Rite Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor Deutsche Grammophon CD True, Stravinsky’s Sacre du Printemps is a watershed work. It serves as many a classical listener’s jumping off point when first exploring Twentieth Century repertoire. But can a work, no matter how seminal, have too many recordings? Can it get programmed so often on concerts that it loses its zing? I have several recordings of the piece myself, but I’d begun to wonder in the past couple years whether the Rite was in danger of being overexposed. And I’m not the only one… Enter young conductor Gustavo
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Concert review, Concerts, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York, Philadelphia Orchestra
The Orchestra of the League of Composers (ISCM) presented the group’s “season finale” at Miller Theatre on Monday June 7, 2010. True, this is a pickup orchestra, but you’d never know it from listening. Composer/conductor Lou Karchin confidently led the group through a wide stylistic range of pieces, including New York and World premieres. WNYC’s Jonathan Schaefer hosted, engaging the composers in brief interviews between the various pieces. D.J. Sparr’s piece DACCA:DECCA:GAFFA featured ace new music guitarists William Anderson and Oren Fader playing steel string acoustic instruments alongside the ensemble. The title referred to a set of chord progressions that
Read moreYannick Nézet-Séguin has been named as the Philadelphia Orchestra’s next Music Director. His seven-year contract begins immediately, with Nézet-Séguin assuming the title of Music Director Designate for two seasons and taking on the full role of Music Director in the 2012-13 season. He will come to Philadelphia this Friday, June 18, 2010, to celebrate his appointment with The Philadelphia Orchestra and the City of Philadelphia. With his appointment, Nézet-Séguin joins a distinguished history inclusive of young Music Directors of The Philadelphia Orchestra. When he assumes the Music Director title full time at the age of 37, Mr. Nézet-Séguin will join
Read moreWord of Jack Beeson’s death reached me yesterday; very, very sad news– and also shocking. Not just because I’d studied with Jack at Columbia in my last year there and he’d been my thesis advisor , but because after decades he and I had just reconnected in the last 3 weeks or so: I’d sent a note of congratulations following his award given at the AMC meeting , including in it warm memories of the effects of his comment and advice, instrumental in shaping my own approach to students over the years; the note was sent on to him
Read moreKicking off in just a matter of hours, this year’s Ojai Music Festival has a schedule sure to make a number of East-Coasties feel they picked the wrong ocean to live by. This year features a multi-part symposium, starting at 3:30pm this (10 June) afternoon with “The 21st Century Musician“. Ara Guzelimian will lead a panel of diverse and creative musicians in exploring questions such as “Where is the music industry heading?” “What are the changing roles of musicians?” “What are the opportunities?” “What are the challenges?”… Panelists will include violinist and 2009 Ojai artist Carla Kihlstedt, LA Chamber Orchestra concertmistress
Read moreEclectic in their programming and superlatively talented, the Locrian Chamber Players have a unique mandate: they are the only new music ensemble which limits their repertoire to works composed in the last decade. This has led them to give countless American and World premieres of works. LCP are giving a concert this Thursday at Riverside Church, uptown in NYC. I caught up with the group’s director, David Macdonald, who whets my appetite for what looks to be an exciting concert. CBC: How did you come to commission Malcolm Goldstein’s The Sky has Many Stories to Tell? DM: A long time
Read moreThere’s a lot of shock and sadness in the Mexican classical community just now: last week one of the finest violists in Mexico and the world, Omar Hernández-Hidalgo, was found dead in his hometown of Tijuana, four days after apparently being kidnapped. A principal violist by the age of 21, Grammy-nominated twice, the first violist in his country to recieve a PhD. (at Indiana University), praised by Pierre Boulez, Hernández-Hidalgo was a champion of contemporary music, especially the new and vital in his own country. While his technique was commanding and virtuosic, his own personality was warm, modest and endlessly generous. He was
Read moreAmerican composer Jack Beeson died of congestive heart failure on Sunday, June 6 at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City, at the age of 88. His family was with him at the time of death. Jack Beeson was born on July 15, 1921 and received his early education in Muncie, Indiana. He studied composition at the Eastman School, completing Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. Upon winning the Prix de Rome and a Fulbright Fellowship Beeson lived in Rome from 1948 through 1950 where he completed his first opera, Jonah, based on a play by Paul Goodman. Beeson then adapted a
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CDs, Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, Exhibitions, Experimental Music, Houston, Improv, Mix Tape
[Ed. — After many years in NYC but fresh to my own stomping ground of Houston, Chris Becker has offered to write some semi-regular musings on the new-music scene down thisaway. His own introduction: In its March 2010 Global Ear column, The Wire magazine described Houston as “the weirdest and wildest of (Texas) cities” with a “rich tradition of unofficial and DIY art.” Speaking as a recent transplant from New York City (where I lived for twelve years), I can confirm that our British friends were on point with their analysis of H-Town. I am in my third month as a
Read moreThis was inspired by Alvin Lucier’s classic and still awesome work I am sitting in a room.
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