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Articles
Justin Merritt

The Great Debate

The ferocity, dogmatism, and stubbornness that composers once reserved for discussions of serialism vs. neoclassicism now goes into the new great debate of our age: Finale vs. Sibelius.

Articles
NewMusicBox Staff

Reporting Live from the Minnesota Orchestra's Composer Institute

It is once again our pleasure to welcome the contributions of composers involved in the Minnesota Orchestra’s Composer Institute (Nov. 1-8)

Articles
Ted Hearne

Hello, My Name Is: Harnessing the Composer Network

A large part of this whole program is about relating to those who are presenting or hearing your music in a positive way, and learning how to benefit yourself through good communication.

Articles
Linda Dusman

Do As I Say, Do As I Do (If It Helps)

Teaching responsibly seems to require constant soul searching and occasional upheavals in approach, methodology, and perspective as I encounter new students, new times, new pedagogical philosophies, and new music.

Articles
Justin Merritt

Overheard in Minneapolis

Heard in the bathroom just before the concert: “Well, have to wait 17 mintues through some new music before we get to the good stuff.”

Interviews
Frank J. Oteri

Maria Schneider: Navigating Comfort Zones

Maria Schneider creates extremely beautiful music, but it’s full of beneath-the-surface complexities.
Read the interview…

Articles
Justin Merritt

Meet the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute Bloggers, Part 2

In which we meet our second blogger, Justin Merritt.

Articles
Ted Hearne

Meet the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute Bloggers

The Minnesota Orchestra’s Composer Institute (Nov. 1-8) will be a fast-paced experience culminating in a public performance, and this year participants Ted Hearne and Justin Merritt have volunteered to tag-team the blogging duties and share their experiences with us.

Articles
NewMusicBox Staff

New Music News Wire

Copland House has been named a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior. Huang Ruo wins 2008 Luxembourg Composition Prize and Claire Chase wins 2008 Concert Artists Guild International Competition. The 3rd American Composers Invitational at the 13th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in May 2009 has been announced, and plans have been unveiled for the world’s first global musical instrument museum in Phoenix, Arizona, scheduled to open in spring 2010.

Articles
Matthew Guerrieri

Crash Course: American Serialism

As World War II decisively elevated America to superpower status, the cutting edge of European music—atonality—crossed the Atlantic, where it was transformed into a quintessentially American combination of ingenuity, technology, and brash confidence. We’ll delve into American serialism, exploring the work of a host of composers—Babbitt, Wuorinen, Powell, and more—who set out, by the numbers, to make music modern.

Articles
Randy Nordschow

Sonata No. 153

We tend to stick with formulas that work for us.

Articles
Colin Holter

Confessions of a Square Peg

Bless me, NewMusicBox, for I have sinned. I was in dereliction of my audience responsibilities last night.

Articles
Frank J. Oteri

Don't Believe The Hype

History does not conform to neat trajectories.

Articles
Carl Stone

Shanghai Express: The eARTS Festival 2008 Report

eARTS Festival 2008, a city-wide endeavor with the theme of “Urbanized Landscape,” sought to bring together art and technology, fuse tradition and modernity, provide a major international platform for artists from around the world, and reach traditional and new audiences.

Articles
Anne Kilstofte

The Sound of Belief

People come to sacred music in many different ways.

Articles
Randy Nordschow

Confused But Not Phased

Can purposful discursivness, coupled with a pleasurable sheen on the surface, translate into a formula for creating music that people want to listen to more than once or twice?

Articles
Colin Holter

Isn't It Ironic, Don't You Think?

How do you make intentions of satire clear in your music?

Articles
Frank J. Oteri

Alienation

Most pieces of music take materials that exist a priori and shape them in personally unique ways; only a few pieces set up paradigms which are designed to serve that piece and no other.

Articles
Trevor Hunter

The Other Worlds of Robert Dick

Robert Dick is a “musician who happens to play the flute,” with full complementary skills in composition and improvisation.

Articles
Linda Dusman

Composer vs. Sound Artist

The only thing a composer fundamentally communicates to any initiated listener is the music’s form.

Articles
Randy Nordschow

Screaming Lambs Or Counting Sheep?

Has anybody out there heard Anthony Hopkins’s music?

Articles
Colin Holter

Getting Off Topic

I got into a lively argument about the validity of the “topic” in contemporary music—in other words, whether material with conventionalized extramusical connotation has or should have a place today.

Articles
Daniel Felsenfeld

Leonard Bernstein's Mass, or How I Beat Back the Beast: A Personal Essay

Bernstein’s Mass is my theme song, my touchstone, my secret garden, my musical Castalia, the song of the inescapably confused but willing to try. Everything I want to do in music, it does better. Everything I hear, it contains. All that I feel, it seems to address in a clear and absolutely beautiful way.

Articles
Frank J. Oteri

There's A Riot Goin' On

In the “I’ve heard it all before” malaise of the early 21st century, it is difficult to convey the one-time shock value of certain language and images, never mind certain harmonies, rhythms, or timbres.

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.