Anybody know a good classical or new music video blogger?   I may have a pretty neat gig for them. Send me a note or leave a note below.   sequenza21@gmail.com

Would be in record stores on March 3 if there were such a thing as record stores.  Available here. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxKqg0Fwsro[/youtube]

Some enterprising folks have put together an updatable master list of artists, musicians and bands on Twitter. (Yes, now you too can tell Jimmy Eat World what you had for breakfast).  Why don’t one of you geeky types with some time on your hands rush over to Google Docs and create a spread sheet where Composers, Real Musicians (like the ones who read S21) and fellow travelers can add their Twitter addresses.  We’ll do a link

Our always adventuresome friends at Starkland have outdone themselves this time with an ambitious  65-minute studio composition by Phil Kline commissioned specifically for high-resolution surround sound and DVD.  Around the World in a Daze offers Kline’s trademark boombox choirs, as well as (it says here) “an ethereal Ethel string quartet, a weird madrigal, hyper-dense bells (hundreds of thousands at one point), richly mournful multi-tracked vocals, soaring violinistics from Todd Reynolds, and an immersive environment of 15,000 African gray parrots.” I’m a big fan of innovative packaging (this is one of my all-time favorite books) and Daze is an amazing example of cool presentation. The custom‑designed double

The ‘reenvisioned’ Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center opens Sunday.  I hope they haven’t moved the chairs closer together.  It was the only concert hall in New York where you could walk across a row without stepping on a fellow patron’s feet. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaWYSvlCZH4[/youtube]  

Big Up to our familiar Lawrence Dillon whose Ravinia Festival winning composition The Better Angels of Our Nature will be performed on tour by the Lincoln Trio (ensemble in residence at the Music Institute of Chicago) and narrator Welz Kauffman (CEO of the Ravinia Festival)  33 times from February 11th to April 24th in cities throughout Illinois, including Chicago, Springfield, Champaign, Decatur, Urbana, Evanston, Lincoln and Bloomington.  The work is one of three competition-winning compositions, the other two of which are James Crowley’s From the Earth and Eric Sawyer’s Lincoln’s Two Americas. All three works will be presented on the tour. 

Best Classical Contemporary Composition  Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems Of Bob Dylan John Corigliano (JoAnn Falletta) Track from: Corigliano: Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems Of Bob Dylan [Naxos]  Best Classical Album  Weill: Rise And Fall Of The City Of Mahagonny James Conlon, conductor; Anthony Dean Griffey, Patti LuPone & Audra McDonald; Fred Vogler, producer (Donnie Ray Albert, John Easterlin, Steven Humes, Mel Ulrich & Robert Wörle; Los Angeles Opera Chorus; Los Angeles Opera Orchestra) [EuroArts]  Best Orchestral Performance  Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4 Bernard Haitink, conductor (Chicago Symphony Orchestra) [CSO Resound]  Best Opera Recording  Weill: Rise And Fall Of The City

From Sarah Baird: Aurora Natola-Ginastera, internationally renowned cello virtuoso and wife of the late composer, Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983), passed away on Sunday, January 25, in Geneva. She was 85 years old.  (Alberto wrote his second Cello Concerto for her, at least. What would our repertoire look like if not for composers in love?! ) The funeral information follows. All best. ~ Sarah Ceremony, followed by burial: Tuesday, Feb 3, 10 a.m. / Eglise St-Joseph / Rue Petit-Senn / 1207 Geneva Burial: Cimetière de Plainpalais / Rue des Rois 10 / 1204 Geneva JB Note: Valentine’s Day is not that far

So Yo-Yo, Itzhak and gang were string synching and what we heard on TV was Memorex.  Misleading? Unethical? Biggest scandal since we found out that those adorable little Chinese kids were lip synching the opening ceremony of the Olympics?  Or, no biggie.  Give the nice folks a break, nobody could actually play under those frigid conditions. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDUTM3NViHc[/youtube]

Both György Kurtág and Peter Eötvös will be in New York this month as part of the Hungarian Ministry of Culture’s Hungarian Culture Year (“Extremely Hungary”). Carnegie Hall presents two weeks of folk, symphonic, and new music, as well as educational programs performed by today’s most noted Hungarian musicians. Featured highlights of the festival will be three concerts of music by two of Hungary’s greatest living composers. On January 29 Peter Eötvös will lead Ensemble ACJW in a portrait concert of his music. On the program will be the U.S. premiere performance of Octet Plus (2008) for soprano and wind