good Company
I had expected to have two new CDs and a book out this fall, but two of them have been delayed until February. One of the CDs, however, has arrived, titled The Minimalists, by the Orkest de Volharding on Mode Records (Mode 214/5). It's a two-CD set, and the lineup consists of:Steve Reich: City Life
Terry Riley: In C
Louis Andriessen: Worker's Union
Kyle Gann: Sunken City
John (Coolidge) Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine
David Lang: Street
Originally from PostClassic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 30, 2009 at 05:10 AM | Comments (0)
Music Review | 'The Long Count' - New York Times
Music Review | 'The Long Count' New York Times But Bryce Dessner, especially, isn't new to contemporary music — he's worked with Michael Gordon, the Kronos Quartet and Steve Reich, among others — and the ... |
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Live review: Claudia Quintet at REDCAT - Los Angeles Times
Live review: Claudia Quintet at REDCAT Los Angeles Times Though the group often swerved through dense ensemble playing that at times resembled the New Music compositions of Steve Reich, it was also perfectly ... |
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Dance Listings - New York Times
Dance Listings New York Times ... “Itutu,” for the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, uses the unlikely combination of Ligeti's thorny rhythms and African pop (in the ... |
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John Schaefer interviews Phil Kline about sound in space and his Around the World in a Daze Starkland DVD
In this video, John Schaefer interviews Phil Kline about his use of sound in space, surround sound, and his Around the World in a Daze surround DVD commissioned by Starkland.nd.com/s2015/index.htm">Read more about Phil Kline's Around the World in a Daze DVD.
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Originally from Starkland, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 30, 2009 at 02:10 AM | Comments (0)
Review: Len Graham at the Tiger, Sunday 25th October, 2009...
If the locals provided a feast, what of Len Graham? A guy who has been around, from when he grabbed a rucksack and guide to the Youth Hostels of Ireland North and South in the sixties and hit the road 'in the quest for song and fun.' Ireland, of course, lived nearer to its traditions with such a small population (due to the linked devastations of famine and exile), unlike the cultural dislocations caused by the Industrial Revolution in the U.K. and the movements from the land to town and city. The lines of dispute are of course there – only the most deluded paddyphile (bejasus) would refuse to acknowledge their existence. Yet by stepping back into the tradition, or diagonally, even, Graham avoids getting snared in these thorny issues. Even his overt reference to wider conflicts in the song ' I wish that the wars were over,' that memorialises the sacrifices that North and South made during both the World Wars of the twentieth century, by coming from a different angle makes a wider point that transcends mere sectarianism. Interestingly, the last time I was in Dublin, my old buddy Jon to me the War Memorial Gardens that commemorate the 49,000 or so Irish soldiers who fell in the Great War. We were chatting to the attendant who took us inside to view the books with the names of the war dead. The first one I saw gave an English address in East Leake – a spit from where I am sitting writing this. It gave me an odd frisson... The attendant said that not many people ever came out there, which was hardly surprising I suppose – the 'terrible beauty' of the Easter Rising still maybe overshadows the tragedies of the Somme for obvious reasons in the founding of a new state. Perhaps Len Graham, as an Ulsterman, can stand slightly to one side of these controversies. By celebrating the cultures of both North and South, arguably he makes a subtler point...
Thinking about polarities again – if the late Luke Kelly, say, whose wounded, vulnerable raw power splashed his emotional delivery right in your face – and this not a criticism, rather an approximate attempt at delineation, because I loved his singing mightily – can stand on one point of the continuum, Len Graham, perhaps, would be somewhere opposite. Graham is a subtle artist with a high pure lyricism and easy delivery, that hints at hidden power to spare, maybe something to do with the Ulster culture and accent, a certain closure, a slight throttling back. The emotion is there, sure - as Yeats said: 'Great poetry is not possible without passion' - but holds the songs together on a different level under the surface of the narratives, woven into the folds of the words in a cunning blend. His introductions are just as important to the overall performance, simultaneously amusing and erudite, the sharpness of his intellect covered by the warmth of his demeanour. Finely honed skills that add value to the individual songs by placing them in the wider context(s) of the traditions they come from. For a brief period of time the audience is taken into another world, a coherent topos where older voices co-exist with the contemporary, or rather step out to bear witness to times and people and places long gone – but still familar. Songs of sport: 'The Galway Races,' of exile, lost love and regret – 'The Bourlough Shore,' celebrations of simple joys in spinning lines of bantering nonsense: 'The Crocodile' and the sly double-entendres in 'The Taglioni.'
To say that a performer takes you on a journey is a cliché, certainly – but Len Graham offers this to his audience, an opportunity to travel on an elliptical trajectory where the subtle relations between story and songs conjure up a landscape and its various peoples grounded in the realities of history and life lived but laced with, perhaps, a utopian yearning... Fanciful – yep... but that was the feeling I came away with. The encore gave the flavour of the man... 'The Parting Glass,' that perfect but admittedly overdone song of farewell over the last drink - here sung in a totally different version (to me) - Graham providing a subtle spin on the familiar which serves as a paradigm for his artistry...
It was that good...
With regard to my reference to Owld Luke:
Contrast and compare...Len
and Luke with Paddy Kavanagh (and the young Al O' Donnell).
Originally from wordsandmusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 30, 2009 at 02:10 AM | Comments (0)
October 29, 2009
Spanish noise
I'm pleased and amazed that El ruido eterno, as The Rest Is Noise is known in Spain, is currently listed as the No. 1 non-fiction bestseller (castellano) by La Vanguardia. I will make a brief trip to Spain next week,...Originally from Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 29, 2009 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
Review: Nico Muhly and The KW Symphony
Classical musicians, administrators and marketers all over North America are spending an increasingly large amount of time thinking of ways to get younger people interested in classical music. The two basic choices are luring more people into the existing concert hall or taking the ensemble to venues normally used for other types of performance. There are pros and cons to both strategies and each has their place.
An important pro in the alternate venue scenario is the atmosphere. When the music is removed from the heavily ritualized concert hall, the relationship between audience and musicians becomes more horizontal than vertical. The acoustic sacrifice required by these venues is often tempered by stronger sense of shared experience.
The Kitchener Waterloo Symphony played the first concert in their newly acquired space in downtown Kitchener. The rather grandly named Conrad Centre For The Performing Arts seats in the neighbourhood of 250 people, with the performance area just big enough to hold a full orchestra. As with all new spaces, there are growing pains, the chief of which on Wednesday evening was balance. The brass were particularly problematic not because they were playing too loudly but rather that the room is too small and the audience too close to allow all the sounds to mix together before hitting the ear.
American composer Nico Muhly programmed the concert around the passacaglia, which is a piece with a repeating bass line like that favourite of budding pianists everywhere: Heart and Soul. More broadly, the evening was about repetition, or in Muhly’s rather endearing vernacular, “piles of things that are the same.”
An instrumental arrangement of anthem by Purcell called Rejoice in the Lord Alway was a highlight of the first half. Its delightful opening is written over a ground bass derived from the descending scale that begins all bell-ringing in England and is responsible for the piece being nicknamed The Bell Anthem. The pattern functions like a pace car in auto racing in that is it repeated until all the bell ringers are suitably warmed up and ready to set off on the more complicated change-ringing patterns.
Richard Reed Parry’s new piece For Heart, Breath and Orchestra showed great imagination and was at its best in its busy moments. The premise was that each player wear a stethoscope and play according to the rhythm of their own heart.
It may be that my ears just took a while to get used to the idea but since most people’s resting heart rate is roughly the same, at the beginning it seemed as if the musicians were just playing with poor ensemble rather than purposefully not together. The introduction of harp and celeste in the second movement immediately made everything more palatable – those instruments usually do – and by the end I was 100% on board.
Rather than wait for everyone to be seated after the intermission, a quartet started playing an excerpt of David Lang’s Sweet Air. Rather than feeling contrived or consciously barrier-breaking, the piece formed a charming bridge between the intermission chatter and the second half.
Two motets by William Byrd, arranged for orchestra by Nico Muhly, opened the second half proper but did not fare well in the dry acoustic. The arrangements introduced novel instrument combinations but even the new colours couldn’t help the lack of natural reverb that is such an intrinsic part of liturgical music.
Esther of Obohemia was there too.
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Originally posted by Miss Mussel from The Omniscient Mussel on Classical Music & Culture, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 29, 2009 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
The Case of the Missing Candlesticks
Everyone has probably had enough of the Great “Tosca” Scandal at the Met last month—the last-minute firings and hirings, the tit-for-tat between directors old and new, the funny business with prostitutes and stunt jumpers, and, of course, the boos—but I’d like to append a few miscellaneous last thoughts. First, let the record show that although most of the reviews tended negative—mine included—Luc Bondy’s staging of the Puccini classic did have its advocates. Opera Chic, the mystery blogger of Milan, offered perhaps the most full-throated defense of Bondy’s approach. Tim Smith, of the Baltimore Sun, also had approving words. James Jorden, writing at his Parterre blog and in the New York Post, distanced himself both from the production and from its attackers. Zachary Woolfe, the New York Observer’s sharp new opera critic, performed a similar maneuver. The vigor of the discussion showed how much life resides in opera at the present time. No American arts audience is more hotly engaged.
In the wake of the uproar, Paul Holdengräber, the director of New York Public Library’s NYPL Live series, held a lively public conversation with Bondy, his venerable colleague Patrice Chéreau (whose production of Janáček’s “From the House of the Dead” opens at the Met on November 12th), the American director Bartlett Sher, and Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager. Opera Chic, Parterre, and the Times all provided coverage; you can watch video or listen to a tape at the NYPL site. Inevitably, the topic of the missing candlesticks came up. When Tosca kills Scarpia at the end of Act II, she enacts, according to the stage directions, a little ritual around his corpse, placing two candlesticks by his side and a crucifix on his chest. Puccini wrote an extended orchestral postlude—thirty bars, in slow tempo—to accompany these gestures and other mopping-up activities by the heroine. Bondy omitted the candles and instead had Tosca dithering about onstage. His handling of the moment turned the audience against the production, as far as I could tell; the chatter after the first intermission had been mostly positive, though not enthusiastically so.
“I didn’t know that ‘Tosca’ was like the Bible in New York,” Bondy said at NYPL. It’s a funny line, but misleading. Yes, the Met audience is undoubtedly a touch more conservative than the one in, say, Stuttgart. Yet some unconventional productions have gone over well here: there was much enthusiasm for Anthony Minghella’s “Madama Butterfly,” for “Satyagraha,” for later incarnations of Robert Wilson’s “Lohengrin” (the occasion of a major boo-concert on its first appearance). Mark Lamos’s 1998 “Tosca” at New York City Opera, which also dispensed with the candlesticks and moved the plot forward in time, failed to cause any scandal. Certainly, some operagoers may have been incensed by the mere absence of the customary props, but for most others the main problem was that the substitute action didn’t make much sense.
Bondy returned to the candles later in the conversation: “I tell you the problem. Puccini saw a performance with Sarah Bernhardt [the star of Victorien Sardou’s 1887 play ‘La Tosca,’ on which the opera was based] and she was inventing this on the stage … and he wrote it in the score. You can imagine this is not a very original invention of the composer. It’s a repetition of Sarah Bernhardt, and the people don’t know this.”
In fact, the candles-and-crucifix routine was present in Bernhardt’s performance from the first night. Here are the stage directions from the published version of the play, as translated in Susan Vandiver Nicassio’s book “Tosca’s Rome”:
She starts to leave then, noticing the lit candles, goes to extinguish them, then thinks better of it, takes a candle in each hand and slowly goes to place the one she holds in her left hand at Scarpia’s left hand; she passes in front of the body, turning her back to the audience, and places the other at his right hand. Looking around and moving towards the door, she sees the crucifix at the prie-dieu. Removing it, she takes it by the base and, showing the head of Christ to the audience she kneels in front of Scarpia and places the crucifix on his chest. At this moment there is a third drumroll in the citadel. Floria rises and goes to the door at the back of the stage, pulls the bolt and opens it. The antechamber is dark. She listens, putting her head forward, then, very cautiously moving through the door, she disappears.
This was scandalous stuff in its day. When “La Tosca” came to New York, with Fanny Davenport in the lead, the candle business was denounced as a sacrilege, and, according to Nicassio, it had to be taken out. It was still in place at the time of this report in The Theatre: “As the curtain descends on the picture of the red-handed murderess calmly looking at the corpse of the man who had so nearly outraged her, and about whose still warm body she has, in an impulse of strange religious fervor, placed the candles and crucifix of the Roman Catholic rite, the pent-up feelings of the audience nightly burst forth in loud applause.”
