Classical Music

Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Don’t Stop Believin’

It’s Daniel Gilliam’s turn to be S21er in the spotlight this weekend.  If you happen to be near Louisville, Kentucky at 4 pm this Sunday, drop by Central Presbyterian Church for the world premiere of Daniel’s Song of the Universal, a cantata for soprano solo, choir and piano, based on the text by Walt Whitman.  Lacey Hunter Gilliam, Daniel’s wife, will be the soloist. 

Also on the program will be the premiere of O for Such a Dream for choir, soloist and piano, by Daron Aric Hagen, as well as new music by Louisville composer Fred Speck, and anthems by John Leavitt and Paul Halley.  The church is located at 318 West Kentucky Street (corner of Fourth and Kentucky), in Louisville. No admission, but there might be a donation plate.

Daniel has a terrific radio program of contemporary classical music called Brave New World on WUOL in Louisville.  Which provides an obvious segueway to David Toub whose  intentionally left blank will be programmed on Richard Friedman’s Music from Other Minds on KALW-FM, 91.7 in San Francisco. tomorrow evening, and again on Monday.  This is a recording of a  live performance of the piece, as arranged by Paul Bailey and performed on 5/9/07 by the Diverse Instrument Ensemble conducted by Lloyd Rogers.  Catch it either tomorrow (Friday, June 15th) at 11 PM PST and again on Monday at 11 PM PST on KALW-FM or, more sensibly for most of us,  you can also listen to it for one week after the Friday broadcast on the MFOM website.
Today’s topic:  Diegetic versus non-diegetic music in the Sopranos.  Discuss.
by Jerry Bowles
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

A Report From Prague

Greetings S21ers:

The OgreOgress gang has been having a swell time in Old Bohemia for the past month.  Last night I had the honor of recording John Cage’s Three with the multi-talented and very humorous German-born (and Amsterdam-based) recordist Susanna Borsch at the facilities of the Prague State Opera.

If you’re interested in the recorder I would encourage you to check out Borsch’s activities and be in contact. Of particular note to those in the US of A (apologies to Borat), Susanna’s eclectic new music “girl band” Electra will be in the Massachusetts area to perform Louis Andriessen in July and I am certain further bookings in the USA would be much appreciated.

But, wait, there’s more.  A few days prior I had the distinct honor of protesting George W. Bush and even got on the CBS Evening News (that is me next to Axelrod at the end of the report)…

… and a few weeks before that, I recorded Cage’s Twenty-
Eight with the Prague Winds.

In short, having a wonderful time.  Wish you all were here.

by Glenn Freeman
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals

You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows

First Jeff Harrington, then David Salvage, and now our very own Lawrence Dillon is feeling some end-of-the-season love on the concert circuit.  This very evening (Thursday), at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina,  violinist Piotr Szewczyk will perform Lawrence’s Mister Blister and a movement from Fifteen Minutes as part of his Music in Time – Violin Futura program.  Szewczyk will also perform works by Mason Bates, Moritz Eggert, Daniel Kellogg, Jennifer Wang, and others as part of this program of new, short, innovative solo violin pieces.

And, on June 15 at the International Double Reed Society Conference in Ithaca, New York, bassoonist Jeffrey Keesecker will perform Dillon’s Furies and Muses, joined by violinist Susan Waterbury and Jennifer Reuning Meyers, violist Melissa Stucky and cellist Heidi Hoffman. This is part of a special series of bassoon performances featuring Contraband, Lorelei Dowling, Terry Ewell and Arlen Fast. The concert is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the IDRS or call (607) 274-3717.  

Anybody doing anything interesting this summer.  Festivals? 

Want to try your hand at being the front page blogger of S21 for a week? 

by Jerry Bowles
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, New York, North/South

Viva Max!

For the past 27 years, the Mexican-born pianist and composer Max Lifchitz has been a tireless and resourceful promoter of new music (including his own) through live performances and recordings with the North/South Consonance Ensemble, the chamber group of the non-profit North/South Consonance organization. Many young composers, particularly those of the Neoclassic or New Romantic temperment (Larry Bell comes immediately to mind), have gotten a career boost from Lifchitz’s annual programs and recordings, which now number nearly 50. 

I mention all this because North/South Consonance’s  final concert of the current season is coming up on Sunday afternoon June 17 at 3 PM and will take place at Christ & St. Stephen’s Church (120 West 69th St, NYC) on Manhattan’s West Side. Admission is free (no tickets necessary).

The program will feature two compositions involving narration: Igor Stravinsky’s L’histoire du soldat and Lifchitz’s The Blood Orange.  I personally detest works that involve people talking while I’m trying to listen to music, but apparently some people like it and many famous composers have written works for ensemble and spoken word. 

Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale was written at the end of World War I and is one of those Faustian/Devil Goes Down to Georgia things about trading in your soul for a fiddle.  Lifchitz says the work is being performed to mark the 125th anniversary of the birth of the composer and, in fact, it is being performed on June 17, the exact day Stravinsky was born in 1882 in a town near St Petersburg.

Lifchitz’s The Blood Orange is a setting of a text by New York City writer Kathleen Masterson, written especially for the actress Norma Fire, who will perform it.  The narrative with music relates the story of Fire’s parents who emigrated to this country before the Holocaust, and of their relatives who did not. Fire will be supported by violinist Claudia Schaer and Lifchitz on piano. 

Today’s musical question is:  Name the best pieces ever written for music and narration (and let’s get Copland and Honegger out of the way quickly).

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Covent Garden

If I Swallow Anything Evil, Put Your Finger Down My Throat

Not quite sure what to make of this, but the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London has bought Opus Arte,  a leading for-profit maker and producer of performance DVDs.  The economics of high music culture have changed and more and more music groups of all sizes are moving toward control of production and distribution of their artistic “products,” as traditional avenues like record labels go belly up.  Where is our friend Pliable on this one?  

Here’s an update on David Salvage’s piece at the Harvard Club on June 11.  Starting time is 7pm, not 7:30 as we reported here yesterday.  The requirement to dress “spiffy” remains in effect. 

Update:  EMI has joined the other three major record labels in distributing music videos on YouTube.  In addition to making available clips, EMI and YouTube plan to develop a system that provides for consumer-created content that uses EMI music and video. Additionally, thanks to some new Apple software, the clips won’t just be available online but also on Apple TV — the device that lets people watch Internet video on TV screens

by Jerry Bowles
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

David Does Harvard

dsheadsht.pngAttention Boston (and NY) shoppers!  The world-premiere run of David Salvage’s String Quartet No. 2 is at hand.  The Arcturus Chamber Ensemble will do the honors, starting this Friday, June 1, at 8pm, at Adams House JCR, Harvard University.  They’ll do it again on Saturday night at 7:30 at the First Religious Society, Carlisle and, just to be on the safe side, one more time on Monday, June 11 at 7:30pm, at the Harvard Club, here in the Center of the Universe. 

There will be other works on all the programs, probably by dead white guys.  The concerts are free and open to the public although the Harvard Club requires you to “look spiffy,” according to Master Salvage.  I used to go there years ago with my old buddy Whit Stillman (whatever happened to him anyway) and it was pretty tight-assed then.  Probably hasn’t changed much.

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

Born in the U.S.A.

Composers, painters, writers, the whole motley lot–have always depended upon the kindness of strangers. Timely financial interventions of the Lorenzo de’ Medici here, the Nadezda von Meck there, the Paul Sacher over there have greased the skids for the makers of many of the world’s great masterpieces.  Alas, those sort of patrons aren’t that plentiful nowadays and so a new “community” model of patronage has sprung up in which arts organizations pool their resources to commission new works.  I call it the “Biegel” method after S21 blogger and pianist Jeffrey Biegel.  I suspect he wasn’t the first to do it but he has turned joint financing of commissions into an art and a bustling career.

Joan Tower’s Made in America, which will be released by Naxos next Tuesday, is the latest example of the art of the deal, new music-style, and it adds an intriquing new wrinkle–a corporate sponsor. The project began as an attempt by 65 small orchestras from around the United States to pool their resources to commission a new work by a major American composer. With the help of the American Symphony Orchestra League, Meet The Composer, and Ford Motor Company Fund, (the latter patronage leading to the fortuitous branding, Ford Made in America), the project has brought Tower’s piece to towns nationwide.

Made in America, premiered in Glens Falls, New York in October 2005, and has received over 80 performances—making it perhaps the most-performed piece of new music in recent history—and is still making the rounds on the concert circuit.        

The new Naxos recording marks the first appearance of new Music Advisor Leonard Slatkin on record with the Nashville Symphony.

As for the music itself:  it’s not Ligeti but you knew that.  Made in America is more like a Copland chocolate plucked from a Whitman Americana Sampler.  Gooey and slightly pre-chewed, but you kind of like it.  

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical

Ranking the Music Blogs

Scott Spiegelberg of Musical Perceptions is a very brave man who obviously doesn’t have enough abuse going on in his life.  (By the way, we should have been number four, not number five.  Scott’s methodology in adding two numbers is whacked–he should have averaged the two numbers for Opera Chic, not added them together.)

And, hey, Teachout doesn’t write that much about music so let’s throw him out of mix, too.  So, let’s see; that makes us number 3. 

Not that we’re competitive or anything.

by Jerry Bowles