Blogging MIDEM 2013: Part 2 - From Ghanaian to Korean Hip-Hop & More
Filled with excitement about the possibilities of viable music export for the new music community, I wandered the exhibition rooms where elaborate displays of various countries’ musical offerings were on display, often through the support of their governments. There is no such exhibition for the United States, although Texas always has a presence here. Perhaps if we can’t have an official United States presence at MIDEM and other significant music export convenings abroad we can eventually have representation from all 50 states individually–imagine that.
Blogging MIDEM 2013: Part 1 - Cannes We Survive
What began as a trade fair and a giant schmoozefest for exclusive members of the record industry from around the world and folks who wished to join their ranks has gradually transformed into something much more open and perhaps more valuable for the greater music community.
More Media Matters (Part 1)
There is a chasm between the work-a-day world of the so-called “nine-to-fiver,” with a 41.5 hour-per-week allowance for exploring culture, and the world of the freelance, part-time, and unemployed work forces that have more time to listen to, or play—which translates into more time to learn—music.
A Big Tent
Does the national new music community need a professional conference of its own? How would such an endeavor actually work? Who would be the intended audience? Would it be a yearly or biennial event? What umbrella organization would or could provide logistical support?
Close Encounters of the Chamber Music Kind
Last week I attended the Chamber Music America conference for the first time; I was partially there representing NewMusicBox, and partially there to satisfy the curiosity of my composer self.
Cross-Sections and Scholarly Fields: Earle Brown Symposium in Boston
It’s often textbook images of his early scores, rather than all-too-rare performances of the music itself, that form the basis of Earle Brown’s reputation. It was the goal of the Earle Brown: Beyond Notation seminar to rectify this situation and expand the understanding and status of this great American composer and conductor.
Elliot Cole: Hunger for the Opposite
It’s easy to get caught up in the role text and stories frequently play in Elliot Cole’s compositions, but the core of his inspiration turns out to trace more of a pendulum swing: insider vs. outsider, text-rooted vs. pure sound, composer vs. performer, a musician dipping his toes into a wealth of styles and methods along the way.
Scratch That: Cutting Edge or Marginalized?
Five new music angles on the Chamber Music America conference.
Sounds Heard: Ehnahre—Old Earth
Ehnahre, the Boston-based experimental metal group, has a knack for dissonance, amplified into bone-crushing clouts of familiar overdrive distortion. But the real, dark fun of Old Earth (Crucial Blast) is the way the music, fueled by dissonance, constantly slips free of such genre expectations.
Two Concerts, Two Audiences
The Chicago Composers Orchestra concert at the Garfield Park Conservatory and the Third Coast Percussion concert at the University of Chicago each demonstrated how new music concerts can be diverse in content, in venue, and in audience to great effect.
I Vote For Change(s)
The lines between what would be considered “jazz” and what would be considered “aleatoric” improvisation are becoming increasingly blurred. This might, or might not, be accepted as real jazz playing, but it’s important to remember that the musicians who played the music that was originally called “jazz” rejected the term, sometimes vehemently.
Success Stories
It happens with the onset of every new year—as people take a bit of time to assess where they have been and look ahead to where they are going and/or where they wish to go, discussions revolving around the nature of success crop up.
George Manahan To Receive 2012 Ditson Conductor’s Award
American Composers Orchestra Music Director George Manahan will be presented with the 2012 Ditson Conductor’s Award, for his support of American music, during an ACO concert he will conduct at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall on January 18, 2013
When Worlds Collide
I hope that this country’s major orchestral institutions will pay attention to how much the orchestra can be expanded given just a little extra rehearsal time, and throw their immense budgets behind the kind of initiative that the American Composers Orchestra has bravely supported.
New Music for New Ears
While the Tubby the Tuba CD is certainly one tool when it comes to teaching kids about classical music, could it be that we’re underestimating children? When we assume they wouldn’t like or understand a challenging piece of music, we don’t even give them a chance.
Signal to Noise
I promised myself I wouldn’t take the bait dangled by Dan Asia’s screed against John Cage, but it’s turning out to be hard to resist. So instead I’ll try to write about it in the most oblique way I can without being too obtuse.
Scratch That: Nothing More Than Feelings
Does Scratch That seem a little jittery? That’s because we’re packing a suitcase and heading to New York City for the Chamber Music America conference!
Sounds Heard: Mariel Roberts—Nonextraneous Sounds
If anything is clear in the first few moments of Mariel Roberts’s debut CD Nonextraneous Sounds, it’s that this will not be just a polite collection of unremarkable wallpaper works for solo cello. Actually, unless you are already prepared for what’s coming, it’s not even completely clear that a cello is what’s at the forefront of the mix.
More Famous Than You
To me the genre sanctity debates (whether they’re about music that is not popular enough to be “popular” or about music that’s not classical enough to be “classical”) are ultimately about keeping people out. I like letting people in.
8 New Music Projects Among Recipients of Creative Capital’s 2013 Project Grants
Creative Capital has announced its 2013 project grants in the categories of Emerging Fields, Literature and the Performing Arts. Music recipients include Taylor Ho Bynum, Jace Clayton, Corey Dargel, Dohee Lee, and Holcombe Waller.
Matters of Convention
While it might seem paradoxical to some, that an improvising musician would be writing a part for a performance, it’s actually not at all at odds with how improvisation works.
New Music in New Places: After Hours Concerts in Austin
Nielsen and (most of) his Bel Cuore cohorts held court at the Austin Beerworks brewery, located in a warehouse in North Austin. The ticket price for the show covered admittance to the concert, a few beers 1, and an ABW pint glass. Not a bad deal.
Are You Putting Me On?
I am no proselytizer for modernism, but at least I accept that it happened and that our music and culture have been forever altered by it. Nothing is essentially wrong with the “tonal enterprise,” but most of us acknowledge that in the aftermath of the tumultuous 20th-century, we live in a dramatically expanded field of possibilities.
There's an App for That: The Orchestra
The Orchestra iPad app is one of the most persuasive arguments for the Western canon’s vitality and endurance that I’ve encountered, and it does so entirely in subtext, without any grandiose, pompous pronouncements.