Puccini takes the moment very seriously. As in the darksome Te Deum sequence at the end of Act I, he turns religious ritual against itself, exposing its contradictions. (William Berger writes perceptively on this topic in his book “Puccini Without Excuses.”) And Sardou’s stage directions are set with painstaking precision. Below is an excerpt from the great Callas / Gobbi / di Stefano recording, with Victor de Sabata conducting the La Scala orchestra (EMI 56304, by kind permission of EMI Classics). The orchestra thrice plays a sequence of three chords—B-flat major, A-flat major, E minor—which echo, in a muted, darkened way, Scarpia’s signature harmonies as heard throughout the opera. The first set of chords is for the candle on the left, the second is for the candle on the right, and the third, rallentando (gradually slowing), is for the crucifix. Then there’s a chilling, loud chord of E minor, with distant drums, to mark the noise from the citadel. Two soft E-minor chords follow in the winds, with pointillistic variations in the scoring. Finally, the fearful exit, in ice-cold F-sharp minor.
g to throw out the Bernhardt routine, you need to come up with a worthy replacement. Nikolaus Lehnhoff accomplished this feat in his 1998 “Tosca” at the Netherlands Opera, with Catherine Malfitano, Bryn Terfel, and Richard Margison. (You can see it on a Decca DVD, with Riccardo Chailly conducting the Concertgebouw Orchestra.) It’s hardly a conservative affair: turbine propellers establish an industrial atmosphere, the costumes have a distinct S & M component, and much of the usual action is discarded, including the entire Te Deum procession in Act I (Scarpia is alone onstage). In Act II, Lehnhoff practically baits the audience by placing two large candlesticks on Scarpia’s table and then making no use of them. Instead, the ending of the act becomes a drama of entrapment: Tosca attempts to escape but finds that the door is sealed shut. She reels back, clutching a pistol. Finally, she leans against a wall and a secret side door opens. A beam of light falls upon her, accenting the forte E-minor chord. She retrieves her coat and stumbles out. Here a director is listening closely to the music, even as he extensively revises the scenario.A sidenote: I suspect that this passage in “Tosca” left its mark on Gustav Mahler. He first saw the opera in March 1903, and professed to hate it. “Nowadays every shoemaker’s apprentice is an orchestrator of genius,” he snapped in a letter to Alma. That summer, he began work on his Sixth Symphony, whose premiere took place in Essen in 1906. Here is the famous shock ending of the symphony (with John Barbirolli conducting the New Philharmonia, EMI 65285):
tive borrowing, but the resemblance is striking.So why doesn’t the act end in E minor, in a deathly fade-out á la Mahler? Why this sudden, strange, almost arbitrary move to F-sharp minor? Another “Tosca” volume, “Tosca’s Prism,” edited by Nicassio, Deborah Burton, and the excellently named Agostino Ziino, supplies two possible answers. Burton, in an essay titled “‘Tosca’ Act II and the Secret Identity of F-sharp,” suggests that Puccini is in essence rewinding the act to its beginning, to the opening gesture of F-sharp, E, and D. Such hidden symmetry is typical of Puccini’s craftsmanship as a composer. Alfredo Mandelli, in another essay, addresses the relationship of F-sharp minor to the three funereal chords that precede it. As I mentioned above, they refer back to Scarpia’s brazen motto:
om/audio/player.swf" id="audioplayer1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="24" width="290">According to Mandelli, the critic Fedele D’Amico was the first to notice an intriguing harmonic peculiarity in these last bars of Act II. When Puccini changed the third chord from major to minor and followed it with F-sharp minor, he created a series of four triads that are mutually exclusive, that have no notes in common. They spell out—drum roll, please—a twelve-tone row:
Arnold Schoenberg was still writing late-Romantic tonal music when “Tosca” had its premiere; the twelve-tone system would not be announced for another twenty years. So this instance of Puccinian dodecaphony might be filed away as a curious accident. But I wonder. The chords are so carefully placed, so carefully staged. They illustrate certain actions on the part of Tosca—F-sharp minor is the key in which Scarpia wrote out the safe-conduct, which Tosca now has hidden in her bosom—but they also give a sense of walls closing in on her. In death, Scarpia takes up yet more harmonic space, leaving only a narrow circle of notes in which to stand. Lehnhoff’s staging is remarkably insightful in this regard. Whereas Bondy’s choice to have Tosca fanning herself on the sofa seems indifferent to the music, almost contemptuous of it.
I was going to add some thoughts on why Americans may take “Tosca” a little more seriously than many Europeans—something to do with the rituals of the Met, with the iconic status of Callas and her recording of the opera, with the rather abject status of opera in American pop culture, with the hidden power of extravagant sincerity in a hyper-mediated world—but that’s enough for now.
Originally posted by Alex Ross from Unquiet Thoughts, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 29, 2009 at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)
Davitt Moroney Plays Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier - Examiner.com
 Examiner.com | Davitt Moroney Plays Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier Examiner.com Moroney's approach to Bach's collection served that aim precisely: the harpsichordist strove to let the music speak for itself, minimizing the mystique of ... |
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 Oct 29, 2009 at 08:13 PM | Comments (0)
Speaking of Modern Artists...
Christie's is selling a few Jasper Johns that belonged to Merce Cunningham & John Cage on November 11th. The sale will benefit Merce's trust, and you can peruse the Johns here.(Stubbs' book could just have easily been titled Why People Get Jasper Johns But Don't Get John Cage, no?)
Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 29, 2009 at 07:31 PM | Comments (0)
Almost the threepenny opera
After paying £4.40 for two cups of coffee in a store in Norwich I walked round the corner to Prelude Records. There I bought the newly re-issued CD of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas recorded by Andrew Parrot and the Taverner Choir and Players in 1999 for the non-discounted price of £4.88. I assume someone at Sony BMG has discovered the formula for turning sausages back into pigs.
Image credit to aboutcolonblank.com. Photo is by Dora Maar and is part of the Meret Oppenheium collection at Moma. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 29, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
A cornucopia of contemporary music - Prague Post
 Prague Post | A cornucopia of contemporary music Prague Post The Hardec Králové Philharmonic has both opening night (with Penderecki) and closing night honors, returning for a finale of Dutilleux and Lutosławski that ... |
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 Oct 29, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
CBSO Youth Orchestra adds another string to its bow - The Birmingham Post
CBSO Youth Orchestra adds another string to its bow The Birmingham Post Music by Peter Maxwell Davies, John Adams, Ligeti, Arvo Part, Rodion Shchedrin and Julian Anderson has featured in the youth orchestra's concert programmes, ... |
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 Oct 29, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
Acting Saintly: St Vincent - Herald.ie
Acting Saintly: St Vincent Herald.ie The first single The Strangers sounds like the soundtrack to Black Narcissus, Steve Reich's influence is all over new single Marrow and The Bed has an ... |
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 Oct 29, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
Postpartum Blues
By Dan Visconti Every time I finish a composition I can't help but feel a little bit let down, no matter how the piece itself turned out.Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 29, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
Blue Shamrock emendations
From: Henning, Karl
Sent: Friday, May 16, 2008 7:42 AM
To: Lux Nova Press
Subject: RE: Blue Shamrock
The change is this: The original m.121 is 5/16, beginning with a sixteenth-rest. Change this to 7/16, adding an eighth-rest before the sixteenth-rest. Small chunk of extra time by the clock, but crucial breathing-space (literally) which is value-added.< ?xml:namespace prefix = o />
[ Added 29 Oct 2009: ]
I.
The other necessary change (again, doesn’t have to be now, as I’ll just play it ‘corrected’, anyway) is an ossia for the first measure of the last system (there’s ample space, happily). Fact is, it feels like I’ve played it differently forever, and I wonder how early a version of the Finale file I must have sent you, back in the day, that this measure is unchanged.
Anyway: the way I have (practically) always played that last quintuplet, I’ve played the B-flat two octaves higher, and the E one octave higher (so that the entire gesture is a descending arpeggio). I don’t mind leaving the figure as printed, for an alternate version, though.
II.
Over the past two-three years, an idea has phased in and out of my favor, of modifying the metronome markings. (Would other clarinetists be more apt to take a look at the piece, if slower tempi were ‘authorized’? And hasn’t the composer himself taken the piece under tempo at need?) I’m a little surprised that I didn’t suggest specifics at the same time as my meter change advisory, above. At this point, I don’t have strong feelings either way; a little inclined to leave the markings be. (Let the marking indicate the composer’s wishes, and some players will take it somewhat slower anyway, right?)
In case you feel that we might as well, though:
· The dotted-quarter at the opening Vivo can be marked 124-138
· And the quarter-note at the Poco meno mosso at the bottom of p.5 can be marked 110-124
All that said: I still think this is one firecracker of a piece. Don’t think I’ll ever tire of playing it.
Cheers,
~k.
Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 29, 2009 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)
Battles Confirm December Tour - ClashMusic.com
Battles Confirm December Tour ClashMusic.com Formed from the ashes of celebrated group Don Cabellero, Battles remain true to the pioneering spirit of artists such as Albert Ayler, Stockhausen 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 Oct 29, 2009 at 02:13 PM | Comments (0)
Tough to Hear - RenegadeBus
Tough to Hear RenegadeBus That's the question David Stubbs asks in his book Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko But Don't Get Stockhausen. Philip Ball reviews the work here. ... |
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 Oct 29, 2009 at 02:13 PM | Comments (0)
Quincophony for five works played at the same time.........
Quincophony for five works played at the same time, on bottom of still life in the filled up biodegradable bag of organic vegetables (and an apple) for a soup — and khaki (!) — But which is thus this intruder? It's not serious !
Composers, works and performers :
— Elliott Carter : Enchanted Préludes pour flûte et violoncelle (1988) - Mario Caroli, flûte / Alexis Descharmes, violoncelle.
— Michele Dall'Ongaro : Berceuse in frantumi (1998) pour deux violons - Ex Novo Ensemble
— Ulrich Gasser : Orgelstück zum Lied der Weisheit (1982) - Christoph Waertenweiler and der Orgel der Evang. Stadtkirche Frauenfeld.
— Klaus Huber : To ask the flutist (1966) - Pierre-André Valade, flûte.
— Robert H. P. Platz : Broken book skizze (1999) for flute, violine, viola, violoncello - Ensemble Recherche : Martin Fahlenbock, flûte / Melise Mellinger, violon / Barbara Maurer, alto / Lucas Fels, violoncelle.
Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 29, 2009 at 12:42 PM | Comments (0)
John Adams - On Surviving a First Rehearsal
From John Adams' new blog:On surviving a first rehearsal
Herewith a composer’s survival kit for the first rehearsal of an orchestra piece:
* Try not to panic if you can’t recognize that noise coming from the stage as something you wrote. The players, even those who’ve seriously practiced their parts, are nonetheless holding on for dear life. From their vantage point inside the churning machine they very likely have no idea at all what you mean nor how what they are playing is supposed to fit into the grand plan. They have only their individual parts, which are strange and incomplete road maps full of rests, occasional notes and then more rests. Even the very best of them will miscount on a first encounter.
* At the first reading the wrong notes you are hearing are probably 90% due to musicians’ errors. This will rectify itself more or less by the time of the performance. (We are assuming you did a thorough, responsible and accurate job of proof reading. If you didn’t, go back to your composition teacher and demand a refund.) But some wrong notes, no matter how hard you worked to check everything, will pop up. Orchestra players are usually very generous and caring about getting wrong notes corrected. They’ll frequently take time out of their break to come up to you to check something. (On the night of the Disney Hall gala premiere, only a minute or two before the concert is to begin, I see Dale Hikawa, one of the first stand viola players, jump off the edge of the stage and come running up to me in the audience. “You know that B-double sharp? Dah-dah-dee-dee DAH? (She hums it.) That couldn’t be right, could it? Are you sure?” Indeed, she is right to ask. I say “B double-sharp doesn’t make any sense. It’s gotta be a mistake.” She smiles, relieved, and runs back up onto the stage in her black evening gown.)
* At least at the first rehearsal, try not to interrupt the conductor while he or she is making a first pass through the music. Conductors are a varied and unpredictable lot (and when I am conducting I am varied and unpredictable). Some are thrilled to be introducing a new work and can take enjoyment in the give-and-take of a chaotic and messy new experience. But they still need to take charge over what is always just a stone’s throw away from degenerating into a free-for-all. A first rehearsal of a new piece can be a thoroughly harrowing experience for even the most confident conductors. Under these circumstances a nervous, beseeching composer can be a decidedly unwelcome presence in the area around the podium. Stay cool and wait for them to come to you with questions.
* Keep notes of the major things that have to be addressed, but don’t try to lay all that desiderata on the assembled multitude during the first session. I no longer use a note pad, but rather carry a block of small Post-its which I can quickly stick right on the very spot of the score page where something has to be fixed. Librarians, invariably the kindest and most knowledgeable people in the music profession, are almost always willing and able to put changes in the parts in between rehearsals. If the orchestra has the luxury of an assistant conductor, employ him or her to communicate things to various members of the orchestra. But never make a substantial change in a part without making sure that the conductor knows about this and has it in his or her score.
* Remember that balances actually change from one concert hall to another. How many times have I scratched out a tuba part or deleted a percussion line only to realize later that the peculiarities of that particular hall are site specific and not carried over to the next one? Nonetheless, you have to make things right for the immediate setting. Disney Hall in Los Angeles, a delightful place to make and listen to music, is nonetheless a very tricky acoustical space. It can be like playing on the head of a tautly stretched timpani. The back wall of the stage propels the last row of instruments—usually drums, chimes and other heavy artillery—over the heads of the woodwinds and strings and over the head even of the conductor. A forte written for the bass drum can annihilate an entire section of 16 violins. The bass drum player doesn’t know how this sound is affecting the total acoustical image, and even the conductor may not be aware. In City Noir the tam tams (which I love, especially when played softly) are total danger zones, ready to erupt like Vesuvius and pour their hot sonic lava over half the stage.
* If you’re lucky enough to get numerous rehearsals, plan in advance what the most important issues to be addressed are, and meet with the conductor with a modest list of realizable goals just before the rehearsal. A really great orchestra has a fast learning curve, and a talented conductor know how to ride it. After a passage has been played a number of times, the musicians will begin to intuit how their parts fit into the whole. Sometimes only a second pass is needed for a passage to suddenly transform from inchoate sludge to sparkling clarity. Other things are never going to right themselves without slow and painstaking rehearsal. A gifted conductor will know what needs work and what will take care of itself automatically.
* Be flexible and take every opportunity to talk to the players. Sometimes you can make an on-the-spot change that will make an instrumentalist’s day. Other times, although you realize that what you’ve written is in fact awkward and unreasonable, the player will be affronted if you offer to simplify or revise a phrase or a passage. They assume that if something isn’t working it’s their fault. Composers are geniuses, right? For them it’s their burden to somehow make it work, and they do not realize that it’s the composer who needs to get it right.
With that said, I have to confess that I am exceptionally fortunate this time. Gustavo, for all the blaze of media spotlight and for all the burden of expectations heaped on him, rehearses the piece expertly and with good humor. The first reading, a full week before the premiere, is a jolt for everyone. He launches the piece at full throttle and doesn’t stop until the very last bar some thirty-five minutes later, taking no prisoners. Sometimes the tempi are even faster than the already perverse one’s I’ve stipulated. But there’s a method to his madness. No one will be deluded into thinking that the piece is any less fiendish than it is. Of course it’s a roller coaster of a ride, like hurtling down a steep hill knowing your brakes have failed. They say the man jumping off the skyscraper ledge sees his whole life pass before him in a flash. Well, it’s not unlike that. Everything you have labored over with infinite care, step by step, note by note, during the past nine months now goes careening by in a burst of only barely controlled chaos. It’s like a freight train threatening to jump its tracks, or like that absurd Hollywood movie from a few years back featuring a driverless semi that had a murderous mind of its own.
The first bash-through reading completed, it’s time to go back and pick up the road kill. (Twenty four years ago, at the first reading of Harmonielere, I still hadn’t completed the last ten bars, so when the orchestra reached that point, a massive fortissimo charging tutti, the sound suddenly and alarmingly stopped dead in its tracks, as if someone had suddenly pulled the plug out of a giant socket.) Everyone takes a deep breath and starts again, this time at half the tempo, first the strings, then the winds, then the brass—slowly, deliberately. A tedious slog, but necessary. Emanuel Ax taught me the value of doing everything VERY slowly. Zen “beginner’s mind.” The players are thankful not to be stressed. Their internal computers take in the data as they plod along. Amazing things begin to happen. The waters part. Continents slowly become discernible, rising out of the chaos, taking shape. Your music finally begins to resemble your imagined version.
Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 29, 2009 at 12:42 PM | Comments (0)
Samuel Vriezen at the Roulette
Samuel Vriezen's playing the Roulette tonight. He's doing the epic Chord Catalogue by Tom Johnson and his own Within Fourths/ Within Fifths, inspired by Johnson's brand of structuralism in music. Tom Johnson deserves to be more widely known, not only as a Minimalist who embraces the term, but as a composer whose take on "music as process" is neutral enough that it may be embraced by any composer of any aesthetic. A couple of reasons why we haven't heard much of him: when he worked in New York, it was primarily as a music journalist rather than as a composer; now focusing on composition, his base of operations has shifted to Paris; it is exceedingly difficult to get hold of a copy of his classic (must-read!) book "Self-Similar Melodies"; and except for the classic theater piece for double bass player (Failing), his music is seldom programmed among New Music groups in New York. All the more reason to go for tonight's performance at the Roulette. Tom Johnson's found an ideal interpreter in composer/ pianist Samuel Vriezan, and tonight should be a treat. I know it clashes with the Merce Cunningham tribute-marathon at the Armory, but if I had to choose (and how lucky it is to have choices on a rainy New York evening), I would pick Vriezen playing Johnson, and so should you.
Originally from Theater of Found Sounds, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 29, 2009 at 12:42 PM | Comments (0)
Open mic, post-weekend edition
I enjoyed reading this review from New York in the Comments section last week, and would be delighted to hear about other concerts, both in and out of Washington. So I'm opening a thread for your weekend concert reviews: what did you see that you want to talk about?Originally from The Classical Beat – Classical Music Forum – washingtonpost.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 29, 2009 at 12:41 PM | Comments (0)
Classical music upstart Nico Muhly recruits an Arcade Fire member for an ... - CBC.ca
 CBC.ca | Classical music upstart Nico Muhly recruits an Arcade Fire member for an ... CBC.ca Composer Nico Muhly is one of the hottest names in contemporary classical music. (The Royal Conservatory) This week, ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 29, 2009 at 12:40 PM | Comments (0)
Keeping tempo with the times - Jerusalem Post
Keeping tempo with the times Jerusalem Post ... Aviv Museum of Art, the 21st Century Ensemble will open the 19th season of Discoveries, a series of performances of contemporary classical music pieces. ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 29, 2009 at 12:40 PM | Comments (0)
Sounds of Toronto a casualty of outbreak - Toronto Sun
Sounds of Toronto a casualty of outbreak Toronto Sun Organizers of an avant-garde music festival are determined the show will go on despite losing its venue at a Parkdale community ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 29, 2009 at 12:40 PM | Comments (0)
Sunday Sampler allows chance to experience arts - Bedford Times Register
Sunday Sampler allows chance to experience arts Bedford Times Register At 1 pm, watch as the Akros Percussion Collective presents German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen's Music in Bauch (Music in the Belly). ... |
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 Oct 29, 2009 at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)
Keeping tempo with the times - Jerusalem Post
Keeping tempo with the times Jerusalem Post Couturier confided that presenting the Israeli premier of Ligeti's concerto would be something of a challenge for him. "I know Ligeti's music well," he said ... |
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 Oct 29, 2009 at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)
Bell shares his passion for violin, Vegas - Arab Times
Bell shares his passion for violin, Vegas Arab Times You've got Bach, Stockhausen, Gershwin ... Actually, Gershwin is not considered classical, yet his music has more in common with the classical music that I ... |
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 Oct 29, 2009 at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)
Joseph Lai's new clarinet sonata evokes the spirit of impressionists like ... - See Magazine
Joseph Lai's new clarinet sonata evokes the spirit of impressionists like ... See Magazine ... or Witold Lutosławski,” Lai continues, impeccably pronouncing each name, “I took their characteristic nostalgia and respect for folk music. ... |
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 Oct 29, 2009 at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)
A Tantalizing Argument
While reviewing David Stubbs' Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko But Don't Get Stockhausen, Philip Ball offers up a truly tantalizing explanation for the phenomenon:...the understanding of the cognitive mechanisms of music that has emerged in recent years implies that it is not enough to tell ingrates bemused by Stockhausen to try harder.That's a nifty argument, which immediately brings to mind Steve Martin, of all people.
There are certainly parallels in the way we make sense of acoustic and visual information. Chief among these rules are the “Gestalt principles” identified by a group of German-based psychologists in the early 20th century. These are a series of implicit mental rules that help people to make good guesses at how to interpret complex sensory stimuli by grouping them together. We make assumptions about continuity, for example: the aeroplane that flies into a cloud is the same one that flies out the other side. We group objects that look similar, or that are close together. Although the Gestalt principles are not foolproof, they make the world more comprehensible. Both in sound and in vision, the ability to interpret sensory data this way must have had evolutionary benefits. -- Philip Ball
In his recent memoir about his stand-up career, Martin explained how he set about doing precisely what Ball describes. Instead of delivering jokes with punchlines that cued the audience to laugh, he deliberately tried to avoid a punchline for as long as possible. His idea was simply to keep the audience's tension so high as they looked for a punchline to laugh at that they'd start to laugh at anything. His act got so big that he ended up doing balloon animals in stadiums like a jerk. You can abandon Gestalt principles and still make a killing.
And come to think of it, Stockhausen was selling out venues all over the world in his prime. The dude walked away from his rock star status to write Licht, which highlights the critical blind spot of all these endless arguments about the problems with new music:
taste
An old professor of mine was fond of relating a horror story from the board meetings of a chamber orchestra he founded. One of the trustees insisted that the orchestra not play Schubert. No matter how my professor tried to explain the importance of Schubert and the absurdity of an orchestra eschewing his music, the trustee was insistent.
Those kinds of divisions exist all over classical music. I inherited a distaste for Mahler from my mother, which I didn't shake until I was in grad school. At any classical music concert, you'll find people who can't stand Wagner or think Bach is dry, and if you go further afield, even the most popular classics leave the general public totally unmoved.
There are no hard and fast rules for taste. Popularity gaps can be both big and small. Many fans of popular music would consider gangsta rap and hardcore metal to be 'noise'. One could just as readily hear a Garth Brooks fan say that they don't 'get' why anyone would like George Jones.
Plenty of people 'get' Stockhausen. The assumption that if Stockhausen had written in the style of Mozart or Beethoven he would have been more widely understood is specious. It's a nice way to sell books and perpetuate academic debates. Sadly, it's also often a crutch by performers to not engage with their audience.
I'm not ready to say that all this theorizing is tiresome, but it does strike me as wide of the mark. The market for contemporary classical music in the Stockhausen vein has established itself as small but devoted, akin to some sub-genre of indie rock or jazz. I'm not sure why people keep banging their heads against the wall over why it's not more popular. It's doing just fine.
Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 29, 2009 at 05:10 AM | Comments (0)
Architeuthis Walks On Land, "Four Min Twenty-Seven Sec"
Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 29, 2009 at 05:10 AM | Comments (0)
Continuum, Sadler's Wells, London - Financial Times
Continuum, Sadler's Wells, London Financial Times For anyone seeking to know what Ligeti's music is like, here is the perfect answer. And for anyone seeking to know what a ballerina is, I would propose 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 Oct 29, 2009 at 02:13 AM | Comments (0)
Tuning in to Gravity at Galapagos
Last Friday I finally made it down to the new DUMBO location of Galapagos Art Space to see the release party/performance of Mikel Rouse’s haunting new album Gravity Radio. But let’s back up for a moment before we get to Rouse.
DUMBO, for you non-New Yorkers, is one of the myriad New York City neighborhood abbreviations, like SoHo (South of Houston) or Tribeca (triangle below Canal), and it stands for “Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass,” which is to say it’s in Brooklyn in the area just south of the Manhattan Bridge. It was one of the first places in Brooklyn that artists moved to find illegal loft space in the 70s after they got priced out of lower Manhattan. (The name “DUMBO” is actually an interesting piece of failed culture jamming–residents hoped that by coining such an unappealing name they could stave off developers.)
Galapagos Art Space is a mixed-genre performance space which used to be in Williamsburg, but when the rent in Williamsburg got too high they worked out a deal that has landed them in a converted industrial space in DUMBO which they were able to entirely remodel to fit their needs and aesthetic. In front of the stage, suspended a few inches above a shallow black reflecting pool and connected by bridges, is a set of circular seating pods with room for several small tables and chairs each. A balcony with additional seating rings the room and provides space for the sound booth. The whole place is done up in red and black and chrome, set against the bare concrete walls of the building. It’s truly a beautiful space. Galapagos has a new booker, and I’m told that they are going to be increasing their classical fare–they’re already hosting the New Amsterdam Records concert series Archipelago (the next show in that series will be this Friday at 7:30pm with vocal group Roomful of Teeth and percussion/flute duo Due East.) To give a sense of how diverse the offerings at Galapagos are, in just the next week they will also be presenting Argentinian music by Emilio Teubal & Fernando Otero, punk/cabaret by Barbez, some sort of music/dance extravaganza called “Out Through Her,” the Main Squeeze accordion orchestra, a production of Hamlet, a burlesque show, Jenny Rocha and her Painted Ladies (which apparently involves music, dance, physical comedy, and theatre), a variety show, and the American Modern Ensemble. Perhaps “diverse” is an overstatement, but that programming certainly covers a lot of the territory of the hipster art universe, and that was just one week of shows.
Galapagos Art Space
That programming potpourri brings us nicely back to Mikel Rouse, whose album Gravity Radio may at first glance seem like a straight-up rock record, but which has deep roots in the classical music and theater traditions as well. Mikel himself is clearly comfortable in the netherworld between pop and classical, moving effortlessly more into one area and then into the other. In 1978 his band Tirez Tirez opened for the Talking Heads in Kansas City; in New York in the 80s when postminimalism’s highly rhythmically and structurally complex offshoot Totalism was emerging, Rouse was at the center of the movement along with composers like Kyle Gann and Michael Gordon. In 1984 he wrote a 12-tone piece called Quick Thrust for a rock quartet, which features dizzying polymeters that somehow seem tightly controlled and completely haywire at the same time. Mikel’s rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic instincts all seem grounded in rock, but he tends to deploy those materials much more like a classical composer than like a popular song writer.
Take “Black Cracker,” which is track three on Gravity Radio. First, almost all popular music in 4/4 time has four-bar phrases, but for Rouse’s lyric that fourth bar is unnecessary and he leaves it out. The whole song is perfectly seamless, and yet because every cycle is one bar shorter than you expect the whole thing feels constantly off-kilter. Then part way through he cuts the tempo of the descending hook “When I’m bored I can’t be bored with you/When I’m blown I can’t be blown in two” by half. After establishing the half-tempo version he brings back the full-tempo version over top of it, making the chorus into a prolation canon. That half-speed hook then becomes background for the next verse. Later an ascending scale adds yet another counterpoint to the mixture, and the whole thing fits together like a puzzle.
The danger of emphasizing these elements of complexity, of course, is the risk of sending the message that complexity is inherently virtuous, or that the complexity in this music somehow “elevates” it above other less complex popular music. Writing in Gramophone, Ken Smith once said that Rouse’s music is evidence that “pop music can sustain serious interest with the right person at the helm”–the implication that most pop music can’t “sustain serious interest” is the kind of thing that tells me the writer doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The complexity in Gravity Radio is interesting and enjoyable, and connects the music to the classical tradition, but ultimately the music has to stand or fall on its surface qualities, and in this case it stands tall. I’ll take a well-crafted Britney Spears tune over a tortured post-serialist brain-dump by a composer who cares more about combinatoriality than musicality any day of the week, and while I haven’t asked him I suspect Mikel Rouse would feel the same way.
If it sounds like I’m avoiding telling you what Gravity Radio is, exactly, the truth is I’m not sure what to call it. It’s part song-cycle, part concept album, part theater piece. It’s a series of thematically and musically related, country-inflected, infectiously memorable rock songs of ambiguous but evocative lyrical content, connected by interludes of spoken recitation of news headlines and fragments of lyrics from the songs delivered in an astonishing newscaster-kunst voice by Veanne Cox. It has something to do with superconductors and gravity waves. It’s abstract and catchy and deep. It’s 52 minutes and 14 seconds long.
The beauty of the internet is that I can just tell you to go here to listen to portions of it and read Mikel Rouse’s description and the lyrics.
The performance at Galapagos was a stripped down version with just guitar, string quartet (members of ACME), Mikel singing, Veanne reciting, and some background sound effects. It worked well even in that format, and the absence of drums and other rock elements showcased how deeply integrated the string arrangements are into the composition. The band fought a little against the acoustics of the space, which had a tendency to muddy up the sound, but overall the performance was tight and intense. Rouse modestly sat among the ensemble rather than standing front and center like a rock frontman. The headlines in the news recitations were updated with recent news, as they will be for each leg of the international tour that begins in January.
Gravity Radio ends with one last set of news reports from which I draw one final observation: Almost any statement is improved by the addition of the phrase “Chuck Norris wins.”
Originally posted by Galen H. Brown from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 29, 2009 at 02:11 AM | Comments (0)
October 28, 2009
Slight return...
It's been a while - moving to new apartment has taken the wind out of my sails somewhat plus the other couple of projects I'm involved in have taken up a lot of time and energy... yet hoping to get this blog back on track (yeah, I know, I know)... some good music this week already with two great folk gigs - the lyrical subtleties of Len Graham at the Tiger, the kick out the jams vocal powerhouse that is the Wilsons at the Soar Bridge Inn... with maybe a review to follow of the first one... then I'm off on friday to the Colour out of Space bash in Brighton - my current favourite festival after last year... 'three days of unstructured, experimental music and art' - yowzer! My reviews of the last one here...scroll down...
Originally from wordsandmusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 28, 2009 at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)
Violinist Joshua Bell is big Vegas fan - Khaleej Times
Violinist Joshua Bell is big Vegas fan Khaleej Times You've got Bach, Stockhausen, Gershwin ... Actually, Gershwin is not considered classical, yet his music has more in common with the classical music that I ... |
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 Oct 28, 2009 at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)
NEW YORK, NY October 25, 2009 —David Lang's little match girl passion - WNYC
NEW YORK, NY October 25, 2009 —David Lang's little match girl passion WNYC ... according to Pulitzer Prize Juror Tim Page, "unlike any music I know." Also on the program is György Ligeti's Lux Aeterna, a piece for 16 solo singers, ... |
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 Oct 28, 2009 at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)
an interview w/ Bryce Dessner of The National whose show, The Long Count ... - Brooklyn Vegan (blog)
 Brooklyn Vegan (blog) | an interview w/ Bryce Dessner of The National whose show, The Long Count ... Brooklyn Vegan (blog) Playing with people like Steve Reich has to get you thinking about what you're playing all the time. How does that affect you sitting down to write music ... |
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 Oct 28, 2009 at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)
Richard Youngs - The Quietus
 The Quietus | Richard Youngs The Quietus Cosmic corridors continue in 'Cluster to a Star', kindred spirits with Robert Wyatt's 'Solar Flares' (in soul), and Steve Reich (in minimal, ... |
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 Oct 28, 2009 at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)
10/28/09 playlist
All vocal showDavid Lang ~ the Little Match Girl Passion
Nico Muhly ~ Mothertongue
Joshua Shank ~ Six Color Madrigals
Serpents in Red Roses Hissing
Blue! 'Tis the Life of Heaven
Purple-Stained Mouth
Yellow Brooms and Cold Mountains
A Grass-Green Pillow
Orange-Mounts of More Soft Ascent
Stephen Gorbos ~ Four Sonnets
How Heavy Do I Journey
When I have seen
For Restful Death
Then do mine eyes but see
Jacob Cooper ~ Timberbrit
David T. Little ~ Sweet Light Crude (performed by Newspeak)
John Supko ~ Banking
Amy X Neuburg ~ Residue
Gregory Spears ~ The Golden Legend
St. Vincent
St. Jerome
St. Eustace
Jody Redhage ~ Did You See Me Walking?
