Joseph Joubert, piano Chicago Sinfonietta conducted by Paul Freeman Just as New World’s 3-CD set of works by the forgotten African American composer Julius Eastman ought to rewrite the history of minimalist music, Cedille’s new disc of world premiere recordings by another neglected African American, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (1932-2004) ought to change our assumptions about the… Read more »
Philip Glass (in a small room), Windows (Eno vs. Fripp), critics (philosophy and disguises of), music (time off from), and stuff (free).
Patrick Mason, baritone; Joanne Polk, piano The pianist Joanne Polk has probably done more than anybody to revive interest in the music of American romantic Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (1867-1944). In addition to three Arabesque CDs devoted to her complete solo piano music, Polk has also collaborated with the Lark Quartet and the English Chamber… Read more »
Admit it. You have weird taste in music and you compose stuff that’s even weirder. So why gripe about the fact that the general public has no interest in what you’re doing?
Pogus proprietor Al Margolis suggests a new strategy to fund independent record labels.
Ms. Reynolds opens a very large subject relevant to our age in American music education. Band, orchestra, and choral music for children to perform should be written by the best composers, and in fact most of it today is written by non-composers.
American Brass Quintet Because of his own formidable abilities as a brass player, David Sampson’s two earlier brass quintets are among some of the most idiomatic and satisfying works of the genre. But his third, Strata, composed in 1999, takes the idiom to a new level. The dirge-like middle movement is one of the most… Read more »
The Cleveland Orchestra performs the U.S. premiere of a new piano concerto by French-American composer Marc-Andre Dalbavie.
A quick look at who is winning what.
Awhile back, when Fritz Hauser, David Gamper, and Pauline Oliveros got together to perform during the release party for this very disc at the Issue Project Room, I remember my focus drifting away from the performers to the shadows dancing on the wall just stage left. It’s amazing that listening to this CD right now… Read more »
Blogging has helped make us more of a community, but it is just a tool.
Much has been made about Marin Alsop’s appointment as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s new music director-elect—a post she’ll assume beginning in the 2007-08 season. To say the least, Alsop’s appointment marks an immense change at the helm for the BSO. Last night, Baltimore got a glimpse of the maestra in action.
Curtis Macomber, violin + electronic sounds In the 1960s, a time when electronic music seemed the only possible future for many composers, Mario Davidovsky was at the forefront of the revolution with his series of Synchronisms for live instruments in combination with pre-recorded electronic sounds created at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Listened to now,… Read more »
LA-based Hans Fjellestad latest release, Kobe Live House, documents a live solo set recorded a couple years back at Big Apple in Kobe, Japan. Like yoga breathing exercises, the music manages liftoff, albeit gradually, with gurgling low frequency sweeps which eventually give way to processed Electroclash beats suppressed to the point where they’re never allowed… Read more »
Andrew Lloyd Webber gives us a run for our money and so does the Mac store. Plus more lists and predictions of doom for the iPod generation.
If you’ve ever been in the stress-inducing position of redecorating a house, don’t start to sweat—Steve Mackey has already looked at all the paint chips and carpet samples and made the hard choices for you. Your job as the listener is simply to sit back and enjoy the textures and colors as they appear. Though… Read more »
Where are all of the music criticism adjectives hiding?
I have always believed that new music should have a more prominent place in the concert hall, but how to implement this idea has been a perennial question. Facing the real fears of audience reaction and taking some real steps toward innovation with a solid philosophy to back up programming choices has yielded fruit beyond expectation.
Some folks panic when a band member can’t make a rehearsal or a recording session, but not John Hollenbeck’s eternally industrious Claudia Quintet: they just turn it into music. But, wait a minute, Drew Gress’s bass is all over “Drewslate,” an ensemble piece that opens with a telephone message explaining why he can’t get there.… Read more »
Confession: I kinda have a thing for Donald Martino. May sound weird, but it all started a long time ago when I heard some of his solo piano music—really amazing stuff. Anyway, fast-forward a couple of decades, wade through the heaping pile of awards and accolades, but in the end it still seems that Martino’s… Read more »
Why do so many composers still insist on numbering their works rather than naming them?
How many times do you think Shakespeare’s “Shall I compare thee…” sonnet has been set to music? At least three times on this disc of choral songs alone, but perhaps never as memorably, I would argue, as Kevin Olson has done here. Olson’s version was composed in response to Chicago a cappella‘s 2002 call for… Read more »
How’s this for a new approach to mathematical music? Take a CD containing 25 tracks consisting of loops of single tones sampled from a group of instruments, make 8 copies of said CD, assemble 8 CD players and play the discs on random shuffle simultaneously. If you’re troubled by the arithmetic, stop here. If not,… Read more »
The year that was, on the Internet and in our hearts: the coolest writers, videos, and concert calendars on the web, plus new developments in everyone’s favorite 21st-century topic—digital rights management.
