One of the hottest things in Philadelphia has to be the Relâche chamber ensemble. They’ve performed and recorded work by a wide variety of composers in the Downtown tradition including Kyle Gann, Michael Nyman, Robert Ashley, Lois V. Vierk, James Tenney, and they’re about to hit the road with Elliott Sharp’s new work “Evolute.” The piece is, to quote the Relâche press release, “a new chamber- and electronic musical work. . . [in which] Relâche’s octet instrumentation will be processed by Sharp through live electronics, resulting in a swirling mass of acoustic and electronic sound – a live classical remix.
Read more[youtube]1ain4qftoM[/youtube] If the video doesn’t show up here, you can view it on the actual YouTube site here.
Read moreTimes have been good for my old composition teacher Lee Hyla. After many years on the composition faculty at Boston’s New England Conservatory, he has been hired into an endowed chair at Northwestern University, where he will take up residence in the coming academic year. His impending departure has precipitated a flurry of activity in Boston, including a lengthy and glowing profile in the Boston Globe in mid January and a farewell retrospective concert at New England Conservatory a few days ago. And in November, John Zorn’s Tzadik label released his latest CD “Wilson’s Ivory-bill.” Samples of three of the
Read moreIt seems that conceptual artist Jonathon Keats has created a cell-phone ringtone based on John Cage’s 4’33” called My Cage (Silence for Cellphone), which is exactly what it sounds like: “a continuous stream of silence produced on a computer, and compressed to standard ringtone format.” It’s both hilarious and brilliant. (Thanks to Kyle Gann for bringing it to my attention.) The point of Cage’s original piece is that during the time period the audience is forced to think about silence (and the lack thereof) and music’s relationship to silence in a new way. Ambient environmental sounds are recontextualized and turned
Read more‘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 nestled all snug in their beds, While vacuous pop idols danced in their heads; And the Maestro in PJs, and I in my drawers, Had just settled in to examine some scores, When out on the lawn, such cacaphonous sound, I sprang from my desk thinking Zorn was in town.
Read moreA while back, Stephen Colbert made fun of John Zorn on the Colbert Report, and I’m pleased to report that tonight he referred, if not by name, to La Monte Young. At the beginning of a segment on Art, he talked about feeding hay to a piano, which as you know clearly refers to Young’s 1960 piece “Piano Piece for David Tudor #1.” The piece is one of several text instruction pieces from 1960 and its instructions read: “Bring a bale of hay and a bucket of water onto the stage for the piano to eat and drink. The performer may
Read moreDecember 5, 2006 — One of the great things about the internet is that several of the pieces on this concert were available for preview on the Bang On A Can website, and in fact you can still hear those previews to get a flavor of what I’m talking about. New music concerts are so hit-or-miss, it’s a shame more organizations don’t offer this service to help potential audience members pre-screen their events. If you’re listening to that preview, you will already have figured out that this concert was one of the good ones.
Read moreThis past Sunday 37,936 people ran 26.22 miles through parts of all five boroughs of New York City from Staten Island to Central Park, through parts of all five boroughs. The marathon has taken place on the first Sunday of November every year since 1970, and this year Jelena Prokopcuka won the women’s division with a time of 2:25:05, M. Gomes dos Santos won the men’s division clocking in at 2:09:58, and the wheelchair divisions male and female winners were Stephen Kiogora (2:10:06) and Paul Tergat (2:10:10). I don’t really care about marathons very much, but it’s a major event
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