The best way to introduce my music to listeners is ideally in a concert hall, well rehearsed, well performed and to a discriminating audience. Of course this ideal situation seldom happens nowadays when orchestras have budgets (and egomaniac conductors) allowing almost no rehearsal time for a new work. They consider it more necessary to use… Read more »
The Presser Archive After 51 years in Bryn Mawr, the Theodore Presser Company will move its entire operations to nearby King of Prussia in January. The present facility houses historical archives of the Oliver Ditson Company and The John Church Company, as well as Presser and newer companies including Merion, Mercury, and Elkan-Vogel. In preparing… Read more »
Pauline Oliveros has been changing the way people create, perform, and listen to music for half a century. In the process she has also changed the way that she creates, performs, and listens.
Many musicians and hard-core music lovers will swear to you that they never ever listen to music “in the background” while they work. Only some of them are lying. For me, music in the background generally has the same tantalizing effect as the smell of food coming from the kitchen — I just have to… Read more »
Miguel Del Aguila “The best way to introduce my music to listeners is ideally in a concert hall, well rehearsed, well performed and to a discriminating audience..” Benjamin Lees “…I suppose the best way of becoming acquainted is to have a score at hand while following the recorded piece…” Augusta Read Thomas “The best possible… Read more »
Listening is still a woefully underdeveloped sense compared to sight.
Joseph Lanza Whatever happened to supermarket music? There was a time – not very long ago – when one could stroll through the aisles of an A&P or a Safeway while violins, pianos, guitars, harps and trumpets played soft instrumental versions of old standards and current hits. These ceiling serenades offered the musical equivalent to… Read more »
The gift of a song can only be given by the person who made it, or by someone to whom the composer has explicitly “given” the song.
Photo by Melissa Richard Beginning on November 22, 2000, the New York State Council on the Arts, in partnership with the American Music Center, will begin Webcasting concerts on NewMusicBox. The concerts will be broadcast from a variety of locations throughout New York. Each concert will be featured on NewMusicBox for one month, and will… Read more »
Photo by Melinda Wilson The American Society of Composer, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) has introduced the Junior ASCAP Members or J.A.M. Created to support and nurture the talents of high school music students, ASCAP J.A.M. hopes to educate them, as well, on the value of music and the importance of intellectual property rights. Phil Crosland,… Read more »
In July, 2000, the Chief Executive Officers of five leading copyright organizations agreed to a new partnership called FastTrack. Together, these five organizations represent approximately 38 percent of the global collections for musical works, or more than $1.6 billion USD annually. In September, the FastTrack Board of Directors, meeting in Santiago prior to the opening… Read more »
Kevin Beavers Photo by Lorin Burgess At the intermission of the October 5th Philadelphia Orchestra concert, after hearing three recent compositions by young American men, audience members completed ballots to help choose the winning work in the Orchestra’s Centennial Composition Competition. The winning piece, Sinfonia by Kevin Beavers, was performed again in Philadelphia on October… Read more »
Photo by Marion Gold The Copland House is inaugurating a new series called The Composer’s Hour. The series is presented for Copland Society members and is hosted by Artistic Director Michael Boriskin. Each program features an prominent composer speaking about creativity and writing music, introducing one of his or her major works, and discussing its… Read more »
German publisher Schott Musik International has signed a deal to put its entire catalog online. The 230-year-old firm has joined hands with the online sheet music retailer Net4Music. It is not Schott’s first flirtation with new technology. The company produces several innovative products for electronic media, including its MasterPlayAlong series of professional practice CD-ROMs that… Read more »
Amy Scurria Photo by Phyllis Berger mp3 – A Young Composer’s Perspective Every young professional must at some point give more than they gain in return. Whether it be a beginning salary or a starting position, and all young professionals step out into the work force with the promise of growth and increased success. As… Read more »
The 2000-2001 Visiting Composers’ Series at the University of Texas will bring an impressive roster of composers to the school’s Austin campus for four-day residencies, during which School of Music students, faculty, and guest artists will perform their music. The composers will present public forums on their music, master classes for UT student composers, and… Read more »
Amy Knoles Photo by Richard Hines I think of Napster as radio for the Zeros. It’s great advertisement. There is a new mp3 player that has just come out, it looks like a cassette player. The quality of mp3 files are actually worse. People who download music buy 5 to 1 the number of CDs… Read more »
Karel Husa photo credit Alexander Dippold Czech-born composer and conductor Karel Husa recently donated his archive to Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York. The Archive now exceeds in scope and volume the Husa documents in the Library of Congress. The Husa Archive at IC contains materials from his entire career. As a champion of new… Read more »
Jeff Harrington Photo by Elsie Russell What we have today on the Web music distribution scene is chaos. Nobody is making much money selling music on the Internet. A few of us are selling CDs and a few are getting paid by the download, but on whole there is no working music business in place.… Read more »
John Corigliano photo credit Christian Steiner Music of John Corigliano will provide the main focus for the Royal Northern College of Music‘s American Reflections Festival, which will run from November 30th until December 16th. Under the artistic direction of the College’s Director of Contemporary Music, Clark Rundell, the series of sixteen concerts will feature 14… Read more »
Richard Danielpour Photo by Bill Bernstein, courtesy G. Schirmer/Associated Music Publishers Right now we are at a point where the current structure of how classical music is recorded and disseminated in this country is radically changing. I doubt that we will recognize the same modus operandi seven years from now. In pop music in the… Read more »
Lee Erwin, a theater organist who composed scores for more than 70 silent films and whose performances helped create a revival of interest in silent films during the 1970s, died on September 21st at his home in Greenwich Village. He was 92. Mr. Erwin was an energetic musician who maintained a fairly busy performing schedule… Read more »
Mark A. Fischer Photo courtesy Palmer & Dodge LLP Ultimately, the answer is that dissemination of music on the Internet is not just good, it’s wonderful. But reaching this ultimate stage will take some time and there will be considerable pain getting there. Right now, the economics of so-called serious music, where numerous performers (and… Read more »
The only “borrowed music” this month comes in the form of “arrangements,” and, unfortunately for our ‘theme’ this month, the source music was all borrowed properly! Guy Klucevsek’s adaptations of two Burt Bacharach tunes, “The Blob” and “One Less Bell to Answer,” on his CD Free Range Accordion, are both entertaining and strikingly original. If… Read more »
