Our friend Marvin Rosen will be hosting the Brooklyn-based trio Janus on his “Classical Discoveries” radio program tomorrow (Wednesday) morning from 9:30 to 11:00 AM. If you don’t live near Princeton, NJ, or if you’re like me and you only consume actual radio waves when you’re in the car, you should be able to catch the show streaming live at the WPRB website. Janus was formed by flutist Amanda Baker, violist Beth Meyers, and harpist Nuiko Wadden in 2002, and since then they have been rapidly expanding the flute/viola/harp trio repertoire. Their debut album i am not drops today, and
Read moreWhen I was a kid, my family did a lot of hiking and camping, and on those trips at mealtime or for a cup of tea during a rest my dad would do the cooking. He would break out a little camp stove, fill a pot with water, and turn on the gas, igniting it with a match. The gas would ignite with a whoosh, and then the sound would settle into a steady white-noise hiss. The noise was loud enough to drown out little sounds like trees shifting in the breeze and the buzz of a nearby fly, but
Read moreThe consistently thought-provoking Kyle Gann has a complaint: “I think young composers might want to think about diversifying the composers they base their styles on beyond John Coolidge Adams.” He gets a lot more promotional CDs than I do from record labels and young composers hoping to lure him out of music-critic retirement to provide that coveted Kyle Gann pull-quote for their bios. (Can I do the heist-movie thing and say they want to get him out of retirement for “one last score”? Too late, I already did.) As I said, I don’t get the same recordings that Kyle gets,
Read moreKyle Gann reports that more than twice as many students have signed up for his 12-tone Analysis seminar than for his Beethoven class, and then in the comments he expresses concern that some of those students may think the course is a 12-Step program. Coincidentally, our crack musicological research team has recently uncovered the following from Serious Composers Anonymous: A Method Of Ensuring the Supremacy of German Music for the Next Hundred Years Using Twelve Steps Related Only To Each Other 1. We admitted we were powerless over free atonality, and that our compositions had become unmanageable. 2. Came to
Read more1. Kyle Gann recently posted Carolyn Yarnell’s piano piece The Same Sky on his blog. (Click here and scroll down for the link to the recording) He calls it “one of the most fantastic keyboard works anyone’s written in the last 20 years” and I have to agree. Kathleen Supové is the pianist, and she tears it up. 2. Swedish electronic rock duo The Knife was commissioned by a Danish performance company called Hotel Pro Forma to write an opera about Charles Darwin. The result, which was premiered in Copenhagen in September 2009, is called Tomorrow in a Year, and
Read moreLast night on The Colbert Report, Steven Colbert brought in Philip Glass to assist him in a parody of. . . Philip Glass. The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c We Are at War – Philip Glass www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy It’s clearly a spoof of Einstein on the Beach–or “Einstein on the Beeyotch,” as Colbert says at the end of the show when he thanks Glass and mentions the recently released recording of Glass’s A Toltec Symphony. Colbert is one of the most knowledgeable television hosts on the air when it comes to
Read moreIn a city like New York, with so many first-rate musicians moving to town every year to try to “make it,” promising new chamber ensembles spring up all the time, and I think this is a great thing. One of 2009’s most promising new groups was the Syzygy New Music Collective, which gave their debut concert at St. Anthony of Padua church, in the West Village, on December 4th. Founded by Jessica Salzinski and Danielle Schwob, two composers who recently graduated from NYU, Syzygy is dedicating itself to the presentation of music by young and emerging composers, and indeed most
Read moreI hesitate to repost this again, but I find that the links that Google turns up are mostly dead, and some of you seem to like it. So, with best wishes for a happy holdiay season, and without further ado, I give you: A Visit From J.S. Bach By Galen H. Brown, (With apologies to Henry Livingston, Jr.) ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the city The critics were trying their best to be witty; They printed their lists of the past year’s best fare, In hopes that their trendy young readers would care; But the readers were
Read moreAmanda Palmer (photo by Martin Foster) Amanda Palmer is a bona fide rock star. She first made her name as half of The Dresden Dolls, and has since struck out on her own with a solo album called “Who Killed Amanda Palmer.” In June of 2008 she teamed up with the Boston Pops for two nights, and this December they’re doing it again for a New Year’s Eve concert. Amanda has also been pioneering new models of how the rock music industry can work (staying in nearly constant contact with her fans via Twitter plays a key role), and I
Read moreLast Friday I finally made it down to the new DUMBO location of Galapagos Art Space to see the release party/performance of Mikel Rouse’s haunting new album Gravity Radio. But let’s back up for a moment before we get to Rouse. DUMBO, for you non-New Yorkers, is one of the myriad New York City neighborhood abbreviations, like SoHo (South of Houston) or Tribeca (triangle below Canal), and it stands for “Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass,” which is to say it’s in Brooklyn in the area just south of the Manhattan Bridge. It was one of the first places in
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