On Thursday evening, March 26, the New York Philharmonic will debut Marc Neikrug’s Concerto for Orchestra, which was commissioned for the NYPhil last year: When Alan Gilbert was at Vail with the Philharmonic a couple of summers ago, and Marc Neikrug was Composer in Residence at the Vail Music Festival, they began to discuss the possibility of a commission. The composer thought possibly a wind concerto, but Alan Gilbert said that’s not what he had in mind; he wanted something “with more flash”…something a little more “sparkly.” Neikrug suggested that a concerto for orchestra might fill the bill. Traditional concertos

The great ones don’t look for music; music finds them.  Ordinary people can learn to play and maybe even perform but the great ones are born with it. They live it…and perfect it. No matter the genre or style,  no matter where they try to hide–even a dirt farm in Turkey Scratch, Arkansas–music finds the kids with the spark and, for better or sometimes worse, it consumes them. And it makes the world a better place for all of us.

I prefer to say that I consider myself a writer of music more than a composer. I just try to tell stories through the music narrative. I do this in the simplest, almost naive way possible. However, if there is something that leads me when I start writing a piece, it is to avoid communicating something tiring and boring. I want people to find my music sentimental and moving and also, as far as possible, to fancy listening to it again. I am talking about being accessible to the listener and the performers. In other words, I do not write

Igudesman & Joo, Carnegie Hall, April 17

Help me out here.  A couple of my acquaintance are celebrating their 40th anniversary in New Orleans in a couple of weeks and asked me where they should go for a “special” night of music.  I haven’t been there in years and don’t have a clue but I said I would ask around.  I’m asking around.  Bear in mind that these are folks who think that Al Hirt and Pete Fountain are probably the greatest jazz players who ever lived.  And, I’m guessing that too loud or too grungy would not be good.  Who has some recommendations? As long as

I was sitting in the S21 headquarters–Starbucks on 57th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues–sipping a latte and trying to guess which of the several attractive Asian-American women in the room was Sugar Vendil,  founder/artistic director/pianist of The Nouveau Classical Project, when a helpful message popped up on my iPhone:  “I’m the one with the black bowties on my shoes,” it said.   But, of course, I thought, that makes perfect sense.  This is a woman who has been producing three or four concerts a year since 2008 that bring together the unlikely combination of composers, performers and fashion designers 

ISSUE Project Room is looking for a Marketing Coordinator to fill a part-time contracted position. The position requires coordination of the website and multiple modes of print, in order to outreach to the community to build audience and membership for ISSUE Project Room’s programs. A large part of the position consists of coordinating marketing materials from the Curatorial and Development staffs, and working directly with the Executive Director to produce the final products. This position is the manager and driver for all marketing projects, therefore, keeping on top of deadlines is essential. In addition, this position plays a key role

At a dinner party in the Hamptons attended by your correspondent many years ago, the late and legendary editor Willie Morris averred–this was at a point in the evening when his beverage had been refreshed several times–that “things would have been a lot different if the South had won the war.”  I assumed he was being ironic but the notion came back to me other night during the first of two concerts organized by the Library of Congress in tribute to Dina Koston, a prominent force in DC classical music for many years who died last year and– along with

Dina Koston was a unique figure in the Washington music scene.  A composer and pianist, she was the Iron Lady behind the Theater Chamber Players, a pioneering ensemble that tackled an eclectic blend of old and new chamber music in DC from 1968 to 2004–well before the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center came along.   Her friend and collaborator, pianist Leon Fleisher described her as “complicated, compulsive, wacky and wacked out,” (sounds  like my kind of woman).  The Library of Congress is staging two events this week to honor her life and legacy.  On Wednesday night  Joy Zinoman directs a

It was not a great year for movies, in my humble opinion.  But like they say in the most obnoxious Bud commercials yet:  here we go. The Top Ten Movies I Saw in 2011 The Trip – Two prominent English comics eat and impersonate their way through the Lake District in a film that is barely a film at all but manages to be both hysterically funny and oddly touching. Submarine – Young Oliver gets laid. A coming of age film that will make you forget that you ever saw one of those before. Memo to Woody Allen: This is