You have a great idea, a great group of people with diverse talents, the drive, and the energy. Maybe it’s time to start a 501(c)(3)! To start, you’ll need to carefully consider several questions.
The Unexpected Importance of Yes
Joan La Barbara discusses her compositional motivations and demonstrates her battery of vocal techniques.
I’ve been a devout George Russell fan since I played his insane 1962 send-up of “You Are My Sunshine” as a college freshman. One of the first records of his I ever bought was Electronic Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature, a 1968 sextet created during his expat days in Scandinavia. But that was just… Read more »
Music gets remade when people dance to it, and music is not what ballet is ultimately about.
The atmospheric combination of piano, percussion, and electric guitar is fully explored on The Distance, an album of composed improvisations. Tracks like “Treacle” signal the trio’s commitment to textural exploration while at the same time exposing their canonic jazz chops: these kids know their chord scales. Jump cuts between traditional ride cymbal groove and arrhythmic… Read more »
A Cambridge improv scene staple blossoms into an independent music venue.
An active performer, teacher, and composer of art songs responds to Corey Dargel’s article, “More Song, Less Art(ifice): The New Breed of Art Song.”
John McNeil, trumpet; Allan Chase, baritone saxophone; John Hebert, bass; Matt Wilson, drums, slide whistle Ever wondered if a twelve-tone row could swing? No? Well, honestly, the concept never crossed my mind either, but jazz trumpeter John McNeil plays that card to surprising effect off a genuine Schoenberg quotation. It’s just a three-minute tune making… Read more »
A starter’s guide to hacking and shredding the web, violin smashing technique 101, and how to resurrect the dead… But wait, there’s more: futuristic blogging birds. Read within the next five minutes and we’ll throw in K-Tel’s dodecaphonic classics.
2005 Broadway Revival Cast starring Michael Cerveris and Patti LuPone Composers who write for symphony orchestra have frequently disparaged their Broadway and Hollywood colleagues for outsourcing the orchestration of their music to other people rather than doing it themselves. But it’s a long-standing tradition that’s never gone away for a variety of reasons, some artistic… Read more »
MySpace may not be the most effective way to promote your music, but it sure is fun.
OPERA America and Opera.ca recently announced financial support totaling $241,000 for the development of 14 new opera and music theater projects in the United States and Canada.
Equal parts Romper Room silliness and tuxedo seriousness, Sean Hickey’s Left at the Fork in the Road is wistfully tuneful. Listening is like eavesdropping on a tentative conversation between the trio of instruments. Perhaps they’re wondering where the French horn and oboe went, the phantom members whose absence prevents the piece from classical wind quintet… Read more »
Enter the artsongwriters! They are merging the benefits of their classical training with the tools and frameworks of pop music. But don’t mistake what they’re doing as “breaking down barriers between genres”—these composers are developing a new and unique style of creative songwriting that does not fit comfortably into any pre-existing genre.
An overview of the improv scene in the Twin Cities reveals a diversity of artists, venues, and record labels.
While listening to Randy Woolf’s new release, I read Scott Johnson’s brief liner essay on the obliteration of genre—the sort of sonic no-man’s-land he argues Woolf is working in. How does that distort (or not distort, depending on how you look at it) the way the listener comprehends a piece of music? So I take… Read more »
In our efforts to set ourselves apart, are we turning people off?
Yvar Mikhashoff, piano Back in the days of the larger than life virtuoso, usually a pianist, transcriptions and paraphrases of standard concert repertoire ranging from symphonies to opera scenes was a rather significant component of piano recitals. Chalk it up to excesses that eventually needed to be reigned in by the correctives of the period… Read more »
Infused with a folk music vibe, Ben Johnston’s String Quartet No. 9 is definitely off the post-minimalist beaten path and carries with it an atypical clarity and reverence to classical traditions. Melodies, often quite catchy, collapse under their own weight then recede into the background, proliferating the surrounding accompaniment figures before wrestling back into the… Read more »
Recipients of the 2005/2006 ASCAP Foundation Young Jazz Composer Awards were named on February 1, 2006. The ASCAP Foundation, which supports American music creators, established this award in 2002 for gifted young composers in the United States to encourage their future development.
Composers—fighting stereotypes, fantasizing over gadgets, at the Olympics, combating addictions, downloadable as podcasts, and more…
Roberto Sierra’s Missa Latina gets a warm reception under Slatkin’s baton.
Thomas Buckner-voice, Gustavo Aguilar-percussion, Wu Man-pipa, Earl Howard-electronics Thomas Buckner’s appropriately-titled new CD Contexts puts his trademark extended vocal techniques in a variety of them: completely a capella, accompanied by piano, in duet with cello, and, my favorite, a tapestry of pipa, percussion, and electronics titled “Ilex” shaped by composer Earl Howard. Here, Buckner’s solo… Read more »
Can you believe they’re handing out doctoral degrees in composition to folks who have never been to a noise show?