Corey Dargel ~ Lullaby (For 48x From Rachel)
Christopher Cerrone ~ Beautiful Dreamer
Originally from Music For Internets, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 28, 2009 at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)
Frenzy and frolic, strictly symbolic
Reviewing the Boston Symphony Orchestra.Boston Globe, October 28, 2009.
Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 28, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
Immortal hand or eye
Reviewing the Boston Classical Orchestra.Boston Globe, October 29, 2009.
Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 28, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
Faust in His Own Words - New Haven Advocate
 New Haven Advocate | Faust in His Own Words New Haven Advocate In some ways, Adams' conflicting desires to innovate and to communicate remain the driving force of his music, as he often acknowledges with a wink. ... |
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 Oct 28, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
T-Rex’s Linguistic Theory
From the always fabulous Ryan North, here’s the indomitable T-Rex developing a new theory of language with his long suffering dino pals Dromiceiomimus and Utahraptor.
(c) 2009 Ryan North Add some T-Rex to your feed reader here.
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Originally posted by Miss Mussel from The Omniscient Mussel on Classical Music & Culture, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 28, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
TREFFPUNKT'ed
By Colin HolterStockhausen's Treffpunkt is not an improvisation: It's a work, and it has a score that (like any other score) the performer is obliged to interpret with high fidelity. However, I just got back from a rehearsal with my desire to improvise whetted anew.
Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 28, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
Metzger, again
Too little of Heinz-Klaus Metzger's writings or interviews have been translated into English; even — or especially — when you disagree with him, he can be a pleasure to read. Here's a taste (my hasty translation) of an interview from 2002:
"History has really shown that the emancipation of the dissonance was easier than that of women or of gays, let alone the proletariat. It really happened easily. Thus, it's no great wonder that certain revolutionary steps, in areas where they are easier to realize, get realized and even done well. Somewhere in his Aesthetic Theory, Adorno notes, entirely as an aside, that even the most ingenious architectural plan must necessarily be left behind by a simple musical composition, because, by nature, it is already limited by practical concerns that a musical composition must not face. In architecture, new structures should be built so that they do not collapse. In music, it can be good it they collapse."
From another interview in the same year:
"Indeed, the power of music to change the world appears to be far less than the power of the world to change music. That is the shocking recognition. The Viennese atonal revolution achieved the end of the tonal hierarchy through the atonal idiom, as this was based not only on the equality of the tones, but rather also on the equality of all conceivable relationships among them. Thus, the superstructure for a real, long overdue revolution was taken away and remains in society, to date, absent. For this reason the New Music still has no social basis and remains hanging in air."
"... that damned bourgeois age. Actually, one should have been able to go directly from Marenzio and Gesualdo into atonality. And then three hundred years of bourgeois society and culture would have had no musical superstructure. Mind you: One would have had the trans-bourgeois freedom and equality directly from the madrigalists — and therein, one must always consider Adorno's definition: Equality would be the condition in which one may be different without fear."
Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 28, 2009 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)
CD of the Week: Zehetmair’s Paganini
17;s Twenty-four Caprices for Solo Violin; Thomas Zehetmair, violin (ECM 001326402).
Originally posted by Alex Ross from Unquiet Thoughts, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 28, 2009 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)
Just a Minute: Joshua Bell releases new album - Daily News & Analysis
Just a Minute: Joshua Bell releases new album Daily News & Analysis You've got Bach, Stockhausen, Gershwin ... Actually, Gershwin is not considered classical, yet his music has more in common with the classical music that I ... |
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 Oct 28, 2009 at 01:08 PM | Comments (0)
Heinz-Klaus Metzger
The critic/theorist/philosopher/musician Heinz-Klaus Metzger has died at the age of 77. Metzger, trained to be a private piano teacher, then studied composition in Paris with Max Deutsch, a student of Schoenberg. Metzger's earliest allegiances were to the Schoenberg school and his theoretical bent brought him into early contact with Adorno. The relationship to Adorno's work — more as sparring partner than as student (a collection of their correspondence is in preparation) — was far from simple and Metzger's article The Aging of the Philosophy of New Music (1957) — the title plays on the titles of an essay and a book by Adorno — was an important document of the Darmstadt moment, defining a critical break with prior musical practice that Adorno was never really able to comprehend.
Metzger was one of the first public advocates for the work of Stockhausen, but also the first who would make a public break with the composer. The disappointment with Stockhausen's development was largely replaced with Metzger's enthusiasm for the work of John Cage, whose work and ideas he promoted throughout years in which Cage and his music was otherwise banned from Germany. Metzger founded, with his partner, the composer and conductor Rainer Riehn, the Ensemble Music Negativa, a loose grouping which played and recorded works by Cage and other American composers, including Feldman, Brown and Wolff. In the late 1980's, the conductor Gary Bertini invited Metzger and Riehn to serve as dramaturgs at the Frankfurt Opera, and the two probably made a more significant musical and intellectual impact upon the house than Bertini himself, with their commission and production of Cage's Europeras 1 & 2 a landmark event.
Metzger and Riehn also edited together, from 1977-2003, more than one hundred volumes in the series Musik-Konzepte. The "series about composers" was, under their editorship, a unique instance of critical theory and solid musicology combined and, with a range in subjects from Perotin and Monteverdi through Cage, Nono and Lachenmann, also including some of the first serious scholarship and criticism about (then) less-well-known composers including Morton Feldman, Giacinto Scelsi, Hans Rott, and the Skryabinistes, and even included two important volumes on performance practice in Beethoven by Rudolph Kolisch.
Metzger's own writings over the years (the most important are collected in a Suhrkamp volume Music wozu), were never prolific, declined in frequency in the later years, but he was always insightful. About the Europeras, for example, which have truly beautiful orchestral music, he cut to the chase with the observation that he had always been told that there had been a diatonic and then a chromatic music, but that the instrumental parts — which were extracted from the instrumental parts to standard repertoire operas, many of them representing only inner voices and accompaniments — had made transparent how much of western classical music was composed of five, four, or fewer tones.
In the US, as a student, I had heard some vague stories about Metzger, some of them concerning his years in Cologne, where he was an extended house guest (along with pianist David Tudor) of the artist Mary Bauermeister, he commandeered the bathtub on every Monday morning for long enough to read Der Spiegel from cover to cover, or at Darmstadt, where he provided virtuoso translation services in English, French, and Italian (Metzger was also a serious reader and collector of old Yiddish literature). I had also heard some wild stories about Metzger's years with the composer Sylvano Bussotti and about his unique relationship to cash (he didn't touch it).
John Cage introduced me to Metzger in Darmstadt in 1990 and, though I never knew him very well, always enjoyed his slow-burning wit, and linguistic virtuosity and his mix of brilliance and eccentricity. I was very happy to introduce him to the work of some of the American "new" musicologists and was honored that he asked me for a small essay for a Musik-Konzepte volume on the theme of progress. But my favorite memory of Metzger was of a post-concert reception, in which we talked — both of use carefully avoiding the topic of the concert itself, which had not gone well — for a good hour about the decline in free reception food and what that said about western civilization.
Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 28, 2009 at 01:08 PM | Comments (0)
Learning microtones
The students in our fab new Music History, Culture and Creativity class have a challenging assignment this week. They are required to compose and record a one minute melody that includes microtones.
Last week one of the three teachers, AJ Racy, was on the stage with three students, a bassoonist, a bass clarinetist, and a violinist. He would play them a phrase that included some non-Western notes (ie microtones), and the students would try to imitate it. It was actually kind of funny watch students who have worked so hard for so long to TRY to play in “tune”. The fingerings that use for the notes don’t work for these “new” notes.
I told the students: define the mode you’ll be using, practice playing it so that you become used to the new intonation, then start improvising with the mode. Now, write a melody. I didn’t require that they notate the tune, but have encouraged them to do it for ease of learning and in case they have someone else play it. After they compose the melody, they must record it, convert it to an MP3, and then upload it to the class website so that their classmates can hear and comment on them.
A really interesting assignment, and a damned tough one too!
Originally posted by Roger Bourland from rogerbourland.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 28, 2009 at 01:06 PM | Comments (0)
Another! Article on Glenn Weyant
Turning Borders into Music: A Magical Transformation ProjectIf an artist is a symbol-maker, then Glenn Weyant’s musical artistry is pure magic.
In a work he calls The Anta Project, Weyant transforms the U.S.-Mexico border wall into a musical instrument using, as he says: "a cello bow and implements of mass percussion." He literally uses that cello bow to make avant garde music from the steel wall, barbed wire fences and assorted barriers that separate the United States from Mexico in the Sonoran Desert.
Weyant took a look at the border wall and then set out in 2006, as he said: "to transform this symbol of fear and loathing into an instrument capable of promoting unity, dialogue and compassion through sound and performance."
Now, three years later, his project potentially has the power to transform the suffering of border crossers into relief and assistance. By collaborating with No More Deaths, an Arizona-based human rights organization, Weyant plans to release The Anta Project and its companion Droneland Security as a limited edition, double-disc set. All profits from the album will directly benefit No More Deaths’ life saving mission: to address the suffering and deaths of border crossers and to illuminate and rectify problems in U.S. border policy.
Weyant is seeking financial backers to make this dream come true. And he offers his supporters rewards for their contributions through the website Kickstarter.com. Follow this link to view Weyant’s groundbreaking project proposal:
DECONSTRUCTING BORDERS WITH A CELLO BOW AND A SMILE
The Anta Project’s name comes from a Sanskrit word meaning "border" or "end of known territory." You can watch Weyant create his avant garde music on this video: The Sound Sculpturist. He is also featured in this YouTube video: Sonoran Sound Work #18
Hear more examples of his sound sculptures here: http://www.sonicanta.com/music.html
In this clip from Leslie Wylie’s article in Metro Pulse (Jul 12, 2007) we see the ideals that motivate Weyant:
Weyant humbly points out that he’s not the first person to have "played a wall"; other politically charged borders, such as the barbed wire surrounding concentration camps, have also yielded music in the past. But he’s the only artist thus far who has applied the idea to the wall between Mexico and the United States, challenging the disturbingly popular notion that a fence could stop the flow of undocumented immigrants into our country.
"It’s an easy way of galvanizing the tension," he explains. "We don’t have solutions, but at least we can have a focal point for our fear: ‘We built a wall, we’re safe.’ But if the border has become a symbol of national insecurity, why can’t we take the symbol and turn it on its head? Let’s transform the wall, reconceptualize it as a bridge between two worlds."
For more information about The Anta Project: www.sonicanta.com Weyant’s website has gained a cult following receiving 9,000 unique visits each month!
You can also follow Sonic Anta’s progress on Twitter: http://twitter.com/sonicanta
Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 28, 2009 at 01:06 PM | Comments (0)
A Stab in the Dark at a Night at the Opera - San Francisco Classical Voice (blog)
A Stab in the Dark at a Night at the Opera San Francisco Classical Voice (blog) ... classical music performances in the Bay Area. A lawyer by day, she is currently working on an essay collection about contemporary classical music theory. |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 28, 2009 at 01:06 PM | Comments (0)
Sunday Sampler allows chance to experience arts - Aurora Advocate
Sunday Sampler allows chance to experience arts Aurora Advocate At 1 pm, watch as the Akros Percussion Collective presents German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen's Music in Bauch (Music in the Belly). ... |
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 Oct 28, 2009 at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)
Forcefields and Constellations
What music does a composer respond to? What music does a composer have to be responsible to? Is there repertoire of such importance that response in inescapable? With so much repertoire available that an overview is increasingly impossible, why can't a composer just pick and choose arbitrarily among influences? Or forget influence altogether and you begin from scratch, from first principles, tabula rasa, with blissful disregard for the past?
Ron Silliman has an interesting post (here) about poets and influence and a "center of modernism" that seems, at first, to have a curiously strident historical determinism about it in its critique of a poet colleague's idiosyncratic version of history, but he saves his argument with the same turn that saves Adorno from only being the advocate for a particular and parochial program of German modernist musical hegemony and makes it possible to use Adorno's methods in fresh contexts, wholly unimaginable to Adorno himself*. This turn is described by Silliman as a dynamic, but it seems to me to necessarily imply Adorno's notions of a forcefield and a constellation. Any instance in any local music (or poetic) culture is necessarily located in a field of influences, and the attractions and repulsions that an individual working in this moment will have are in a dynamic relationship to this field. On the other hand, real work created in this field will appear as more or less fixed constellations of influences and connections and these concrete examples — which will have personal/individual and sometimes even arbitrary qualities — necessarily become terms by which subsequent worked is defined.**
I can't resist Silliman's money line: The polished poetics of Marianne Moore, as hard-edged as any Jeff Koons rabbit, seems to me the very denial of this dynamic. But this is also where I disagree with him; a Moore or a Koons is a perfectly adequate term for defining the dynamic, even through negation, if that's all we want to do. Isn't the bigger problem, however, with a Moore poem or a Koons rabbit, that, aside from being uninteresting, they are just not very good?
_____
* It is always so shocking, for example, to read how blocked Adorno was about the important pull that French music — Berlioz, Debussy, for starts — played on German music. On the other hand, some forcefields can be surprisingly weak due to the taste and will of individuals: Couperin and Rameau lived within walking distance of one another for 11 years and appear to have never met.
**This strikes me as the real rough spot in dialectical accounts of history: as terms in your dialectic, you are stuck with history as it really happened, and the individuals, events and artifacts that really exist are inevitably far from ideal terms. Ezra Pound was far from an ideal figure around whom modernist poety might be centered, but there he was. Czarist Russia was far from an ideal place in which to launch a socialist revolution, but there it was.
Originally from Renewable Music, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 28, 2009 at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)
Coming Up Next: 197 - Friday October 30 :: ECM is 40!
