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Articles
Frank J. Oteri

"Don't Spit on My Life"

A precocious and articulate 22-year-old undergrad visual art major I hung out with last night repeatedly professed strong disdain for virtually all contemporary art; one salient quote was, “All they do is spit on canvasses; I really resent people who waste my time.”

Articles
Molly Sheridan

The Passion of Garrett Fisher

Deeply influenced by Asian and Middle Eastern timbres and acting styles, Seattle-based composer Garrett Fisher has created nearly a dozen mixed-media stage shows which integrate his own myriad influences along with those of his many collaborators.

Articles
Mark N. Grant

Beauty is the New Wallflower

Of all the revolutions of modernism, none was more complete than the ashcanning of beauty as the ultimate canon of art.

Articles
Judith Tick

Generation of '38 (Part 3): Because Time Was in the Air

Finding ways to forge new syntheses and techniques for themselves through explorations and surprising reconciliations of tonal and post-tonal languages, the generation of American composers born in and around the year 1938 moved into the forefront of American classical music in the 1970s and ’80s.

Articles
Randy Nordschow

The Bigger They Come the Harder They Fall

Are longer pieces somehow more profound?

Articles
Carl Stone

Empire of Sounds

For me, the urban soundscape of Tokyo is the largest payoff I get for living in an already great city.

Articles
Randy Nordschow

NewMusicBoxOffice: Trick or Treat

With the leaves soon to change color and start dropping from the tree branches, it’s primetime for concert-going.

Articles
Colin Holter

Horizon Expansion

Studying with a new teacher is a convenient time to reevaluate the foundations of one’s compositional thinking. My conundrum du jour: Is it worth limiting one’s options in the short term to realize what may ultimately be a much more valuable project somewhere far down the road?

Articles
Judith Tick

Generation of '38 (Part 2): Music is What Happens

At a formative time of their lives, the generation of American composers born in or near the year 1938 lived through an era of profound challenges to general beliefs about music and society.

Articles
Frank J. Oteri

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

If you can’t convince yourself that something you’ve done is spectacular, how will ever convince anybody else to care about it?

Articles
Mark N. Grant

Unknown YouTube: CyberLouvre of Lost Music/Theatre Treasures

YouTube was born three months after my book was published, and I would have killed to have had free access to so much privileged material; but not all is peachy: YouTube is a fence for stolen intellectual property.

Articles
Judith Tick

Generation of '38 (Part 1): Sounding Together While Sounding Apart

To be born in 1938 meant straddling the two crises of the mid twentieth century (the Great Depression of the 1930s and the oncoming Second World War of the 1940s), but most composers born at that time were too young in the War years to remember much about this era.

Articles
Molly Sheridan

The Friday Informer: Give Me More

And they say we’re the cultured ones?

Articles
Randy Nordschow

No More Words

I hate program notes. If I wanted to communicate something so concrete and literal that it could be written about, I wouldn’t be scribbling a bunch of dots, lines, and musical symbols on manuscript paper.

Articles
Richard Toop

Street Cred: Non-Composers Teaching Composition—A Personal Perspective

The argument that, unless one is prepared to get off the critic’s chair and get one’s own hands dirty, there is always going to be a dimension missing in one’s composition teaching is probably true enough, though I don’t think it’s a fatal flaw.

Articles
NewMusicBox Staff

Christopher Trapani Wins Gaudeamus Prize, First American in Over 30 Years

Christopher Trapani has been awarded the 2007 Gaudeamus International Composers Award for Sparrow Episodes, a composition for ensemble and electric guitar.

Articles
Colin Holter

Abbott Without Costello

Even if you don’t like the text in a musical composition, ignoring it is irresponsible.

Articles
Frank J. Oteri

Torn Between Two Beloveds

Would a newer piano be a better workhorse to encourage the creation of new music, or would a century-old piano inspire work that can stand the test of time?

Articles
Teresa McCollough

Hammers and Sticks

While solo piano can be isolating, adding percussion can be very complicated; still, I really love the sounds.

Articles
Mark N. Grant

OK, So What Is "New Music Theater"?

If it’s been produced at the Avignon Festival, the Munich Biennale, or the various Fringe Festivals from Edinburgh to New York, chances are it’s not opera or music theater but “new music theater.”

Articles
Molly Sheridan

The Friday Informer: The Good News

We’re getting younger, prettier, and classical music is hot again.

Articles
Carl Stone

I Hear What You're Singing (I Just Don't Know What It Means)

When listening to song, in English or any other language, whether aria, lied, ballad, or rap, I simply don’t process the text for meaning but merely for sound.

Articles
Randy Nordschow

The Writing on the Wall

Is the art of music notation being stifled by software?

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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.