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Steven Sloane Photo credit Stas Rzeznik

42-year-old American conductor Steven Sloane has been named Music Director Designate of American Composers Orchestra. Mr. Sloane begins his artistic planning duties with ACO effective immediately, and will make his Carnegie Hall debut with the orchestra in March 2002. He will become Music Director beginning with the 2002-03 season, succeeding Dennis Russell Davies, ACO’s founding Principal Conductor and Music Director, who will become Music Director Laureate at that time. Also effective immediately, composer Robert Beaser, ACO’s Artistic Advisor since 1993, has been named to the newly created post of Artistic Director.

The announcement comes as ACO’s 25th anniversary season in 2001-02 is on the horizon, and represents the culmination of a search that included nearly 3 years of planning, beginning shortly after Mr. Davies announced his intention to retire. Mr. Sloane’s contract runs through the 2005-06 season.

“I am very excited by the opportunity to work with such a great ensemble,” Sloane commented in a telephone interview. “I think that the American Composer’s Orchestra is one of the most important artistic institutions in the United States.” He is pleased that the Orchestra has strong ties to Carnegie Hall, and he hopes to strengthen those ties in the coming years. One benefit of this alliance, according to Sloane, could be some new works co-commissioned by the Orchestra and the Carnegie Hall Foundation. He also plans to use his new position to “break down traditional definitions of what orchestras do The ACO is partly a service organization, and it is our job to bring to the public a broader span of the orchestral experience.”

Sloane hopes through his programming, to “take away some of the sharp definitions about what is new music” by blurring the lines between classical music and other genres. In addition to the Orchestra’s current series at Carnegie Hall, Mr. Sloane will be developing new programs specifically designed for Zankel Hall, currently being constructed beneath the mainstage, slated to open in 2002. His current plans would involve a smaller ensemble in “varied” projects that include multimedia components such as dance and film. This is one of the ways that he sees the ACO functioning as an “umbrella” for a “variety of endeavors.” Mr. Sloane would also like to form larger “projects” around Orchestra concerts. Such a project might be a weekend of activities organized around a “dramaturgical theme,” embracing not just concerts, but possibly also plays and a museum exhibition.

Steven Sloane is currently Music Director of Opera North (UK) an General Music Director of the City of Bochum Symphony in Germany, as well as Principal Conductor of the English Northern Philharmonia. For the last three years he was also Music Director of the Spoleto Festival, USA. Mr. Sloane’s recent performances include the American premiere of Heiner Goebbels‘ Surrogate Cities at Spoleto this past summer. Mr. Sloane presented the work, which is scored for amplified orchestra, voice, percussion and computer sampler, in a suitably dramatic setting: an abandoned theater. With the Bochum Symphony, Mr. Sloane has offered such eclectic programming as “Monteverdi Meets Maderna,” “Jean Cocteau and his Paris, “Trans-Atlantik” (exploring connections between Germany and America), and “Assimilation: Jewish Identity in Music,” earning the German Publishers Award for the Best Programming of the Year. This season, taking the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie on tour, Mr. Sloane performed George Crumb‘s Pulitzer Prize-winning Echoes of Time and the River.

Among the many contemporary composers whose works he has performed recently are American composers Michael Daugherty, Joan Tower, Steve Reich, John Adams, Tan Dun, Christopher Rouse, John Corigliano and Stewart Wallace. He has also championed many of America’s early New England School composers, including George Whitefield Chadwick, John Knowles Paine, and Edward MacDowell, as well as leading European composers such as Luciano Berio, Mauricio Kagel, and Wolfgang Rihm. He has commissioned more than twenty Israeli composers, including Gil Shohat, Noam Sheriff, Sergiu Natra, and Tzvi Avni.

Nicolas Slonimsky Photo courtesy of Electra Yourke

The Library of Congress has acquired a large archive of the works of the important American conductor, composer, musicologist and lexicographer Nicolas Slonimsky (1894-1995). The papers, which comprise both printed and manuscript music, programs, writings, correspondence, a large musicians’ biographical file, recordings, and materials in other formats were given to the Library over the years since 1969. The collection includes materials collected by Mr. Slonimsky throughout his lifetime that document various facets of his illustrious career.

The Collection was processed in 1998-99 by Michael Ferrando, William Nelson, Stefan Patejak and Albert Tucker with the assistance of Kevin LaVine. Robert Saladini was Music Specialist and Team Leader. The collection is available for use by researchers in the Performing Arts Reading Room at the Library. In Saladini’s opinion, “spending time reading through the materials in the collection would be tantamount to receiving a MA in musicology from one of our major American universities.” In particular, he believes “working with this collection is imperative for anyone attempting to do any kind of modern lexicographical work, for Slonimsky was the undisputed master.”

Slonimsky’s daughter, Electra Yourke, is “extremely pleased” to see her father’s materials finally organized and cataloged. “In compiling his dictionaries and reference works, he insisted upon going to the source. And the sources insisted upon coming to him, so publications, scores, books, manuscripts, and programs from all over the world accumulated.”

Yourke called attention to the unique and valuable collection of letters that she donated in 1999, letters that were written by Slonimsky to his wife while he was traveling. “These letters to my mother offer a unique contemporary record of his experiences as conductor of new works and musical explorer,” Yourke observed. Starting in 1928, before they were married, until his wife’s death in 1964, he wrote to her whenever he was away, vividly describing the flavor of people and events in Paris, Berlin, South America, Havana, Hollywood, and Soviet Eastern Europe.

