Last Thursday, the NEA funding increases survived three hostile amendments in the House and ultimately made it through to approval unscathed.  The most hostile of the amendments, offered by Doub Lamborn (R-CO), would have eliminated funding for the NEA, and was defeated 97-335.  Of those 97 yes votes, 3 were Democrats: Gene Taylor of Mississippi, Ike Skelton of Missouri, and Jim Matheson of Utah.  The Republicans were split roughly 50/50, with 94 ayes and 104 nays.  The closest vote was for the Bishop amendment to move $31.6 Million from the NEA to the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, National

Two quick notes: First, the American Symphony Orchestra League is reporting that the full House Appropriations Committee has approved the major arts funding increases which the Interior Subcommittee had recommended on May 23rd.  InsideHigherEd.com confirms the story, saying that “The House Appropriations Committee approved legislation Thursday that would increase spending on the National Endowment for the Humanities to $160 million in the 2008 fiscal year, up sharply from the $141.4 million that the agency is receiving this year. The bill, which finances the Interior Department and numerous other agencies such as non gamstop casinos, would also provide $160 million to the National

According to the American Symphony Orchestra League, which has been coordinating an advocacy campaign on the subject, the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee in the House of Representatives  passed yesterday a $35 Million increase in the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts.  According to ASOL, “This increase is significantly higher than the modest $4 million increase proposed by the President and represents a much more substantial restoration of NEA funds than has been proposed by the House committee since the NEA sustained a 40% budget cut more than a decade ago.”  I don’t see any confirmation of this on the committe’s website

Jacob ter Veldhuis might be the best composer you’ve never heard of. Let me explain. Start with his 1999 piece “Heartbreakers,” which takes recordings of American daytime television talk shows like Jerry Springer, Ricki Lake, and Oprah, and sets them within the context of a Jazz ensemble. Ter Veldhuis uses the technique, pioneered by Steve Reich in pieces like “Different Trains,” of playing fragments of speech and doubling the melodic patterns with the instruments. Musically, the result is a sort of post-minimalist jazz jam-fest, complete with improvised solos and speech clips sliced and diced and repeated until the meanings of

Yes, you read that right.  Two men got into a fistfight at the Boston Pops, which apparently knocked over chairs left one of them shirtless.  With the obvious caviat that we should use our words to resolve our differences and that violence is generally bad, this is great news for the classical world.  I wish it had been a regular BSO concert. Conductor Kieth Lockhard apparently took the fracas in stride.  According to one audience member “he just stood there, you know, quiet.”

Somebody had to do it.  Sorry.[youtube]KRIUYgozCGo[/youtube]

Our pal Frank Oteri has written a contribution for Take A Friend to the Orchestra, and it’s up today.  Frank describes taking his friend Joe Ornstein to the ACO concert at Zankel Hall a few weeks ago.  Ornstein is smart and funny and pulls no punches–it’s a good read.  “People who go to the three-B concerts are snobs generally speaking. And if they aren’t, I don’t know what the hell they’re doing there.”  I actually met Joe at that concert and we had a lovely chat during intermission. My own essay on the structural differences between the popular music experience and

I’m so glad you asked!  TAFTO is Drew McManus’s “Take a Friend to the Orchestra” month–a month dedicated to bringing new fans into the fold.  As always, Drew is marking TAFTO with a series of essays by hot, industry-savvy writers — how-to guides, analysis of the contemporary situation, and so on.  The first two essays went up yesterday and today, and you should check them out. Both of my fans (hi mom!) will want to know that my own contribution will be going up on April 12th, and the rest of you will want to know that you can see

New York, NY, March 29, 2007.  I’ve been a fan of Evan Ziporyn’s music since six or seven years ago when I first heard his work in a concert of piano music at Dartmouth College. (I think it must have been “Pondok,” in a recital by the fabulous Sarah Cahill, but I can’t seem to find evidence to support that conclusion. Sarah, if you’re out there. . .) Ziporyn is a fixture at Bang On A Can, and a member of the Bang On A Can All Stars where he plays a mean clarinet; he’s also a member of the

It’s funny how our own personal preferences can make it so difficult to review concerts objectively. Take Monday night’s American Composer’s Orchestra concert, at Zankel Hall in New York – all seven pieces were good, often impressive, sometimes subtle and complex. But the things I want to rave about were not, I suspect, the things that most of the audience would have raved about when they got home. Min Xiao-Fen’s Blue Pipa, for voice and the lute-like Chinese instrument named in the title, opened the concert effectively. Min performed the piece herself in a pool of light on an otherwise