Our regular listen to and look at living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since they’re nice enough to offer so much good listening online: Bun-Ching Lam (b. 1954 — China / US) — Born in the Macau region of China, Bun-Ching Lam began studying piano at the age of seven and gave her first public solo recital at fifteen. In 1976, she received a B.A. in piano performance from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She then accepted a scholarship from the University of
Read morePhilippe Kocher (b. 1973 — Switzerland) Philippe Kocher studied piano, electroacoustic music and musicology in Zurich and more recently music theory and composition with Detlev Müller-Siemens at the Musikakademie Basel, where he graduated in June 2004. He spent the academic year 2004-05 in London at the Royal Academy of Music, where he was at the same time a student and a teaching assistant for electroacoustic composition and real-time digital audio programming (Max/MSP). His work encompasses pieces for instruments and voice with or without electronics, and his interest lies both in electronic and instrumental music. As means for sound and score
Read moreOur regular listen to and look at living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since they’re nice enough to offer so much good listening online: Hidayat Inayat-Khan (b.1917 — India / Europe) Taken mostly from the 1981 Cambridge International Biographical Centre entry, I just have to give you a good taste of this very interesting bio: Hidayat Inayat-Khan’s great-grandfather, Mula Bux, founded the first Academy of Music in India in the 19th century, and also invented the music notation system carrying his name. Born in
Read moreOur regular listen to and look at living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since they’re nice enough to offer so much good listening online: Hanne Darboven (b. 1941 — DE) What better way to mark a new year than with something that is only and utterly about time, history and the march of events (or their stubborn recurrence)! Only one piece to listen to, but it’s a full hour-plus. Darboven’s Opus17a for solo double bass was composed in 1996 for her massive artwork “Kulturgeschichte
Read moreOur weekly listen and look at living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since they’re nice enough to offer so much good listening online (This will be the last click-picks for December; Xmas, New Years, etc., you know how it goes… back with more in January): Aaron Gervais (b.1980 — CA / US) Born in Edmonton, Canada, Gervais is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in composition at UC San Diego. Aaron is also a graduate (with honours) from the University of Toronto, where he studied
Read moreOur weekly listen and look at (mostly) living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since it’s right there waiting online. (the “click picks” category at the bottom of the post isn’t working, but you can revisit all the previous “click picks” by visiting this link: https://www.sequenza21.com/index.php/?cat=29 Elizabeth Olivia Walling (b.1981 — UK) Walling started out as a self-taught soprano and flautist. She began composing in 2001, and moved to formal composition and performance studies a year later. She’s been a member of New Music Brighton
Read moreOur weekly listen and look at living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since they’re nice enough to offer so much good listening online. (The “click picks” category at the bottom of this post isn’t working, but you can revisit all the previous “click picks” by clicking this link: https://www.sequenza21.com/index.php/?cat=29) Soteria Bell (AU) From Australia’s Time Off newspaper: If you’ve seen the latest Ray Lawrence flick Jindabyne, no doubt you’ve been entranced by the ethereal soundtrack. Written by Paul Kelly and Dan Luscombe, Kelly hand
Read moreOur weekly listen and look at living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since they’re nice enough to offer so much good listening online: John Mark Sherlock (b. 1970 — Canada) I first discovered John’s work years ago on the venerable MP3 site Vitaminic. It’s often intimate, long, subtle and irrational; from some other things I’ve heard out of there, I think the breath of Feldman blew out of Buffalo, took a detour around Montréal, and ended up finding a home in Toronto. From an
Read moreOur weekly listen and look at living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since they’re nice enough to offer so much good listening right online: Andrew McKenna Lee (US) A native of Charleston, South Carolina, Andrew began his musical studies on the guitar at age twelve, going on to pursue composition in his late teens. He completed his undergraduate work at Carnegie Mellon University in 1997 and finished his Masters degree in 2000 at the Manhattan School of Music. His teachers have included Leonardo Balada,
Read moreOur weekly listen and look at composers and performers that you may not know yet, but should… And can, right here and now, since they’re nice enough to offer a good chunk of listening online: Larry Polansky (b. 1954 — US) Larry Polansky’s been a one-man compositional exploratorium for at least thirty years now. Audiences may not be too familiar with him or his work, but composers of all stripes are. He’s always moved easily between east-coast rationalism, digital-electro-geekdom, “downtown” experiments, and west-coast looseness, any and all of which can show up in his next piece. A happy champion of
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