I admit I attempted composing for opera long ago as an undergraduate. I remember seeing the Los Angeles Opera’s production of Billy Budd in the late ’90s and then seeing their production of Peter Grimes in the early 2000s, and I was convinced I absolutely had to write an opera.
Before his 18th birthday, Aaron Parks had released four CDs. After a five-year stint with Terence Blanchard and now 30, he participates in a wide array of musical endeavors, from his own polyglot material to guesting on an indie-rock album and collaborating with Korean-born vocalist Yeahwon Shin. In everything he does, he is fully present.
In March and April in Los Angeles, the concert calendar becomes impossibly saturated. These are just a few highlights from Maximum Minimalism, WasteLAnd, plus recent What’s Next Ensemble and Timur and the Dime Museum performances.
The albums featured this week include Glenn Kotche’s Adventureland, Troubadour Blue by Nils Bultmann, and Ryonen by Man Forever with So Percussion. Come have a listen!
Keeril Makan’s Letting Time Circle Through Us and Bernard Rands’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (with pianist Jonathan Biss) premiered in Boston.
Become Ocean by John Luther Adams has been awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Music. The work, premiered on June 20, 2013 by the Seattle Symphony, was described in the citation as “a haunting orchestral work that suggests a relentless tidal surge, evoking thoughts of melting polar ice and rising sea levels.”
The American Academy in Rome has named the winners in the 118th annual Rome Prize Competition. Of this year’s 30 recipients, two prizes were awarded in the field of music composition.
This is how I remember Fred Ho: brazen honesty, sharp-tongued wit, vibrant virtuosity in every area of life. I was one of the lucky ones: I got to look into Fred’s eyes and tell him I love him one last time.
In the areas of music composition and music research, a total of 12 applicants were awarded fellowships.
If one wants contemporary music to remain in the academy, how do we take its social behavior and make it contrarian, vital? How can we combat the characteristically academic forms of racism, sexism, and other discriminating obstacles to thought and speech? And if one wants to find it a new home, where can it go?
Pondering identity-protective cognition “is to stare into a kind of intellectual abyss.” Nevertheless, it is a task that seems particularly worthwhile from time to time if we, as artists, are to truly reflect the—inevitably social—human condition.
When I suggest to undergrads that they should take what is now called a “gap year,” the first question they blurt out is, “What will I do?”
“Get a job,” I say.
Willie Nelson and Lyle Lovett have been honored as the Official Texas State Musician of the Year in the past, but last year’s honoree was Conspirare founder and artistic director Craig Hella Johnson. There’s a very good reason for that.
In this new and somewhat turbulent era for classical music, our own personal success isn’t just about us anymore. The old model is no longer relevant because simply having a job or being a superstar doesn’t necessarily contribute to our communities or to our art.
Both in terms of Douglas Detrick’s compositions and the performances by his trumpet/sax/cello/bassoon/drums quintet, The Bright and Rushing World is a true hybrid of the aesthetics and sensibilities of jazz and contemporary classical music.
Matthew Ritchie, currently in the midst of an 18-month stint as the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston’s artist-in-residence, presented his collaborative piece Monstrance/Remonstrance with an impressive group of collaborators including Shara Worden, Bryce Dessner, Evan Ziporyn, and David Sheppard.
The program is a partnership between Boosey & Hawkes, the New World Symphony, and the San Francisco Symphony designed to develop the professional careers of emerging composers in the Americas.
The $75,000 awards recognize mid–career, risk–taking artists in dance, film/video, music, theatre, and visual arts. Roberts was chosen as the winner in music for her “charismatic, powerful renderings of sound.”
It seems like the entire audience problem debate stubbornly looks outward, asking questions about marketing, “outreach,” and accessibility, all the while carefully avoiding some seriously necessary self-examination. Instead of an audience problem, I think new music has a quality problem.
For as much as it stirs the pot when a “serious music” review mentions the soloist’s hem line, it turns out things get even more heated when pop goes under the cold lens of the theoretical magnifying glass.
Lately I’ve been reflecting more and more on how I’ve dealt with rejections and supposed failure as a young composer. Because I now teach at a small liberal arts college, I constantly see and interact with a sea of undergrads. And because of their presence, I am reminded of how I dealt with what I perceived as devastating defeat upon experiencing rejection.
Snider will compose a new work that will be given its premiere in the 2015-16 season. In addition to concerts presenting her work, Snider will receive a $10,000 prize and a one-month residency at the Ucross Foundation, an artist’s retreat in northern Wyoming.
From among 112 eligible applicants, 8 composers have been awarded $12,500 to support the development of their compositions as part of a two-year initiative to increase diversity across the field.
Providing great performances and cultural snapshots of Austin then and now, Copland and Mexico and Brooklyn Rider gave us an inside look into where we’ve been and where we’re going.
