The clock is ticking and things are pretty tense here in the old control room. The fate of the Republic hangs in the balance. I refer, of course, not just to next week’s election which is only the most important one we’ve had in the past 250 years but to tonight’s showdown between number 3 West Virginia (yea) and number 5 Louisville (boo). May rightousness (my team) prevail in both encounters. With that in mind, it seems like a good day to talk about graphic scores. What are they? Who does them? And, most importantly, why? Start here with Roger Bourland’s post
Read moreJeff Sackmann has an extra ticket to the Gidon Kremer/ Brahms sonatas concert at Carnegie Hall tonight. I can’t go but if you send him an e-mail stat, you probably can. jeffsackmann@gmail.com.
Read moreAnybody know who’s writing the Intermission: Impossible blog for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center? Clever writer. Check it out today for Fred Sherry’s Top 11 Approaching Newness picks. Who wants to review this Audio-DVD for Sequenza21? (Must actually write review.) John Cage: Two3, Inlets, Two4 / Tamami Tono, Glenn Freeman, Christina Fong
Read moreGloryland Anonymous 4 with Darol Anger and Mike Marshall Harmonia Mundi Appalachian songs of faith and hope sung with passion and amazing grace by the gifted ladies of Anonymous 4. Unlike the New England Presbyterian and Methodist “high church” affirmations of American Angels, these are the songs of tent revivals and roadside tabernacles, soul music for people like me who grew up in deep hollows, surrounded by ancient worn mountains. The virtuoso fiddle, mandolin and guitar accompaniment of Mike Marshall and Darol Anger add exactly the right note of “high lonesome” authenticity and give Gloryland the joyous sense of music lived, not just performed. Arvo Pärt: Da pacem
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Classical Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Music Events, Other Minds, San Francisco
Our friends at the Other Minds new music community have announced the program for their 12th Other Minds Music Festival and, as usual, it is a dandy. This year offers a rare opportunity to hear important works by eight of today’s most innovative composers, invited by Other Minds Executive Director and Festival Artistic Director Charles Amirkhanian. On the program are American premieres from two of contemporary classical world’s elder statesmen, Per Nørgård of Denmark and Peter Sculthorpe of Australia, as well as guest composers Maja Ratkje (Norway), Joëlle Léandre (France), Ronald Bruce Smith (Canada), Daniel David Feinsmith (U.S.), Markus Stockhausen (Germany), and Tara Bouman (Netherlands).
Read moreAnthony Tommasini has a eulogy today for the much-loved and soon to be gone forever classical music department at Tower Records at Lincoln Center. It was probably the last place in the universe where a perfect stranger would come up to you as you were reading the back of a CD and say “I happened to catch the Sawallisch performance when it was recorded in Vienna. It’s much better.” Sometimes, that person was Sawallisch. Strange story here about a Texas grandmother who was convicted in New York yesterday of purloining some Glenn Gould memorabilia about 20 years ago and was caught after selling them last
Read moreAn awesome recording of Frederic Rzewski’s “Coming Together” in a live performance by the Crash Ensemble with Gavin Friday. Picked up directly from Rzewski himself in Kansas City by Scott Unrein. Not available commercially. Rzewski says it’s his favorite recording of the work. And you can listen to it, or download it, here. Update: I cheated and fixed the spelling of Fred’s name. Be sure to check the Workspace for a new commissioning prize.
Read moreThe always reliable Pliable tells me that Charles Griffin’s Sequenza21 blog From the Faraway Nearby: An American Composer in Latvia was chosen blog of the week (or some such) by no less than The Times in London. He couldn’t find a Times link online and neither can I but if someone comes across it, pass it along. Maybe this will encourage Charles to do a second post. My copy of the Gramophone Awards 2006 arrived by post this week and I was somewhat bemused to discover that my local radio station, WQXR – The Classical Station of the New York Times, has now created (at considerable
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