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chris.kallmyer

Place, Space, and Music: Experiments in Context

Perhaps new music is not inaccessible, but the concert hall is.

Articles
Frank J. Oteri

Sounds Heard: Dalit Warshaw—Invocations

An unassuming listener to Invocations—the first CD devoted to the music of Boston-based composer Dalit Warshaw—is in for a wonderful shock, the kind of shock that 21st century new music seems to do better than music from any other era.

Articles
David Smooke

Changing Tastes

By David Smooke
I didn’t notice the change while it was occurring, but my entire system of musical values is now completely different from the one I enjoyed a few years ago.

Articles
Ratzo B Harris

Traveling Low

By Ratzo B. Harris
While club owners who also play music are traditionally not up to the standards of the people they hire, this is clearly not the case at Puppet’s.

Articles
Rob Deemer

Why Do We Do This?

By Rob Deemer

The fact that this simple question inspires such a ubiquitous pregnant pause with so many who are successful is a testament, I feel, to what makes composing music so mysterious and alluring—those who do it rarely have a simple, pat answer to such a query.

Articles
NewMusicBox Staff

Eric Ewazen Signed by Presser

Theodore Presser Company has announced that Eric Ewazen (b. 1954) has been signed to its roster of composers.

Articles
DanVisconti

Making Room for New Arrivals

By Dan Visconti
When I first slapped a double bar on a 5-line staff, I had no other pieces that I was building off and no need think ahead; if I took this same approach with each successive piece, I think what might have happened is the compositional equivalent of ordering chocolate ice cream all the time.

Articles
Alexandra Gardner

Strength in Numbers

By Alexandra Gardner

Because the #DWG Twitter event (that stands for Dead White Guys) has already been expertly summarized, I’m not going to attempt any such thing. Rather, I’m interested in addressing why there are not more women (and other non-#DWGs) writing contemporary classical music.

Articles
NewMusicBox Staff

American Academy of Arts and Letters Announces 2011 Music Award Winners

Fifteen composers have receive awards totaling $165,000.

Articles
Colin Holter

Critic-In-Residence

By Colin Holter
There’s something perverse about hiring a critic to supply advermation rather than to write critically.

Articles
Alexandra Gardner

John Mackey: Striking Up The Band

Austin, Texas-based composer John Mackey has been composing almost exclusively for concert band since 2005, and the medium has become his musical calling card.

Articles
Molly Sheridan

Sounds Heard: Lazy Sunday

How I discovered the music of Kenneth Kirschner when I wasn’t looking for it.

Articles
David Smooke

The Journal of Universal Rejection

By David Smooke
The only way for an artist to continually create work that avoids failure is to create work that never truly succeeds.

NewMusicBox Staff

ASCAP Announces 31 Recipients of the 2011 Young Jazz Composer Awards

ASCAP Foundation President Paul Williams has announced the 31 recipients of the 2011 ASCAP Foundation Young Jazz Composer Awards, who range in age from 9 to 29.

Articles
Frank J. Oteri

A Valentine Out of Season

By Frank J. Oteri
Might the fact that so-called contemporary music is not generally something that folks get sentimental about be one of the key reasons it hasn’t reached a larger audience?

Articles
Molly Sheridan

The Grammy Report: Spalding and Daugherty Among Night's Honorees

Composer/bassist/singer Esperanza Spalding named the year’s Best New Artist; Michael Daugherty’s Metropolis Symphony (Naxos) brings him Best Orchestral Performance and Best Classical Contemporary Composition recognition.

Articles
Rob Deemer

Dialogues into Monologues

By Rob Deemer
How present should the interviewer be when the conversation is presented in its final published form?

Articles
NewMusicBox Staff

Steven Schick to Head San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Music Players

The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players has announced the appointment of Steven Schick as artistic director.

Articles
Alexandra Gardner

We're Gonna Program Like It's...1954

By Alexandra Gardner

Given the fact that composers who happen to be female are making a greater worldwide impact than ever before, it boggles my mind that they continue to be overlooked by the larger institutions of our musical world.

Articles
DanVisconti

Don't Be Cool

By Dan Visconti
When I say that “don’t be cool” became some of the best and most useful advice I’ve ever received, what I really mean is: be your own person.

Articles
Colin Holter

Music, Interrupted

By Colin Holter
Movements aren’t just something that exist in a piece—they’re something the composer has said about a piece.

Articles
Tim Rutherford-Johnson

A Journey to Aaron Cassidy's Second String Quartet

As Cassidy talked me through the many stages of planning, sketching, and composing the quartet, it occurred to me that each step was carefully designed to advance the music’s richness without, first, sacrificing the structural propositions of the previous step and, second, requiring him to resort to the limitations of his human imagination.

Articles
David Smooke

Arts Jobs

By David Smooke
By reframing the debate, we might be able to remind people that the arts are a vital part of a thriving economy.

Articles
Frank J. Oteri

Sounds Heard: Ben Johnston—String Quartets Nos. 1, 5, and 10

Spanning five decades and scales ranging from familiar 12-tone equal temperament to an extended just intonation pitch continuum that has more than 1200 discreet pitches per octave, the ten Ben Johnston string quartets are one of the pinnacles of the American chamber music canon, but few have attempted to explore them; so the Kepler Quartet’s second installment on New World Records is cause for ecstatic celebration.

Funders

NewMusicBox receives major support from the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts.

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NewMusicBox is funded in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts; and with support from The Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Alice M. Ditson Fund of Colombia University, and The Amphion Foundation, Inc. Support for New Music USA and its many programs and activities is provided by foundations, corporations, government agencies, and hundreds of individual contributors.

NewMusicBox receives major support from the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts. NewMusicBox is funded in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts; and with support from The Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Alice M. Ditson Fund of Colombia University, and The Amphion Foundation, Inc. Support for New Music USA and its many programs and activities is provided by foundations, corporations, government agencies, and hundreds of individual contributors.