We will celebrate the 40th anniversary of ECM Records by sampling two remarkable new releases:
Friedrich Cerha: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (1989/1996)
Heinrich Schiff, Cello; Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra, Peter Eötvös, cond.
ECM 1887 (2008)
Tigran Mansurian: Three Arias (Sung out the window facing Mount Ararat)
Kim Kashkashian, viola; Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose, cond.
ECM 2065 (2009)
Originally posted by rchrd from Music From Other Minds, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 28, 2009 at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)
tobbacoto14
This is just a test of software that I made (probability sequencing language for csound), the instrument is off the csound instrument disk but probily isn't the best example frequency wise.. I will release some other stuff on my site (songs from executables in free basic) while I explore mml (music macro language) and try to recreate it in a command independent way. You can also listen to it without downloading it there if you perfer.
http://lazzeo.com/music/album/id_19/" title="http://lazzeo.com/music/album/id_19/">http://lazzeo.com/music/album/id_19/
From Podcast: cSounds.com - .
Originally posted by jeff from cacophonous.org, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 28, 2009 at 08:11 AM | Comments (0)
The Brain and Modern Classical Music - Hartford Courant
The Brain and Modern Classical Music Hartford Courant So says Philip Ball in his review of David Stubbs' "Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko But Don't Get Stockhausen." Ball writes in Prospect magazine that ... |
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 Oct 28, 2009 at 05:12 AM | Comments (0)
Dal niente
Eduard Brunner - Dal niente recorded October 1995, released 1997Eduard Brunner - clarinetThe composition Piri by Isang Yun, originally scored for the oboe, exploits the nuances of the single tone in a manner characteristic of East Asian music. Eduard Brunner transforms it into a paradigmatic clarinet piece....Igor Stravinsky recommended the A clarinet with its darker timbre in the first two ofOriginally from A Closet of Curiosities, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 28, 2009 at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)
Music Review | Ensemble ACJW - New York Times
Music Review | Ensemble ACJW New York Times That genre was also represented in Mr. Guo's “Parade for Six Peking Opera Gongs,” which blends Western influences like Cage, Steve Reich and Xenakis with ... |
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 Oct 28, 2009 at 02:13 AM | Comments (0)
Interview: David Danzmayr - Apprentice has proved he's ready to take up the baton - Scotsman
Interview: David Danzmayr - Apprentice has proved he's ready to take up the baton Scotsman I don't know where he gets it all from, but even the full-time musicians on the stage come away with fresh knowledge of the music. ... |
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 Oct 28, 2009 at 02:13 AM | Comments (0)
Patterns, Gestures and Behaviors
Think if an electric guitar as if it were a Csound instrument, metaphorically speaking. Potential ways in which someone can interact with this guitar include: pick, fingers, ebow, power drill, slide, capo, etc. While the guitar is always a guitar, the output changes with the way a person interfaces with it. This concept is every bit as true for digital instruments as physical ones.
The original Splice and Stutter came with a single loop-based sample engine, aptly named SampleEngine. This engine is played with three interface instruments (Basic, Stutter and Random) each with its own unique musical behavior. Today’s example leaves SampleEngine exactly as is, and continues to demonstrate interface versatility with three new instruments: RandomPhrase, Swell and Flam.
The designs of these new instruments were influenced by the original Splice and Stutter score. After I had completed the demo, I noticed some gestures/phrases/effects that were translatable into instrument behaviors.
Download: splice_and_stutter_v2.csd. BT Sample Pack (13.2 MB)
RandomPhrase
If you look at the end of the score in the original splice_and_stutter.csd, you’ll see a 32 line long phrase using the Random instrument. With the exception of the start times, the p-fields for each line are identical.
i $Random 32.25 1 0.25 0.333 100
i $Random + . . . .
...
i $Random + . . . .
That is a pattern, and patterns are translatable into behaviors. RandomPhrase achieves this by generating multiple events of over an interval of time, specified in p-field 4, with events spaced evenly apart by the value in p-field 5.
i $RandomPhrase 32.25 1 32 1 0.25 0.2 100
In the new score, the original 32 lines of code are consolidated into a single call to RandomPhrase. This means less code to maintain, while giving the loop-based sampler a new behavior for me to play with.
Important note. RandomPhrase generates events for instrument Random, which generates events for instrument SampleEngine, which produces the sound. You can create new interfaces out of other interfaces.
Swell
Another pattern revealed itself with this gesture:
i $Stutter 7 1 0.25 0.5 100 12 [1 / 12]
i $Stutter 7.25 1 0.25 0.25 100 . [1 / 12]
i $Stutter 7.5 1 0.25 0.125 100 . [1 / 12]
i $Stutter 7.75 1 0.25 0.06125 100 . [1 / 12]
Unlike the randomly generated notes from the previous example, p-field column 5 (amplitude) uses various values for each note event in this phrase. Upon closer inspection, these particular values themselves have a pattern. Each successive amplitude is halved. This p-field pattern, and others like it, can be translated into a behavioral instrument.
The Swell instrument lets users specify a multiplier to change the amplitude values for each successive note in p-field 6. What’s good for amplitude is good for other things, so I applied the same basic principle to the stutter window, expanding the usefulness of the instrument. A swell gesture looks like this in the new score:
i $Swell 7 1 1 0.5 0.5 0.25 12 100 [1 / 12] 1
Flam
In the original score code, I created a flam effect with two Basic events:
i $Basic 11 1 0.5 0.6 100 7
i $Basic 11.02 1 0.5 0.2 100 1
One could miss the intention of these two lines while reading the score. By creating an instrument that creates a flam, the score becomes easier to read. Also, a flam effect is musically interesting enough to justify having an instrument dedicated to it.
i $Flam 11 1 0.25 0.3 100 7 0.02 2 0
Originally posted by Jacob Joaquin from The Csound Blog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 28, 2009 at 02:11 AM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2009
Gustavo Dudamel and his friends are in complete harmony - Globe and Mail
 Globe and Mail | Gustavo Dudamel and his friends are in complete harmony Globe and Mail ... Yehudi Menuhin and Pierre Boulez – created anything like the wave of public interest stirred by the Venezuelan music educator, who until recently was so ... |
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 Oct 27, 2009 at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)
Abusing Music
By Frank J. OteriWhile I find the alleged use of music in the torture of alleged terror suspects to be extremely disturbing and also somehow surreal, at the same time I also feel a freaky sense of relief that the music I most closely treasure is totally absent from the playlist used by the alleged torturers.
Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 27, 2009 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
VARIOUS COMPOSERS: a/rhythmia - Alarm Will Sound - Nonesuch - Audiophile Audition
 Audiophile Audition | VARIOUS COMPOSERS: a/rhythmia - Alarm Will Sound - Nonesuch Audiophile Audition Their takes on Conlon Nancarrow's eccentric "Player Piano Studies 3A and 6" are finely interpreted gems, as is the middle-eastern inspired “Dessert Search ... |
Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "scelsi" OR "sciarrino" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 27, 2009 at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)
Orientation
Reviewing the Juilliard String Quartet.Boston Globe, October 27, 2009.
Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 27, 2009 at 08:13 PM | Comments (0)
PREVIEW: Fulcrum Point Preview - Chicagoist
 Chicagoist | PREVIEW: Fulcrum Point Preview Chicagoist New-music group Fulcrum Point will play a concert tomorrow night to preview their November 12 show at the Harris Theater. While, yes, it is to a large ... |
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 Oct 27, 2009 at 08:13 PM | Comments (0)
American Brass Quintet performance Nov. 9 - Hendrix College Events and News
American Brass Quintet performance Nov. 9 Hendrix College Events and News The American Brass Quintet, celebrating its 50 th year during the 2009-2010 season, is internationally recognized as one of the premiere chamber music ... |
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 Oct 27, 2009 at 08:13 PM | Comments (0)
60x60 Dance @ Galapagos, NYC (4/8/09) [Kraptavicius/Eule]
Godot in hurryMusic: Gintas Kraptavicius
Dance: Caron Eule
Gintas K (Gintas Kraptavicius) has been participating in the Lithuanian experimental music scene since 1994. He was a core member of the industrial electronic music band ãModusä and worked as an editor on the radio station Kapsai. He is known for his sound actions, theatrical performances and conceptual art. Gintas K is a sound artist exploring minimal digital sounds, sine waves, noise, glitches, microwaves and acoustic vibration, making music for films, sound installations. Godot in hurry may be described as microsound or noise, but its intention is to study the physical effects of sound on the human psyche.
Caron Eule received her BFA in dance and composition from SUNY Purchase and has also studied at the London Contemporary School of Dance, the Bat D'or School in Israel, and The Paul Taylor School in New York City. She has performed with NYC choreographers such as Stephan Koplowitz, Daniel Gwirtzman, Larry Keigwin, Tina Croll, and the Shadow Box Theater and currently teaches creative movement and pre-ballet at Ballet Hispanico, and ballroom dance in inner-city schools for Pierre Dulaineâs Dancing Classrooms. Along with being the Artistic Director of C. Eule Dance, Ms. Eule has also choreographed for theater, film and opera.
Dancers: Erin Jennings, Chie Mukai, Carmen Nicole
Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 27, 2009 at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)
60x60 Dance @ Galapagos, NYC (4/8/09) [McIntire/Painter]
Was Er Sagte, Was Er BedeuteteMusic: David McIntire
Dance: Jen Painter
David D. McIntire was born in upstate New York and trained on the clarinet. He became fascinated with electronic music at an early age and later wore out many razor blades in pursuit of that discipline. He has played in the Colorblind James Experience and is currently a DMA candidate at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. Was Er Sagte, Was Er Bedeutete (What He said, What He Meant) was composed in response to certain U.S. government policies. The title is in German since the work was first presented to a German audience, and because the speaking official is wanted for war crimes in that country. The work uses samples from thanvannispen, ashassin, and FreqMan of the Freesound Project.
Jen Painter is a dancer/choreographer based in Astoria. She is active in her community arts scene, as well as in the greater New York area. She has enjoyed working with artists such as Skip Costa, Te Perez, and Valerie Green , and companies such as Wobble and Seen Performance. She is currently dancing with Valerie Green Dance Entropy, and enjoying the new and unique challenges that choreographing her own work presents. Venues she has enjoyed performing at include LPAC, Triskellion, Galapagos, and Luna Lounge, not to mention various other bars, parks, and piers. Jen is also a certified Gyrotonic and Gyrokinesis instructor.
Dancer: Jen Painter
Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 27, 2009 at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)
60x60 Dance @ Galapagos, NYC (4/8/09) [McFerron/Radway]
DinadanvtliMusic: Mike McFerron
Dance: Becky Radway
Mike McFerron is an associate professor of music and composer-in-residence at Lewis University and he is founder and co-director of Electronic Music Midwest. A past fellow the MacDowell Colony, June in Buffalo, and the Chamber Music Conference of the East/Composersâ Forum, honors include: first prize in the Louisville Orchestra Composition Competition, first prize in the CANTUS program, recipient of the CCF Abelson Vocal Music Commission, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestraâs ãFirst Hearingä Program. Dinadanvtli means "My Brother" in Cherokee.
Becky Radway has performed with the Kevin Wynn Collection, Heidi Latsky Dance, Ezra Caldwell, Incidents Physical Theater, MariaColacoDance, and iN.D.dance/Nicole Durfee & Dancers. Her choreography has been recently featured in the DUMBO and Cool New York Festivals (White Wave), Coming Together Performance Series (Alvin Ailey's Citigroup Theater), Fielday (Henry Street Settlement), and Dance Conversations at The Flea (Soho Playhouse). Other venues include the Jack Guidone Theater in Washington, D.C., Towson University, and a site-specific work for the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ. She is currently planning her first full-length production to premiere in December 2009.
Performed by: Heather N. Seagraves and Laura Henry
Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 27, 2009 at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)
60x60 Dance @ Galapagos, NYC (4/8/09) [Lacaze/Shapiro]
Fenouillet IMusic: Sophie Lacaze
Dance: Laura Shapiro
Sophie Lacaze, born in France, studied composition with Franco Donatoni and Ennio Morricone in Italy and attended Pierre Boulezâs courses at the College de France. Her compositions range from tape solo to orchestral music, and are performed in festivals worldwide. Sophie Lacaze has developed an aesthetic that takes current research into account while looking restore music to its primary functions of ritual, incantation, dance, and links with nature. Fenouillet I is an acousmatic work based on sounds gathered on excavations in Fenouillet Castle in France. The sounds÷including wheelbarrows and trowels÷are organized in rhythms of dances.
Laura Shapiro is a NYC-based choreographer/performer who has collaborated with many new music and jazz composer/performers. Listening to Feuillet Castle and its progression from slow to very fast tempo, she decided that the dance would begin with very quick movements and progress to very slow ones. Then she added simple geometric concepts to structure the spacing and shaping of the movement, and built the piece from these forms. Many thanks to Colleen, Ingrid and Pedro, the three, one-of-a-kind performers who, individually and together, provide the energy and character that brings the piece to life. Thanks also to Pascal, Jeramy and Rob.
Dancers: Colleen Cintron, Pedro Jimenez, and Ingrid Kullberg-Bendz
Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 27, 2009 at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)
60x60 Dance @ Galapagos, NYC (4/8/09) [Nichifor/Arrieta]
Animal FarmMusic: Serban Nichifor
Dance: Patty Arrieta
Serban Nichifor, born in Bucharest, received his Doctorate in Musicology at National University of Music, Bucharest. He is the Vice-president of the Romania-Belgium, cellist of the Duo Intermedia and co-director of the Nuova Musica Consonate - Living Music Foundation Inc. Festival. He is presently a professor at the National University of Music, Bucharest
Patty Arrieta is a native of Guadalajara, Mexico and grew up in the San Fransisco Bay Area. She has been living in NYC for the last 10 years, dancing, teaching, and choreographing professionally. She's traveled internationally as a performer and has worked with both dance companies and commercial artist alike.
Dancers: Leigh Atwell, Jen James, and Patty Arrieta
Originally from 60x60, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 27, 2009 at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)
Blogging Composers
John Adams, the composer of “Nixon in China” and “Doctor Atomic,” may be a living classic, but he doesn’t talk like one. Few artists are as engagingly forthright in their interviews and writings. Adams has now started up a blog on his home site, with the promising name Hell Mouth; in his early posts he gives advice for surviving a first rehearsal of a new piece (“Try not to panic if you can’t recognize that noise coming from the stage as something you wrote”), rejects his own reputation as a “political” composer (“I consider the themes that I choose … not simply ‘mere news,’ but rather human events that have become mythology”), and listens to the “Hammerklavier” fugue while driving home from a dog show in California’s Central Valley (Beethoven’s message, he concludes, is “Don’t fuck with me, wimpface”). A few other composer blogs worth reading: Alexandra Gardner, Roger Bourland, Alex Shapiro, Daniel Wolf, Nico Muhly, Charles Shere, Paul Bailey, and the many voices of Sequenza21.
