Computer Program Can Identify Composers? "A standard PC file-compression program can tell the difference between classical music, jazz and rock, all without playing a single note. This new-found ability could help scholars identify the composers of music that until now has remained anonymous." New Scientist 04/10/03 

Is Orchestra Touring Disappearing? Recently, musicians from a Dutch orchestra arrived in London to play a concert only to discover it had been cancelled for lack of ticket sales. This kind of thing is happening more frequently, writes Norman Lebrecht. "An awareness is dawning across the musical world that the age of orchestral touring is over, leaving gaping holes in the concert calendar and another economic nightmare. The Philharmonia Orchestra has just totted up a two-thirds drop in touring revenues over the past year. The Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields which has, for four decades, spent more time abroad than within sight of Nelson's Column, has ( players tell me) great white gaps in its diary." London Evening Standard 04/09/03 

The Dictator And The Opera North Korean dictator Kim Jong II has written a book on opera. "You might assume the book is a socialist critique of La Traviata and Carmen. Unfortunately, it's nothing so delicious, and isn't even whacked-out enough to be fun. It's just desperately prosaic and, for us, a creepy cautionary tale about what happens when someone whose favorite opera is titled 'Sea of Blood' (and whose favorite movie is Rocky III, according to another of his aesthetic tracts, 'On the Art of the Cinema') attempts to legislate the artistic process." Philadelphia Inquirer 04/13/03 

Music, The International Peacemaker In Rome, hundreds of student protesters calling for an end to the war in Iraq tried to disrupt a university performance by the famed La Scala Opera Orchestra, under the direction of Riccardo Muti. Rather than cancel the concert or forcibly remove the protesters, Muti addressed them directly, saying "The musicians you see seated here have been touring the world since 1996 in the name of peace." The protesters apparently conceded the point, sitting quietly for the first part of the performance before leaving the premises. Andante (AP) 04/09/03 

What Music Slump? Indie Labels Flourish As Majors Struggle While execs at major recording labels "wail about the industry's imminent collapse, indie labels and artists are singing a much happier tune. Profits are up - in some cases by 50 to 100 percent. That's in contrast to overall album sales, which dropped about 11 percent in 2002. You won't hear many of these labels' artists on pop radio - and ironically, that's one of the secrets to their success. By avoiding the major expenses associated with getting a tune on the air - which can cost upwards of $400,000 or $500,000 per song - independent labels are able to turn a profit far more quickly, and share more of those profits with their artists." Christian Science Monitor 04/11/03 

John Adams: Mixed Feelings About Pulitzer Win Composer John Adams is happy to have won this year's Pulitzer Prize for music. But "every year I continue to be disappointed that the Pulitzer has stayed stylistically within such a narrow bandwidth of mainly academic music. It doesn't carry much prestige amongst the composers that I know. I hope that over the years, the people who administer the prize will accept that American music is a far more universal art form than the past history would suggest." San Francisco Chronicle 04/08/03 

Why Pulitzer Doesn't Mean Much In Music The Pulitzers are prestigious. But not in the music category, says John Adams, this year's winner. "I am astonished to receive the Pulitzer Prize. Among musicians that I know, the Pulitzer has over the years lost much of the prestige it still carries in other fields like literature and journalism. Anyone perusing the list of past winners cannot help noticing that many if not most of the country's greatest musical minds are conspicuously missing," The New York Times 04/09/03 

The Underwater Symphony The German Symphony Orchestra is performing in a health club, playing a piece of music for which the audience will have to be submerged in a pool. "The cellists will be on the poolside, playing electric instruments and the sound will be put through a mixing desk and modified. There will be no sound to hear unless you are under the water." The Guardian (UK) 04/06/03 

Beethoven Ninth For Sale Sotheby's is selling a manuscript of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. "In three bound volumes of 465 pages, the offering includes virtually the complete score of that symphony in manuscript. (Two fragments of the same manuscript reside in the Beethovenhaus in Bonn and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.) The hands are mainly those of two copyists, but Beethoven scribbled corrections and changes throughout. The manuscript may have been used at the work's premiere, in 1824, and it was the basis for the first printed edition, in 1826." The New York Times 04/07/03 
 

Composer, Performer: Michael Harrison

Michael Harrison has developed one of the most distinctive musical styles of our time.  Working with ancient principles of harmonic resonance, Harrison's music is an eclectic synthesis of North Indian and Western classical music, minimalism, and modal jazz. 

Harrison began playing the piano at the age of six studying both classical and jazz and went on to study composition at the University of Oregon and The Juilliard School. In 1977, he bought his first tamboura, a resonant Indian drone instrument, and the following year began intensive study of North Indian classical singing with India's master vocalist Pandit Pran Nath and his earliest American disciples La Monte Young and Terry Riley .

Fascinated with the beautiful resonances created by the overtone-based tuning system ("just intonation") used in Indian music, Harrison began applying these ancient principles to the piano, creating music with sounds that standard western tuning could not achieve.  In 1980, seeking the guidance of the most innovative composer working with "just intonation," he came to New York City to study with the avant-garde visionary La Monte Young under the auspices of the Dia Art Foundation.  Young's pioneering work was a crucial element in the growth and development of Harrison's music. 

Throughout the ensuing decade, he worked closely with Young, preparing all of the specialized tunings and scores for Young’s six-hour magnum opus The Well-Tuned Piano.  In 1987, at Young’s invitation, Harrison became the only other person besides Young to perform the work, which he did from memory at Young’s 30-year retrospective concert series.

In 1986, with the help of two expert piano technicians, Harrison created the “harmonic piano,” a uniquely customized acoustic grand piano with the ability to alternate between two different tunings with one keyboard. The “harmonic piano” evolved from the unique design features of Young’s The Well-Tempered Piano custom Bösendorfer Imperial grand. 

Joshua Pierce will play Revelation as part of the American Festival of Microtonal Music at Faust Harrison Pianos, 205 West 58th Street, in New York City on Friday, April 25, Saturday, April 26 and Friday, May 2--all performances at 8 pm.  For more information about the concerts, contact Jeffrey James Arts Consulting at 516.797.9166 or by e-mail.

Previous Articles/
Busoni The Visionary
The Composer of the Moment:  Mark-Anthony Turnage
Electronic Music
Voices: Henze at 75
Henze Meets Emenim
On Finding Kurtag
Charles Ruggles:  When Men Were Men
Ballet Mécanique
The Adams Chronicles