How did the sounds and rhythms of the earth influence the birth and growth of musical traditions? How does our experience of particular natural environments influence the music we make?
By combining data, algorithms, and sampled sounds, Brian Foo is using his computer programming skills to learn how to make music. In the process, he’s turning these raw materials into deeply engaging and memorable sonic experiences.
When working with campers, I had to learn to move beyond my own personal choices in order to honor the individuality of their creative and musical interests.
Everything we have in our civilization is grown or extracted from the living earth; we will never escape this truth. How this truth influences our creativity, and how creativity influences our capacity to live this truth is a pivotal question.
If you’re in the business of making and selling records, then streaming means your job has changed, and it’s not as simple as opting in or opting out. Whether you want to stream or not, things are different now. The one thing you mustn’t do is ignore it.
Chamber Music America has announced the recipients of its 2016 commissioning programs, supporting the creation of new works for small ensembles. CMA will distribute a total of $475,000 to 21 ensembles through two of its major grant programs: New Jazz Works, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; and Classical Commissioning, supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
I was able to draw parallels between the staves in my score and the tracks in a ProTools session. By looking past our preconceived notions of musical genres, we were able to find the interconnectivity inherent in all musical expression.
Q&A plus new video featuring RighteousGIRLS, the New York-based duo of flutist Gina Izzo and pianist Erika Dohi. Their debut album, gathering blue (New Focus Recordings), was released today.
All societies in decay make war on artists and intellectuals because they offer ideas that are uncomfortable. What are you here to say?
The composer faces a future more uncertain than that of anyone, except perhaps the poet. When school days come to an end, the composer mortality rate—not to mention that of their all too perishable idealism—is close to 100 per cent. I am one of the many in that uncertain middle ground trying to survive, pen in hand.
In partnership with the Los Angeles-based new music ensemble wild Up, the American Composers Forum has announced the three winners of the 2015 American Composers Forum National Composition Contest, their fourth thus far.
SESAC, one of the three performing rights societies operating in the U.S.A., has agreed to buy the Harry Fox Agency (HFA), which is the pre-eminent American collecting agency for mechanical rights.
When a journalist like Tippett can interview anyone in the world, which musicians does she choose? And what does this tell us about musicians’ perceived impact in the wider world?
While many commenters to Bill Holab’s article directly focused on the immediate topic of yay or nay vis-à-vis Sibelius 8, others have passionately advocated for alternative music notation software programs.
I’d worked as a teaching assistant in college and had taught composition for a couple of summers, but this was the first time I’d encountered the label “teaching artist,” let alone had it applied to me. Over the course of the next nine weeks, I would learn more about being a composer, a teacher, an artist, and a person than I ever thought possible.
There have been big changes in the notation software market in recent years, and a lot of people are confused about what is going on and what the future might hold. So here are a few updates (if not upgrades) from the land of music notation software.
The variety of activities that Charlie Morrow has been involved in for more than half a century is staggering even by today’s standards, when the wearing of numerous hats is almost a pre-requisite for being successful as a composer.
The 54 awarded projects include concerts and recordings as well as dance, film, theater, opera, and more, all involving contemporary music as an essential element.
A lot of our most highly funded institutions and visible organizations are dominated by quickly aging visions of making music. This stretches from professional ensembles and orchestras to the academies and conservatories where future musicians are trained.
James Horner was a true gentleman, a smart businessman, an excellent teacher, a sensitive artist with a big heart, and a composer who loved the art of collaboration—despite not always getting his way.
The National Composers Intensive, organized by the LA Philharmonic, invited ten collegiate composers to write for wild Up. While readings of student works are not uncommon in the new music world, the Intensive was unusual in that composers had multiple opportunities to hear and revise their works.
It was a project that began with a questionnaire, ate its way through at least 500 Post-its, inspired a few unexpected interviews, and finally found its voice here. Now, build your very own!
A deep-cut exploration of the nature of technology, our relationship with it, and how decisions about it in one place and time shape attitudes in another place and time.
How does a New York freelance musician survive with her soul intact? Violinist and yoga teacher Heidi Schaul-Yoder shares ancient teachings that go beyond the conventional wisdom of “staying tough.”
