Remember how last year’s music Pulitzer was awarded to Ornette Coleman’s “Sound Grammar” even though the album wasn’t entered into the competition?  I argued at the time that by awarding the prize to a composer who hadn’t entered, the Pulitzer committee had essentially voided the requested $50 “handling fee.”  This is significant because the number of people who apply for the prize each year is quite small–last year there were only 129 entries for the music prize.  Presumably what happens is that only people who think that they write in the right style and have the right connections and national profile bother

Last week, Democrats gave up their fight to block $70 billion in unrestricted war funding and on December 19, Congress sent the $556 billion omnibus spending bill to President Bush, who is expected to sign it. Included in this bill is a historic increase in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.  Funding for the NEA will be increased by $20.144 million, or about 16%, to $144.706 million for FY08.  This is less than the $160 million appropriation proposed in the House version of the bill, but more than the Senate proposal of $133.412 million and more than the President’s requested $128.412

The great American Musicologist H. Wiley Hitchcock died early on Wednesday morning (December 5, 2007) after a long illness.  Hitchcock started his career in musicology studying French and Italian Baroque music, and then transitioned into American music, editing the New Grove Dictionary of American Music and a series of 11 textbooks (writing the volume on American music himself), and publishing extensively on Charles Ives.  He served as director of the American Musicological Society from 1990 to 1992, and spent most of his career teaching at Brooklyn College. Frank Oteri interviewed him for NewMusicBox in 2002, and at the end of the interview he

Don’t miss this piece in last Sunday’s LA Times about recording engineers for classical music.  As the author, Constance Meyer, says, popular music engineers and producers are often famous in their own right, but most people can’t name a single classical music engineer or producer.   “Yet just as in rock ‘n’ roll or hip-hop, the engineer for such music — who is often, though not always, the producer as well — is the person who makes or breaks an audio performance.”  Meyer goes on to profile Max Wilcox, Da-Hong Seetoo, Fred Vogler, and Armin Steiner, and to describe a bit of how

There was a terrific profile of Gil Rose, Music Director of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and of BMOP itself in Sunday’s Boston Globe.  If you don’t know BMOP you’re missing out on one of the best forces for new orchestral music around.  There’s a lot of good stuff in the article, which is why you should read it for yourself, but it might be of particular interest to this crowd that they’re putting together their own record label “BMOP Sound” which will be launched in January “with five new releases adding to its existing catalog of 13 commercially released

If you like Olivier Messiaen, you missed out on a phenomenal performance of his epic organ work Livre de Saint Sacrement on Tuesday night in New York.  The performance was by Paul Jacobs, and took place in The Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, just off Times Square.  It was an impressive performance of a Messiaen’s very personal late-life (1984) magnum opus, and the cathedral was an ideal space for it. Of course if, like me, you don’t like Messaien, you can be glad you stayed home and organized your sock drawer or whatever you did, because that piece is frickin’

Last week I went to Corey Dargel’s new postmodern cabaret show “Removable Parts,” and it was excellent.  I call it “postmodern cabaret” because I’m not sure what else to call it—it was a series of songs on the theme of voluntary amputation, and they were performed by Corey and Kathleen Supové who performed in character as a sort of dysfunctional cabaret act. The songs were delightful—intelligently composed and quirky, moving in fits and starts, building up grooves and then taking them apart, stealing from and recontextualizing various pop, rock, and classical idioms.  The lyrics and dialogue were witty, treading that

I’m delighted to announce that the fabulous Philadelphia based chamber ensemble Relâche will be premiering a new piece of mine during thier 07-08 concert season.  The piece is called “Waiting in the Tall Grass,” and it features totalistic 6 against 5 against 4 rhythms, aperiodic tiling, some rock-out drum kit work, and a face only a mother could love.  It’ll be played on November 30th at a location to be determined and on December 1st at the International House in Philly, and will share the billing with new pieces by Duncan Nielson and others. But wait, there’s more!  The rest of

David Rakowski has gone mildly YouTube crazy over the past few months, and has videos of 29 of his 80  piano etudes.  Most of the performances are by Amy Briggs Dissanayake and Marilyn Nonken. [youtube]cNX6HPMCecY[/youtube] His etudes are true “etudes” in the sense that each is an exploration of a specific musical idea.  “Martler,” in the above video, is an etude on hand-crossing; “Taking the Fifths” is on fifths; “Schnozzage” requires the pianist to play with her nose; “Bop It” bops; “12-Step Program” is on chromatic scales and wedges.  And they kick butt. [youtube]Vsor316E90E[/youtube] (The title of this post, incidentally, is more of a Bob

I’ve just finished a new piece called Elevator Music, which is intended to be performed by two people in an elevator or a similar enclosed, public space.  It consists of a set of 5 rhythmic cells which are played by slapping or knocking on the walls of the elevator.  The idea here is in the tradition of a sort of guerilla performance practice where music is brought into unexpected places, unannounced. The premiere is up for grabs–let me know if you perform it somewhere.  Obviously, I can’t be held responsible for arrests or other legal action, and the point isn’t