A provocative meditation on jazz, Western classical music, and the real power of being able to swing.
In advance of the release of her second full-length album Unremembered, Sarah Kirkland Snider opens up about integrating disparate influences, embracing deeply emotional content, and the process of developing her signature works.
Taking place January 7-9, 2016, at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, the focus of this year’s meeting will be on “Communities.”
One side of the survivability equation is the caution-to-the-wind embrace of a personal vision, fearless of the consequences, no matter how impractical. The other side thinks outside of the individual and looks at the times.
Creative work in a time and place of crisis is essential to a community coping with tragedy and can become a necessary and powerful agent of change. If we truly believe that black lives matter, it’s essential that we commit to hearing what their voices have to say.
Some companies advertise the pieces we write for free as new commissions. I vote for an immediate end to this practice. By all means, call it a world premiere by the Next Important Composer of Our Time. Phrase it however you need to make it sound sexy and get butts in seats, but it is not a commission. It is unpaid labor from which others stand to gain.
The reputations of certain composers seem to be actually growing with time, even though conventional wisdom earlier on would have predicted just the opposite. They present one possible answer to the question of how music becomes “survivable.”
To conclude our first NewMusicBox LIVE! event, we invited Joan Tower to share her some of her acerbic wit and wisdom with us. Joining her to perform two of her dazzling virtuoso solo compositions were rising star violinist Bella Hristova and the iconic new music pianist Ursula Oppens.
Songs written for the stage are no longer the currency of mainstream musical engagement, yet “song” has become the default term for just about any piece of music under the sun. Is the word still meaningful to creators of new musical theater?
The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) has announced that Vanessa Rose will be its new executive director as of September 1, 2015.
By now it’s more than a decade since Jonathan Kramer, George Rochberg, Ralph Shapey, and Iannis Xenakis have passed, so there is some time to assess where their art stands in their wake, even though it’s still very early in the eternity game.
Today the Detroit Symphony became the first American orchestra to make its performance archive available on-demand. Among the 100 full-length works featured are pieces of music by 17 living composers.
Combining words and music, Matana Roberts recounts an experience that showcases the kindness of strangers and the instincts of an improviser.
Why is it so challenging to find the right singers to fit the bill, and is there value in writing for and/or casting singers who specialize in the “wrong” style as dictated by the form?
What’s the fate of our work after we’ve left the stage? Robert Carl explores making our music “survivable.”
When you’re a far from the nation’s new music capitals, how to you build a vibrant creative life? When composer Ray Evanoff moved his life to New Orleans, this question became front and center.
In between highlights from his various albums, Gabriel Kahane charmed the gathered crowd with his story of moldy cookies, the letter, the golf sweater (which he was wearing), and a business trade with a most unexpected twist.
I won’t rehash any discussions about the technical differences between musicals and operas, but I am interested in exploring preconceived notions held by those working in both genres and the effect they have on composing for the theater.
Advice from new music veterans on maintaining motivation, making career choices, and standing up to your critics. Also, we explain hip hop to Milton Babbitt.
This Sunday the virtual #musochat salon will hold its third open door event on Twitter to talk creative issues and career quandaries. How did all this get started in the first place? Here’s what we now know…
How can artists serve the social good, create excellent work, and critique the system when it is the system which is actively eroding the social good and preventing them from accomplishing excellent work?
Earlier this month, we were all finally been able to see what Pluto looks like thanks to NASA’s New Horizons interplanetary space probe. Now, also thanks to NASA, we can all listen to the only album that has thus far physically traveled beyond Pluto–The Golden Record.
A World Wide Web Consortium Music Notation Community Group has been launched as the result of a partnership of MakeMusic, Steinberg, and Hal Leonard/Noteflight.
While campers experienced hiccups along the way, there was none of the insecurities, impostor syndrome, or existential angst that impairs so many young composers, including myself.
