New Yawkers could do worse at 8 p.m. on March 1st, than drop by Roulette, plunk down a $10 and slurp-munch free refreshments, all while checking out this great little posse of 80’s-born composers’ music: Timothy Andres will present two recent works: Play it By Ear (2007), for a mixed chamber group of nine players, and Strider (2006), “ambient music” for vibraphone and piano. Both pieces will feature the best young musicians from the Yale School of Music, with the composer on piano. Lainie Fefferman has a new electric guitar quartet called Tounge of Thorns (2007), which she describes as
Read moreJust when you thought we’ve been musically laying low… There’s a brand-new online-only CD release by fellow S21 regular and composer David Toub, realized by yours truly (Steve Layton, for those of you who don’t read the bottom post tag). It just became available on iTunes (US, also now or very soon in UK/Europe, Australia and Japan) on my little NiwoSound label; expect its appearance on eMusic as well very soon. The CD is in the “electronic” genre at both places, but purely as a matter of expediting the release; if it’s not classical I don’t know what is! David’s darfur
Read moreDance is always about music, and music is, more often than not, about dance. But how does dance animate music, and music animate dance? This seemed to be the central question when I caught Program 1 of the San Francisco Ballet’s 75th anniversary season at the War Memorial Opera House February 9th. Classical ballet and modern dance sometimes plays against and even ignores the music’s rhythmic structure which would never happen in the deservedly popular Dancing With The Stars. But we rightly or wrongly cut the highbrow forms a bit more slack. Virgil Thomson’s music for SF Ballet’s founding choreographer
Read moreUBUWEB is playing online host to an excellent hour-long WDR documentary on Mauricio Kagel. Of course it’s in German, but don’t let your lack of the lingo stop you from clicking over there and watching. Scenes of Kagel rehearsing his Divertimento with the Schönberg Ensemble & Reinbert de Leeuw at the 2006 Donaueschinger Musiktage are intercut with footage of Kagel and a number of his earlier works from the 60s and 70s. There’s plenty of Kagel’s love of theater and the absurd, careful fascination with all kinds of sound and action in music, and just plain play on show in this one.
Read moreLast year, many of us saw a posting regarding the VIM:Tribeca concert series. The organizers, Judd Greenstein and Kimball Gallagher, wanted to put on concert series of mostly new works; the composers were responsible for providing performers. The concerts were to be put on in the Gallerie Icosahedron (I’m deliberately not linking to them, for reasons that will be apparent soon!). The first indication of trouble to us should have been the delays, imposed by the gallery, regarding scheduling and, we found out later, the renting of a piano. The first public sign of trouble was the sudden announcement that
Read moreWho’s going to see Elmer Gantry at Montclair later this week? Want to write a review for us? No money but an incredible amount of love, peace and understanding (and what’s so funny about that?) and the next 10 Mozart CDs companies send me by mistake. Marvin is doing the world premiere of the Alan Hovhaness concerto Shambala, for violin, sitar and orchestra, originally composed for Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar, on his Classical Discoveries radio program on January 30 during the 9 am EST hour. As usual, you can listen to it on the web at WPRB in Princeton. The broadcast marks the February 14th release of the
Read moreDespite being co-chair of composition at CalArts, Michael Pisaro stays off way too many people’s radar. Maybe this interview at the “Object Collection” blog will help get you up to speed. Michael Pisaro was born in Buffalo in 1961. He is a composer and guitarist, a member of the Wandelweiser Composers Ensemble and founder and director of the Experimental Music Workshop. His work is frequently performed in the U.S. and in Europe, in music festivals and in many smaller venues. It has been selected twice by the ISCM jury for performance at World Music Days festivals and has also been
Read moreYet another one, via Carson Cooman: Elias Tanenbaum, composer, teacher and long-time New Rochelle resident died on Thursday after a long illness. He composed over 140 works in all idioms, including music for concert, jazz, theater, television, ballet and electronic and computer music. His music has been performed extensively throughout this country, Europe and Japan and recordings of his music can be found on Albany, New World, MMC and other labels. Mr. Tanenbaum was the Founding Director of the Electronic Computer Music Studio at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, and he was a member of the
Read moreI am not, generally speaking, a big fan of movie music although the ability to produce useful art on demand appeals to my lifetime hack sensibilities. I don’t think Bernard Hermann and Miklos Rozsa are overlooked concert hall geniuses who might have been among the greats had they not traded their souls for big houses in Beverly Hills. They are what they are. Writing for films is a craft, not an art, but it is a demanding craft that not every composer–even a great one–can do. In Andre Previn’s memoirs of his Hollywood years (which is called No Minor Chords because Irving Thalberg once degreed
Read moreThe past few months have seemed depressingly full of deaths, including some of the grand figures of our time. But sadder still is when we lose a wonderful musical voice far too soon. I just learned over at NewMusicBox that the highly talented composer and pianist Jennifer Fitzgerald lost her life to cancer just a few days before Christmas. Only 32 years old, but already crafting some really beautiful, exciting music… One of the strange artifacts of the Internet age is that a person can leave and yet appear to be around through their webpages, busy and happy, like nothing at all had happened
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