With the first languid lines of “The Sea,” My Brightest Diamond seduces those listening to Letters to Distant Cities (New Amsterdam) into a waking dream.
The American Music Center and Meet The Composer announced today their intention to merge into a new advocacy and service organization, New Music USA; the American Composers Forum will take on AMC’s membership and professional development services.
By Frank J. Oteri
Whereas clothing is about surfaces, music is never on the surface; yet music exists in a world which is all about surfaces and fashions which are ever changing.
A key element in improvising music is the ability to anticipate one’s sound. It’s always easier to play when you know that when you go to play a certain note, it will sound right. Imagine playing a piano where all of the B-flats and the D-naturals have been reversed. It could seriously cramp one’s style. I had a something of a similar experience last night.
While there are many successful composers who discover composition either in middle school or high school, attend one of a handful of strong composition programs for undergraduate and graduate studies, and enter the workforce either in academia or as a successful freelance composer, there have been many others that come from all corners of our society and, in many cases, forge their own place in the musical community much more easily because of their non-traditional backgrounds.
One of the things that makes me hopeful about humans is that despite our considerable foibles, we have a tendency to want to deal with difficult events and unresolved conflicts by reengaging them rather than avoiding them. In the short term we may choose to flee, but in the long run even this impulse is superseded by the desire for closure (for some), or for others perhaps just the savor of a good challenge.
The title of this post is taken from an eloquent blog post by Matthew Guerrieri, in response to this essay by Justin Davidson about the “New New York School” of composers. In a nutshell, Davidson complains that for all the talent evident in the bustling New York City new music scene, the actual music written by composers represented in current festivals such as Tully Scope, the Tune-In Festival, and the Ecstatic Music Festival is “shockingly tame.”
Last week was our spring break here at the University of Minnesota, thankfully; I kept myself busy with enough projects, each at a different stage of completion, to keep me constantly on edge for fear of forgetting one of them. Some of these projects are remunerative and some non-, so occasionally it strikes me that I could be prioritizing them accordingly—but of course it’s not that simple.
If today’s art world truly resembled today’s musical world, “popular art” would be a thriving multi-billion dollar industry, but there’d also be “classical art” exhibited in small, subsidized museums catering to the rarefied tastes of a small minority of connoisseurs who believed strongly in the intrinsic superiority of long-dead artists, and “contemporary high-art” populated by un-popular living artists.
Johanna Magdalena Beyer’s works for percussion ensemble, which are the highlights of a new disc devoted to forgotten American percussion music of the 1930s, are worthy of standing alongside Ionisation and the compositions of Cage as cornerstones of the percussion repertoire.
Growing up in Los Angeles, I never felt attuned to the seasons. I was vaguely aware that it rained more in January and that the jacarandas would bloom in March, but generally time flowed from one day into the next without any sense of seasonal shifts. Even in the coldest months, residents of southern California are able to enjoy the outdoors without recourse to heavy coats, and most trees retain their leaves throughout the year.
By Frank J. Oteri
The things we can do can make a difference in immediate and tangible ways.
By Ratzo B. Harris
The necessity to compensate for what someone else plays makes the notion of improvisation antithetical to that of composition, which is divorced from the performance milieu by many degrees.
By Rob Deemer
The more we all can do to fight these stereotypes and show our world for what it is, the better.
By Alexandra Gardner
Just as much effort is required in learning to make good electronic music, as is necessary to write for any unplugged instrument or combination thereof.
By Dan Visconti
I like keeping my projects separate so that their own distinct features and challenges come to the fore, yet I’ve also noticed the advantages of judicious compositional multitasking.
By Colin Holter
Attending a mainstream classical music concert illustrates the bona fide epiphanies that a live performance of Beethoven, Ravel, and Pintscher can afford.
Coming to the USA from Serbia not only jump started Aleksandra Vrebalov’s compositional career early on, it also transformed her and led her to write deeply emotional music which, even though it clearly echoes the centuries-old traditions of her native land, she probably would not and could not have composed had she stayed there.
With Mirror saxophonist and composer Charles Lloyd distinguishes himself as a musician with the ability to experiment and create challenging music without losing touch with his audience.
By David Smooke
All art is inherently political, in that every choice we make when constructing a new work either confirms the status quo or is an act of rebellion
AMC has announced the recipients of its 2011 awards: John Harbison (Founder’s Award), William Bolcom and Copland House (Letters of Distinction), So Percussion (Trailblazer Award), and The Walden School (New Music Educator Award).
By Frank J. Oteri
We have the possibility to be living in a truly golden age of pluralism and possibility, but we’re not taking advantage of the resources.
By Rob Deemer
The method and manner by which a composer ends up assigning a moniker to his or her work will be, I hope, a window into who they are and how we can understand their music.
By Ratzo B. Harris
The amount of time and energy spent on researching, analyzing, and mastering a genre of improvised music is comparable to taking holy orders; but, Lincoln Center Jazz not withstanding, most of the temples erected to American music are for non-improvised music, where a performance might only get a few hours of rehearsal.
