Classical Music

Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

Down, Cujo. Down.

Okay, sports fans, here’s something you’ll like.  Today, beginning at 6 pm PST and running through midnight (That would be 9 pm to 3 am {thanks, Andrea for straightening me out} here in the Center of the Universe), KFJC radio in Los Altos Hills, CA is doing a 6-hour special focusing on Berio’s Sequenzas.

Cujo, a dj on KFJC and Sequenza21 peruser, has lined up some stellar color commentary for this one.  In addition to a live performance on flute, you’ll hear from from David Osmond-Smith, author of the only existing English Berio book (with more to come), Janet Halfyard, editor of the forthcoming Berio Sequenzas, and Brian Brandt, chief of Mode Records. (I believe I was invited to participate in some way but forgot about it–one of the hazards of being 64.) 

Cujo provides several good reasons why we should all listen.  We will:

o learn why you should be disgusted when the trombone sequenza is played in a clown costume

o learn about the beef between Rostropovich and Berio

o understand exactly how Berio learned to write so virtuosically for such uncommon instruments.  (Seriously, accordion?).

If you continue to listen beyond midnight, you will be treated to KFJC’s annual Night and Day of the Sun, a 24-hour tribute to Sun Ra on his birthday.

Chances are you don’t get KFJC on your radio, but thanks to the miracle of the Internets you can listen online here.  As it says on the station’s Netcast page, “Ain’t technology wonderful.”

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Music Events, New York

Blue Jeff

The Composers Concordance is having a concert tomorrow night at 8PM at the Greenwich House Music School Renee Weiler Concert Hall, 46 Barrow Street which will star our very own Jeff Harrington.  Okay, there are some other composers on the program, too, but none as adventuresome or all-round lovable as our favorite geek-composer.  Paul Hoffmann will perform the New York premiere of Jeff’s brilliant Big Easy mashup, Blue Strider.  You’ll find the full schedule for the program here. 

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Music Events, New York

Multi-Culti

Marco 004.JPG                           Marco Antonio Mazzini is a Peruvian clarinetist with an Italian name who lives in Belgium and plays with a Czech orchestra called the Ostravska Banda which–as fate would have it–is joining the Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble for a good-looking program (Brown, Wolpe, Stockhausen, Xenakis) of modern music at Zankel Hall Monday night.  There will be a preview performance Sunday night at the Willow Place Auditorium in Brooklyn Heights. Marco would be up for organizing a Sequenza21 concert in Ghent sometime if we have some Euro-interest.

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Other Minds, San Francisco

All We Hear is Radio Ga-Ga

Our West Coast colleagues at Other Minds marked what would have been Lou Harrison’s 90th birthday on Monday by relaunching radiOM.org, their amazing, free treasure trove of streaming audio and video programs that span the history of new music. 

The still expanding Other Minds Archive contains 4,500 hours of recorded materials, which includes 3,500 hours of audiotape recordings from the KPFA Radio Music Department collection; highlights from past Other Minds Music Festivals; materials from the private archive of composer George Antheil; selected programs from the Cabrillo Music Festival, and other rare and unusual recordings of classical music, jazz, and experimental forms.  This unparalleled collection of on-air performances, interviews, concerts, rehearsals, conversations and more, is now available completely free of charge at www.radiOM.org.

Artists represented in the collection include John Adams, Laurie Anderson, Aaron Copland, Elliott Carter, John Cage, Lou Harrison, Henry Kaiser, Pauline Oliveros, Steve Reich, Igor Stravinsky, Virgil Thomson, and Frank Zappa, among hundreds of others.

Elsewhere, here’s some film of a fist fight at the Boston Pops.

And this is pretty amazing.

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical

Will You Still Need Me, Will You Still Feed Me?

We’ve gotten a lot (actually, three) requests for a “media kit” from potential advertisers recently.  We don’t actually have such a thing because we don’t actively look for advertising (the Lincoln Center folks and a couple of record companies sometimes contact me when they want to promote something and I charge them a few bucks–if I remember to send an invoice).  Sequenza21 is my hobby, my love and–thanks to all you nice folks who create an enormous amount of entertaining content in your comments, posts and forums–it is a remarkably inexpensive and low maintenance undertaking.

It occurs to me, though, that if we were a little more active in looking for sponsors or advertisers we might be able to do a few more things as a community–more S21 concerts, for example, perhaps in other cities or maybe a commissioning fund.  Maybe we could team up with a performing group.  (How about the Sequenza21 All-Stars?) 

So, here’s our media kit.  We get about 30,000 unique visitors a month and 60,000 page views–nearly all of them musicians or composers. In terms of influence, we rank near the top (Alex Ross) in the Technorati “classical music” rankings.  We have an extremely loyal following–more than 70% of the people who come here are returning visitors. 

We charge $150 a month for up to 145×145 pixels ad and $250 a month for a 145×290 pixels ad in the right sidebar.

If you’d like to become a $1,000 a year sponsor, you can have a
permanent 145×145 pixel ad (which you can change as often as you like); $1,500 gets you a permanent 145×190 ad for 12 months.  $2,500 gets you that–plus a blog@sequenza21 that you get to write yourself.

