Jazz composer-pianist Brad Mehldau has been appointed to hold the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall for the 2010-2011 season; he is the first jazz composer to ever be named to this position.
By Colin Holter
My friends and I love to commiserate despondently about grad school: It’s a gamble, essentially, that after years of making almost
no money we’ll enter jobs where we’ll make only a pittance more. Is it
worth it?
Though recordings are no longer especially financially remunerative in this digital age, there does exist something uniquely valuable and not reproducible: the artists themselves.
By Frank J. Oteri
Albany Records has finally released an entire CD devoted to Donald Sur (1936-1999) and hopefully this long overdue recording will begin to redress his music’s many decades of neglect.
By Frank J. Oteri
Ironically, in our current society where ear buds feel ubiquitous, music has become the ultimate anti-social activity, whereas reading can actually be more public.
By Dan Visconti
In new music, where the importance of context is absolutely crucial for the listener, where should the responsibility for this context fall and who is best equipped to provide this context: the composer, or a third party?
The prize was awarded for Trivial Pursuits, an eight-minute work for violin and orchestra. The work was selected from more than 220 submissions. Kennedy receives a $5,000 cash prize.
Hear Harnetty talk about his discoveries in the Berea College Appalachian Sound Archives, plus full tracks from his recent release, Silent City.
By Colin Holter
There’s no depth to which I won’t stoop to sell new music.
George Manahan has been named music director of the American Composers Orchestra and will lead all three of ACO’s 2010-11 season concerts presented by Carnegie Hall in Zankel Hall.
By Frank J. Oteri
If editors deem classical music or jazz or name-your-neglected-genre-du-jour to be inconsequential, it will become so, and indeed, it has; it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
By Dan Visconti
The orchestra can wear jeans and all that, but if performing organizations are seriously looking to cater to their audience’s very real desire for less rigidity and greater authenticity, maybe handing out a little book with essays that are tacitly implied to be the last, best word on the program isn’t the best way to drum up the awe of exploration.
Robert Carl, author of Terry Riley’s In C, describes how the adaptability of Terry Riley’s In C to performance among musicians of a wide variety of stylistic backgrounds provides an excellent road map for the future of music.
Terry Riley’s In C seems to stand the whole idea of musical “progress” on its head.
I’m happy to design a program note to help a particular audience into a piece and supply some ancillary information; sometimes that can make all the difference between a successful listening experience and an unsuccessful one.
I was invited to testify before the Federal Communications Commission in the fall of 2009 about two issues: digital piracy and rural broadband access. The former, because I am a composer, and the latter, because I am a composer who lives on a small, remote, bridge-less island floating off the coast of the United States who has created and managed her career largely on the internet.
By Frank J. Oteri
Hearing the song “Me & You & a Dog Named Boo” brought back negative memories for me of my early childhood that were so vivid I hoped I’d never have to hear it again, but, of course, the following day my analytical mind started getting the better of me, and I couldn’t find a particularly compelling reason to have such dislike for it outside of personal history.
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers will recognize nine chamber music and jazz ensembles, festivals, and presenters for their adventurous programming at the annual Chamber Music America National Conference on January 17, 2010, in New York City.
By Molly Sheridan
Spanning 1972-2002, each included work on September Canons showcases facets of what has earned Ingram Marshall a reputation for creating impressionistic music that, whether capitalizing on modern technology or taking off from more traditional musical forms, is sonically unique in a way that nudges open rather than aggressively pokes at the ear.
By Dan Visconti
Just think how much more you’d enjoy your favorite music if you listened to it instead of just hearing it, and then imagine how much more you’d hear as a result.
By Colin Holter
It’s much easier to hear recordings by the Beatles today by accident than it is to hear performances of Beethoven’s music
on purpose. But will the mop-tops or the Master of Bonn will be
with us for the duration of the 21st century and beyond?
Our ability to share our creations around the world lies in our access to the necessary portal.
By Frank J. Oteri
Should we worry about what the style of the 2010s will be or should we just write, perform, and listen to the music we feel compelled to write, perform, and listen to?
By Frank J. Oteri
Miguel Del Aguila’s infectiously groove-laden and tuneworm saturated pieces mask their highly original maverick quirkiness.