“My father lived to the grand old age of 101,” Yourke commented, “and greatly enjoyed the belated recognition he received in later life. I wish he were around to enjoy these additional events, as well.” She mentioned the upcoming concert by the American Composers Orchestra that will repeat the program of Slonimsky’s ground-breaking Berlin concert in 1932, including works by Ives, Ruggles, Cowell, Roldan, and Weiss.

The Nicolas Slonimsky Collection consists of 354 containers holding nearly 118,600 items. The Collection is divided into three sections 1) materials about Nicolas Slonimsky 2) materials related to his work as a composer, conductor and lexicographer, including lexicographic source materials, manuscript drafts and correspondence, and 3) printed materials (books, journals, periodicals, pamphlets), many of which are in Russian/Cyrillic.

The first category of materials pertains to Slonimsky’s life and the lives of members of his family; to his work as a composer and performer; and to his writings. Included among the writings are drafts, typescripts, reprints, etc., and newspaper, periodical, journal, and magazine articles, record liner notes, radio broadcasts, and talks, both published and unpublished. In addition, there are index cards of errata and corrigenda, typescripts, amendments, corrections of earlier editions, publishers’ proofs and other documentary material for several editions of Slonimsky’s larger-scale works such as Baker’s Biographical Dictionary, Lectionary of Music, Music Since 1900, and Perfect Pitch. Worthy of special mention is a short unpublished biography of composer Roy Harris including some Harris holograph materials.

The music by Slonimsky is divided into two sections: manuscripts and printed music. The manuscripts are mostly for solo piano or piano and voice, and many of these date from Slonimsky’s younger days. The earliest dated manuscripts are from 1913, including a musical examination exercise from the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Other manuscripts of particular interest include a volume of 15 Russian Peasant Songs that he translated in 1935, several chamber works, including the Piccolo Divertimento, the Quaquaversal Suite, and some of Slonimsky’s signature ditties such as the component works of the 51 Minitudes and the Möbius Strip Tease, a song printed on a mobius strip to be placed over the singer’s shoulders and rotated as the singer performs it.

The printed music by Slonimsky includes music published between 1920 and 1990, mostly scored for solo piano and voice and piano. Among the scores in this collection are the Bosphore Valse, published in 1920 in Constantinople, and the often-performed Five Advertising Songs, written in the 1920s, which Slonimsky claimed were the earliest singing commercials, albeit in spoof form. The only orchestral work is My Toy Balloon, a favorite for children’s programs, and the Piccolo Divertimento, for woodwinds, percussion, typewriter, and cat’s meow.

A valuable collection of programs dating from 1924-1992 chronicles Slonimsky’s life as a public figure in his roles as composer, conductor, musician, lecturer, and writer.

The second part of the collection is an assemblage of his work as a lexicographer, musicologist, and writer and consists primarily of correspondence, musicians’ biographical materials, and music. There are 42 boxes of correspondence and 76 boxes of biographical materials.

The correspondence series ranges from 1920 through the 1990s. The bulk of these letters date from the 1940s through the 1970s and most are responses to Slonimsky’s inquiries for biographical and other information relative to his editing of the International Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians and Baker’s Biographical Dictionary, and his continuous updating of Music Since 1900. Written mostly in English but also in other languages, many of the letters include biographical information and provide valuable insights into the lives and personalities of some correspondents. There are l
etters to and from just about every important composer in the twentieth century, including such luminaries as Milton Babbitt, Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, Benjamin Britten, John Cage, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin and Charles Ives, as well as correspondence with writers about music, people like Claude Palisca and Olin Downes.

The musical biographical materials date from the 1920s to the 1980s, generated when Slonimsky was editing Baker’s and the International Cyclopedia. There is extensive information about composers and musicians from around the world, many of them not well known. Especially interesting are materials relative to the lives and works of composers and musicians from Latin America and the former Soviet Union.

The music series is divided into subseries of manuscript scores and printed music. Among the manuscripts are many short holographic works and fragments by composers. Some better-known composers whose work is represented in the manuscript subseries are Luigi Dallapiccola, Roy Harris, and Heitor Villa-Lobos, as well as Slonimsky’s nephew, Sergei Slonimsky. There is also a significant collection of printed music by lesser- known Soviet and Latin American composers.

The scrapbooks include general materials such as announcements, flyers and related programs in addition to clippings of reviews of Slonimsky’s early work as a performer and conductor and of his later work as a writer. Of special interest are the often vituperative reviews of his ground-breaking concerts of modern music. Included also are articles he wrote for the Boston Evening Transcript and the Christian Science Monitor. Most interesting among the iconographical materials in the collection are family photographs, rare because they pre-date the Revolution, along with photographs of composers and musicians from the former Soviet Union and little known musicians from the United States and elsewhere.

One of the highlights of the third part of the collection, comprised of items from Slonimsky’s personal library, is an original copy of Charles Ives’s 114 Songs containing annotations in the composer’s hand. The collection also contains rare printed materials from the former Soviet Union, including some music in pamphlet form. Saladini finds the Soviet-era books and pamphlets “especially interesting” and thinks that these materials “may not exist anywhere else.”

