2004: Keys to the Kingdom
Sure, Mark Zuckerberg and pals launched Facebook in 2004, but NewMusicBox was already cruising into its 5th anniversary by that point. For the traditionalists in the house, the appropriate gift is wood, which we needed because the year was rife with arguments over genre fence lines.
Trite & True
Staying true to your artistic vision is much easier said than done. Oftentimes, when we cater to what we think people will want instead of what we truly believe in (in actuality, we really know only one of those two things), time is wasted on creating mediocre work.
Peter Sellars and Chuck Berry Win 2014 Polar Prize
Operatic director Peter Sellars and rock icon Chuck Berry are the two recipients of the 2014 Polar prize. Each recipient receives a total amount of one million SEK (roughly $160,000 US).
2003: Difficult Memories
In terms of world affairs, 2003 was probably one of the most turbulent years. So did that play out in the music? It depends on how you want to think about it.
Leo Kraft (1922-2014): Spiky, Tart, and Fierce but also Sweet and Gentle
That’s how I will always remember Leo Kraft: in the thick of it. He was always engaged. He didn’t just show up to life, he participated fully. And his music was never “easy”; he cared too much about music and the art of listening for it to be “easy.”
Trying to Put On Those 2002 Glasses
What music most appropriately captures the zeitgeist of 2002? Steve Reich’s Daniel Variations (created in response to the shocking February 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal’s South Asia Bureau Chief Daniel Pearl) was not composed until 2006, but another Reich work, his apocalyptic Three Tales (created in collaboration with Beryl Korot) immediately stands out in my mind.
Games Played: FRACT OSC
Described as a “musical exploration game inspired by synthesizers,” FRACT OSC places you in an abstract neon landscape somewhere between Myst and Tron, and the environment is peppered with various kinds of music-making machinery. You’re in a world literally made of sound.
The Odyssey of 2001
When looking back at 2001 for its musical significance, all I can say is that music is ultimately what kept us going when the events of September 11 unfolded in New York City.
Music and Place
It seems there are two ways to negotiate our complex, diverse, and global web of music-making: Either jockey the heck out of everything, as if it is all free gain, or retreat to the rooted, familial plane, and herd with your local community.
The 2000 Man—What Century Was This Anyway?
If you don’t know what Y2K is, be thankful, even though it inspired some interesting music.
Partyin’ Like It’s 1999
One thing that hasn’t changed in all these years has been our goal to always be inclusive of the broadest range of music that could be considered “new” American music whether it was notated, improvised in a club, assembled in a studio, or found sound.
NewMusicBox @ 15: Reflections on Change, Challenge, and Music in the 21st Century
May 1 marks NewMusicBox’s 15th anniversary! To celebrate the occasion, we decided to stop looking forward toward new music for a moment and instead consider the lessons of what we’ve heard so far.
Chicago: For Practically Everyone—New Label Finds Our Musical Soft Spots
Matt Pakulski, the founder of new Chicago record label FPE, discusses his wide-ranging tastes, his approach to the curation and creation of musical objects, and the label’s first release—an album from Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Ensemble.
Sounds Heard: Thomas DeLio—Selected Compositions (1991-2013)
Neuma catalog items 450-108 and 450-201 are, respectively, a CD and a DVD (whose job is mostly to support multichannel audio; only one piece includes a video component) that together represent a 22-year retrospective of the music of Thomas DeLio.
Defining Musical Quality
In this article, I want to expand quality into agency—a thing can only advocate for itself if it can speak. Quality means empowerment–and it requires care.
Austin: Mozart Requiem--Undead
Mozart Requiem: Undead is the brainchild of Graham Reynolds, Peter Stopchinski, and Brent Baldwin. The trio commissioned Glenn Kotche, Caroline Shaw, DJ Spooky, Adrian Quesada, Kate Moore, Todd Reynolds, Petra Hayden, and Justin Sherburn to “finish” the Requiem based on a computer analysis of the original manuscript.
13 Emerging Composers Selected for June 2014 Readings and Performances by NY Philharmonic & American Composers Orchestra
From an international pool of more than 400 applicants from 37 states and 7 additional countries and ranging in age from 9 to 84, 13 original scores for orchestra have been chosen for readings and performances by the New York Philharmonic and the American Composers Orchestra as part of the inaugural NY Phil Biennial.
So You Want To Start An Opera Company...
You and your librettist (and co-collaborator for most artistic things in your life) decide that the way around the non-performances and non-workshops of your work is to create a small opera company. This totally can be done, you think. You got this.
And then you do it.
Lapsed Composer and Curmudgeonly Critic Reveals All About the Reviewing Racket!
There will always be some new music I will never cover and sometimes I feel conflicted about this but there is only so much time. And even if I were able to produce words for everything that passes my way, there would then be a fair amount of neutral or negative criticism, which I think would do a disservice.
Doris Duke Artist and First-Ever Impact Awards Announced
Doris Duke Artist Award recipients receive $275,000, and Doris Duke Impact Award recipients receive $80,000. Since commencing in April 2012, the program has awarded a total of $18.1 million to artists in the fields of jazz, dance, and theater.
Sounds Heard: 17 More Takes on those 88 Keys
Two pianists who recently caught my attention with new releases devoted exclusively to American music composed within the last quarter century are Nicholas Phillips and Mary Kathleen Ernst. All in all, 17 composers are represented on these discs, showing that the instrument that once was a mainstay in households all across the land still has a home in the 21st century.
![String quartet
My other photo and video files on music and dance theme
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Performing Quality
To me, the weird division of labor between composing works and playing concerts puts musicians in a difficult position. Performers have become new music’s coerced mouthpiece of accountability. The student summer festival provides the clearest case study for this skewed power dynamic.
Austin: Fast Fo(u)rward
Fast Forward Austin is run by three Austin ex-pats who know what the town is all about and who keep that in mind when putting this annual circus together.
Chicago: Relearning to Listen--New Piano Music for Children
For her most recent commissioning project, composer and pianist Joann Cho invited a large group of composers to write a solo piano piece for her and asked them to write their piece “for children.”
