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Articles
Colin Holter

Time and Again

It’s good to be reminded of the necessity of music as a
thing we do together, especially since composing music is
something many of us do in utter solitude.

Articles
erikspangler

In The Cut: A Composer's Guide To The Turntables

While turntablism and its impact on the growth of hip-hop is well documented, the turntables have not received much notice in musical academia. Through this article, I hope to introduce my fellow composers and other students of music to an instrument with great expressive potential and a history of innovation.

Articles
Christopher Trapani

Pass That Bottle to Me

Gaudeamus Music Week comes to a close.

Articles
Linda Dusman

Something to Talk About

What do I feel compelled to say and, in my composing of that, how will I enable my audience to understand?

Articles
Christopher Trapani

The Nieuw and the Unexpected

Reporting live from the 2008 Gaudeamus Music Week activities.

Articles
Anne Kilstofte

Full of Grace: Composing Sacred Music

I’ve been invited to create a blog where we can discuss the issues of composing sacred music. Although I don’t intend to discuss beliefs specifically, I do believe sacred music doesn’t have to be about suffering—or guilt

Articles
Carl Stone

Sample—For Display Only

Issues of intellectual property are very much in the air.

Articles
Christopher Trapani

Cities on Water

A word about the spectacular venue where most Gaudeamus Music Week events take place: The Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ.

Articles
Christopher Trapani

Festivals Within Festivals

An annual gathering along the old docklands of the IJ signals the start of the cultural season.

Articles
Colin Holter

The Sum vs. The Pieces

I was about to comment that most Americans are probably familiar with the sounds of new music through film scores and popular music and that only the most radical contemporary works would be likely to upset their aesthetic applecarts when I overheard a relative refer to me as “someone who actually enjoys Stockhausen.” Maybe we haven’t come as far as I thought.

Articles
Frank J. Oteri

See What You Want To See and Hear What You Want to Hear

Annoying interruptions during a musical performance, such as those endless chains of coughs we inevitably hear during an orchestra subscription concert, have an equally irritating corollary in visual art.

Articles
Christopher Trapani

Send It to Amsterdam

This year marks my third visit to Amsterdam for the Gaudeamus Music Week, and it’s become something of a end-of-summer ritual: two or three concerts a day filled with premiere performances, discussions with the jury and other participants in the afternoons, then nighttime waterside drinks on the dock of the stellar new Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ.

Articles
Trevor Hunter

The Quest for the Crimson Grail

The reason that I volunteered for A Crimson Grail was simple: I wanted to participate in something that I had never experienced before, and could experience in no other way.

Interviews
Frank J. Oteri

Rhys Chatham: Secret Agent

Rhys Chatham has forged a unique musical path that is part punk rock, part contemporary classical music, yet somehow neither.

Articles
Randy Nordschow

Aye Chihuahua!

I wonder, would it be possible to generate any internet buzz by releasing a video of some crazy new music composition and invite folks to film their reactions à la Beverly Hills Chihuahua-style?

Articles
Colin Holter

Gone to See the Queen

Older, wiser composers have been telling me for years that life is easier for us in Europe. It’s a tantalizing prospect, but is the grass really greener?

Articles
Frank J. Oteri

Too Much Music

Is there ultimately a finite mental capacity for processing sonic information?

Articles
Jean Cook

Roll Over Beethoven

I know the idea of the composer (or songwriter) and the performer being two separate but equally important people is complex for those outside the music world, but any service that bothers to offer music without taking these elements into account is a joke.

Articles
Carl Stone

Atlantic 231

A number of European trains are named after composers, and not just the most famous ones from the 18th and 19th centuries. I’ve always wished that there was an American train named in honor of our great musical heritage, an Aaron Copland perhaps, or a Henry Cowell.

Articles
Colin Holter

S'wonderful Music? Maybe Last Year

How do you respond to a change that constantly subsumes genuine art into decoration?

Articles
Frank J. Oteri

Looking for a Third Way to Listen

I’d like to posit there’s a third listening path that lies somewhere beyond the hedonistic and the judgmental.

Articles
Trevor Hunter

Peter Evans and the End of the World

The intense physicality that causes Peter Evans to produce such formidable spittle is backed up by his prodigious technique.

Articles
Linda Dusman

Do You Hear What I Hear?

What would it mean to approach the world of music with a feminist ear?

Articles
Margaret Brouwer

Remembering Donald Erb

Donald Erb (1927-2008) lived by an astute intuition in dealing with people, and also in composing music.

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.