Nicolas Slonimsky, a self-described “failed wunderkind,” was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on April 27, 1894, into a notable family of Russian intellectuals. His earliest piano teacher was his aunt Isabelle Vengerova. Later he studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with Vasili Kalafati and Maximilian Steinberg, both of whom were pupils of Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov. After the Russian Revolution, Slonimsky took some composition lessons with Reinhold Glière in Kiev and later, in Paris, became secretary and assistant to Serge Koussevitzky.

In 1923 Nicolas Slonimsky came to the United States, where he studied composition with Selim Palmgren and Albert Coates at the Eastman School of Music. He wrote articles about music for various publications and, in Boston, conducted the Pierian Sodality at Harvard University (1927-29) and the Apollo Chorus (1928-30). In 1927 he organized the Chamber Orchestra of Boston and gave the first performances of works by Charles Ives, Edgar Varèse, Henry Cowell and others. In 1945-47 he became lecturer in Slavonic languages and literature at Harvard University. He later moved to Los Angeles where he taught at UCLA in 1964-67.

Among his musical compositions are Studies in Black and White for piano (1928); a song cycle, Gravestones, set to texts from tombstones in an old cemetery in Hancock, New Hampshire (1945); and Minitudes, a collection of piano pieces (1971-77). His only orchestral work is My Toy Balloon (1942), a set of variations on a Brazilian song, which calls for the explosion of 100 colored balloons at the climax.

In 1947 he published Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns (1947), an inventory of tonal combinations, and Music Since 1900, a chronology of musical events (1937; 4th edition 1971; supplement 1986). He became editor of Thompson’s International Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians (4th to 8th editions; 1946-48) and of Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (1958, 1978, 1984, 1991). In 1988, Perfect Pitch, his autobiography, and Lectionary of Music, a “reading dictionary” and compendium of musical definitions, appeared. Among his other writings are Music of Latin America (1945), The Road to Music (1948), Lexicon of Musical Invective (1952, 2000) and innumerable encyclopedia entries, newspaper and periodical articles, program and liner notes, most of which are preserved in the Library of Congress collection.

Photo of Hollis Taylor Photo credit Carol Yarrow

The American Composers Forum has announced the results of the 2000 Composers Commissioning Program (CCP), which is funded by the Jerome Foundation. The CCP, now in its 21st year, supports the production of new musical works by emerging composers. It seeks to boost the careers of younger composers by offering them an early commission, and to aid the careers of more experienced composers by giving them a chance to stretch their current boundaries.

Composers apply with an ensemble or presenter and request support to underwrite the commissioning fee. A total of 13 projects were given awards ranging from $2500 to $7000. Each project performer is also eligible to apply for a Performance Outreach Grant to bring the new work to new audiences. Performance Outreach Grants average $1000.

The panelists for this round were Nick Demos, composers and professor at Georgia State University; Miya Masaoka, San Francisco composer/improviser; and Neva Pilgrim, soprano and director of the Society for New Music in Syracuse, New York. Applications were considered in two separate categories: Minnesota composers or composers working with certain Minnesota performers, and New York City composers.

“There are so few commissioning programs available these days,” commented Philip Blackburn, Program Director at the American Composer’s Forum. “The CCP offers opportunity for emerging composers to branch out and take new risks and be rewarded for it.” He recently completed a survey of past participants, and reported that it was “amazing to see how well they have done, and they often have CCP at the top of their resumes as one of their first commissions.” Blackburn also sees the program as “a manifestation of the ACF’s mission to link communities and performers with exciting new ventures.”

The Performance Outreach Grants are new to the CCP, which was started in 1979. Blackburn commented that the Outreach Grants “support the performer as well as the composer.” The Grants serve as encouragement to the performers to present the work in more than one setting. “It could be a second or third performance, it could be an open rehearsal, at a school, something to help people who wouldn’t ordinarily be at the performance,” Blackburn explained.

Blackburn has administered the CCP for nine years, and he admits that he was “really impressed” by this year’s crop of applicants. He emphasized that the ACF “wants people to take a risk,” and that this is reflected in the variety of projects, from “a soundtrack for an Eskimo storyteller” to a work for balloon and string quartet.

Eight projects were selected from the forty-five submitted that had a connection to Minnesota. Brian Heller of Minneapolis will write a work for multiple bamboo instruments for Bamboo Fest, a multi-cultural celebration of the bamboo arts in St. Paul’s Landmark Center to be held on April 29, 2001. Bamboo Fest is co-sponsored by the Vietnamese Cultural Association of Minnesota and the Schubert Club of St. Paul.

Brian Heller Photo by Holly Windle, courtesy of the Schubert Club

Heller is impressed with the number of cultures in which bamboo is “critical to the musical tradition.” “I am a total outsider to these cultures,” he commented in an email. “I have no personal or educational background in them. Given that, there is a major research component to the piece, as I undertake learning about each instrument and its place in the culture it comes from.” Heller explained that he is trying to “create something fresh, something that integrates the variety of traditions, acknowledges the back-drop of America, and uses bamboo instruments as a vehicle to unify: something that could only be created by an outsider.” Heller plans to feature the angklung, the shakuhachi, the mouth organ, the didjeridoo, and other bamboo instruments in the piece. He is also considering using amplification or an electro-acoustic component

One feature of Heller’s work that promises to be interesting will be his use of space. “There is a great geographical, cultural, and possibly even generational “diaspora” here. I am thinking about the connection between bamboo, these instruments and a previous lifestyle in a previous land, and how this fits in with their lives here and now. Space could play a role in representing both a the concrete and the metaphorical distance between a person’s–and an entire culture’s–identities.” Heller also thinks that his use of the space will to some extent be determined by the space itself, with its unique “timbral attraction.” “There is a wonderful 5-story balcony system overlooking a common court, so I could see groups of instruments moving up and down these balconies during the course of the piece,” he mused. “On the other hand, perhaps the audience should be moving as well.”

