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Molly Sheridan

What'll It Be? MATA Composers Give Us a Festival Preview

On April 19, MATA kicks off its 12th annual festival in New York City. Under the banner of “Young Composers—Now!” this four-night event at Le Poisson Rouge includes 14 world premieres— three of them MATA commissions.

Articles
NewMusicBox Staff

86th Annual Guggenheim Fellowships Announced

In its 86th annual competition for the United States and Canada, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded 180 Fellowships to artists, scientists, and scholars, including seven in the category of “Creative Arts: Music Composition.”

Articles
Kevin Gibbs

Insights on Blindness and Composing

I had little or no real appreciation for the constraints that blindness enforced upon my career choices, my creative development, and my entire musical evolution because, having never seen the world as the fully sighted do, I had no way of imagining any other world than the one in which I lived.

Articles
Colin Holter

Degrees of Separation (Composer Edition)

By Colin Holter
A slick application for getting to know and hear composers that also groups them into constellations and allows the user to fritter away his time on the internet? Sounds like solid gold to me.

Articles
Sean Shepherd

The Back Story

By Sean Shepherd
One thing all composers, including myself, slowly begin to realize in the rather slow, often-wrenching transition from wide-eyed kid to seasoned pro is that art imitates life: it’s just not fair.

Articles
Frank J. Oteri

Same As It Ever Was

By Frank J. Oteri
The most experimental music, however impractical, often opens our minds to new possibilities and new modalities.

Articles
Trevor Hunter

Sounds Heard: Little Women—Throat

By Trevor Hunter
Considering how brawny Little Women putatively is, it’s conspicuous the wide range of response its capable of eliciting. This is because the members of the group are, in fact, quite smart about their music.

Articles
NewMusicBox Staff

Two Composers Killed in Car Crash

Composers James M. Brody and Franz T. Kamin were both killed in a car crash in Roseville, Minnesota, on Sunday, April 11, 2010.
[UPDATED with audio samples of music by both Brody and Kamin.]

Articles
Jennifer Higdon

Reflections on the Pulitzer

The Pulitzer isn’t just about me or the Violin Concerto; it’s also about something that was reflected in the concert tonight: the myriads of folks who have taught me in various ways.

Articles
NewMusicBox Staff

Jennifer Higdon Awarded 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music

Jennifer Higdon has been awarded the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin Concerto.

Articles
Joelle Zigman

A Vocabulary Lesson from my New Friend Theo

By Joelle Zigman
Upon first read, I was slightly annoyed by Walter Benjamin’s “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” and Theodor Adorno’s “On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening” since it seemed like both essays were taking fairly simple concepts and using extremely verbose language to tell you things any composer could’ve told you.

Articles
Sean Shepherd

3-2-1...Contact!

Composer Sean Shepherd is back to blog his way through the world premiere of his first New York Philharmonic commission, These Particular Circumstances, as part of CONTACT!, the orchestra’s new music series.

Articles
Michael Rickelton

The 2010 Nashville Symphony EarShot Blog: Final Thoughts

By Michael Rickelton
I’m currently sitting in the Detroit airport waiting to return to Baltimore, which has given me some time to reflect on this unique experience I’ve had through EarShot.

Articles
Michael Rickelton

The 2010 Nashville Symphony EarShot Blog: Don't Judge from One Piece!

By Michael Rickleton
I believe we all have pieces that work extremely well, others that work fairly well and some that just don’t work or don’t fully represent who we are as composers.

Articles
Michael Rickelton

The 2010 Nashville Symphony EarShot Blog: An Amazing Day

By Michael Rickleton
The Nashville Symphony has gone out of its way to make our experience one of a kind; they’ve even gone as far as to provide each composer with a private dressing room (which by the way is about as big as my apartment in Baltimore).

Articles
DanVisconti

Total Immersion

By Dan Visconti
Opera requires two skills that are of supreme importance to all composers, but also skills that many composers find difficult to acquire.

Articles
Michael Rickelton

The 2010 Nashville Symphony EarShot Blog: I Don't Deserve Special Treatment

By Michael Rickleton
The orchestra’s view of the composer as a professional, however, can be quickly thwarted by a careless proofreading mistake made by a “young” composer.

Articles
Colin Holter

The Agony of Delete

By Colin Holter
Do you blow through pages and pages of music only to toss it out on a regular basis, or does it still burn you to chuck the fruits of your efforts?

Articles
Julieanne Klein

Electric Influence

What is the future of “classical” music when the far reaches of a composer’s mind can be fantasized, realized, synthesized and digitally reproduced within a matter of hours, all from the comfort of one’s own bedroom, all without using a single performer or acoustic instrument?

Articles
Frank J. Oteri

Sounds Heard: Gino Robair—I, Norton: An Opera in Real Time

By Frank J. Oteri
Gino Robair’s I, Norton, a self-described “opera in real time,” is a brand new kind of music theatre platform that is every bit as wild and eccentric as its subject.

Articles
Frank J. Oteri

The Times of the Day

By Frank J. Oteri
Few people drink single malt scotch with breakfast or eat pancakes for dinner, yet a similar attention to such details when it comes to the creation and experience of music seems like a barrier to free expression or accessibility.

Articles
NewMusicBox Staff

ASCAP Names 37 Recipients of the 2010 Morton Gould Young Composer Awards

ASCAP Foundation President Paul Williams has announced the 37 recipients of the 2010 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards.

Articles
Joelle Zigman

Imagining a Body Image

By Joelle Zigman
I wonder about self-presentation in the music business.

Articles
Michael Rickelton

The 2010 Nashville Symphony EarShot Blog: Preparing Parts

By Michael Rickelton
I’m sure many other composers would agree with me that creating parts is an incredibly important step in the creation of a new piece, but the process can be excruciatingly boring and it almost (I emphasize almost) makes you ask, “Is it really worth it?”

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NewMusicBox receives major support from the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts and The ASCAP Foundation.

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NewMusicBox is funded in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and with support from The Aaron Copland Fund for Music and The Amphion Foundation, Inc. Support for New Music USA and its many programs and activities is provided by foundations, corporations, government agencies, and hundreds of individual contributors.

NewMusicBox receives major support from the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts and The ASCAP Foundation. NewMusicBox is funded in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and with support from The Aaron Copland Fund for Music and The Amphion Foundation, Inc. Support for New Music USA and its many programs and activities is provided by foundations, corporations, government agencies, and hundreds of individual contributors.