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Ann Starr

Sounds Heard: Steve Butters—Oomaharumooma

Steve Butters’s twenty-three brief movements for solo percussion on a text from Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer were composed, staged, performed, videotaped, and edited in his home studio over the course of six months; it has never been performed since and may never be performed again because of its many technical challenges.

David Smooke

Don't Hem Me in, Bro

By David Smooke
Our teaching of art generally errs towards setting norms, creating a myth of standard musical practices while avoiding discussion of the original thinkers who were uncharacteristic of their times.

Articles
Frank J. Oteri

Getting On The List

By Frank J. Oteri
Opinions seem to have more credibility if they can somehow be parsed as databases, and nowhere do these lists seem more pervasive than in how the pundits write about music.

Articles
NewMusicBox Staff

24 California Artists Awarded Investing In Arts Grants

The Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI) has announced $200,000 in grants to twenty‐four recipients in its Investing in Artists grants program for California artists.

Interviews
Frank J. Oteri

Henry Threadgill: No Compromise

Surprise, but not compromise, is a fundamental component to Henry Threadgill’s aesthetic.

Articles
Alexandra Gardner

Defying Geography

By Alexandra Gardner
Concert simulcasting is taking place more and more throughout the country, making performances available to a significantly broader audience.

Articles
DanVisconti

Musical Graffiti

By Dan Visconti
In the end, it’s lack of feedback that’s truly terrifying in a commercial gig.

Articles
Colin Holter

Making Sparks Fly

By Colin Holter
The Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts is about to light up Minneapolis; for the eighth year, this nigh-week-long freakout will bring artists from all over the world to the Twin Cities to do their respective things.

Articles
Mark N. Grant

Does a Composer's Body Need to be Tuned?

Professional singers and dancers have always been trained to think of their bodies as delicate instruments that need constant maintenance, instrumentalists less so, but is it possible that we have not recognized heretofore that a composer’s body is itself an instrument, too?

Articles
NewMusicBox Staff

Jason Moran Awarded MacArthur "Genius" Grant

The only composer among this year’s 23 fellowship recipients, the so-called $500,000 “Genius grants,” Jason Moran (b. 1975) has been recognized as “the most provocative thinker in current jazz” by Rolling Stone magazine.

Articles
Frank J. Oteri

Sounds Heard: David First—Privacy Issues

While using the “droneworks” moniker perhaps warns folks away from David First’s 3-CD Privacy Issues who are unable to deal with unwavering musical processes, the results in these compositions spanning the past 14 years are extraordinarily varied and sonically bountiful.

Articles
David Smooke

Late to the Party

By David Smooke
Last week, Baltimore’s City Paper published its 2010 Best of Baltimore issue, and the experimental music scene cleaned up in shocking fashion.

Articles
Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum

It's Too Darn Hot

By Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum
I am tossing coherence out the window in honor of a proper fan, so here are a few random thoughts to underscore this scorcher.

Articles
Frank J. Oteri

Audience Rights

By Frank J. Oteri
If indeed music results more from the audience than the folks supplying what the audience is listening to, what should the role of the audience be and what rights does an audience have?

Articles
DanVisconti

Persistence of Memory?

By Dan Visconti
While technological advances may be balanced out be a corresponding decrease in mental capacity, we may actually come out on top.

Articles
Alexandra Gardner

Working the Visual Angle

By Alexandra Gardner
Capturing photographic images of a working process helps to remind me how different pieces progressed and how the ideas rolled along—those little sketches and lists were crucial in the moment (because if it doesn’t get written down, it will be gone) and a simple image can bring it all back.

Articles
Michael Straus

Ultima Contemporary Music Festival: Two Extremes

Over forty concerts in two-dozen venues scattered throughout Oslo!

Articles
Colin Holter

What's the Meaning of This!?!

By Colin Holter
Rather than ask “what’s really happening?”, we should ask “what purely metaphorical reading of this music might reach a consensus among informed spectators?”

Articles
Molly Sheridan

Mary Halvorson: Saturn Sings

The upcoming release of Saturn Sings (Firehouse 12 Records) featuring the Mary Halvorson Quintet, is very much an outgrowth of Halvorson’s exploratory spirit.

Articles
David Smooke

What I Learned from George Crumb

By David Smooke
Sometimes we get stressed and tired and we hear the same pieces over and over again and we forget the most important thing.

Articles
Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum

Notation, Notation, Notation

By Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum
More and more I find that notation reflects the action of creating new music. Beyond the speed of the creative process, notation can successfully function in many different capacities if its intention is clear.

Articles
Molly Sheridan

Sounds Heard: Music Makes a City

The biggest reason for fans of culture to run out and see Music Makes a City, a new documentary directed by Owsley Brown III and Jerome Hiler, might be the core suggestion it makes: that when times get tough, the talented get bold.

Articles
Frank J. Oteri

That Strange Thing Called Memory

By Frank J. Oteri
Many years ago I realized that I was more likely to remember a passage of my own music if I didn’t write it down than if I did.

Articles
Kevin Puts

Lapse

Suddenly and inexplicably I am lost, Marin Alsop stops conducting, the audience is utterly silent; I think I say, “Sorry, I have to start the third movement again.”

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.