Heller calls the grant “a wonderful thing,” partly because it is financially significant enough that the project can happen as he and the presenters imagine it. “Almost everything involved is new to me– from the instruments to the culture to the languages– and there is a significant amount of research involved, much of it extra-musical. Given the nature of the event, there are also a fair number of logistical problems to solve. The award allows me to feel very comfortable setting aside the time and energy the project really needs to be done right.” He also considers the CCP significant because it “encourages emerging composers to take on a new project that is already grounded in reality (i.e. has a set premiere date, organization committed to it, etc). It is an ideal step into the world of ‘professional’ composition.”

Ron George, a Los Angeles-based composer, will write a work based on Icelandic rimur music to be played by elementary-school students in Little Falls and students at Metro State University. It will be premiered at Metro State in October 2001.

James Harley, from Moorhead, MN, will write a work for piccolo and live electronics to be performed by Elizabeth McNutt of La Jolla, CA. The piece will receive its premiere at Moorhead State University in April 2001.

Michael Karmon of St. Paul will write a guitar duo for a consortium of the Newman-Oltman, Gray-Pearl, Elgart-Yates, and Goldspiel-Provost duos. Russell Platt, from Minneapolis, will write a clarinet concerto for Russell Dagon and the Waukesha (WI) Symphony.

Dan Trueman, of Kingston, NJ, will write a work for Hardangar fiddle, to be premiered by Andrea Een and the St. Olaf College Orchestra during their 2002-03 season, and performed at their annual Christmas Festival.

Preston Wright of St. Paul will compose electronic music to accompany native Alaskan storyteller Jack Dalton of Anchorage. Raven Returns: the Story of the Human Beings will be used on his tours of Hawaii, Oklahoma, and Texas, starting in the spring of 2001.

Six projects were selected from the fifty-seven submitted by New York composers. Hollis Taylor will write Groove Theory for violin, strings, and percussion. It will be premiered by violinist Monica Huggett and the Portland Baroque Orchestra in November 2001. Taylor describes herself as “a violinist who composes, not a composer who plays the violin.” This is the first piece she has composed, in fact, in which she has not participated as a performer. “I grew up playing the violin and not composing, but then I started improvising and arranging, and the next logical step seemed to be composing.”

Taylor plays in a variety of styles, and it was her “re-written” version of the Bach b minor solo violin partite, called Box Set, that first brought her together with Huggett. Originally, Taylor thought she would organize a concert where I she would perform both the original and then the re-write, but “the more I played the re-write,” which she describes as “highly influenced by jazz, bebop, and Afro-Cuban music, “the more it became clear that I would have to find someone else to perform the original..” She was living in Portland at the time, where Huggett comes several times a year to lead the Baroque Orchestra. “I asked her to play the original, and not only did she accept, she asked me to compose a piece for the two of us.” The resulting piece was called The Crawl Ball, for two violins, bass and percussion. “I was struck both in writing it and performing it with Monica by how much Baroque music and jazz have in common. It was not a big transition for her. Monica has a great feeling for jazz.”

Taylor explained that the CCP grant is “meaningful on a number of levels.” “It gives me a real boost in confidence. When working by yourself as a composer, you never make much money, and you begin to wonder if you should keep investing in yourself…it’s also a boost for the Orchestra, because it confirms for them that I was a suitable choice.” Taylor has taken a year off from performing and teaching in order to write the piece. “This grant has pushed along to the next stage of my life – it is a huge confirmation that I am moving in the right direction.”

Steven Bryant will write a 15-minute work for the Amherst Saxophone Quartet to be performed during the 2001-02 season. Judy Dunaway will compose For Balloon and String Quartet, a four-movement work for solo balloon and the Flux String Quartet. It will be performed at Experimental Intermedia in December 2001, and at Wesleyan University in the spring of 2002.

Phil Kline will write When I Had a Voice, a cycle of 5 songs on poems of David Shapiro, for mezzo Alexandra Montano and her two children, accompanied by the Parthenia viol quartet. They will premiere the work in May 2001, at Exit Art. Harold Meltzer will write Brothers Grimm for pianist Sarah Cahill, who will perform it in New York, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco in November 2001.

Ushio Torikae will write Hör Träume for the Modern Art Sextet of Berlin and electronics. The work will be premiered at the Akademie der Kunste in fall of 2001, and tour to Dresden, Magdeburg, and Halle.

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 origins and content. Boriskin feels that the lecture-concerts “will take viewers on a first-hand, guided tour of the creative process, and open a window into the composer’s mind.” After a live performance of the music by members of its resident ensemble, Music From The Copland House, and guest artists, the composer, the performers, and the audience engage in a discussion, following which the work is played again.

“The Composer’s Hour will fill an important role in our work at The Copland House, where we try to enhance listeners’ awareness and appreciation of America’s rich musical heritage.” Boriskin explained in an email. “For so many people around the world, Copland has come to personify the American composer.” Boriskin thinks that for this reason, Copland’s home makes an ideal place for “composers and music lovers [to come] closer together.”