Of course, if you’re a regular and have no funding I’m happy to help you promote your project free.  I owe you nice folks more than you know.

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

It’s Very Fancy on Old Delancey

Here’s something to put in your calendar.  Our friends at the Metropolis Ensemble, led by Artistic Director Andrew Cyr, have a fabulous program called “There and Back Again” lined up for May 24 at the Angel Orensanz Foundation Center for the Arts, highlighted by the U.S. Premiere of Avner Dorman’s Mandolin Concerto.  Mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital (for whom the work was written) and the Metropolis Ensemble Strings will do the honors.  

“The concerto’s main conflicts are between sound and silence and between motion and stasis,’ Dorman says. “One of the things that inspired me to deal with these opposites is the Mandolin’s most basic technique – the tremolo, which is the rapid repetition of notes. The tremolo embodies both motion and stasis. The rapid movement provides momentum, while the pitches stay the same.”

Dorman says the piece draws from the mandolin’s vast repertoire, including Baroque, Russian folk music, Bluegrass, Indian music, Brazilian jazz and Avant-Garde.  

“When Avi approached me to write a concerto for him, my acquaintance with the mandolin was fairly limited,” he says.  “I had used it in chamber pieces only twice before, and did not know most of the repertoire for the instrument. As I got to know the instrument better, I discovered its diverse sonic and expressive possibilities.”

Also featured will be Osvaldo Golijov’s The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind for string quartet and clarinets, with clarinet soloist Tibi Cziger in collaboration with the Metropolis Ensemble Chamber Players, Arnaud Sussmann and Lily Francis, violins, Eric Nowlin, viola, Michal Korman, cello. The program will round out with Shostakovich’s masterpiece Chamber Symphony op. 110a and Bartók’s Rumanian Folk Dances.

That’s Thursday, May 24, 2007 (7:30pm) at the Angel Orensanz Foundation Center for the Arts, (172 Norfolk St, between Houston and Delancey).

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

John C. Adams, Harvard ’69

The Harvard Crimson reports on the return of a notable alumnus who has done pretty well in this composing business and had this to say about his old teacher Leon Kirchner:

[Kirchner] himself felt that no matter what he did he’d never be as good as Shubert and passed that onto the students. It became a form of self-flagellation, kills the creative spirit, and was incipient in his teaching.

Sound familiar to anyone?

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

The Incredible Hipness of Carl Nielsen

For reasons I no longer remember, I had always thought of Carl Nielsen as a stodgy composer whose works were a little severe and chilly–the musical equivalent of one of Bergman’s more depressing films.  Winter Light in grainy, black and white sound.  I started to rethink (or I should say, to relisten to) Nielsen a couple of years ago when Alex Ross mentioned in one of our discussions here that he considered Uncle Carl to be one of the most “underrated” modern composers. 

Last year’s DaCapo release of the opera Maskarade convinced me that I had gotten Nielsen all wrong.  He’s really an enormously fun guy with a wicked sense of humor, a refined touch of romance, and a level of formal neoclassic chops that are matched only by Stravinsky.  Maybe. Nielsen just might be better. 

To bolster that argument, let me point to two new Nielsen releases from DaCapo that have appeared so far this year.  The first is a collection of his shorter opera and theater pieces called Orchestral Music played with unbridled enthusiasm and skill by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, under conductor Thomas Dausgaard.  Playful, refined, beautifully performed and recorded, it’s no surprise that both Gramophone and Classics Today picked the disk as their “CD of the Month.” It will certainly be near the top of our list of best recordings of the year.

As will String Quartets Vol. 1, which features two of Nielsen’s string quartets (in G minor and G major) and the only string quintet (in G major) he ever composed.  Lovingly played by the Young Danish String Quartet, with Tim Fredericksen on viola, this is moving, passionate, deeply romantic music that can, if you’re paying close attention, move you to tears by its sheer perfection.

I’m prepared to say that these are the two best Nielsen recordings ever made, although I obviously haven’t heard them all.  I simply can’t imagine recordings that could be any better.

by Jerry Bowles
CDs, Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Festivals

Have You Seen This Man?

brians.jpg

No?  Well you should, and can, this Friday night, May 4, 8PM at the Robert Miller Gallery, 524 W. 26th Street, New York, NY on the second night of a three-day music/art festival called Look&Listen.  

Finally had a chance to meet up with Brian Sacawa after all these years for lunch at Ralph’s, a New York institution since 1952.  Got to regale him with tales of having seen Dexter and Stan and Jimmy and Zoot and Gerry doing that thing they did so well while they were still doing it.  I’ve reached the age where “I was there” has become a conversation capper–one of the few perks of being old. 

Brian is good people and one of the most dedicated players and champions of new music around.  Catch the show Friday and check out his new album called american voices on innova which features works by Michael Gordon, Lee Hyla, Erik Spangler, Chris Theofanidis, Derek Hurst, Keeril Makan and Philip Glass.  Street date is July 24 but you can get it from the web site now.  You can also get a free copy from me if you volunteer to write a review.   

by Jerry Bowles