One seemingly unresolved issue in the realm of field recordings is the tension between authenticity and abstraction. One can view an artist’s work with “the field” as existing somewhere between these two different, though not mutually exclusive, concerns.
The recently released boxed set of electronic music pioneer David Tudor’s work, The Art of David Tudor (1963—1992) on New World Records, charts his transformation from interpreter and co-composer to composer/performer, presenting a selection of full performance recordings of many of his groundbreaking works.
Most artistic endeavors in the 21st century have become completely blurry from both an aesthetic and an economic standpoint. I would argue that there never were only two “kinds” of music, but now the two larger umbrellas of “art” and “commerce” hold no water at all. I would also argue that the wall that divided the “two kinds of music” from one another were equally harmful to both sides.
Robert Sutherland, chief librarian for The Metropolitan Opera, announced the 2013 Paul Revere Awards for Graphic Excellence during the 2013 annual meeting of the Music Publishers Association at the 3 West Club in New York City.
During the Summer of Love everyone on Haight Street seemed to be living the life of Byron; but, like Lord Byron’s life, the mood was cut short as the musical rage—psychedelic rock—became another product for the Great American Culture Machine to mass produce.
Being a composer can get expensive. Pretty much everything about having a career as a composer—with the exception of the actual composing part, that is—costs money.
Discrimination against someone of the “wrong” color, ethnicity, sex, or sexual orientation is generally frowned upon in modern society. But progress is still needed in the area of discrimination on the basis of a person’s age and ageism is very much alive in the emerging composer arena. In short, once you get to a certain age, you’re considered too old to tango.
I’ve always found it remarkable that Sean Hickey, who is also the national sales and business development manager for Naxos of America, has had time to create any music of his own. But what is perhaps even more extraordinary is that despite his seemingly never-ending immersion into so many other people’s music, he has found his own distinctive compositional voice.
Each year we deliver hundreds of articles and thousands of listening hours right to your computer or mobile device free of charge. But today, using our best NPR voices, we do ask: What is continued access to this music and this community worth to you?
Why music students should be more wary than anyone about education debt.
Cynthia Lee Wong has been selected as the second composer to participate in New Voices, an annual collaborative project between Boosey & Hawkes, the New World Symphony, and the San Francisco Symphony which aims to develop the professional careers of emerging composers in the Americas.
Originally a student of history before he refocused his efforts into music, Robert Carl’s interest in time, memory, and space are veins running through his compositions, his work more given to conjuring imagery than narrative plot. And whether inspiration is mined in the wake of a seascape or travelers on a speeding bullet train, the resulting music tends to carry a distinct organic beauty and rich, encompassing depth.
I am strangely optimistic right now, at least for art, despite the enormous challenges we face as a species. Part of the reason is that I feel the forces that I’ll enumerate are in fact moving us towards a sort of new “common practice,” one that is far more diverse and comprehensive.
I see the whole concert hall paradigm as a way to lease entitlement to a leisure class. While I don’t begrudge anyone going to hear live music in a concert hall, I do think that the current trend to make jazz a concert hall music is gutting the source of that music: the jazz club.
Taking a page from the “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” book, Stephen Lias has figured out a way to combine his love of composition and pedagogy with his love of trail-blazing and bear-dodging with his Composing in the Wilderness project.
Hundreds of millions of people have seen Disney’s version of Le Sacre. It became a door–a misshapen door, perhaps, but a door nonetheless–for many to venture into contemporary music.
In real, human, one-on-one relationships, people don’t want to perform/record/commission your music because they are trying to give you something you want; they decide to take action because doing those things becomes something that they want.
Practically everyone in new music feels like the victim of some kind of persecution, often while being completely oblivious to the persecutions they themselves are perpetrating.
Giver of Light takes chances, and if not all of them pay out, still, it’s a lot better than cautiously going through the motions. It’s the sort of piece that Guerrilla Opera is made for: original and a little bit speculative, in need of realization to hone in on its identity.
The mission of Big Farm revolves around expressive freedom for each artist, and as a result, calling their debut album “eclectic” would be an understatement.
Meredith Monk, John Luther Adams, Anthony Braxton, John Kander, William Kraft, Pacific Serenades, the JACK Quartet, and the Grand Canyon Music Festival’s Native American Composers Apprentice Project were honored by New Music USA during a private ceremony at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City on May 13, 2013.
Composer and clarinetist Derek Bermel has been named the new artistic director of the American Composers Orchestra commencing with the 2013-14 season. He succeeds composer Robert Beaser who has been ACO’s artistic director since 2000 and was ACO’s artistic advisor from 1993.
Going through my mother’s effects has been like traversing an emotionally charged landscape that unrolls to reveal a fascinating design of discovered and rediscovered possessions of a person I’ve known from the start of my life. The material that currently has my attention is vinyl.
My first introduction to Oklahoma was driving up I-35 in 2003 the day after a previous tornado had hit Moore. When I left, however, my impressions were not of windswept plains but of a surprisingly strong community of musicians and audiences who are open to performing and hearing new music.
