An acquaintance of mine – a fellow student-composer – years ago once had the fortune to have an extended conversation with György Ligeti. Upon learning my friend was an aspiring composer, Ligeti said: “So you want to be a composer? You’d better go to lots of parties!” This anecdote comes to mind now when reflecting on the final concert of Juilliard’s Focus Festival. The Festival, which wrapped up last week, focused this year on Hungarian music after Bartók. Among the works on the final concert were György Kurtág’s Stele and György Ligeti’s Violin Concerto. My friends: the Violin Concerto is
Read moreCourtesy of The Lyric Chamber Music Society of New York, I was able to hear last Wednesday three compositions by the Chinese-American composer Zhou Long (b. 1953). Long’s music had been recommended to me by composer Jeff Nichols, and the Lyric found room for it on an attractive program that opened with Debussy’s Cello Sonata and closed with Mendelssohn’s D minor piano trio. The players were the fearsomely solid Cho-Liang Lin (violin), Hai-Ye Ni (cello), and Helen Huang (piano).Two of Long’s compositions were “early” works from the 1980s: Taiping Drum (for violin and piano) and Wu Kui (for solo piano);
Read moreSam Pottle’s theme song for “The Muppet Show;” the feeling of breaking the thousand measure mark in a piece (without repeats); Rodney Lister’s thoughts, voiced to me almost ten years ago, about humor, proportion, and Messiaen; music groups on Facebook (example: “If being a Music Major were easy, we’d call it Your Mom!”); how simultaneously essential and swept-under-the-rug ear training is and has become; the Met’s slightly obnoxious new policy for buying standing-room tickets (must buy day-of); goofy fictitious opera/composer pairings (example: “Pippy Longstocking” by Brian Ferneyhough); the injustice Oscar (in the pic) dealt “The Good Shepherd;” good and bad
Read more. . . He looks around, full of secrets; His strange deep thoughts have brought, so far, no harm. Carefully, with fists and elbows, he prepares One dark, tremendous chord Never heard before–his own thunder! And strikes. And the strings will quiver with it A long time before the held pedal Gives up the sound completely–this throbbing Of the piano’s great exposed heart. Then, soberly, he begins his scales. . . . – from “After-School Practice: A Short Story” by Donald Justice The Collected Poems of Donald Justice (1925-2004) were released in paperback last year. When the young Justice
Read moreThe Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center has announced their 2007-2008 season. Do you realize that in one year Elliott Carter will be 100 years old? Wowza. To mark the occasion, CMS will present his five string quartets in January of 2008.. The season will also include works by Jennifer Higdon, Mario Davidovsky, Joan Tower (who is in residence with CMS), and the Benjamin Franklin. Well some people think that old five-movement string quartet is by him . . . Read here. The following composers are up for Oscar next month: Gustavo Santaolalla (in the pic), Babel; Thomas Newman, The
Read moreThe theoretically minded of you out there should be aware of the work of Dmitri Tymoczko. Tymoczko is a composer and teaches at Princeton. An active music theorist, his recent work develops geometric models for the mapping of musical space. His paper “The Geometry of Musical Chords” was published last fall in Science magazine; it was the first music theory paper the publication has accepted in its over one hundred years of existence. In collaboration with colleagues in math and science, Tymoczko demonstrates in the paper the efficacy of orbifolds for mapping musical space. Orbifolds are multi-dimensional non-Euclidean shapes
Read moreDoubtless legions of Sequenza21 fans are crestfallen this morning. Being people of superior intellect, you were all hoping for a New England / New Orleans Super Bowl. Now we get the Bears and the Colts. In any case, Prince is the halftime show this year. Can you guess what young composer went on the record a few years ago saying “Nothing is better than Prince?” Well, Bach is better than Prince–but that’s just me . . . Oh – something else that’s better than Prince: Ian Moss and his burly crew of choral composers are commandeering the Norwegian Seaman’s Church
Read moreHey – don’t worry if you don’t have a great date to go to the movies with tonight: just stay home and tune in to modernism’s official goofball, Mauricio Kagel. UbuWeb is featuring a bunch of his films made between 1965 and 1983 all packed onto one zany page. These films are apparently rarely screened in the US, and one doubts they’re screened much anywhere else. So get cracking: Dreamgirls can wait, gosh darnit. Have a good neo-Dada weekend.
Read moreRight now — just maybe — on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio, there might be the broadcast premiere of a string piece by Arnold Schoenberg. Is this the big moment? Find out here. (Thank Glenn Freeman.) Speaking of Arnie: yesterday I lugged a bigass score of Erwartung on the 2 train from Brooklyn College all the way to Borough Hall, then paraded it down Court Street. Crowds gathered to cheer my progress, women threw themselves at my feet, and a wine merchant presented me with a bottle of his best. Now I know how Schoenberg himself must have felt all those
Read moreRobert Ashley’s latest opera, Concrete, deals with the secrets of ordinary people who are accompanied by Ableton Live. It opens tonight. Steve Smith had a substantive piece in the Times a few days ago. Lawrence Dillon likes the cold; go over and read some CD reviews; and I’m feeling beamy these days. Or should I? Let’s hear it for winter!
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