As crazy as it sounds, even with the dorm living quarters and cafeteria food (not to mention the powder-blue uniforms), summer camp promises to be a very satisfying place for a composer.
Jazz Camp West’s non-institutional environment and the lack of age limitations are what make the camp unique. I would add that the lack of emphasis on jazz vs. funk vs. mambo vs. samba vs. hip-hop is a contributing factor. But probably the single most important factor in fostering a sense of community among the campers and faculty is the lack of cell phone service and difficulty in accessing the internet.
The 2012 Iditarod, as the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice finale has come to be called, clocked in at more than eleven hours—the longest since I’ve been going. In the end, eleven hours wasn’t all that bad—the sheer bulk of time encouraging a get-comfortable attitude that made every piece feel a little more generous than it might on a regular concert.
Anthony Cheung, French composer Franck Krawczyk, and Hungarian composer/conductor Peter Eötvös will share in the 2011 Marie-Josée Kravis Prize for New Music at the New York Philharmonic at the request of inaugural recipient Henri Dutilleux. The 2012 Kravis Emerging Composer will be American Sean Shepherd.
Musicians and researchers must work together to build a streaming music service that is musically and technologically sophisticated, appealing to audiences, fair to musicians, and conducive to direct engagement between the two. We must be involved in this next phase of creation, or we leave the future of music up to others.
Throughout my life as a musician, I’ve always felt like two different composers: the person penning my current music and the creator of the idealized visions that exist only in the most crepuscular regions of my mind.
For the inaugural session this summer, five composers from across the U.S. have been invited to participate in this intensive, annual, all-scholarship creative workshop and mentoring program.
Remaining mindful of how music might be more effectively disseminated and appreciated, and ensuring that it can be an economically viable activity, is of paramount importance to anyone interested in the future of music. And such discussions need to happen everywhere, even in a place surrounded by ancient history.
Recent composer-based and concert-based activity has gotten me thinking about that nebulous time and space between the point where a piece of music has been created and the point where a listener/audience member first experiences that same piece.
I had to stop reading Scottish Church Music after a while. Not because of its content, which I find fascinating, but because the service staff and the fellow sitting next to me were making remarks about my reading something that included musical notation.
San Antonio has a vibrant musical community, and the chamber ensemble Soli is among the strongest proponents of new music in the region. Formed in 1994, Soli has commissioned 17 works in as many years, including the May 8 world premiere of Steven Mackey’s Prelude to the End.
I have participated in many different festivals, institutes, and readings, but the Duffy Institute is unlike any other. While it provides an opportunity to hear one’s work performed, it also fosters friendships and collaborations among the composers, performers, librettists, and directors in residence.
Apart from the time we take for performances, networking, promoting our work, etc., I am fascinated by how we composers inhabit our composer-clocks. Writing time: where is it, when is it, how is it.
The more I hang out with scientists and engineers—and this seems to happen more and more often these days—the more I feel like an incorrigible composer. No matter how much knowledge and lingo I absorb, it sometimes seems that our goals or areas of concern are fundamentally different.
The mission of the 25-member a capella ensemble Volti is to think outside the box of choral music, and to continue expanding that landscape by commissioning new works and championing the music of living, breathing composers. In its latest CD House of Voices, Volti brings its exceptional musicality to the table once again.
I recently began to feel hemmed in by the world around me. After a great deal of thought, I realized that this visceral sensation derived from my lack of recent exposure to wide open spaces.
I’ll take the composers over the consultants every time so thankfully music, particularly new music, was the focal point most of the time at the Chorus America conference and the concurrent ChoralConnections convening organized by the American Composers Forum.
Founded by Patricia Parker in 1996, the festival is the temporal sonic canvas for Arts for Art, Inc., “a multicultural, artist-initiated and artist-run organization whose purpose is to build awareness and understanding of avantjazz and related expressive movements.”
This was not a “kingmaker” contest, but one that truly strove for diversity and a wide net. The winners (all eleven of them!) were announced on June 15, and I had the privilege of speaking with Hilary Hahn herself about the contest.
Following my recent open letter to new music performers, I thought it might be worth turning a critical eye on composerly habits that can grate on others and stunt personal growth.
Mazzoli, currently working on her second full-length opera, was chosen from over 100 applicants for the position and now has the opportunity to follow a personalized, three-year development track focused on the advancement of her career as an operatic composer.
Welch’s music is the by-product of an unlikely blend—Indonesian gamelan, Scottish bagpipes, and indie rock. While these types of music might initially seem completely unrelated, Welch has found his compositional voice in their common ground.
When I listen to this kind of music, I imagine I am like an animal listening to human music, perceiving some dim reflection off a distant surface.
The famous “zone,” the state of mind that allows people to do things that appear superhuman, seems to be a place where things slow down.
