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
Read moreFJO flags Terry Teachout’s WSJ piece called Jazz Wins a Pulitzer – But did Ornette Coleman deserve his prize? Thoughts?
Read moreLots of neat stuff happening this week and beyond. Pulse, the composers federation that includes our amigo Darcy James Argue will close out its 2006-2007 “season” with a new music project called Sihr Halal, Music of Praise and Celebration. The concert is Saturday, May 5th 2007 at 8:30 PM at Roulette located at 20 Greene Street in SoHo (tickets are $15 at the door, $10 students/seniors). The project is funded in part through Meet the Composer’s Creative Connections program. Sihr Halal features the premiere of six compositions by the composers of Pulse—Darcy James Argue, Jamie Begian, Joseph C. Phillips Jr., JC Sanford, Joshua Shneider, and Yumiko
Read moreItaly has produced great pianists like Busoni, Michelangeli, and Pollini. Its current pianist in the running for that distinction, Marino Formenti, even hails from Pollini’s hometown, Milan, where he was born in October 1965. Formenti has been dubbed ” a Glenn Gould for the 21st century ” by The LA TIMES’ Mark Swed, which probably refers to his Gould-like obsessive-compulsive absorption in the music he performs, as well as the widely divergent composers he programs. These traits were certainly center stage in the last of 3 San Francisco Piano Trips programs — the first consisted of Kurtag and 17 other
Read moreMstislav Rostropovich died this morning in Moscow. He was 80 and suffered from intestinal cancer. Tim Page has an appreciation here. Updates: Alex Ross, Charles T. Downey, Guardian Tributes, Marc Geelhoed, Bruce Hodges, Pliable, Kenneth Woods, Steve Hicken, Jessica Duchen, Scott Spiegelberg, Jeremy Eichler
Read moreIt’s minimalist week in the Center of the Universe, highlighted on Friday night by the John Adams 60th birthday concert at Carnegie Hall. Adams will be conducting the American Composers Orchestra in performances of My Father Knew Charles Ives, The Wound-Dresser (with bass-baritone Eric Owens) and the Violin Concerto, with Leila Josefowicz doing the honors. Meanwhile, also on Friday, in a nearby universe, Michael Riesman, Music Director of the Philip Glass Ensemble and concert pianist, will be performing the world premiere of his marvelous new transcription for solo piano of Glass’ score to the 1931 classic horror film, Dracula. The gothic walls of the Orensanz
Read moreArchitect Jean Nouvel has won a competition to design the new Philharmonie de Paris building at Parc de La Villette in the French capital. The 2,400 seat auditorium is due to open in 2012. Sure looks like Boulez has some influence on the design. Check out the Flash show at the architect’s web site.
Read moreIt seems somehow fitting after a week of inexplicable madness that Julia Wolfe’s My Beautiful Scream will get its New York premiere tomorrow night when the Kronos Quartet joins the Brooklyn Philharmonic for a concert called Kronos+Cosmos. Wolfe describes My Beautiful Scream as a kind of non-concerto for string quartet. The work is a gradual unfolding and unraveling of a slow motion scream: the quartet aspect of the music is quiet and fine while the orchestra aspect is violent and menacing. Co-commissioned by the Orchestre Philharmoniue de Radio France, the Basel Sinfonietta, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic, My Beautiful Scream was originally premiered in February
Read moreGalen’s Take a Friend to Orchestra (TAFTO) piece is up today on Drew McManus’ Adaptistration blog. Good reading for a nasty, rainy day. Frank J. Oteri will be interviewing Olga Neuwirth at the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage tomorrow in a special one-on-one composer discussion produced by the Philadelphia Music Project. Details here. If you’re in Philadelphia and want to go and write about it, let me know and I’ll get you in. Catch Corey Dargel on this week’s episode of Steve Paul’s Puppet Music Hall. The whole episode is ici and free. Some good morning music for your dining and dancing
Read moreA million wet puppy kisses to Alex Ross for the Sequenza21 shout out in this week’s New Yorker. We love you, too.
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