In which we pass judgment on Mozart, music, the midwest, and you! (Okay, that last part was just to get your attention.)
Klaus-Dieter Lerche (as Columbus); Bruckner Orchester Linz, conducted Dennis Russell Davies Arguably one of the most anticipated premieres of the previous decade was Philip Glass’s commission from the Metropolitan Opera to write an opera marking the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the New World. After all, the staging of Einstein on the Beach at… Read more »
Is it possible that today’s collective unconsciousness gives classical music more respect than it actually deserves?
The Gravitas Quartet is like a love match in a world of arranged marriages. Let me explain. Horvitz says that he was looking to join his interest in through-composed chamber music with small group improvisation in this particular format and with these particular individuals. The musical results of such projects can sound ill-matched under the… Read more »
You may recall that the Yale School of Music’s
hundred-million-dollar endowment was one of the biggest news stories of
last year among our kind. The even bigger story was what that endowment
would be used for.
An interview with the editor of The John Adams Reader: Essential Writings on an American Composer.
Excerpted from The John Adams Reader: Essential Writings on an American Composer edited by Thomas May.
The clang of loud dissonant piano chords got you down? Throw on the title track of Neil Rolnick’s latest CD Digits. Sure, pianist Kathleen Supové pounds out some noisy chords, but you would never find these tuneful sonorities in a Boulez sonata. With the addition of digital delay and computer processing, things get a little… Read more »
For some reason, the summer seems to have become as busy as the rest of the season: concerts (both in and out of town), award ceremonies, receptions, you name it.
Martin Bresnick’s Pine Eyes whittles away at the saccharine Walt Disney version of Pinocchio, exposing a darker, unadorned version of the classic story. No lie.
Corey Dargel takes a break from his own composing duties to step up to the mic and take a turn as the vocal soloists in Beglarian’s five-minute setting of this Stanley Kunitz poem. His delivery is characteristically reserved, which assures that the sentiments are not overwhelmed by clichéd melodrama. He is joined by Margaret Lancaster,… Read more »
What is a young player? A student? An amateur? A beginner? Whom are we dealing with here?
Record producer and arranger Arif Mardin, who died of cancer on June 25, 2006, was also a symphonic composer and a catalyst for experimental music.
Ellen Burr, flute; Andrew Pask, clarinet So much for music and visual art not being related. For flutist Ellen Burr’s structured improvisational duo with clarinetist Andrew Pask, she turned to a geometric abstract painting by Mary Martin in order to derive all pitches and durations. And according to her CD booklet notes, all the permutations… Read more »
The BMI Foundation has awarded Asuka Kakitani its seventh annual Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize; the award honors the writer of the best new work composed during the annual BMI Jazz Composers Workshop.
Summer heat and the Internet combine to make people do some pretty peculiar things…
Mehldau Honored With Miles Davis Award; MTC’s Commissioning Music/USA 2006 Awards $214,500; NEA Funding Vote; Boziwick Promoted Chief of NYPL Music Division
Augusta Read Thomas, big in Taiwan? Well, yes. How else can one explain this Taipei Symphony Orchestra recording pairing Thomas with the Dvorak Cello Concerto? If you manage to get the CD out of the slipcase—seriously, I spent more than five minutes trying before I finally took out the scissors—expect to be rewarded. Thomas’s lyrical… Read more »
I’ve always admired Jacob Druckman’s knack for orchestration. He always managed to coax such vivid, colorful timbres from whatever the instrumental forces happened to be. With this evocatively titled orchestra piece, Summer Lightning, the composer not only captures an appropriately electrified atmosphere, it turns out he didn’t forget to include the thunder either. Expect the… Read more »
Mechanical licensing isn’t a topic that often comes up in casual conversation among composers, but it’s a facet of the music industry that every composer needs to know about.
If you haven’t read Randy Nordschow’s piece on composer bios, read it right away (then come back here immediately). It’s great—so great that I couldn’t resist ganking his subject for further exploration.
American mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson died on July 3 at home in Santa Fe.
Imagine Baroque music prancing around inside a funhouse, admiring its own reflection in one of those weird, distorting mirrors. Fred Lerdahl exploits the premise from every possible angle in his chamber orchestra piece Waves, and the results are fascinating. I don’t remember the last time a 15-minute composition passed by so quickly. As they say,… Read more »
Whether hacking into an old radio or building software in pursuit of new sounds, composer Nicolas Collins is bending all the rules.
