Ellen Reid Wins 2019 Pulitzer Prize
p r i s m, an opera by Ellen Reid, has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music. The annually awarded $15,000 prize is for a distinguished musical composition by an American that has had its first performance or recording in the United States during the previous year.
Opening Concepts—The Themes That Shape Each Year’s Edition of Classical:NEXT
After raising my glass to the visitors at the welcome reception, I’ll already be looking forward to the first sounds of our opening concert. You can sense the hunger of the hundreds of art music people, and it’s a clear reminder that there remains no substitute for people meeting each other in person.
A Newly Endowed Residency Program for Underrepresented Composers
Why are the seventy northeastern Ohio high-schoolers in this room so psyched to be playing music nobody’s ever played before? The short answer: because of Arlene and Larry Dunn, whose most recent gift to NOYO has endowed its composer-in-residence program.
Teamwork in the Conservatory: In the Game of Music, We Can All Win
Creative artists come from different backgrounds with varying life experiences that contribute to our own unique skill sets. Rather than competing against each other, we can utilize our individual knowledge to work together and create immensely beautiful things. Life’s much more fun when you work with others!
What kind of music do you write?
What kind of music do you write? Composers get this question all the time, and the answer can often be quite complicated. However, the language that they ultimately use to describe their work is incredibly interesting and should not be ignored.
Seeking to Facilitate the “New Normal”
I’m sitting on a train en route to the Czech Republic just after treading numerous, long-haul carbon footprints on musical discovery trips between my Berlin home and Miami, New York City, Cape Town, and Johannesburg. Not unusual in my life since starting work on Classical:NEXT, an annual international art music professionals’ gathering, and these travels reinforce for me the importance of cross-cultural pollination.
2019 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Awards Announced
ASCAP Foundation President Paul Williams today announced the recipients of the 2019 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards.
I Came Here With Nothing: 21st-Century Paths in Music Education
Danielle Ferrari was a very lost graphic design major when she was accepted into the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s groundbreaking Technology and Applied Composition program. But she found an educational gold mine that allowed her to learn everything she needed and more to be happy as a music creator.
In A Novel About New Music, Do Re Mi Meets DNA
Not only do many composers of new music have trouble finding an audience for their music, they–unlike writers and detectives–are rarely portrayed in novels. One notable exception is the 2014 novel Orfeo by Richard Powers, whose protagonist is a contemporary composer who inadvertently demonstrates how avant-garde music can reach “hundreds of thousands of listeners.”
Pro-Tips and Scripts: Autistic Accessibility in Music
People who want to attend artistic events exist in *all* kinds of bodies and have all kinds of needs. Wrapping up her four-part Introductory Course to Improving Autistic Accessibility in Music, Chrysanthe Tan shares pro-tips, concrete ways to take positive action, and sample scripts for a variety of music-related scenarios.
“This event is probably not unique”: On communication and metaphor in Robert Ashley’s Improvement
Rebecca Lentjes explores communication and metaphor in Robert Ashley’s opera “Improvement (Don Leaves Linda)” and how the work arrives at big ideas through a focus on particular microcosms of American life.
Q&A: Autistic Accessibility in Music
This week, Chrysanthe Tan opens up her “Autistic Accessibility in Music” series of columns to address reader-submitted questions, covering topics like sensory-friendly rooms, classroom techniques, wheelchair accessibility, stimming, and more!
Quick Cuts for Big Ears
With only a week to go until the kickoff of the 2019 edition of the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN (March 21-24), we’ve been digging through the NewMusicBox archives and revisiting the amazing conversations we’ve had with some of this year’s featured artists to get ready for what’s ahead.
18 Composers Receive 2019 ASCAP Foundation Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Awards
The ASCAP Foundation has announced the 18 recipients and 4 honorable mentions of the 2019 Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Awards. The recipients, who receive cash awards, range in age from 11 to 29 and hail from five continents.
Master Guide to Improving Autistic Accessibility in Music
An organized, actionable reference guide to help you enact a permanent framework for autistic accessibility in your musical efforts.
Artist Financial Profile: Tony Manfredonia, Game Music and Orchestral Composer
There is no one way to make a living in music. But knowledge is power, so Adam Schumaker has recruited some amazing musicians who have generously agreed to openly discuss their finances and how they make it all work.
At the Intersection of Digital Audible Histories and Experimental Music Practice
Seth Cluett takes NewMusicBox readers on a tour of his fascinating “Sounding Circuits: Audible Histories” exhibition now on display at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. It features rare objects, artifacts, and recordings from the early history of electronic music, plus an 8-channel Ambisonic Cube as its centerpiece.
An Open Letter From Your Autistic Colleague
Musicians, arts administrators, colleagues: It’s time we talk about autism.
The Voice in the Machine
Our inclination to hear the human in the machine is far from new. Technology is as old as humanity. Perhaps we have always seen—and heard—ourselves in our tools.
‘Singers and Musicians’ Part 2: On Conductors, Identity, and Musical Segregation
Every identity comes with inherent biases, assumptions, and privileges to varying degrees. A helpful exercise is to take an identity and think of the immediate mental image that comes to mind when you invoke it. Let’s take “conductor.” Picture a conductor in your mind. What does this person look like? What are they doing? What are they wearing? Who is in the frame with them?
"Hearing" the Hammond Organ
The Hammond Organ became an immediate success when it hit the market in April 1935 and had a major impact on the soundscape of both popular and religious musical life in the U.S. However, advertising that pitted the instrument against pipe organs stoked outrage among a small but well-organized community of pipe organ performers, designers, and manufacturers. A remarkable legal battle ensued…
Plus Ça Change: Florence B. Price in the #BlackLivesMatter Era
Is the sudden widespread interest in Florence B.Price’s music a convenient fad or does it signal the potential for deeper structural changes over the long term?
On Networking: A National Conference Preview
For five days, choral leaders will meet in one place and be inspired by performances, attend interest sessions presented by teachers they admire, and forge new connections that—for the composers present—often lead to new commissioning projects and second and third performances of just-written works.
“Splendid Sonority and Vivid Expressiveness”: The Theremin before Sci-Fi
Years before Hollywood cemented the theremin’s association with the alien or otherworldly, critics heard different qualities in its sonority: emotional expressiveness and excessive sentimentality.
