Comments on: Nadia Sirota: Interview

By: Chris McGovern

Chris McGovern — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:42:04 +0000

I picked a random number close to my own, it could have been anything, but it certainly would not have made sense to make it “15 to 25″ since younger people have been known to be transformed in their musical taste–I know mine was during that period.

By: Stanley Moon

Stanley Moon — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:54:12 +0000

I’m not making it bigger, I’m making it what you actually wrote. Other than that, we cannot know what you meant, unless you meant that people over a certain age lack a kind of discernment available only to you and your circle of friends. In which case, please refrain from such thinking.

By: Chris McGovern

Chris McGovern — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 05:49:54 +0000

@Chris Becker–Thanks man!

By: Chris McGovern

Chris McGovern — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 05:04:18 +0000

I know what I meant when I said it, and so did Nadia, so please refrain from making it bigger than it is. I said “Ride of the Valkyries or something” trying to make a general commentary about garden variety classical works. We should have picked The Blue Danube.

By: Stanley Moon

Stanley Moon — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 17:28:20 +0000

What makes the reference to the 50-somethings odd (and a trifle patronizing) is that there was a sizable audience for the new and interesting in the 70s and 80s, people who dug Reich and Glass and Eno and Meredith Monk and Laurie Anderson and avant-rock and hiphop and jazz and world music and Ligeti and Stockhausen, too. Those people are now in their 50s and 60s and they still listen. Hell, they may even listen to Wagner, but it’s not like the 20 and 30-somethings out there have invented the wheel or anything. It’s just more new music.

It seems that what you meant was “people who don’t know anything about contemporary music.”

By: Chris Becker

Chris Becker — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 15:07:20 +0000

The profile and the comments below support my belief that the age of an audience does not prevent them from embracing newly composed music. Too many orchestras, ensembles, and venues plan their programming assuming the opposite.

If more of us took chances, they might find themselves surprised by the results and (before its too late) part of a larger shift now taking place in how classical/contemporary music is marketed and presented.

Chris, you don’t look a day over 44.

By: Susan Scheid

Susan Scheid — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 14:04:18 +0000

Must make one correction, and, in a way, this gets even better: I heard Chiara play Friedman, but the concert to which I took my nearly octegenerian, “traditional” chamber music-loving friend was Chiara performing world premieres of Muhly’s Diacritical Marks and Valgeir Sigurðsson’s Nebraska Quartet. She loved it, and particularly the Nebraska Quartet. By the way,I commend Sirota’s CD First Things First to anyone who hasn’t heard it yet. Wonderful.

Chris: So, who cares what ages we all are, eh? As for you, you give us many gifts with your reviews and alerts. Thank you!

By: Chris McGovern

Chris McGovern — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 11:35:12 +0000

For the record, I’m 45 myself.

By: Susan Scheid

Susan Scheid — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 04:27:29 +0000

Terrific to see Nadia Sirota interviewed; thanks to Chris for highlighting her. Was amused in looking at the comments to see the “people in their 50′s” referenced. I’d overlooked that the first time around. I’m in my 60′s, and relatively new to contemporary/new music. I was over the moon from my first exposure, and, in a way, it’s as Sirota says. I’ve always had trouble finding something to connect to in extremely atonal and serialist music, but, at the same time, I was really sick of hearing the same three violin concertos over and over again. At a certain point, I simply gave up and dropped out of listening altogether. I am thrilled with what I’m hearing now and keep telling friends, you’ve got to listen to this, just listen to this! I think that, like me, many were turned off by the serialism phase, and I have found it tough to convince folks to try again. My first real victory was getting friends to come with me to the Ecstatic Music Festival last year. Snider’s Penelope (Shara Worden, of course, was a brilliant ambassador for that) and the Chiara String Quartet playing Jefferson Friedman went over very well, and I’m beginning to see interest in the readers of my blog, as well—some of whom have never even listened to classical music before at all. I tend to be a hopeful sort, but I believe there’s a big potential audience out there of us “trousers rolled” types.

By: Chris Becker

Chris Becker — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 03:22:14 +0000

Great interview but the “people in their 50′s”line speaks to the relative ignorance of the interviewer with regard to age and its relation to enjoying or at least accepting so-called “post modern” “new music” or whatever terms he and Nadia are comfortable using to describe contemporary music. Then again, it’s too easy to bust the interviewer’s chops for the comment, although too often hear younger people refer to “50″ as “being old.” Chris, I apologize if in fact you are older than I am assuming! But believe me, 50 is the new 20. You’ll believe me when you’re 40.

The “uninitiated” Nadia speaks of are all ages, and I can tell she gets this. People in their 20s who listen to The National are not because of their age and taste in bands more open to newly composed music. Implying this is not much different from saying playing Mozart for your baby will make it smarter.

The projects and ensembles Nadia describe are, from my perspective as a 43 year old man, part of a portion of continuum, and less something truly avant-garde or iconoclastic. The But that doesn’t mean there isn’t good music being made.

Again, great interview with some inspiring news and points…