Atlanta is the commercial hub of the American southeast which explains some things about its role as a cultural center, and the nature of what it means to be a composer who lives here.
Amy Lynn Barber I have worked with composers at both extremes of the spectrum: those who prefer to provide minute detail about every aspect of the score and its performance, and those who prefer to provide only the most general information and leave the realization of the score to the performer. The ideal situation, of… Read more »
Greg Sandow Proust‘s In Search of Lost Time—as we’ve now learned to call his novel, whose name used to be rendered as Remembrance of Things Past—is very long, published in seven separate volumes. Scenes that another writer would treat in a single chapter (conversation at a dinner party, a visit with a friend) might, in… Read more »
Bob Becker Bill Cahn Robin Engelman Russell Hartenberger Garry Kvistad Bob Becker Bob Becker In answer to the posed question, here’s an excerpt from an article that I wrote in 1992, titled “The Paradoxes of Percussion”: Why then do percussionists put up with, and sometimes masochistically embrace, the traumatic effort and expense involved with… Read more »
Why percussionists can be composers’ greatest allies.
Twelve percussionists respond.
Nicole V. Gagné In the concert halls of 18th and 19th century Europe, percussion was traditionally regarded as being almost exclusively a secondary aspect of orchestral music—and one best employed with caution. Ironically, this European attitude toward percussion was summed up by an American composer noted for his nationalism. In What To Listen For In… Read more »
February 16, 2004—11:00 a.m.-noon at the American Music Center Videotaped and transcribed by Randy Nordschow Last November, I went down to the World Financial Center to hear Steven Schick play John Luther Adams’s The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies. In all honesty, I really wasn’t sure what to expect. I’m a big fan of JLA’s music… Read more »
It was in 1939 that John Cage declared, “Percussion music is revolution.” Fifty years later in 1989, he was asked to write a preface for a book about percussion, and it was here that he more thoroughly described a philosophy of percussion as something more than a family of instruments, but as a metaphor for… Read more »
Last September, the American Music Center began receiving complaints and inquiries concerning the 2nd Annual International Composers Competition held by STUDIO for New Music. Their concern was due in part to the rather unconventional application system which required that prospective applicants first send in a $40 fee in order to be issued an application number.… Read more »
Composers Selected for first Upshaw/Harbison Workshop at Carnegie Hall; Four Young Composers Land NYYS First Music 21 Commissions; American Erin Gee Among Six IMPULS Commissions
Ongoing disputes between New York City theater producers and the musicians’ union over the Sinfonia.
What American works and premieres, especially from living and breathing composers, the majors and their music directors are (and are not) offering
His death on March 9, 2004, of cancer is reported by The Center for Black Music Research of Columbia College in Chicago.
The American Academy of Arts and Letters has announced the recipients of this year’s awards in music. Academy Award in Music—$7500 plus an additional $7500 toward the recording of one work, honors outstanding artistic achievement and acknowledges the composer who has arrived at his or her own voice Miguel Chuaqui Justin Dello Joio Jorge Liderman… Read more »
I’ve always wished that contemporary music generated the same kind of critical discourse that the visual arts do. In fact, I find that I need to read visual art criticism to get a sense of the real artistic movements that are at play today, and while there may be musicians whose work is along some… Read more »
An interview with the author of Deems Tayor: A Biography
A close look at when competition entrance fees are appropriate and what amount is reasonable.
Susan Schwalb at work Photo by Kelly Baisley I admit that I need some sort of sound in order to create a barrier between me and the rest of my life so that I can focus on my work without distraction. I generally listen to the radio as opposed to playing records or CDs. Years… Read more »
Tom Marioni I listen to jazz. I listen to jazz records and jazz radio in the studio, at home, and pretty much all of the time. As a conceptual artist my work takes many forms: sculpture, installation, performance, sound, drawing, printmaking, and so on. I don’t really see how it’s possible to discern whatever influence,… Read more »
Charles Gute I think there’s always been some lurking suspicion in the back of my mind that composers are the real “artists,” and visual artists are just posers. This may just speak to my own insecurities, since I left music school to become a visual artist. During the late eighties I had a real crisis… Read more »
Michael Goldberg I’m a music lover with two formidable defects, an extremely lazy ear and what I believe is the onset of the loss of hearing. Despite this, I listen to music all the time I’m in my studio: almost any type of music, but mostly jazz or what I prefer to call improvised music.… Read more »
Lisa Bielawa [Ed note: Lisa Bielawa‘s The Right Weather, for piano and chamber orchestra, was premiered by the American Composers Orchestra and pianist Andrew Armstrong at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall on February 27, 2004. In January she visited St. Petersburg, Russia, to hear Armstrong perform a solo recital including a movement from The Right Weather—Wait, for… Read more »
Digital still from Fields (Home Depot), 2002 Courtesy of the artist and Gee’s Bend With my video works I am interested in the patterning and form that comes from chance associations, both analog and digital, through repetition and re-mixing, similarity and difference. I often work with image fragments and mix them into a new form.… Read more »