Francis Thorne “test drove” the first Composer’s Hour in March with an exploration of his new piano work, Rhapsodic Variations No. 7, written for Mr. Boriskin. The series will restart in February 2001, and will be taped for web cast on NewMusicBox. Featured composers will include Ned Rorem, George Perle, Aaron Jay Kernis, Richard Danielpour, Lukas Foss among others.

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 6 and 7 and was given its New York debut on October 10, as part of the Orchestra’s first appearance at Carnegie Hall during the 2000-01 season.

The three pieces performed on October 5th under Music Director Wolfgang Sawallisch‘s direction were: Totem by Keith Fitch (written in 1993), Three Pieces for Orchestra by Huang Ruo (two sections were written 1998, with the final section added early this year), and Sinfonia (1997) by Kevin Beavers.

Philip Blackburn, Program Director of the American Composer’s Forum, attended the October 5^th concert. “It was a remarkable occasion,” he commented in an interview. “The Academy of Music [made for] a wonderful setting for the three young composers who had come so far.” Blackburn reviewed the three hundred tapes that were submitted to the Forum for pre-selection by a panel that included Aaron Jay Kernis and Libby Larsen. “I really appreciated what it took to get to this place,” he added. Blackburn described the atmosphere in the dress rehearsal as “supportive,” noting that Sawallisch was “extremely well-prepared.”

According to Blackburn, approximately eighty people turned up for the pre-concert discussion with the composers. “People were eager to ask questions,” Blackburn explained. “[The composers] came across as very personable.”

The October 5th concert was the first Orchestra subscription concert, and judging by the number of ballots received, there were around sixteen hundred people in the audience. Blackburn noted that the audience gave the new works “rapt attention.” He feels that this was partly because, in addition to checking a box for their favorite piece, they were also asked to give comments. “[Asking the audience to] actually give constructive feedback [got them] thoroughly engaged,” Blackburn remarked. He witnessed audience members discussing the pieces at intermission, which he sees as further evidence of their involvement, and by extension, the competition’s success.

Eligible voters included all attending audience members and the Orchestra musicians onstage. The results of the competition were “amazingly close,” Blackburn reports, with only 180 votes difference between the first- and third-place winners. He claims that when Simon Woods entered the ballot-counting room near the end of the second half, he was amazed to see that the stacks of ballots for each candidate were the same size.

Competition winner Kevin Beavers described the reaction to both Philadelphia concerts as “overwhelmingly positive.” Beavers observed with pleasure that Sawallisch was highlighting different aspects of the score than he had at the previous performances, and that he had developed a closer rapport with the players. On the question of whether the 76-year old German actually managed to “swing” in the last movement, he responded with an overwhelmingly positive “he was doing it, man!”

In addition to the performances in Philadelphia and New York, Mr. Beavers received a $10,000 cash prize for writing the winning work. The other two finalists received $2,500 each. All three were recognized by Philadelphia Orchestra Chairman Peter A. Benoliel during a brief presentation onstage at the conclusion of the October 5^th concert.

Blackburn feels that the Competition was successful in “making living composers more visible” and in bringing some new music out of the “new music ghetto,” both of which are goals of the American Composer’s Forum. The collaboration between the Orchestra and the Forum was the brainchild of Artistic Administrator Simon Woods, who attended Cambridge with Blackburn and now serves on the Forum Board. Blackburn headed the administration of the competition, and also worked with Woods on refining the Orchestra’s selection criteria.

There are plans for the Orchestra to collaborate on a similar competition in 2003, this time including a live Web cast and online voting. Blackburn is pleased with the partnership, and hopes that other ensembles will consider using their organization to administer similar events in the future.

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 of the CISAC (International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers) 2000 World Congress, elected SIAE (Italy) Special Commissioner Professor Mauro Masi as its first Chairman, and approved the creation of a headquarters office in Paris. The Board also approved the organizations’ statutes, budget and development timetable, and set January 1, 2001 as the date on which the new entity would formally be established.

The Board also elected BMI (US) President & CEO Frances W. Preston as Vice Chairman. Board members are the chief executives of the five founding societies. In addition to Masi and Preston they are: GEMA (Germany) President and General Manager Prof. Dr. Reinhold Kreile, SACEM (France) President Jean Loup Tournier, and SGAE (Spain) Chief Executive Officer Eduardo Bautista.

The Board has hired experienced music copyright executive Chris van Houten to direct the new headquarters. Van Houten brings to FastTrack a widely regarded expertise in business process redesign. Most recently, he was acting COO of BUMA/STEMRA, the Dutch mechanical and performing rights organization. He served for six years as Managing Director of EMI Music Publishing‘s Benelux operation, and prior to that, as an executive with the Dutch record company Dureco. Both at EMI and Dureco, he designed and introduced new copyright and royalty systems.

Robbin Ahrold, Vice President of Corporate Relations at BMI, feels that classical and jazz composers stand to benefit greatly from FastTrack’s initiatives, partly because so much of their music is performed in Europe. “Classical and jazz composers are perhaps the best example of creators whose works are used in a globalized music business,” Ahrold commented in an interview. “FastTrack is developing tools that will specifically add a higher level of service, greater accuracy at lower cost for works that are used in the international music market.”