Originally posted by Alex Ross from Unquiet Thoughts, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 27, 2009 at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)
American Brass Quintet performance Nov. 9 - Hendrix College Events and News
American Brass Quintet performance Nov. 9 Hendrix College Events and News The American Brass Quintet, celebrating its 50 th year during the 2009-2010 season, is internationally recognized as one of the premiere chamber music ... |
Originally from "wolfgang rihm" OR "joan tower" OR "conlon nancarrow" OR "scelsi" OR "sciarrino" AND music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 27, 2009 at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)
The National's Bryce Dessner Talks about The Long ... | - Flavorwire (blog)
 Flavorwire (blog) | The National's Bryce Dessner Talks about The Long ... | Flavorwire (blog) I recently recorded and did a tour with Steve Reich and similar stuff with Philip Glass. That's certainly informed some of the more notated composed music I ... |
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 Oct 27, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
Cecilia Bartoli Clue #7
Hello all and welcome to Cecilia Bartoli Sacrificium puzzle on the OM! If you’re new to the site, head to the homepage to see what else is going on.
Here is the seventh clue in a series of nine. The rest scattered on other classical music websites. Follow the breadcrumbs, fill in all the answers and get an advance listen of the new album. What’s not to love about that?
You can find clue #6 at Opera News and #8 over on Nico Muhly’s Twitter feed.
Keep track of and submit your answers here.
Enjoy!
Share This Post:
Originally posted by Miss Mussel from The Omniscient Mussel on Classical Music & Culture, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 27, 2009 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
Do you have the balls to follow?
…I hope not! They’re the last thing you need for this quest.
If you’re coming from a previous clue, you know just what’s up; If you’re clueless, heading here might make things a bit more clear. Either way, good luck! Now my friend, question the third:
And so on to four, just past this door…
Originally posted by Steve Layton from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 27, 2009 at 02:10 PM | Comments (0)
Turning Borders into Music: A Magical Transformation Project - Agoravox (blog)
Turning Borders into Music: A Magical Transformation Project Agoravox (blog) He literally uses that cello bow to make avant garde music from the steel wall, barbed wire fences and assorted barriers that separate the United States ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 27, 2009 at 12:21 PM | Comments (0)
More from a very busy week on the Portland arts beat - OregonLive.com
 OregonLive.com | More from a very busy week on the Portland arts beat OregonLive.com As composer Jia Daqun wrote in the program about Sichuan Opera: "We can find the unique sound effects that remind us of avant-garde music in terms of ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 27, 2009 at 12:20 PM | Comments (0)
Others: D+, Jonathan Richman, Andrew Bird, Vicious Vicious - Tiny Mix Tapes
 Tiny Mix Tapes | Others: D+, Jonathan Richman, Andrew Bird, Vicious Vicious Tiny Mix Tapes Zebra is ostensibly Blau's "Africa" album, a tribute of sorts to the continent's influence on both the music he loves and makes. ... |
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 Oct 27, 2009 at 11:13 AM | Comments (0)
ECM at 40: Enjoy Jazz Festival: Days 3-6, October 22-25, 2009 - All About Jazz
 All About Jazz | ECM at 40: Enjoy Jazz Festival: Days 3-6, October 22-25, 2009 All About Jazz It's hard to believe that a record label responsible for stretching the boundaries of modern music has survived the various crises that have threatened and, ... |
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 Oct 27, 2009 at 08:13 AM | Comments (0)
Opening the chamber of secrets - Jerusalem Post
Opening the chamber of secrets Jerusalem Post "I live in Vienna, but my father is Italian - I will bring his knowledge of Austrian music and Italian fire," he smiles kindly, adding that he is happy that ... |
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 Oct 27, 2009 at 05:13 AM | Comments (0)
Meredith Monk: Inner Voice - Variety
Meredith Monk: Inner Voice Variety Monk's Zen-influenced emphasis on being in the moment resulted in a rare artistic sensibility, at once wholly abstract (her voice-centered music is mostly ... |
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 Oct 27, 2009 at 05:13 AM | Comments (0)
Hello, you early birds!
“Classical Discoveries” host Marvin Rosen (WPRB, 103.3 FM, or always streaming online, too) reminds us that he’s got a special added edition of the show Tuesday morning from 5:30 to 8:30 AM EDT. The program will include the Symphony No. 5, “Western Hemisphere” by American composer William Grant Still (1895-1978) , Pipa Concerto by Chinese composer Xiaogang Ye (1955- ), Concierto para violonchelo y orquesta by Mexican/American composer Samuel Zyman and much more.
On Marvin’s regular Wednesday show (same early-bird hours) you’ll hear the American broadcast premiere of From Ancient Times for wind ensemble (2008) by Belgian Composer Jan Van der Roost, River of Sorrows (2006) by the young American Composer Todd Goodman, and The Phoenix (2002) for voices and chamber ensemble by American Composer Patricia Van Ness. There will also be music by Latvian composer Rihards Dubra, Portuguese composer Joly Braga Santos, and many others.
Originally posted by Steve Layton from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 27, 2009 at 05:10 AM | Comments (0)
Halloween Wonder Cabinet @ NYU
Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 27, 2009 at 03:41 AM | Comments (0)
Automatic Composing
Just in time for Halloween, Cryptonymus has posted this wonderful 3-disc set of creepy stuff at Allegory of Allergies. It concludes with a healthy dose of Rosemary Brown, who claimed to be a medium for dead composers. In this interview, she says that Schubert is the only one who revises his music when he works with her and that Liszt communicated a piece to her in front of three witnesses from the BBC. The piece is titled Grübelei, and Brown says that it took a while to learn because it's in F-sharp, with one hand playing in 5/4 while the other plays in 3/2.
Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 27, 2009 at 03:41 AM | Comments (0)
Diverse and diverting - Irish Times
Diverse and diverting Irish Times If so, then the streets of Cork must be glistening today after a long weekend of occasional rain showers and constant music. This year's Guinness Jazz ... |
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 Oct 27, 2009 at 02:13 AM | Comments (0)
Psst: Avant-cello act at the Dakota - Minneapolis Star Tribune
Psst: Avant-cello act at the Dakota Minneapolis Star Tribune Challenging even to seasoned listeners, Carter's intricate music seems unlikely club fare. But Haimovitz, who melds Bach and Hendrix, hip-hop and Olivier ... |
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 Oct 27, 2009 at 12:13 AM | Comments (0)
Shobana Jeyasingh at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London SE1 - Times Online
Shobana Jeyasingh at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London SE1 Times Online ... musical component — Steve Reich remixed by Glyn Perrin — which Jeyasingh is not able to overcome. Instead of finding ways to work beyond the music, ... |
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 Oct 27, 2009 at 12:13 AM | Comments (0)
Solo Brass: New Perspectives
various artists compilation - Solo Brass: New Perspectives LP released sometime in the 1970sPara-Tangents (1973) for trumpet and pre-recorded soundscomposed by Aurelio de la Vega Performer: Thomas Stevens - trumpet PARA-TANGENTS is a virtuoso work for the solo trumpet, which climbs high and sinks low (pedal tones) throughout the work. Quick passages alternate with lyrical ones, and all kindsOriginally from A Closet of Curiosities, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 27, 2009 at 12:13 AM | Comments (0)
October 26, 2009
Music review: Andrey Boreyko leads LA Phil at Disney Hall - Los Angeles Times
Music review: Andrey Boreyko leads LA Phil at Disney Hall Los Angeles Times Add to that the long-standing affinity that the Los Angeles Philharmonic has had for the sound worlds of Stravinsky and Lutoslawski -- and Boreyko's ability ... |
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 Oct 26, 2009 at 09:15 PM | Comments (0)
Remembering Maryanne Amacher, A Sound Character
By Bill BrovoldThe music of Maryanne Amacher (1943-2009) is much like she was: very loving and friendly or a bit of a firecracker.
Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 26, 2009 at 09:13 PM | Comments (0)
Sounds Heard: Eliot Gattegno and Eric Wubbels—Intersections
By Brian SacawaSaxophonist Eliot Gattegno is less concerned with impressing his peers than being a medium for the voices of seven composers.
Originally from NewMusicBox, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 26, 2009 at 09:13 PM | Comments (0)
5 November in Ann Arbor
Symphony Band Chamber Winds
Time: 8:00 PM Location: Walgreen Drama Center Room: Stamps Auditorium
Michael Haithcock, conductor; Rodney Dorsey and John Pasquale, guest conductors. Stephen Shipps, violin. “Mix and match with a violin attached.” Standard and unusual combinations of instruments are utilized in small groups to offer a program of varied yet familiar repertoire. One of Mozart’s most popular works is the gateway for the chamber winds tradition as explored with sounds old and new by an eclectic mix of composers following in the master’s footsteps. PROGRAM: Mozart - Serenade No. 11 in E-flat; Henning - Out in the Sun; Orff - Der Mond; Weill - Concerto for Violin and Winds
Cost: Free - no tickets required
Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 26, 2009 at 06:11 PM | Comments (0)
News Items: Scalia’s Lap Dance, etc.
On Saturday night, Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg made their operatic débuts, in “Ariadne auf Naxos” at the Washington National Opera. Reliable Source, Philip Kennicott, and Opera Chic report; Anne Midgette sticks to the music. Correction: Lisa Hirsch points out that Scalia and Ginsburg actually made their débuts back in 1994.
Scott Cantrell and Tony Tommasini like the new opera house in Dallas.
Over the transom at Parterre: Plácido Domingo’s baritone turn in Berlin, Jonas Kaufmann’s Lohengrin in Munich.
Kyle Gann remembers the composer and sound artist Maryanne Amacher, who passed away last week. Here’s a clip of Amacher giving Thurston Moore a sonic workout (from the documentary “Day Trip Maryanne”).
Originally posted by Alex Ross from Unquiet Thoughts, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 26, 2009 at 06:10 PM | Comments (0)
Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company - Stage
Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company Stage Continuum, performed to Ligeti, has elements from Wheeldon's other work, including Tryst, and moments where he is clearly influenced by Balanchine. ... |
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 Oct 26, 2009 at 03:16 PM | Comments (0)
NonPop Show 066
NonPop Show 066
Program Notes:(running time – approx. 34 min)1. “She (Really) Had To Go”by John MortonSonogramInnova2. “Canto Ostinato – Section 20″by Simeon ten HoltSimeon ten Holt: Complete Piano WorksBrilliant Classics3. “Finalbells”by Eric RichardsThe Bells ThemselvesNew World Records
From Podcast: NonPop.
Originally posted by jeff from cacophonous.org, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 26, 2009 at 03:10 PM | Comments (0)
In performance: music of Nicholas Maw
Web-only review: More Maw, in memoriam by Charles T. Downey The 21st Century Consort opened its season of concerts at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on Saturday with a tribute to the British-born composer Nicholas Maw, who died last May. The group celebrated its long relationship with Maw, who lived in Takoma Park for more than two decades (and whose "Sophie's Choice" was staged by the Washington National Opera in 2006), by performing some of his most accomplished music for chamber ensemble. (read more after the jump)Originally from The Classical Beat – Classical Music Forum – washingtonpost.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 26, 2009 at 12:21 PM | Comments (0)
Students toy with contemporary sound in monthly concerts - The Dartmouth
 The Dartmouth | Students toy with contemporary sound in monthly concerts The Dartmouth For the concert series, anything goes, including performances of experimental and avant-garde music, along with improvisational pieces. ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 26, 2009 at 12:20 PM | Comments (0)
Music does not exist in a vacuum
Benjamin Britten in reflective mood outside the Old Mill at Snape while completing Peter Grimes in 1945. That opera, like all of Britten's output, is a mystical fusion of music and place. We talk of Britten's Aldeburgh, Bach's Leipzig, Elgar's Malvern, and Bernstein's New York, yet the relationship between music and place is only just starting to be explored by pioneering projects such as musicDNA.
That mystical fusion of music and place appeared again a few days ago in an email from Alex Ross -
I first heard that Korngold recording in high school — there was a wonderful art room with a no less wonderful record collection curated by an art teacher who had since passed away. I would play it at maximum volume late at night.nated with me as I too have an extraordinarily strong recall of music and place, to the point where I can remember where and when I first heard many pieces of music. So strong is the recall that I have sometimes wondered if there is a spatial equivalent of synaesthesia. Support for a link between music and place comes from the influential philosopher and educationist Rudolf Steiner. His living idea concept proposes both that ideas have life of their own, and that living with an idea in one's mind predicates living differently.
Accepting that music and place are living ideas that interact with the listener takes us down some exciting new paths. Already the spatial dimension has provided the only two major music success stories of recent years - multi-channel home cinema systems, with their spatially enhanced sound, and portable media players, which take music to new places. Place is starting to be recognised as an important part of the performace equation and innovative new spaces are being explored. These include live music in a geodesic dome, on a floating stage, on a Cold War bomber base, on a cruise ship, inside a prison, and even in a circus ring.
Classical music desperately needs new audiences. But virtually all efforts to find one have been directed at attracting new listeners to the same music in the same place, which is usually a conventional concert hall complete with all its associated baggage. Is the resistance of new audiences lowered if the music is experienced in a neutral place? Is the key to reaching new audiences location, location and location? Is the concert hall as architectural icon as doomed as the tuxedo? Will traditional concert halls and opera houses be victims of a 'perfect storm' triggered by the collision of economic turbulence, environmental concerns and the demands of new audiences? Is classical music a living idea that can only breathe in the future if it escapes the vacuum of the concert hall?
* Alex Ross also kindly pointed out a book by the American musicologist Denise von Glahn titled The Sounds of Place and provided a link to his own post on the Korngold symphony. From my own bookshelf I have picked out A Musical Gazetteer of Grat Britain & Ireland by Gerald Morris and Musical Landscapes by John Burke, both long out-of-print.
