Chicago is a city of individuals with an entrepreneurial streak and a DIY mentality who work hard to build from the ground up, but who are also very interested in finding their shared identity. And Seth Boustead finds that all voices, unique as they may be, are welcome in the search.
Chicago is a particularly concentrated expression of confluences in current culture, and the evidence of this is both the explosive energy of the city’s new music community in recent years and also how hard its characteristics are to pin down.
Inspired by the Ear Taxi Festival’s concentration of activity, we are devoting the week to an examination of the creative energy that fires Chicago from a variety of angles.
Since music from literally any place and time can now be equally with us in the here and now, the once seemingly impenetrable dichotomies of domestic vs. foreign, new vs. old, and us vs. them have become completely porous and ultimately meaningless. It is all equally ours to enjoy, as well as to be the source of inspiration for our own creative impulses.
Making sense of the world we live in seems to be one of the focal points of Adam Rudolph’s life. The way he has chosen to do so is through making music, most of it collaboratively. He could just as well have become a philosopher—he even looks and sounds like one when he speaks—but that would not be hands-on enough for his worldview.
The right expression might involve no joke at all; funny business might be in the improv solo, the notes, and/or (choose carefully, you may have to live a long time with this) the band name.
We’ve done a little restyling just in time for the new season to improve mobile browsing and to bring you even more music, news, and ideas from creators spanning the nation.
Making a living off your music, solely or otherwise, may take some time to achieve. And among the many interim options available, having a day job, related or not to your vocation, shouldn’t be viewed as a matter of shame or a setback.
She was recognized for synthesizing “various musical styles in highly physical, large-scale narrative compositions that reimagine folk traditions and lore and address issues of the American worker.”
Coming from a Jewish background personally did not mean that somebody was necessarily familiar with any intrinsic qualities of klezmer, although—unless they’d developed an aversion through early negative exposure to this sometimes-stigmatized heritage—it usually didn’t hurt.
What does it mean when strangers show up, infiltrate our institutions, assimilate our knowledge, and then leave? Ensemble-in-residence…who does that?
After 20 years as executive leader of American Composers Orchestra (ACO), President and CEO Michael Geller will depart the organization at the end of 2016. He is leaving to attend to personal and family obligations while considering new professional opportunities. ACO’s Board of Directors is seeking a new executive director who will continue to build upon the success and stability that Geller has spearheaded over the past 20 years.
So how can you too hold down a glamorous, innervating office/day job and still find time to fulfill your artistic dreams, musical or otherwise? Here are eight suggestions (some of which I’m sure apply to “full-time” composers as well).
President Obama will present Philip Glass with the National Medal of Arts next week for his “groundbreaking contributions to music and composition.” The event will be live streamed.
Although raised in a musically-oriented New York City family, I only heard most of the genres that are now key inspirations for me during my New England college years and in the decade after (much of which I spent in the progressive Pacific Northwest).
Composing is about who you know…The reasons why you write music will become clearer… Thinking back on the past few years, I suppose I have learned a few things that would have been useful to my 20-something self. So in the spirit of paying it forward, here are some reflections on composing after young-composer-hood.
When your writing time arrives, you embrace it and WRITE.
It took Connie Crothers several years of profound study before she would perform in public. She she eventually began to perform solo, and to experience rejection from the audience. She also offered reasons why her band would not perform more frequently. She was adamant that it had to do with the divide in the jazz world—jazz tunes versus free jazz/free improvisation—and with the fact that she was a woman leader and would be hired less often because of it.
My enthusiasms for “World Music” have been exuberant and far-flung. I also tend to embrace independent, analog media, such as locally-based broadcasts from the heart of a community.
Unlike older, lost civilizations that had no means to record and preserve audio, nor a method for notating musical instruction, we have been preserving sound for 150 years, and digital audio has been accumulating like an avalanche at easily the same speed as digital words. But these are all based on technology and need a means with which to reproduce the sound, from a cylinder player to a set of AA batteries.
Since I lack sufficient instrumental ability to support myself as a performer or the temperament for academia, making a salary in various office capacities has provided several advantages to maintaining a life as an artist, both during my school years and since—even if it is more time consuming than I’d ideally like.
One of the most exciting as well as one of the most articulate groups of DIY new music interpreters is the two piano/two percussion quartet Yarn/Wire. Performing together at the highest possible level now for a decade and working with composers ranging from Alex Mincek and Sam Pluta to Tristan Murail, Misato Mochizuki, and Michael Gordon to craft repertoire for their idiosyncratic instrumental configuration, Yarn/Wire is an extremely important catalyst for music that is happening right now.
With less pressure to produce concrete results, composers and performers tend to create with more verve. This week, a few more Avaloch New Music Institute examples illustrate how friendship can be a vital collaborative tool and how developing trust over a long period of time generates more interesting, sustainable work.
The L.A. based opera company, The Industry, has announced the third installment of its biennial West Coast workshop for new American operas. In February 2017, portions of six new operas-in-progress–composed by Nicholas Deyoe, William Gardiner, John Hastings, Laura Karpman, Marc Lowenstein, and Dylan Mattingly–will be presented as well as the concert premiere of Bonnie and Clyde by composer Andrew McIntosh and librettist Melinda Rice.