The FastTrack development timetable calls for the deployment of three “core projects” within the next two years. These initiatives will address international documentation and distribution, online services for members and customers, and the development of a globally integrated Electronic Copyright Management System. The timeline for the completion of all three projects is sometime between April 2002 and October 2003.

FastTrack’s plan for an improved documentation and distribution should be implemented in the next 6 to 9 months. The hope is that by connecting the databases of the five member societies, efficiency and accuracy will improve, translating into more time and money for composers in all five countries. “BMI will be able to bring the cost of their operations down by trapping the tremendous efficiencies of the Internet,” Ahrold remarked. He explained that the improved documentation and distribution system will allow BMI to cut down on the time previously spent “exchanging paper, with all the key-punching and error-checking that goes into paper documents.”

Take the case of John Williams, for instance. John Williams of Star Wars fame is one of BMI’s most active composers. “John, however, has a name that is not the most unique in the world,” Ahrold laughed. There is any number of composers named “John Williams” whose music gets played in Europe. The new system will be able to differentiate automatically between the “real” John Williams and the others, eliminating the manual checking that is currently necessary.

The second “core project,” online services for members and customers, has already been addressed by BMI. In April 2000, they introduced a service whereby members can register their works directly online. The FastTrack initiative will mean that when composers enter their information into the BMI system, it will automatically be entered into the systems of the four other member organizations. “You can see the obvious advantages in accuracy,” Ahrold commented. “No one knows the information about the piece better than the composer himself.” He also noted the other immediate advantage of such a system was speed. “[The composer registers a piece] on Tuesday afternoon, and it’s in the databases on Wednesday.”

The third project, the development of a global Electronic Copyright Management System, is “largely aimed at the identification of works performed in the electronic media,” according to Ahrold. This includes music played on the internet, cable, digital, and satellite TV and radio. The five societies are looking for a common method to “watermark” or “fingerprint” musical works. Ahrold hopes that this system, once established, will become a “de facto standard” for the industry.

“Taking the internet as an example, what you see is a tremendous expansion in the number of works that can be performed,” Ahrold explained. “There are hundreds of radio stations streaming out their signals [over the internet], hundreds more delivering by satellite radio.” With the increase in the number of performances, the old system of reporting can no longer keep up. Up to now, according to Ahrold, BMI has relied on written correspondence with listeners and programmers to keep track of many performances. Now, the FastTrack organizations are creating a program that, through the detection of these digital “watermarks,” will automatically detect the performances of registered works.

Each of the projects, the partners emphasize, relies on the Internet to connect existing computing resources among the five societies. Likewise, task forces for the development and implementation of the projects will be drawn from the societies’ existing staff.

FastTrack is committed to integrating the tools developed as part of the Common Information System (CIS) project managed by CISAC. Ahrold characterizes BMI as one of the “consistent leaders” in the project since its inception in 1994. Executives of the five FastTrack organizations first started working together in 1999 to develop a “ProtoNet” tool for CISAC that would allow member societies to “look into each other’s databases without exchanging paper, emails, or calling.” Ahrold claims that “in the process of developing ProtoNet, we got into the kind of technical discoveries about each other’s systems” that led to the realization that they were capable of achieving much more far-reaching objectives. Once the ProtoNet project was finished at the end of 1999, staff members from all five organizations were formed into task forces that have been working on all three “core projects” ever since.

Ahrold explained: “the nature of CISAC is that it must embrace all of its societies, and the tools that it develops must be usable by the majority of its societies.” The name ‘FastTrack’ alludes to the capabilities of these five societies, with their “state of the art computer systems,” to take some of the goals of CIS and move more quickly than is possible for CISAC as a whole. According to Ahrold, once the five FastTrack societies have a “core set of digital tools up and running,” they will welcome others into the group.

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, ASCAP’s Vice President of Marketing, explained the motivation for the creation of J.A.M. “We are watching a generation grow up with a total disregard for the ownership of music, a growing disregard for copyright and for intellectual property, [and instead sporting an attitude] that everything on the Internet should be free.” Crosland feels that the debate over Napster and similar tools tend focus only on the artists, leaving “the creators of music, those who put pen or pencil to paper…totally left out of [the] conversation.” ASCAP wants to use jam to “create a platform to share the [idea] that the value of music is only going to be perpetuated if there is fair compensation for those who create it.”

ASCAP has partnered with MENC to launch the program, initially opening it up to MENC’s Tri-M Music Honor Society members. The Tri-M Music Honor Society is an international music honor society for secondary school students (middle/junior high and high school) that motivates and recognizes musical achievement. Tri-M has about 15,000 members nationwide.

“[The program] supports both organizations and both missions,” stated Michael Blakeslee, the Executive Director for Programs at MENC. “Both ASCAP and MENC are concerned with uses of copyright, [and] the legal and moral issues [surrounding] intellectual property.” Blakeslee is pleased that MENC will be able to reach kids with the ASCAP’s information on intellectual property.

As a component of the partnership, ASCAP and MENC will be creating several new programs to bring composers and music students together, such as student composer competitions, commissioning programs, master classes and more. Such projects may take the form of master classes at the MENC National Convention, and efforts by MENC to make the ASCAP Foundation/Morton Gould Young Composer Award more accessible to students not yet in college. Blakeslee hopes to use such projects to “make kids feel like they are part of the professional community,” with the hope that they will assume the responsibilities that being part of that community entails. MENC is also working with ASCAP to design specific activities for Tri-M chapters. Currently, each Tri-M chapter creates its own curriculum, generally a mixture of music- and non-music related community service projects.