* My headline is provided by Britten's 1964 Aspen Award acceptance speech in which he said -
I also take note of the human circumstances of music, of its environment and conventions ... music does not exist in a vacuum.ze:85%;">Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 26, 2009 at 12:13 PM | Comments (0)
NonPop Show 066
Program Notes:
(running time – approx. 34 min)
1. “She (Really) Had To Go”
by John Morton
Sonogram
Innova
2. “Canto Ostinato – Section 20″
by Simeon ten Holt
Simeon ten Holt: Complete Piano Works
Brilliant Classics
3. “Finalbells”
by Eric Richards
The Bells Themselves
New World Records
Originally posted by Scott from NonPop, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 26, 2009 at 12:10 PM | Comments (0)
The Classical Music Network - ConcertoNet
The Classical Music Network ConcertoNet Three blocks west, Poisson Rouge schedules nightly eclectic artists ranging from Steve Reich to Jonathan Biss. Around the corner, theaters like the Flea ... |
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 Oct 26, 2009 at 09:13 AM | Comments (0)
Music review: Andrey Boreyko leads LA Phil - Los Angeles Times
Music review: Andrey Boreyko leads LA Phil Los Angeles Times Add to that the long-standing affinity that the Los Angeles Philharmonic has had for the sound worlds of Stravinsky and Lutoslawski -- and Boreyko's ability ... |
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 Oct 26, 2009 at 09:13 AM | Comments (0)
Slee Sinfonietta performs eclectic program on Tuesday - The Daily News Online
Slee Sinfonietta performs eclectic program on Tuesday The Daily News Online ... his music have included the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, Tanglewood, June in Buffalo , Interlink, Radio France and Pierre Boulez's ... |
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 Oct 26, 2009 at 09:13 AM | Comments (0)
Goings on About Town: Dance - New Yorker
Goings on About Town: Dance New Yorker Harbour, whose work is still unknown here, has created a new piece, “Leaving Songs,” set to the music of Ross Edwards, an Australian composer. ... |
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 Oct 26, 2009 at 06:13 AM | Comments (0)
Ballet Electric - New York Magazine
 New York Magazine | Ballet Electric New York Magazine It's the latest in a canon combining classical and modern dance with popular culture, movement, and music, something few other choreographers have ... |
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 Oct 26, 2009 at 03:12 AM | Comments (0)
Monday (almost) Micellany
I did some serious updating of the blognoggle|classical music blog aggregation site today…freshened up the design, added a bunch of people, removed some dead links. Take a look and let me know whose blogs I’ve missed.
On the topic of blogs, Alex Ross has moved his over to the New Yorker site where it is now called Unquiet Thoughts. Update your bookmarks appropriately. And while you’re at it, add our good buddy Ian Moss’s Createquity.
Don’t miss Jay Batzner’s review of Julia Wolfe’s new CD of her piece for 9 bagpipes. (A bit too late for Guantanamo, but something for the Pentagon to keep in mind for the future–that’s me talking, not Jay).
The calendar page is fixed again. For those of you who post concert notices there, a small request: after I give you a login and password, don’t register yourself and change the password. Just use the pw I give you, post your concert, and leave quietly. Otherwise, nobody else–including me–can get in.
Originally posted by Jerry Bowles from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 26, 2009 at 03:10 AM | Comments (0)
Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company - guardian.co.uk
 guardian.co.uk | Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company guardian.co.uk It is based on Steve Reich's early voice and electronic composition Come Out, which composer Glyn Perrin has remixed to create a new version, ... |
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 Oct 26, 2009 at 12:12 AM | Comments (0)
October 25, 2009
Bus pass music
In November I qualify for a free bus pass and, Insha'Allahon, so here is how we will be celebrating. Dedicated Savall and Sufi watchers will also be interested in another concert in Paris, which will form a yet-to-be-announced Alia Vox combined CD and book release. Blogging will be at a reduced rate for a fair while as I will be in retreat, but not defeated, after Paris. Now take La Route de l'Orient.
All champagne, travel, accomodation and concert tickets in France are being paid for by me, but don't let that deter any Parisian readers who want to buy me a drink. Suggestions for other arts projects worth taking in while we are in Paris at the end of November are welcome. A note on carbon footprints. I have posted quite a few articles about our low budget travels in 2009. The upcoming French trip will bring the total of miles travelled overseas in the year to more than 5000. My return journey by plane in December from Marseille to London will be the only flight I have taken in 2009. All other travel will have been by train, diesel car, ferry boat and bike. 2010 looks more difficult as we are in search of Jimi Hendrix in Africa in March - I am investigating camel hire. Please report errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 25, 2009 at 06:12 PM | Comments (0)
Lips apart, lips together
Two shout-outs for events that, if only they’d have gotten around to inventing teleportation by now, I’d certainly try to make:
Tuesday evening (27 Oct.) in Princeton’s Taplin Auditorium vocalists Sarah Paden, Anne Hege and Lainie Fefferman — otherwise known as Celestial Mechanics — will be presenting five new pieces by composers M.R. Daniel, Matt Marble, Jascha Narveson, and group members Fefferman and Hege themselves. Not your typical vocal trio, CM describes their performance as somewhere between “a chorus of angels and Robert Ashley, body percussion and Laurie Anderson, yoga practice and Wham.” Things kick off at 8PM, it’s FREE, and easy to find.
The next evening (28 Oct.), up and across the border to Montreal, Quebec, our tremendously-talented, trumpet-playing web pal Amy Horvey is celebrating the release of her first CD, Interview, 8:30pm at La Sala Rossa (4848 Boulevard Saint-Laurent). Released by Malasartes Musique, it contains impeccably intense performances of works by Cecilia Arditto, Isak Goldshneider, Anna Höstman, Ryan Purchase and Giacinto Scelsi. Amy will be playing, along with new label-mates Cordâme and Nozen. This disc’s been a long time coming, but your ears will tell you it was worth it.
Originally posted by Steve Layton from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 25, 2009 at 06:10 PM | Comments (0)
Last Night in L.A.: Feldman, Johnston, Glass
The new Jacaranda season began last night with a concert that almost filled the church and brought out the Los Angeles Times critic, with photographer as well. The program comprised three key works from the 70s: Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel from 1971, Ben Johnston’s Quartet No. 4 “Amazing Grace” from 1973, and Philip Glass’ Einstein on the Beach: Five Knee Plays from 1976. God, it was a gorgeous concert.
I didn’t want the performance of Rothko Chapel to end, but it did, and too soon, coming in at less than 25 minutes. The spaces between notes could have been a bit longer, and some of the notes could have hung in the air a bit longer. The three instrumentalists were Alma Lisa Fernandez on viola, Aron Kallay on celesta, and Kenneth McGrath on percussion, and they seemed to breathe the sounds. A group of local singers billed as the Jacaranda Chamber Singers risked all of those exposed pitches, and they handled all the challenges. This was a great experience.
Few works could follow something like the Feldman, but Johnston’s “Amazing Grace” could do so, and fortunately it took a little while to remove the instruments and risers to give some space between the two. The Denali Quartet now plays this work with seeming ease; perhaps they’ll make it their calling card, as the Phil under Salonen made Rite of Spring. But the Johnston quartet leaves me wanting more; perhaps the Denalis could expand their Johnston offerings. Or perhaps Monday Evening Concerts could give us a Johnston evening.
The Jacaranda series has recovered the “Five Knee Plays” from Einstein on the Beach, with approval of Glass and the publisher. At the time of their first presentation of the set, in 2005, only the middle work was available; three other segments had been issued for children’s chorus but were no longer available, and the opening segment had been withdrawn and had to be reconstituted. Jacaranda has given us the full set, with pipe organ instead of electronic keyboard, with mixed chorus, with children’s chorus (the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, of all riches) for the final set, with violin (the violinist of the Denali Quartet) and with three narrators, including Gail Eichenthal and Sandra Tsing Loh of NPR broadcasts. The music still grabs at you.
Jacaranda’s next Santa Monica concert, November 14, serves as an introduction to the Phil’s exciting new “West Coast Left Coast” series with music by Adams, Marshall and Lou Harrison. Better get your tickets.
Originally posted by JerryZ from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 25, 2009 at 06:10 PM | Comments (0)
More on the John Cage art review at New Arts Program - Reading Eagle
More on the John Cage art review at New Arts Program Reading Eagle Primarily known for his experimental contributions to avant-garde music, he adapted ambient sound into his compositions or played ordinary acoustic ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 25, 2009 at 05:57 PM | Comments (0)
A timely reminder of hope - Sydney Morning Herald
A timely reminder of hope Sydney Morning Herald Those rhythms served as a warm-up for Steve Reich's Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet (2007), an extended work that mixes Reich's trademark minimalist ... |
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 Oct 25, 2009 at 03:12 PM | Comments (0)
First tea on Sunday
The Atlanta event is taking clearer shape, a promising venue has been found.Trying to arrange for a new airing of some of my Christmas music. No one said it’s easy.
I should really enquire after a performance (unscheduled last I heard) of Bless the Lord, O My Soul here in Massachusetts (west of Boston). (Of course, so very much of Massachusetts which is not Boston, is west of Boston.)
Turns out that it’s JS Bach who is the reason I haven’t heard yet from my cellist. The bewigged bully.
And Paul Cienniwa is taking this program down to New Bedford for a second concert later the same day. Two Henning performances on the same day (different events): Is the world ready?
Discreet Erasures ticker: 49mm / 1'50 at 12:00 AM Sunday, 25 Octoberass="blogger-post-footer">
Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 25, 2009 at 03:10 PM | Comments (0)
Christopher O'Riley, host of NPR's "From the Top" plays Chopin Society of Atlanta
By PIERRE RUHE By the conventions of the classical music biz, pianist Christopher O'Riley wears three distinct hats -- as a touring virtuoso of the standard repertoire, as radio host of National Public Radio's kid-musician "From the Top" and as a radical with a soft edge, performing his own piano transcriptions of artsy pop, from Radiohead to Tori Amos. Yet like so much else in the arts, those old norms, established in the late 20th century, are starting to seem like the historical anomaly. Cobbling together a career -- an inexact mix of performer, composer, transcriber, teacher, showman, public personality...Originally from artscriticATL.com, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 25, 2009 at 01:32 PM | Comments (0)
Sunday Sampler allows chance to experience arts - Hudson Hub-Times
Sunday Sampler allows chance to experience arts Hudson Hub-Times At 1 pm, watch as the Akros Percussion Collective presents German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen's Music in Bauch (Music in the Belly). ... |
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 Oct 25, 2009 at 12:12 PM | Comments (0)
Old Capitol to host concert - Iowa City Press Citizen
Old Capitol to host concert Iowa City Press Citizen "Music in the Glen" draws on portions of an Irish fiddle reel and the opening gesture of Boulez's "Sur Incises," reflecting Gompper's interest in combining ... |
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 Oct 25, 2009 at 12:12 PM | Comments (0)
The Classical Music Network - ConcertoNet
The Classical Music Network ConcertoNet The Padifica Quartet is fairly young, and their renown has recently come with recordings of Elliott Carter's complete quartets. ... |
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 Oct 25, 2009 at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)
A labor of love: singing nonstop - Tulsa World
A labor of love: singing nonstop Tulsa World The music to be performed will range from contemporary choral works by composers such as Chen Yi and Gyorgy Ligeti to works that date from the Renaissance ... |
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 Oct 25, 2009 at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)
For cellist Peled, following muse is good for the soul - Charlottesville Daily Progress
 Charlottesville Daily Progress | For cellist Peled, following muse is good for the soul Charlottesville Daily Progress Having grown up in Israel, surrounded by the culture and the music, he can bring an authentic tone to his interpretations of the pieces, which can enthrall ... |
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 Oct 25, 2009 at 05:12 AM | Comments (0)
If I had a hammer - Sequenza21 (blog)
 Sequenza21 (blog) | If I had a hammer Sequenza21 (blog) ... surround-sound music performance, enlisting 100 skilled and unskilled trades people. Prying at Stockhausen's convolution of rhythm and timbre, ... |
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 Oct 25, 2009 at 05:12 AM | Comments (0)
If I had a hammer
…Or maybe 100? Then I’d be well on my way to doing what sound artist Douglas Henderson has planned at Peirogi Gallery’s BOILER space in Williamsburg, NY the start of next month (only not nearly so well as I think he’s conceived). But if I can’t be there, maybe YOU would like to pick up a tool and contribute? S21’s roving composer in the street, Chris Becker has both the news and an interview with Henderson:
. . . .
On November 7th and 8th, at Peirogi Gallery’s BOILER space in Williamsburg, NY, I will be participating as a head carpenter in a performance of composer Douglas Henderson’s Music for 100 Carpenters. Doug is looking for volunteers to perform this 30-minute piece. If you are interested in performing, can hammer a nail, and are available on Saturday, Nov. 7 and/or Sunday Nov. 8 , 6:00pm – 9:00pm for the performance and orientation, please RSVP to: 100carpenters@googlemail.com
Doug’s work straddles a line between the categories of music, sculpture, and dance and theater. He has presented works at the Whitney Museum at Altria, Dance Theater Workshop, and PS122 in New York and at Inventionen and daadgalerie in Berlin, among many others. He describes Music for 100 Carpenters as “a theatrical surround-sound music performance, enlisting 100 skilled and unskilled trades people. Prying at Stockhausen’s convolution of rhythm and timbre, 100 hammers, 100 blocks of wood and some 10,000 nails of varying sizes are brought to bear in a real-time, real-world articulation of complex computer synthesis. Under the guidance of job supervisors, thousands of hammer blows become waves of tonal murmur, threaded with rustlings of nails and occasional snarls of righteous indignation. The performers are organized into work crews with lists of tasks and closely timed schedules, and arranged in a circle around the audience. Toolbelts, sweat and lunchboxes are part of the score.”
I interviewed Doug to discuss Music for 100 Carpenters, his other works, as well as his current life in Berlin, Germany. The interview is posted on my blog at beckermusic.blogspot.com/2009/10/interview-with-douglas-henderson.html
. . . .
A worthy gig for any of you, and honest labor to boot. If you’re near, bring your gear!
Originally posted by Steve Layton from Sequenza21/, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 25, 2009 at 05:10 AM | Comments (0)
October 24, 2009
I sit down and write a brand-new rhyme
Beethoven's early believers. The Transcendentalists' Ludwig Van.Boston Globe, October 25, 2009.
What you hear is not a chorus. "Rapper's Delight" and the vestige of minstrelsy.
Boston Globe, October 25, 2009.
Updates in this space have pretty much dropped off the radar, haven't they? But at least I'm keeping busy. (The first article previews Chapter 4 of the ever-impending book; if I can get "Rapper's Delight" in there as well, I'll at least have reached new levels of expressive tangentiality.)
Originally from Soho the Dog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 24, 2009 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
masterly code of conduct - Times Online
 Times Online | masterly code of conduct Times Online Boulez quickly became famous for his austerity, and Masur, like Boulez a disdainer of the baton, uses the smallest, sparest gestures. ... |
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 Oct 24, 2009 at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
Radio Happy Hour: podcast of the October 10th show now available
Tunde from TV on the Radio, and comedian Kumail Nanjiani appeared for Radio Happy Hour on October 10th. You can check out the podcast here, or download it directly for free here.
