Comments on: The Year of Brad Lubman

By: Brad

Brad — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 18:30:05 +0000

Thank you, everyone, for your comments, support and enthusiasm. I would like to add my own comment, about programming: Conductors don’t always get to choose the programs! In fact, in 20 + years in the business, I have almost never had any input for programming. I get asked to conduct concerts for which the programs have already been made. Luckily I have ecclectic tastes. But another interesting thing to me is that many people see me as some sort of Reich specialist. That’s because as I started to become more well known in recent years, it coincided with my working with Reich and the Ensemble Modern, who initially engaged me for all Reich stuff. However, from 1985 – 95 I never conducted any Reich (or Adams or Glass, etc etc etc). I was strictly what we used to call a hardcore uptown New Yorker! —- (Carter, Boulez, Wuorinen, etc etc). Luckily, after many years of introspection, I realized that there’s a wide range of music I happen to like, and therefore opened up to all sorts of music. So to go from Boulez to Reich, for example, is quite natural for me. It’s just funny to me that there are a number of people who think I mostly do Reich or have only recently started doing other stuff, when actually it’s the other way around. Anyway, I’ve learned that nothing is as it seems to the public or on the surface. Funny how reputations get started, or rumours, or whatever.
Thanks for listening! It’s heartwarming to know that what we do really matters to our listening audience!

By: Aaron

Aaron — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 00:26:09 +0000

And for the record, Evan & I used to get together on Sundays to watch the Bills. Thankfully, I now live in a town w/ a real football team. And also, it’s true, a damn fine soccer team.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 23:48:24 +0000

Very glad to hear it, Marcus. I stand duly corrected.

By: Marcus Macauley

Marcus Macauley — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 22:56:39 +0000

For what it’s worth, in the last three years, Eastman’s Musica Nova under Brad’s direction has done music by Rihm, Lachenmann, Francesconi, Birtwhistle and Xenakis, as well as Carter, Wuorinen, Mackey, Reich, Glass, Wolfe, and Ziporyn (off the top of my head), not to mention many student works. As a performer, composer, and listener, I think it’s been a pretty admirable variety.

Other locations/venues, I can’t comment.

By: Evan Johnson

Evan Johnson — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 21:28:30 +0000

Oh, and don’t listen to Aaron – I hear he watches soccer.

By: Evan Johnson

Evan Johnson — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 21:27:41 +0000

from this side of the pond, we want to hear american music. from the other side of the pond, they want to hear european music.

Not quite. I am as American as apple pie at a baseball game (go Tigers), and I want to hear someone with Lubman’s chops in as wide a variety of repertoire as he’s comfortable with. The ability to can do Reich and Lachenmann (for example) at the same high level is in my experience exceedingly rare, and if he’s not doing the latter because he thinks Americans don’t want to hear it that is a travesty, because few if any Americans can do it – or want to.

And insofar as what you say is true, in the US or in Europe – and I’m not saying it isn’t, because to a large degree it is – I’d say it’s a problem to be fought against.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 19:05:22 +0000

“from this side of the pond, we want to hear american music. from the other side of the pond, they want to hear european music. it’s not pandering”

That strikes me as unbelievably provincial and short-sighted, and frankly, patently false. There are _loads_ of American composers being performed regularly in Europe, and a number who were/are incredibly influential in European music.

By: The Year of Brad Lubman « Musica Novacaine

The Year of Brad Lubman « Musica Novacaine — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 18:51:52 +0000

[...] From Sequenza 21, an extraordinary article on Whassup With Brad Down In New York City Right Now. with Comments. here. check it out. [...]

By: andrea

andrea — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 16:39:12 +0000

from this side of the pond, we want to hear american music. from the other side of the pond, they want to hear european music. it’s not pandering; it’s normal. we all want to look at ourselves in the mirror and coo. i hope they’re programming music by japanese folks in japan, you know? we can’t all rule the world.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 14:34:26 +0000

No no, Davey, I didn’t in any way mean to suggest any sense of more/less in my discussion of those composers, only that it bugs me to see conductors/performers (and, in some cases, even composers) running parallel careers, one in Europe (where one programs “Euro” music), and one in the USA. It’s of course true that Lubman probably does more American music in Europe than any other conductor, so my point is a rather stupid one in this case, but I would _love_ to be able to see the sort of concert I saw him do at Huddersfield last year here stateside. The pandering part isn’t that the repertoire is lesser, only that it gives audiences what they already know they like.

But, I’ll tip-toe back out onto the limb to at least say that, yes, from a conductorly standpoint, it’s an awful lot harder to put together strong performances of Nono/Lachenmann/Gervasoni than the ACO rep. The technical, formal, dynamic, registral, gestural, rhythmic, metrical, etc. challenges do seem much greater in the former repertoire, though I -of course- don’t necessarily see that as “better,” or even “more,” to use your term. Just harder. And the point of my first post was that Lubman clearly has the chops.

I will now attempt to carefully dislodge my foot from my mouth.