Frank Zappa has a street named after him in Berlin. Frank Zappa Strasse is in Marzahn, a district on the eastern fringe of the capital made up of communist-era housing blocks. Can’t think of any connection to music except for famous interviews with John Lennon and Johnny Rotten but Tom Snyder was the man for whom talk radio and TV was invented. Nobody did it better except, perhaps, for Dan Aykroyd doing his impression of Tom Snyder. Ingmar Bergman died at 89. There are lots of connections between Bergman and opera and classical music, both through productions he directed and the use of composers and
Read moreFrom today’s Deutsche Welle: Germany’s annual Bayreuth Festival of Wagner operas began on Wednesday with a highly anticipated, make-or-break production by the 29-year-old great-granddaughter of the composer Richard Wagner. And while the applause after the first two acts of Wagner’s only “comic” opera was friendly, the audience — which included a smorgasbord of German political and social elite — was less amused by the third and final act, which featured a few minutes of full frontal nudity, a bizarre sight of Richard Wagner dancing in his underwear and a bunch of master singers horsing around the stage with oversized penises.
Read moreAfter we arrived in New York in 1968, my first freelance gig was writing previews of upcoming art exhibitions for Arts Magazine. For five bucks a review, I would trot around the area that is now Soho, climbing rickety, dangerous stairs to look for the next Jackson Pollock. Lofts were illegal for living in those days so I learned a lot about fake walls and how to cleverly hide bedrooms and kitchens from prying building inspectors. I thought of those days this morning when I read the strange news of the lady who besmirched a bone-dry white Cy Twombly painting on exhibition in France by planting a lipstick-drenched kiss
Read moreMy copy of the Miller Theater Fall and Spring schedule landed on the window sill via carrier pigeon yesterday. As always, Columbia University’s indispensible new music venue has some humdingers on tap. The Composer Portrait series this season includes Esa-Pekka Salonen, Wolfgang Rihm, David Sanford, Gerald Barry (in the first large-scale New York exposure for the Irish composer), French spectralist Phillipe Hurel, George Crumb and Peter Lieberson. Except for Salonen and Rihm, the composers are set for pre-concert discussions, live and in color, so to speak. Also on the schedule for December 7, 8, 9 and 11 is the New York stage
Read moreOver the past couple of years, ISSUE Project Room has become one of the hot spots for contemporary music in the city and earned a well-deserved reputation for presenting new and artistically challenging work. It has outgrown its funky silo on the Gowanus Canal and has just launched a $350,000 capital campaign with the goal of expanding its programs and moving to a larger, more centrally-located home. As often happens, though, a great opportunity has come along and the group needs to raise a bundle of cash by July 24 to take advantage of it. ISSUE is one of two finalists
Read moreMarvin Rosen’s Classical Discoveries program is a special one this week involving, as it does, several members of the S21 community. Marvin’s doing the first radio broadcast of OgreOgress’s world premiere recording of Alan Hovhaness’s Janabar, a 37-minute Sinfonia Concertante for Piano, Trumpet, Violin & Strings. The recording features Christina Fong on violin, Paul Hersey on piano, and Michael Bowman on trumpet, with the Slovak Philharmonic, conducted by Rastislav Stur. The piece is scheduled for Wednesday, July 18th during the 10am EST hour. The program, from Princeton, NJ, can be heard locally on 103.3 FM or online. Lots of details about the new recording here. Also scheduled is the one hour Symphony
Read moreBlogging as a substitute for productive behavior has just turned 10 years old, according to today’s Wall Street Journal. To which we say a hearty “Mazeltov” and welcome into the S21 fold composer Judith Shatin who is spending a Semester at Sea and sharing her adventures with us. We’re also delighted to welcome back Alan Thiesen, who has returned after spending a “brutal” year in post-doctoral studies. Our amigo Marco Antonio Mazzini reports that his Musical Marathon for clarinetists competition is closed for new entries. You can now listen to the submissions (all different versions of a piece called Convalecencia) and vote for your favorite. Go hither and
Read moreJerry Hadley has apparently attempted suicide.
Read moreI wasn’t able to make the premiere screening on July 4 but I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about a new documentary film called The End of New Music, which follows Judd Greenstein, David T. Little, and Missy Mazzoli, the founders of Free Speech Zone, as they tour the East Coast with the groups Newspeak and NOW Ensemble, playing concerts in unlikely venues like clubs and bars and bringing new music to audiences that might not otherwise be exposed to it. The film, directed by Stephen S. Taylor, takes a verite approach to the tour, combined with interviews and various
Read moreBernard Holland has a funny piece in today’s Times about setting out to listen to Marc-André Dalvavie’s new CD and getting mugged instead by an roving gang of French musical poseurs. A couple of choice bon mots: So breathless were the revelations contained in this essay, called “Space, Line, Color,” it seemed for a moment the music could wait. Expounding on hearing, space and your stereo system, it reads: “while right/left movement can be recreated, front/back movement is replaced by a sensation of sound advancing or receding.” So it’s true that sound is softer when it is farther away than when it is in front of
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