As an extremely prolific DIY publisher, editor, music software developer, theorist, musicologist, and composer, Larry Polansky has had a major impact on contemporary music as well as how it is made and disseminated. Read the interview…
The Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University and the American Composers Orchestra have announced a new collaborative project, the Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute (JCOI), which will provide instruction and performance opportunities to jazz composers who are interested in working with the symphony orchestra.
Composer/pianist Jonathan Howard Katz has won the fifth annual Robert Helps Prize in Composition, a $10,000 cash award sponsored by the University of South Florida School of Music; the premiere performance of Katz’s winning work, Talking of Michelangelo (2009), will take place at the 2010 Robert Helps Festival on February 12, 2010 in Tampa, Florida.
By Colin Holter
There are two sides of the horn that never seem to meet: the signifier of the hunt on the one hand and, on the other, the producer of psychoacoustically mesmerizing sonorities. Why don’t more horn players specialize in the natural horn and commission pieces from people like Marc Sabat and Alvin Lucier?
Marielle Jakobsons and Agnes Szelag exist concurrently as string players, computer programmers, and Eastern European dronemongers. Their duo Myrmyr is the result of this consanguinity.
By Frank J. Oteri
Combining sight reading and moderate improvisation is invariably something of a balancing act.
By Dan Visconti
I’ve found that arranging some of my works for slightly different performing forces was one of the best investments I have ever made.
As Composer-in-Residence for the Richmond Symphony from now until June 2011, D.J. Sparr will compose new works for Richmond Symphony’s Youth Orchestra and for the members of the Symphony’s Interactive Composition as well as give students in the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra Program the opportunity to participate in classes, composition lessons and workshops.
By Arlene Sierra
I’ve been based in London for the past ten years, since finishing my doctorate at University of Michigan, and have had some great opportunities to come home to New York for performances before, but this is something new.
By Colin Holter
My students are about to take their final exams this week, but before we started reviewing in earnest, I wanted to have a conversation with both of my classes to get a picture of what they wanted from the experience and what they actually got.
Are the kinds of art Americans are seeking and the places they want to go to experience that art accurately being measured by a survey like this one? Are the nation’s cultural organizations evolving fast enough to meet those needs and effectively support the livelihoods of living artists?
By Frank J. Oteri
Why use a notation that may look better but actually confuses the performers instead of a less attractive alternative that actually gets the desired result?
The national artists’ advocacy organization United States Artists has announced the recipients of fifty $50,000 USA Fellowship grants for artistic excellence, including seven to musicians.
By Caroline Mallonée
Shimmering and bright, Andrew Byrne’s music is constantly in motion, and the consummate performers heard here convey the energy and mysteries of the music.
Six grants ranging from $3,000 to $5,000 have been awarded to American Indian/Indigenous musical artists.
By Dan Visconti
Very often when I’ve heard performers complain about a difficult piece of contemporary music, their complaints are directed towards a real or perceived lack of initiative on the part of the composer; particularly with passages that will require a great deal of practice to execute, any indication that the composer has asked for this sacrifice flippantly—and without proper regard for the difficulties of performing musicians—is greatly frowned upon.
Why is it that more than three quarters of the devoted audience for classical and concert music today might not recognize even the name Henry Cowell, much less his music?
By Colin Holter
What I enjoy most about interviews is also the best reason to be skeptical of them: the disconnect between what the interviewee says and what he or she actually thinks.
By Frank J. Oteri
Still not really wanting to see McCarthy’s version of Santa’s workshop ever again, I have not been able to get it out of my head, which tells me that—notwithstanding my distaste for his provocations—he affected me in a significant way.
The American Music Center (AMC) has awarded Composer Assistance Program grants totaling $31,000 to 28 American composers based in 12 states and ranging in age from 24 to 78.
By Eric Wubbels
Taking off from the solo performance aesthetic of saxophonist Evan Parker, Peter Evans has devoted his early career to the cultivation and refinement of an exhaustive and totalizing virtuosity.
By Dan Visconti
One of my absolute favorite parts of most traditional Thanksgiving dinners is “leftovers”; having just completed a large musical project, my compositional life is littered with musical leftovers as well.
By Colin Holter
Name as many pieces as you can in the key of C major.
The story of the premiere of This Thread is one that I hope will serve to inspire ideas for how orchestras can successfully present new music.