Hollywood composer James Newton Howard has agreed to be the J.A.M. Program’s Honorary Chairman. Howard recently received ASCAP’s Henry Mancini Award for lifetime achievement and has over 65 films to his credit including The Sixth Sense, Dinosaur, Runaway Bride, and Snow Falling on Cedars. Howard officially launched the program by presenting students in a Tri-M chapter in Los Angeles with their J.A.M. Member Cards. Howard and the students performed for each other and he led a question-and-answer session with them about what it is like to be a professional composer.

Through a new website, www.ascap.com/jam, J.A.M. members may read articles on music and music business topics such as songwriting, publishing, and copyrights. The J.A.M. site also features interviews with successful songwriters and composers. “We want to make the site entertaining [and provide] insider information in a way that is relevant to teenagers,” Crosland commented. The ASCAP J.A.M. site will soon feature with Alf Clausen, who writes music for The Simpsons.

J.A.M. members also get discounts on membership and merchandise at TSR Wireless, the Museum of Television and Radio in New York, 360merch, Inc., J&R Music World/Computer World, Movie Club, and Blockbuster Videos.

Crosland wants to reach kids because he sees them as the “music influentials” who will “grow up to be ASCAP members or users of ASCAP.” For the coming year, the program will be limited to Tri-M members. Blakeslee hopes that if students want to become ASCAP J.A.M. members attend a school where there is no Tri-M chapter, their teachers will use this as a motivation to start one. However, he stressed that they “don’t want to limit anything,” and that after this initial year “there are no particular restrictions [in place].”

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 subsequently be archived on the site.

The first concert will be a Copland Centennial celebration, performed on November 15 at the Copland House in Peekskill by its resident ensemble, Music from the Copland House. The Webcast will likely include, in addition to the concert itself, a tour of the house. Program notes for the concert and biographies of the performers will be provided online, as well as links to relevant websites.

The next broadcast will be a taped performance of the Village Vanguard Jazz Orchestra in December. On January 26, 2001, NewMusicBox will feature the first “live-as-it-happens” broadcast, from Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, of a concert by Composers Concordance featuring works of Ornette Coleman and Sebastian Currier. In March, NewMusicBox will broadcast a concert of SCI composers at Syracuse Unversity and a concert by the Musica Nova ensemble at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. Another broadcast from Eastman will take place in May. Rounding out the season will be Webcasts from the Copland House of the three Composer’s Hour lecture-performances scheduled for the spring.

James Jordan, NYSCA’s Music Program Director, is equally pleased to be collaborating with the AMC on the Webcasts. “This project will expose groups from throughout the state to a larger audience, allowing their music to be heard, providing them with more job opportunities. That kind of exposure is invaluable to the groups that we support.” Jordan is pleased with the cutting-edge nature of the project. “New technology is here to stay, it’s the wave of the future and we want to give it the kind of impetus the State Council could offer. It is important to us to be able to support this kind of initiative.”

Richard Kessler, Executive Director of the American Music Center, is excited to be partnering once again with the New York State Council on the Arts, this time “to Webcast concerts of new American music all across the Internet.” Kessler believes that “making concerts available on the Web, to a larger audience than ever before possible, will help to support and promote the work of composers and performers of new American music in new and important ways.”

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 21^st at his home in Greenwich Village. He was 92.

Mr. Erwin was an energetic musician who maintained a fairly busy performing schedule into his 90th year, but after a fall while touring was forced to retire. During his long career he composed for everything from comedies by Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin to epics by D.W.Griffith to classics like Lon Chaney‘s 1923 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Fred Niblo‘s 1925 Ben Hur.

He performed many times in silent film series presented by the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and maintained a regular circuit of jobs that took him to theaters in Atlanta, St. Louis, Oakland, Akron, Wichita, Boston, and Miami. He also appeared in Woody Allen’s Radio Days as a roller rink organist.

Accompanying silent films was one of several musical careers that Mr. Erwin pursued. He was born in July 1908 in Huntsville, Alabama. By the time Mr. Erwin graduated from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, he was an experienced theater organist, having started his career as a high school student in Huntsville.

In 1930, Mr. Erwin went to Paris to study with the French organist André Marchal. He also took composition classes with Nadia Boulanger, and spent his Sunday mornings first hearing Marchal perform an early Mass, and then taking the subway across Paris to hear Olivier Messaien play at Trinity Church.

Mr. Erwin returned to Cincinnati in 1932, and the next year began a long radio career as a staff organist at a Cincinnati radio station, WLW, where he became famous for playing the music for “Moon River.”

After 11 years at WLW, he moved to New York to join the staff of CBS radio and television, where he worked as an organist and arranger until 1966. Among his jobs at CBS was to appear as “Moneybags Erwin” on the Arthur Godfrey Show. By the mid-1960’s, when radio and television divested themselves of their staff orchestras and musicians, Mr. Erwin found his way back to the movie house. In 1967 the American Theater Organ Society commissioned Mr. Erwin to compose a score for Queen Kelly, the 1929 Erich von Stroheim silent film starring Gloria Swanson.

