By David Smooke
That the longest night of the year is bisected by such a beautiful phenomenon allows for a pause in my daily routine and for me to consider my connection with those who preceded me, who might have wondered whether the moon would ever reappear.
By Frank J. Oteri
I thought it would be fun to compile a list (feel free to add to it) of things that I don’t have because they don’t exist—namely, recordings of important musical works and/or performances that somehow, despite the seeming infinite supply of audio recordings, still have not been released.
By Dan Visconti
When we permit ourselves to stop grasping and just let the experience happen, accepting it, then therein lies the greatest possibility for eventual understanding, albeit on a level we may not have expected to engage.
By Alexandra Gardner
Lately quite a few people have been asking me about issues surrounding audio production and electronic music composition, such as tips and tricks to help effectively incorporate electronic music into their instrumental compositions. I wanted to share my reply to a student’s inquiry.
By Colin Holter
I’ve had the good fortune to work with a handful of European conductors and a few American ones, and I have to say, I certainly don’t feel that the Europeans have a self-evident edge.
Upon first listen to composer Oscar Bettison’s music, most striking are the strangely disconcerting yet beguiling sound worlds that are created with relatively standard instrumental forces.
By David Smooke
While I believe every aspect of composers’ lives should be considered work, I also believe that in order to live a balanced life we should allow room for play.
Amplifications is a snow storm of a record, a beautiful heap of sound with some sharp icicle edges buried inside, a 35-minute shower of glistening sonic elements that transfix the ear with their beauty and only reveal their true weight once the storm is over.
By Frank J. Oteri
There have been very few examples in music history of significant works that involved the decisions of more than one composer, but might more powerful and balanced notated musical compositions result if there were more frequent collaborations between composers?
By Alexandra Gardner
It is truly exciting when audiences grow accustomed to, and in fact expect to interact with, both the musicians performing the music and the composers creating that music.
By Dan Visconti
I have heard the term “unmelodic” applied both by a grandmother decrying some techy death metal band and also by and pop/rock-loving teen explaining to me why the Barber Adagio was boring, and I have witnessed someone who just swoons over Vivaldi claim that Jimi Hendrix was too “rhythmically repetitive” for her tastes.
On any given day, the opportunities to hear live music in Amsterdam are vast; free-improvisation at a squat, experimental electronic music beamed to the moon and back at the local zoo’s planetarium, seasoned street performers, and world-class contemporary music are just a few of the flavorful events this city has to offer.
Many Americans would love to claim Louis Andriessen as ours simply because we recognize so much of us in him and of him in us.
By Colin Holter
If you asked me to describe what I do, “entrepreneurship” wouldn’t be in the first sentence of my response. It probably wouldn’t even be in the first chapter.
United States Artists has introduced a new microphilanthropy site enabling artists to connect with the public and raise money for their creative endeavors, as well as five $50,000 USA Fellowship grants for artistic excellence in music and music journalism.
ASCAP has announced the ensembles, festivals, and presenter members of Chamber Music America who have won this year’s Adventurous Programming Awards.
New World’s lavish issue of four rare Alvin Curran LPs on 3 CDs finally offer listeners an opportunity to hear a new kind of solo music he created in the 1970s which redefined the parameters of music that could be made alone through the technological advances of the day.
By David Smooke
For people with a standard job, work time is by definition any time spent at the place of business. Meanwhile, composers go to concerts, listen to music, play music, and often sit idly staring out a window.
By Frank J. Oteri
Rather than constantly be a neophyte with a brand new gadget, attempting a deeper level of understanding has always been more important to me.
By Dan Visconti
I see as a glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak situation, especially for young people of musical inclination: that while the middle class continues to shrink, at least some of that shrinkage might be accounted for by portions of the middle class morphing into a new “creative class” rather than tumbling into poverty
By Alexandra Gardner
Composers working within academic settings throughout the country, and composers working outside of academia (whether or not in big cities) tend to have very different musical world views and value systems.
So many categories, so many shiny gold statues to be distributed!
By Colin Holter
The composers of the Second Viennese School were people too, and that what might have seemed like a system of restraints was more properly a thought-apparatus to allow them to imagine the previously unimaginable.
