It’s awfully quiet out there.  What are you folks up to?  I’m off to lunch at a nice bistro called Le Singe Vert.  Why don’t you talk amonst yourselves for awhile.  Somebody say something controversial, like why has Derek Bermel become the kingmaker in new music in New York and should he be?  I have no opinion, of course, but maybe some of you do.

12 thoughts on “Monkey Business”
  1. david, silly! bring your date to the asm show! there’ll be booze! and the music — there’s no better aphrodisiac. (ehem.)

    funny that you mention grunt work, jerry. my piece is called ‘grunt work for the avant garde.’

    as far as reviews go, the guy who deemed my piece on the merkin show in february unfit for human consumption has a piece on this show. go figure. =)

  2. It’s quiet over here because most of Seattle shut down for the last few days due to ice & snow. This following a full 14 inches of rain just this month… But I did have a nice lunch Monday, with the pianist & former Brooklyn-dweller Cristina Valdes, and with trumpeter Cuong Vu. They’re hanging on my side of the country for a while, and trying to get a handle on what kind of scene we have here (or if there even *is* a scene, that is… as a group we seem a bit diffuse and less driven than what they’re used to NYC-way).

  3. C’mon somebody. Volunteer to review Andrea’s show. We need more people doing concert reviews from all over. How are we going to make each other rich and famous if nobody wants to do the grunt work?

  4. oops. I must suffer from minimalist dyslexia.

    We will have to see whether Glass gets an equal
    share of @ttention — experimental opera in America
    being less populist than Reich’s soft classical/world/
    jazz fusion.

    Or perhaps WNET/WETA will follow up Il Divo and Il
    Precioso specials on Monday and Tuesday nights at the
    end of January with a Great Performances telecast (simulcast)
    of one of Glass’s significant operas on Wednesday night,
    the 31st.

  5. Maybe it’s because Philip’s 70th birthday isn’t until January 31, 2007.

    I suspect he will get his share of attention.

  6. and I thought that Jerry Bowles was the kingmaker of new music in New York … and Steve Reich the king, at least according to WNET/WETA and many music producing organizations … I don’t recall Philip Glass being given a 70th anniversary tribute on WNET/WETA, or in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, or London, but I could be wrong…

    In Washington, D.C., John Adams is apparently now the king of new music in America and the NSO will be celebrating his 60th anniversary this winter with the performance of his Harmonielehre, from 1985. While the group has finally done Glass (a commission, in fact) two years back, they haven’t yet done Reich… Perhaps Jeffrey Brown can call Leonard Slatkin or Ivan Fisher…

    What do people think of Robert Henderson’s postminimal Einstein’s Violin, from 1988? Worthy of an NSO spotlight?

    Hang in there ‘kids’! The works you compose before your 39th birthday may become the stuff of official celebrations more than 20 years later!

  7. what am I up to??? I’m sitting in my office at work having just scarfed down my lunch before another meeting and checking my RSS reader (I use Vienna, which is open-source and awesome), which is how I noticed your post!

    I think everyone’s still awestruck and speechless after last week’s S21 concert. Except for Galen, who found the ability to write a post in the Forum today…

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