After Queen Kelley, dozens of requests for scores came his way. Among the films for which he composed were The Eagle, with Rudolph Valentino; My Best Girl, with Mary Pickford; Irene, with Colleen Moore; and the entire collection of Buster Keaton films. In the 1970s Mr. Erwin made several recordings for Angel Records, and some of his soundtracks were recorded by the BBC for both theatrical and home video releases. Erwin was also the chief organist for Carnegie Hall Cinema in New York.

David Messineo, a New York-area organist and teacher, remembered relying on Erwin when he started at Radio City Music Hall in 1979. “He was my lifeline,” Messineo recalled. “The first show I did was the Christmas show, and he helped me do the arrangements. He was just fabulous.” Messineo, who was studying classical organ at Juilliard at the time, began visiting Erwin at Carnegie Hall Cinemas to get regular help with his new job. Eventually, Erwin decided to teach the young organist how to accompany silent films.

Messineo described Erwin’s method of accompaniment as extremely unusual: he consciously avoided playing familiar tunes, unless it was dictated explicitly by the movie. A run-of-the-mill silent movie accompanist would accompany a smoking scene with “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” for example; Erwin would play an excerpt from Gounod’s Faust when it appeared as part of Phantom of the Opera, but otherwise relied on original music.

Instead, Erwin wrote out a theme for each character, and wove these themes into an improvised score. Messineo explained that in order to improvise “you have to memorize [the themes], because you have to play [them] in all different keys.” Erwin had a knack for writing “original melodies and harmonies,” according to Messineo. “He was the Leo Sowerby</a > of the theater organ.”

Messineo learned to improvise from Erwin, partly simply from watching and listening to him. He would attend Erwin’s performances “wherever he play[ed] silents in New York City.” Erwin provided valuable feedback to Messineo, in his early work, telling him when his improvisations became too repetitive or remained too long in one key, for instance. “He would help me get out of one hole [in an improvisation],” Messineo laughed, “and into a new hole.” He also helped him write themes, something Erwin felt that he needed to master in order to “keep his audience awake.”

Messineo feels that the talent for writing movie scores has vanished from the organ world, becoming instead solely the province of Hollywood composers. He still accompanies some silent movies, however, especially around Halloween, when he plays “all of the horror flicks” such as Phantom and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Messineo is the Principal University Organist at Princeton, teaches at Montclair State University, plays for the Oheb Shalom Congregation in South Orange, New Jersey, and concertizes regularly.

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 30^th 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 works (including 6 UK premières) by the award-winning Corigliano, music to mark the centenary of Aaron Copland’s birth, five performances of Stephen Sondheim‘s Into the Woods, and several concerts exploring music by other influential American composers. Support for the festival is being provided by the U.S. Embassy.

John Corigliano will be attending the festival and taking part in two pre-concert discussions. The suites from The Ghosts of Versailles and The Red Violin will receive their UK premieres during this festival in a concert given by the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Marin Alsop. The concert will feature Yuri Torchinksy as the violin soloist and Barry Douglas as piano soloist in Corigliano’s Piano Concerto.

Clark Rundell, the RNCM’s Director of Contemporary Music, explained in an email that the College wanted to celebrate Copland’s centenary “not simply with a festival of Copland’s music, but with music by the many composers who felt his influence.” Rundell wanted to explore “the considerable ground in between” the “uptown” modernists and the “downtown” minimalists and post-minimalists. “We were given a considerable boost when John Corigliano agreed to come,” Rundell commented. “Despite his exceptionally high (and well-deserved) profile in the U.S., his music is little-known here.” Rundell called the festival “the most substantial Corigliano event every staged outside the U.S.”

The Corigliano concerts also include a performance by the RNCM Symphony Orchestra conducted by Nicholas Kok of the composer’s First Symphony, and the UK premiere of Troubadours, for chamber orchestra and guitar, performed by the RNCM Chamber Orchestra conducted by Baldur Brönnimann with Australian guitarist Craig Ogden. There will also be a “Corigliano Chamber Concert” and a “Corigliano Song Cycles” concert.

In addition to a comprehensive program book, the RNCM is publishing a collection of essays on Corigliano by Mark Adamo. The College also plans to publish a book of conservations between Corigliano and American scholars, as well as transcripts of the two two-hour pre-concert talks that he will give as part of the festival in December.

“Nothing could please me more than that a major U. K. institution like the Royal Northern College of Music should do me the honor of devoting so much of their creative time and energy to my work,” Mr. Corigliano commented in an email. “It’s in festivals like these that new thought begins to takes root–how terrific to be a part of one!” Corigliano is enjoying an autumn full of accolades: in November alone, in addition to the RNCM festival, he will be honored twice in New York. The Center for Contemporary Opera is giving a “gala benefit” in his honor on November 2^nd, and the Bronx Arts Ensemble is featuring his music in a “Celebrate Corigliano” concert on November 5^th.

In between the Corigliano concerts, RNCM will launch their first full-scale production of a contemporary musical, Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods. The musical will be performed 5 times under the direction of RNCM Director of Opera Studies Stefan Janski, and conducted by Clark Rundell. The festival will also include “American Songbook” and “American Keyboard” concerts and a masterclass and performance by former Oscar Peterson drummer Ed Thigpen. The RNCM Percussion Ensemble will perform Varèse’s Ionisation and Reich‘s Vermont Counterpoint and his Sextet. Ensemble Eleven, conducted by André de Ridder, will perform the last the concert, which will include works by Bang On A Can artistic directors Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe.