Thursday, March 27, 2008
Pandora
Recently, I have been listening to a lot of music at work on Pandora.com.
Pandora allows you to create your own radio stations by typing in the name of a song, artist, or composer. Then Pandora will compile a station full of music that shares the same qualities. Pandora is a result of what is called the Music Genome Project.
Today, I have listened to the music of Beck, Amy Winehouse, Birtwistle, Stockhausen and Xenakis. Amazingly, I have managed to listen to the music of the latter three with out being harmed by co-workers.
posted by Everette Minchew
1:08 PM
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Baby Steps
2008 brought something new to Mississippi Public Broadcasting: HDRadio.
I had no idea HDRadio existed. I know more about it now, but I have yet to see an HDRadio on sale in any store.
The new year brought a change in their normal format. More talk shows, news programming, and less music. With an addition of an HD channel they have created a new station of just music programming.
And get this.....they have a show titled Modern Classical airing on Saturdays which I have managed to listen online a couple times. There is a new classical music director and she really seems to be attempting to change the Muzak feel of MPB.
I did start laughing when I listened to the first show and she said, "Every episode of Modern Classical will feature at least one work of a living composer!" That episode started off with Satie's Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear and I thought "Oh, this is going to be the greatest classical hits of the early 20th century.”
The second episode did surprise me when it included Zippo Songs by Phil Kline. It is a very interesting piece and I was amazed to here it coming from MPB radio.
Here is a list of works I have heard so far on Modern Classical:
Milhaud - La Creation du Monde
Rodrigo - Five Childrens Pieces
Phil Kline - Zippo Songs
Bartok - Violin Rhapsody No. 1
Holst - Mars
Eric Satie – Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear
Morton Feldman – Rothko Chapel mvts 4 & 5
Prokofiev – Classical Symphony
Webern – Six Pieces for Orchestra op. 6
Bret Dietz - I think it was a piece for two marimbas…sorry.
I haven’t heard any Xenakis yet. Perhaps it’s coming?
Slowly acclimating the listeners to the new stuff I guess.
posted by Everette Minchew
8:21 AM
Sunday, September 16, 2007
composing No Way.
I recently finished my first instrumental work since Hurricane Katrina passed through these parts. It is a short solo work for clarinet titled, No Way.
The initial seed of No Way was planted into my brain earlier this year when Al Theisen and I were talking about writing a new work based off of one of our older pieces where each bar of the new work was a variation off of that bar in the previous piece. Something about that idea just stuck with me. A couple of months later I heard a performance by the USM clarinet professor Gregory Oakes, at the Integrales New Music Festival in March, of a work by Ken Ueno titled, I screamed at the sea until nodes swelled up, then my voice became the resonant noise of the sea for amplified clarinet. That’s when I really started to churn around ideas for a clarinet piece.
Around June, I decided that the bar by bar variation idea using one of my old works could be successful for clarinet. The work I chose was for saxophone, and it was the first work I composed for that instrument. I have a little bit of a soft spot for that piece for that reason. The work was a serialist piece titled, Improvisation, which really wasn’t very improvisatory, but that was the name I branded it with. It has now seen a second life (a successful life, I hope) as a work for solo clarinet.
Since completing No Way, I have had a whirlwind of new ideas, and now I am working on a piece for pierrot ensemble plus percussion titled, Ice Nine. We will see how that goes. It has been fun so far.
posted by Everette Minchew
5:13 PM
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Independence Day playlist
Elliott Carter - Boston Conerto
Symphony of Three Orchestras
Charles Ives - Three Places in New England
Symphony No. 2
Conlon Nancarrow - Piece No. 2 for small orchestra
Ezra Sims - String Quartet No. 2
posted by Everette Minchew
7:06 AM
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Letter to my wind sextet.
Dear Hydra,
I apologize. I have spoken ill of you for about two years now. I was convinced you were sub-par and ill-conceived. I even asked your dedicatee to forget about you. I had ideas of cutting you up and rearranging you into a new work, but not anymore.
Although your first performance was mediocre at best, I feel that you have yet to reach your prime. I have listened to the premiere performance with a score several times this weekend and I am deeply sorry for my past words. I realize all the charm you posess. I was blaming you for the mistakes of a few performers, and now I regret it. So now I wish you a long life and many great performances. All the best, Everette Minchew
posted by Everette Minchew
1:25 PM
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Threnody
In two seconds flat (or so it seemed), Asa ravaged several cookies and my old Thriller cassette. Thriller, PYT, and Billie Jean (in analog format), you will be missed.
posted by Everette Minchew
6:35 PM
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
This and That.
Recently, I had the pleasure of participating in a masterclass given by the Rome Prize winner, Ken Ueno. The masterclass was part of the two day Integrales New Music Festival at the University of Southern Mississippi. My flute work, Figment No. 3 "Euterpe", was given a wonderful performance by the USM faculty member, Danilo Mezzadri.
Ueno had only encouraging words about my music. And later on. after his jet lag had waned and we feasted on good creole food/beer we hung out and talked music for much too long. I think he may have been surprised to find a group of die hard new music fans in south Mississippi, especially at a university where new music has been frowned on for much too long. That is starting to change though. I wouldhope so after hearing Ken Ueno perform a twenty minute piece for throat/overtone singer and MAX/MSP.
By the way, Ueno has the coolest bio pic.
Recent Play list:
Ken Ueno – Kaze-no-Oka
Beat Furrer – Fama
Salvatore Sciarrino – Piano Sonati #2-5
Philippe Hurel – Pour Luigi
Iannis Xenakis - Kuillenn
Helmut Lachenmann - String Quartet #2 “Riegen seliger Geister” (Thanks, Jacob!)
Bjork - Earth Invaders (in eager anticipation of her Volta.)
posted by Everette Minchew
8:47 PM
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Composer Everette Minchew (born 1977) is consistently active in the creation, performance, and promotion of contemporary music. Moderately prolific, his catalogue includes small chamber pieces for violin, piano, various wind instruments, harpsichord and electronic music. Current commissions include a string trio and an opera based on an 11th-century crusades tale.
His earliest musical training came at the age of eleven when he began playing alto saxophone; it wasn?t long until he began his first attempts in composition.
He received a Bachelor?s Degree in Music History from the University of Southern Mississippi, where he studied saxophone under world-renowned soloist, Lawrence Gwozdz.
Fearing that traditional university training would hinder his development as a progressive composer, he abandoned the idea of formal lessons in favor of an intense private study of modern masterworks.
Minchew's works are characterized by their intense timbral explorations and brutal dissonance. That is not to say, however, that the compositions are devoid of beauty. In the first of the Two Brief Pieces, for example, the harpsichord chimes stringent yet haunting chords evoking a sense of loss.
Other pieces, like the Figment No. 2 "Juggler's Fancy" play upon the kaleidoscopic interaction between timbres and tones. The rapid alternation of pizzicato, arco bowing, and extreme glissandi remind the listener of Xenakis coupled with a Berio Sequenza. Minchew's Invention "Two-Part Contraption" for piano owes much to Ligeti's etudes and boogie-woogie jazz.
His music has been performed around the United States, and he was the featured composer at the 2005 Intégrales New Music Festival in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
He currently resides in Hattiesburg, Mississippi with his wife, Cheryl.
CONTACT INFORMATION
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