Sunday, May 22, 2005
What are you listening to?
I am curious as to what music the Sequenza21 gang and readers are listening to, so let me know what is in heavy rotation in your cd player.
Here is a list of Cds that are in my current rotation:
-Harrison Birtwistle
2cd set “The British Music Collection”
I have become a huge Birtwistle fan and have been listening
to the following works from the 2cd set quite a bit:
Secret Theatre for chamber orchestra
Earth Dances for orchestra
Panic for alto saxophone and orchestra
-Wolfgang Rihm
Jagden und Formen
Dominique My conducting the Ensemble Modern
-Elliott Carter
Concerto for Clarinet and various chamber works
Nouvel Ensemble Moderne
Conducted by Lorraine Vallaincourt
Popular music Cds also in my current rotation:
Björk - Medulla
Beck - Guero
posted by Everette Minchew
4:09 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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