While the works of Western music are generally credited to specific individuals, it can be said that no music is about a single individual; it’s a team effort. The overlay of that on the musics of subaltern American cultures has opened the door for a variety of phenomena that would not exist otherwise, such as the tradition of authorship misattribution that exists in the history of jazz.
A new project has gotten me thinking about how film scoring techniques can fit within a concert composer’s toolbox.
The sound of trains runs through Harry Partch’s music, the wheeze and whine of whistles drifting over and beyond the settled grid of equal temperament, the percussive cycles phasing in and out like the rods and wheels of a locomotive.
“Listy” thinking—the notion that anything as elemental and sloppily chaotic as music (or any art, for that matter) can withstand ordering, this-or-that-ing—can be, at best, problematic. The list can take the place of the work much like ideas of the people involved can be easily replaced by received notions. And that represents a danger because when something complicated is easily and quickly understood, the chances are that you are doing something wrong.
The Rite of Spring serves as a kind of signpost, marking the boundary between the traditional and the avant-garde, and I have the feeling that it will always be there. Musical borders are changing all the time, but Stravinsky may have staked out that territory for good.
Over the years I’ve heard Gene Pritsker’s music both in symphony orchestra halls and clubs. In another era, it would not have fit comfortably in either setting but now it’s at home in both. And yet Pritsker’s chamber opera, William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience, recently released on Composers Concordance Recordings, still manages to sound unsettling to me.
If the act of creation can provide solace even in the face of a tragedy as immense as this one, then it truly is a powerful undertaking, one to be treasured, as essential as any other thing that provides sustenance.
One of the biggest differences between performances of standard works and premieres is the opportunity for performers and audiences to probe deeper into interpretative issues rather than trying to suss out a completely new experience. It’s very nice to have a profounder understanding of something, and it’s very gratifying when that something is a relatively new work, which was my experience when I attended my third live performance of Einstein on the Beach.
The ubiquitous John Cage centenary tributes continued in the Bay Area this month with a performance of Erik Satie’s Vexations, 49 years after the first performance famously organized by Cage.
While the word jazz is shrouded in mystery, less so is the music; at least to my thinking. The notion that improvisation is an essential element to the music has been dispelled by research involving alternate takes of Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five recordings as being so close as to be composed.
This is the first time (that I’m aware of) that a major distributor has recognized the growing strength of self-published composers in our industry and is willing to allow the individual to jump into the marketplace.
Whatever type of notation we use—minimal, maximal, standard practice, or completely made up from scratch—it is not only a road map to bring sounds to life, but it also often tells a parallel story of the lives communicating those sounds.
When Lembit Beecher was named composer-in-residence with the Opera Company of Philadelphia (in collaboration with Gotham Chamber Opera and Music-Theatre Group of New York) in 2011, he didn’t bring a large portfolio of operatic work with him to the brand new three-year program. An instinct and affection for storytelling, however, already infused his compositions.
This week I’ve been consumed by preparations for Trees and Branches, a concert I’ve wanted to do in some form for years now. For me, the legacy of John Cage’s ideas is even more fascinating than his music. Everyone seems to learn a different lesson from Cage, making the shape of that legacy vast, diverse, and constantly changing. I imagine it as a forest of trees and branches emerging from Cage’s sonic landscapes, radiating off in countless directions.
I carry the tools of my trade in a very light plastic portfolio case, ready to emerge at a moment’s notice. If you look inside this envelope, you’ll find a .9mm mechanical pencil, an equally large eraser, a15-inch straight edge with cork backing (so it doesn’t smear the graphite markings), and 11×17 staff paper. Lots and lots of large staff paper.
Bill Duckworth had a broad knowledge of musical style, a patient understanding of the human condition, and a clutter-free apartment. (I had none of those things.) In fact, I don’t exactly know how to describe my friendship with Bill, other than much of our time together was spent in dining rooms and automobiles.
Mother Falcon’s sound is born of instrumentation largely rooted in the world of classical music mixed with a healthy dose of an indie rock aesthetic. Nick Gregg and Matt Puckett to talk about the past, present, and future of the group.
Two performances I attended over the weekend were particularly noteworthy in that they were both devoted exclusively to the music of living American composers and—in both instances—all of the composers were there and spoke to the audience.
I have heard at least one person say that they believe the name Tin Pan Alley to be pejorative and disrespectful. I would argue with the validity of this point of view as much as I would argue with the idea that the phrase was coined as descriptive prose, which is to say not at all.
For today’s composer, having a recording is more than just an archive of a performance or a “calling card”—it is an important and necessary tool in the creation and sustainability of a career, as well as the external expression of who a composer is.
Inaugurated in 2000, Michelle Schumann’s annual “Happy Birthday Mr. Cage!” event has become a “Rite of Fall” of sorts for Austinites in and around the new music scene.
Both composers who are prolific and those who are not have reasons for working at their own paces, and it seems that both options (not to mention those in between) can be valid. There has been life-altering music written at the speed of light, and also in the thickest molasses of slowness.
I feel that many of our problems as composers are self-created byproducts of something that is not actually there. Oftentimes, our compositional ghosts are constructed more out of our own fear and anticipation of disapproval, absorbed through a strange form of social osmosis rather than handed down from an authority figure on high.
In the world of concert music, performance and composition are regarded as elite professions that demand decades of highly specialized training. What it would be like if we were a little more welcoming to others outside of the profession, not just as audience members but as potential creators?