Berkeley Symphony, in cooperation with EarShot, invites applications for the 2014 Under Construction Reading Series. Three emerging composers will be selected to participate from a national candidate pool. Each will compose a new 10-minute work for orchestra that will be workshopped, rehearsed and read under the baton of music director Joana Carneiro, in two reading sessions on February 2-3 and May 4-5, 2014 in Berkeley, CA. Composers will receive artistic and career guidance from the Symphony artistic staff, orchestra musicians, and mentor-composers, Robert Beaser and Edmund Campion. Composers will also participate in professional development workshops and feedback sessions. Each accepted
Read moreWhat’s the most important factor in becoming a successful contemporary composer? (By successful, I mean a composer whose work gets played regularly in public venues, recorded, and written about in the music press). Talent? Sure. Determination? Of course. Hard work? Maybe. Strong relationships with musicians who inspire and play your work? Dobrinka Tabakova, the 32-year-old Bulgarian/English composer whose debut ECM CD, String Paths, will be released in the U.S. on June 18, has all those qualities in spades but her career illustrates just how important that last social aspect of building a career are. Tabakova’s music is a textured blend
Read moreThe 2013 Ojai Festival continued its look at American composers with a performance of Suite for Symphonic Strings by Lou Harrison on Saturday, June 8 in the Libbey Bowl. A 24-piece orchestra comprised of the Mark Morris Dance Group Music Ensemble and the American String Quartet filled the stage with a strong presence. Joshua Gersen conducted. Suite for Symphonic Strings is an assemblage of pieces composed at various times in Harrison’s career, and is loosely based on allusions to the Greek gods. One of his most-performed pieces, Suite for Symphonic Strings reflects a diversity of influences. The dance-like first movement
Read moreIt’s still so unbelievable and so marvelous, that John Cage would be able to perform such a piece on national television, on a game show! It’s the sort of thing that was not supposed to be possible before the Internet, but there it is, and at the time it was shown there was little chance that the federal government knew who was watching it. “Water Walk” seems to me to be convivial, like a party, with the same aesthetic values as “Living Room Music,” something that friends should enjoy together in an intimate setting. It can be performed by anyone
Read moreThe 2013 Ojai Music Festival began this week under the artistic direction of choreographer Mark Morris. The festival will focus on American composers including Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, John Cage, Lou Harrison, John Luther Adams and Terry Riley. Two pieces – Strange and Sacred Noise as well as songbirdsongs by John Luther Adams – were scheduled for outdoor performance in rural venues. The first of these performances, Strange and Sacred Noise (1997) was sited on a knoll in Upper Ojai that is part of a local country school about 10 miles out of town. The 8:00 AM concert time found the musicians and
Read moreSince no one listens to contemporary classical music, and it doesn’t get put on concert programs, to have a new work not only recorded but recorded again, by different musicians, is an impossible dream. But that’s what happens when you’re John Adams, America’s leading composer. And deservedly so, because he’s a deeply skilled and intelligent composer with serious things to say and the aesthetic to say them clearly, expressively and winningly without pandering to or patronizing his audience. But he is a busy man, and some of his recent work, like Absolute Jest and The Gospel According to the Other
Read moreThank you to Miranda Cuckson for this remembrance of composer Henri Dutilleux. My visit to Henri Dutilleux was part of one of the most beautiful summers I’ve had. I stayed for several weeks in Paris just before beginning my doctoral degree. I was determined to pass out of the language-course requirement, so I rented a little apartment on the Rue du Cardinal-Lemoine and immersed myself in French, reading twenty pages a day, chatting with storepeople and watching French talk shows on TV. Besides exploring the city and making day trips to Chartres and Auvers-sur-Oise, I visited many museums, including the
Read more