Radio Happy Hour is a live variety show featuring an old-time radio comedy/drama and your favorite guest stars from the worlds of film, music, and letters. Hosted by Sam Osterhout, the show engages its guests in a wildly right-angled conversation that careens between interviews, performances, and trivia. And at the center of it all is a short, old time radio comedy in which the guest stars as him or herself or, in some cases, as Nancy Drew. Audiences will see all of this--the interviews, the corny jokes, the guest performances, and the behind-the-scenes making of a radio drama--from 2 to 3 pm on the second Saturdays of June, July, and August. Radio Happy Hour is an updated, New York version of Hee Haw. With more drinking. And sound effects. Trust us, it'll make sense when you see it.To buy tickets to the next Radio Happy Hour on November 14th, click here.
Originally from (Le) Poisson Rouge, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 24, 2009 at 05:54 PM | Comments (0)
Ryuichi Sakamoto, Alva Noto and Ensemble Modern
Originally from ANABlog, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 24, 2009 at 05:54 PM | Comments (0)
New Nocturne for Piano
I've written my first in a set of nocturnes for piano. It consists of layers of quiet sounds building up like waves crashing on rocks until it becomes symphonic in scope. It's simultaneously one of the most static and one of the most active pieces I've ever written. Elsie described it as something like Le Gibet plus Radiohead. The score will be available sometime next week.
Nocturne #1 for Piano - Synthesized Realization
Originally from The Music of Jeff Harrington, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 24, 2009 at 05:47 PM | Comments (0)
Footnote
Still no word viz. the cello pieces, so at present it really is all in my head.Discreet Erasures ticker: 26mm / 0’54 at 12:00 AM Saturday, 24 Octoberass="blogger-post-footer">
Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 24, 2009 at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)
"I hereby pronounce you aesthetically disabled, with all the benefits and rights thereof."
"most champions of the less privileged have never made a practical effort to mitigate the social differences caused by the inequitable distribution of what, nowadays, is a factor with an enormous socioeconomic impact: beauty. "(from here. originally here)
Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 24, 2009 at 12:30 PM | Comments (0)
Soundstills by Tviga
The white forms in these photographs are the sculptural manifestations of audio footage that was recorded along the border between Russia and Finland. Here the unique old-growth forests stand, The Green Belt of Fennoscandia. Recently these ancient trees are being logged for their valuable timber. There are only few remaining areas of ancient forest in Europe with the vast majority of the vanishing old-growth forests remaining are in the North of European Russia.
The soundwaves are actual objects, each is 6 metres high, reminiscent of the height of a tree, despite looking like digital intervention. I recorded them when the forest was still there. Then, when the trees had gone, I put the ‘sounds’ back to where they used to exist, sounds that look like trees that will never be heard again.
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link
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Originally from Discussion Forum - NetNewMusic, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 24, 2009 at 12:30 PM | Comments (0)
Various Artists - no-R-mal (4 CD set)
The Justnotnormal netlabel has released what may be the best online collection of experimental music currently available. no-R-mal is a 4 CD collection of 52 tracks and over 5 hours of music representing some of the finest experimental music artists you will find. The vast majority of these tracks are previously unreleased.There are a number of musicians that I have heard and featured in the past including Mystified, D’Incise, and Phillip Wilkerson. However there are also plenty of new artists and amazing music to marvel upon. A sampling of previously unknown artists to me that I want to hear more from would include Bob Dickinson, Kendall Station, Gurdonark, and Controlled Dissonance . Most of the music is on the tonal but “dronal” side although there are a few that stretch the ambient limits like Nagual Arts’ “Niobe and The Sea” and Cousin Silas “Dreaming in Dunwich” which I suspect is a eerie salute to H. P. Lovecraft. Overall, this is a nice retrospective that will be essential listening to anyone into experimental music.
The album set equals 4 CDs of music and is available in 320kbps MP3.
Originally posted by Marvin from Free Albums Galore, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 24, 2009 at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)
Return festival to organize final concert on October 24 - PanARMENIAN.Net
 PanARMENIAN.Net | Return festival to organize final concert on October 24 PanARMENIAN.Net ... and promoting development of creative ideas and contemporary Armenian musicians' works and generating demand for contemporary classical music. ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 24, 2009 at 12:28 PM | Comments (0)
Maryanne Amacher - Chicago Reader
Maryanne Amacher Chicago Reader The trio radically clung to an abstracted sense of pulse instead of clear grooves and blurred the lines between free jazz and contemporary classical music, ... |
Originally from "contemporary classical" | "avant garde" music - Google News, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 24, 2009 at 12:28 PM | Comments (0)
The art of the CD label
With MP3 downloads you don't have to imagine there's no artwork. This CD by the Tashi Lhunpo monks featured in Wagner and the Tantric orchestra.
Featured CD was purchased by me. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 24, 2009 at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)
This week's music previews - guardian.co.uk
 guardian.co.uk | This week's music previews guardian.co.uk Portico Quartet's new album, Isla, is a step or two outside the band's original comfort zone – Steve Reich/Philip Glass minimalism warmed by the soft chime ... |
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 Oct 24, 2009 at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)
196 :: 23 October 2009 :: Music Games
Morton Subotnick: In Two Worlds (2007)
Susan Fancher, winds and electronics
Innova 736 (2009)
Pioneering electronic composer Morton Subotnick wrote the title track, In Two Worlds, back in 1987 but the software to perform it (”Interactor”) is already obsolete. A new version using Max/MSP had to be created to make this recording possible.
Morton Feldman: Projection I (1950), Composition - 8 Little Pieces (1950), Intersection IV (1951)
Arne Deforce, cello; Yutaka Oya, piano; Aeon AECD 0977 (2008)
Morton Feldman’s early Projections and Intersections pieces, written between 1950 and 1953, are series of ‘graph’ compositions in which […] time is represented by space, and in which the spaced boxes specify only instrument, register, number of simultaneous sounds, mode of production, and duration. The two series differ in that the Projections are to be consistently quiet, while in the Intersections ‘the player is free to choose any dynamic at any entrance but must maintain sameness of volume’ - though ‘what is desired in both … is a pure (non-vibrating) tone’. (»Paul Griffiths)
Christopher Hobbs: Sudoku 82 (2008)
Bryan Pezzone, piano; Cold Blue 0033 (2009) New Release Preview
Sudoku 82, a spare, beautiful, spacious piece for eight pianos, was composed utilizing systems derived from sudoku puzzles and the GarageBand computer program.
“Sudoku 82 is one of a series of pieces I have been working on since 2005. There are now over 125 of them that use Apple’s GarageBand software and random procedures culled from the numbers found initially in hexadecimal sudoku puzzles and latterly from online random number generators. I choose the sounds I want and the overall duration, but then let the numbers determine what goes where, how many times, how long, how much silence, and so on. Sudoku 82 used a number of piano loops played on eight pianos at an extremely slow tempo, the result being that the pianists seem to be frozen in time. It was Jim Fox who suggested that the piece might be performed ‘live’ rather than using samples as I had originally done. This is therefore the first of the series to come off the computer and into the recording studio, and I am delighted with the result, which is dedicated to Jim Fox, whose music and predisposition towards slow tempos I have admired for many years.” —CH
Originally posted by rchrd from Music From Other Minds, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 24, 2009 at 08:13 AM | Comments (0)
The New World on the Two Coasts - New York Times
 New York Times | The New World on the Two Coasts New York Times Mr. Salonen built a modern orchestra that can dispatch a complex Ligeti score and handle the meter-fracturing challenges of a restless work like Mr. ... |
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 Oct 24, 2009 at 08:13 AM | Comments (0)
John Cage, Merce Cunningham - Isthmus
John Cage, Merce Cunningham Isthmus Through their numerous collaborations, and in their life together, these artistic leaders explored the intersections of dance and music; poetry, language, ... |
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 Oct 24, 2009 at 08:13 AM | Comments (0)
Young, classically trained musicians churning out alternative sounds on ... - Kansas City Star
Young, classically trained musicians churning out alternative sounds on ... Kansas City Star ... these ensembles perform any and all music, from Steve Reich to Radiohead, Javanese gamelan to the Renaissance composer Josquin, in instrumentations that ... |
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 Oct 24, 2009 at 05:12 AM | Comments (0)
Dudamel's inaugural concert in Los Angeles: the virtual experience - Examiner.com
Dudamel's inaugural concert in Los Angeles: the virtual experience Examiner.com Each movement has its own major and minor climaxes; and, in that spirit that I continue to admire in the conducting work of Pierre Boulez, Dudamel knew ... |
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 Oct 24, 2009 at 02:12 AM | Comments (0)
October 23, 2009
An audience with Renée Fleming - Times Online
 Times Online | An audience with Renée Fleming Times Online There has been a new album (the verismo disc that prompts the London concert), a premiere by the French composer Charles Dutilleux, the London Traviata and ... |
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 Oct 23, 2009 at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)
News and otherwise
Levine on the mend.El Sistema comes to the New England Conservatory.
And URL soteriology:
Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 23, 2009 at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)
Chicago musicians return for hometown recital, Oct. 31 - Goshen College News
Chicago musicians return for hometown recital, Oct. 31 Goshen College News He works with leading composers including William Bolcom, Pierre Boulez, John Harbison, Lee Hyla, Bernard Rands, Augusta Read Thomas and Kaija Saariaho. ... |
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 Oct 23, 2009 at 08:13 PM | Comments (0)
Maryanne Amacher - Chicago Reader
Maryanne Amacher Chicago Reader Although the one-time Stockhausen student released two stunning albums for John Zorn's Tzadik label in the last decade—including last year's remarkable ... |
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 Oct 23, 2009 at 08:13 PM | Comments (0)
November Events Presented by The UAB Department of Music - UAB News
 UAB News | November Events Presented by The UAB Department of Music UAB News The program features new works of electro-acoustic and experimental music by UAB student composers. This concert includes a performance of Steve Reich's ... |
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 Oct 23, 2009 at 08:13 PM | Comments (0)
Kevin Volans Day, preview - Telegraph.co.uk
 Telegraph.co.uk | Kevin Volans Day, preview Telegraph.co.uk ... especially under Stockhausen, but moved away from his brand of modernism. 'Serialism balances everything out. What I love about African music and ... |
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 Oct 23, 2009 at 08:13 PM | Comments (0)
Weekend Classical Music Picks - Chicagoist
 Chicagoist | Weekend Classical Music Picks Chicagoist While programming the rest of the concert, the clarinetists noticed a "bird" theme developing, particularly with explicit references in Elliott Carter's ... |
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 Oct 23, 2009 at 08:13 PM | Comments (0)
The Cereal List On Hiatus
Dear readers,
The Cereal List apologizes for our temporary hiatus. As you may have heard, we have been accused of libel and threatened with a lawsuit. Our lawyers advise us to temporarily suspend our operations until the matter has been resolved. We expect to be up and running again sometime next week. Thank you for your patience.
Sincerely,
Milton Blabber and The Cereal List staff
Originally posted by Milton Blabber from The Cereal List, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 23, 2009 at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)
Sheet upon sheet
I began work on this passage by constructing the chord . . . wanted a rich (but ‘gauzy’) chord for (mostly high) winds. Hearkening back to work on my doctoral dissertation (Uncondyssion’d Ayres), I decided to construct it as a ‘spiral’ of interval classes (1,2,1,2,3,2,3,[4…]) . . . thus on the penultimate staff, from the bottom: B [interval class 1] C [i.c. 2] D [i.c. 1] E-flat [i.c. 2] F [i.c. 3] A-flat [i.c. 2] B-flat [i.c. 3] D-flat.
A spontaneously whimsical (maybe) decision was to make the full chord a mirror of itself; so on that same staff, working downwards from above the staff: D [i.c. 1] C# [i.c. 2] B [i.c. 1] A# [i.c. 2] G# [i.c. 3] F(-natural) [i.c. 2] E-flat [i.c. 3] C.
‘By ear’ I thought I should prefer some other pitch content, so further to the right on that staff are two transpositions of the top ‘octachord’, first up a minor third from the D, and then up a further major second to G, which produced the 16-note chord which I want.
The second line as a parallel pattern, a free-ish spin-off of the first; and below I have assigned eight winds each to the two patterns.
And this is the ‘realization’ on MS. of all the non-notational scribblings of the top three sheets.
Discreet Erasures ticker: [current data not available] 12:00 AM Friday, 23 Octoberass="blogger-post-footer">
Originally from henningmusick, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 23, 2009 at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)
Splice and Stutter
Today on The Csound Blog, we’re going to learn how to build a loop-based sampler out of common household ingredients.
Listen: mp3
Download: splice_and_stutter.csd, BT Sample Pack (13.2 MB)
Here’s a brief rundown of today’s example. A drum loop is loaded into an f-table with the instrument LoadSample. The instrument SampleEngine plays back selective parts of the loop. Instruments Basic, Stutter and Random are interface instruments that simplify the process of triggering samples.
The LoadSample instrument loads a sample into an f-table, while storing information about the sample into an ad hoc data structure created from chn busses. Here isn’t the place to go into detail. I will say that it is akin to a C struct, and stores the file name, sample rate, length of file (in samples), the tempo, and the number of beats (quarter notes) in the loop. All the user-defined opcodes are support opcodes for the data structure.
SampleEngine is the heart of this piece. It works by triggering discreet notes from within the loop, with the loop offset being determined by input it receives via p-field 7. The offset unit is in beats. Let’s say the loop is 16 beats long. A passed value of 0 plays the first quarter note. A value of 1 plays the second quarter note of the loop, etc.
This instrument is designed to be played by other instruments, rather than being triggered directly by a score i-event. That is…
Instead of having multiple samplers that do various things, I created a single complex sampler engine that is capable of a wider range of tricks. The problem with complex instruments in Csound is that writing score events can be cumbersome to write and certainly hard to read, especially when dealing with several parameters. This is where the interface instruments come into play.
The interface instruments Basic, Stutter and Random help us tame the complexity of SampleEngine by reducing the number of p-fields needed by the score, and by defining clear behaviors. Basic is a no thrills controller that simply triggers part of the loop. Stutter, well, stutters. Random randomly picks a beat and plays it.
A greatly added benefit to this approach is that the score is much easier to read. Instead of trying to figure out if a particular i-event stutters or not by scanning a row of numbers, one can just casually look at the name of the instrument used. To put it another way, does this stutter?
i 5 7 1 0.25 0.5 100 12 0.083 1 0
How about this?
i $Stutter 7 1 0.25 0.5 100 12 [1 / 12]
There are a lots of ins and outs to today’s example. And I admit, I skipped over most of them. If there is a particular issue or issues you wish for me to expand on, comment below, and I’ll make it a priority to blog about it in the future.
This sampler is a derivitive work based on an instrument co-developed by Jean-Luc Sinclair (aka Jean-Luc Cohen) and myself back in 2006. The loop in today’s example is by BT (aka Brian Transeau), released under a Creative Commons attribution license, and released as part of the OLPC Sample Library. You can obtain this sample and others here. (13.2 MB