What better way to ring in the year than to take in a couple ensembles, from opposite ends of the spectrum, showing in much the same way what the whole point of playing is? Wojciech Kilar is a Polish composer from the same 60’s group that gave us Penderecki and Gorecki, but is notable for his detour into film music (Like Coppola’s Dracula). This is his utterly simple/hard 1988 piece Orawa (there are a bunch of other video performances of this on YouTube, but this one with Agnieszka Duczmal conducting the Chamber Orchestra “Amadeus” has them all beat for pacing and
Read moreI know, almost everyone’s felt stuck in the icebox as of late, and probably getting a little stir-crazy. Well, why not take a cue from the good folk of Nunavut and cheer up with a bit of throat singing? Let Lois Suluk-Locke and Karen Panigoniak from Arviat (pop. 2000 and some spare change) show you how it’s done: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1YkYh43V_Y[/youtube]
Read moreYep, Elliott Carter has gotten (and is getting) his proper due, so time to jump ahead and perpare for some 2009 action… Though it’s a little sparse for 100th-year blockbusters, there’s always Elie Siegmeister, Grazyna Bacewicz, Harald Genzmer, Rodolfo Cornejo, Robin Orr, John Raynor, Thorleif Aamodt, Paul Constantinescu, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Georgi Aleksandrovich Mushel, Sergius Kagen, Arwel Hughes, Ādolfs Skulte, Henk Bijvanck, and Vagn Holmboe. And the one I want to give a little shout out for, Jean Berger. One eventful (and as nearly long) life, that touched a lot of places and people. I’m pretty sure almost every kid in
Read moreWe’ve spent a lot of time at S21, spotlighting various composers and their recordings that can be found online. But what about all that video hanging around out there, that you might otherwise never catch? So I thought I’d start a semi-regular post showing off some of the interesting stuff that’s caught my eye and ear. First up is a reminder that Sarah Palin is not what all Alaska is about… Shawn Savageau is studying percussion at UA Fairbanks (not far from the grubstake of that other diametric-Palin-opposite, the composer John Luther Adams). He was forward-thinking enough to upload videos to YouTube, of
Read moreLuke Gullickson is a composer, pianist, and writer currently working on a Master’s in composition at UT in Austin, Texas. He keeps a blog, Sonatas and Interludes, where he recently pondered how “new age” can reach out and bleed into even the “avant-garde”: There’s a problem in new pretty piano music. I call it the “new age” problem. The thing is, we’ve been Jim Brickman-d, David Lanz-d, Yanni-d, and now we can’t hear Keith Jarrett the same way anymore. We are all familiar with the warm sounds of new age piano music; it’s been a weird but persistent classification. On
Read moreGoogle‘s latest coup is the digitization and online offering of essentially the entire photo archive of Life magazine. They’re currently up to around 20% of the entire ten-million picture archive, so there’s lots more to keep looking for in the future. Of course you can search to your heart’s content for just about any subject matter; but a quick search for “composer” returns some really truly spiffy photos of various and sundry greats (and a few “who dat?”‘s), many I’ve never seen before and all wonderful images… Like this one, from 1955, of Alan Hovhaness buried in his work. The images on
Read moreMy first year in college (1974-5), we were treated to an exhibition of the original score pages selected by John Cage and Alison Knowles for their highly influential 1969 book Notations (currently available as a free PDF download at UbuWeb). For young composers at the time, these bits and pieces of anything-but-standard notation were eye- and ear-opening, sent us scouring the library stacks for more, and led us all to go a little crazy trying to mimic or out-write what we saw there. Then as sequel this year, Theresa Sauer carried the idea up to our own time with Notations 21, an updated
Read moreEver browsed the books on your shelf, and had the sudden strange feeling they were telling you something? Nina Katchadourian selects a few spines to show you you weren’t so far off — including this succinct tale that gets a helping hand from none other than John Cage:
Read more1931-2008. Ouch. Here’s a nice appreciation from Gramophone.
Read moreHe’s been on my list for a while now, to make famous (ha ha) as an S21 “click pick”. But before I get the chance to feature him, Huck Hodge goes and wins this year’s Gaudeamus Prize: At the final concert of the International Gaudeamus Music Week 2008, which took place in Amsterdam from 1 to 7 September, the Gaudeamus Prize was awarded to the American composer Huck Hodge (1977). The Gaudeamus Prize, an award of 4,550 Euros, is intended as a commission for a new work to be performed at the next edition of the International Gaudeamus Music Week.
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