Check out Frank J. Oteri’s great interview with Indie rockers Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger, aka The Fiery Furnaces, over at New Music Box. Thanks for the shout-out, dude.
Read moreMy copy of the Miller Theater Fall and Spring schedule landed on the window sill via carrier pigeon yesterday. As always, Columbia University’s indispensible new music venue has some humdingers on tap. The Composer Portrait series this season includes Esa-Pekka Salonen, Wolfgang Rihm, David Sanford, Gerald Barry (in the first large-scale New York exposure for the Irish composer), French spectralist Phillipe Hurel, George Crumb and Peter Lieberson. Except for Salonen and Rihm, the composers are set for pre-concert discussions, live and in color, so to speak. Also on the schedule for December 7, 8, 9 and 11 is the New York stage
Read moreI wasn’t able to make the premiere screening on July 4 but I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about a new documentary film called The End of New Music, which follows Judd Greenstein, David T. Little, and Missy Mazzoli, the founders of Free Speech Zone, as they tour the East Coast with the groups Newspeak and NOW Ensemble, playing concerts in unlikely venues like clubs and bars and bringing new music to audiences that might not otherwise be exposed to it. The film, directed by Stephen S. Taylor, takes a verite approach to the tour, combined with interviews and various
Read moreBernard Holland has a funny piece in today’s Times about setting out to listen to Marc-André Dalvavie’s new CD and getting mugged instead by an roving gang of French musical poseurs. A couple of choice bon mots: So breathless were the revelations contained in this essay, called “Space, Line, Color,” it seemed for a moment the music could wait. Expounding on hearing, space and your stereo system, it reads: “while right/left movement can be recreated, front/back movement is replaced by a sensation of sound advancing or receding.” So it’s true that sound is softer when it is farther away than when it is in front of
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: Let’s go a little further east, via a couple netlabels (online labels that offer freely downloadable, full-length MP3 “CD”s, usually with accompanying notes and cover artwork) Nexsound (Ukraine) They’ll tell you: Nexsound has been dedicated to the unusual and experimental music, both acoustic and electronic, that could be of any style and trend released on CDs and MP3 files. The term
Read moreJoshua Bell tells the Korea Times that he’s working toward writing his own stuff in a few years. Could work, I suppose. His pal Edgar Myers is a decent composer and fine musician. But, you pretty much have to go back to Rachmaninoff to find someone who was “great” as both a performer and composer. (Or, I’m sure someone will remind me that you don’t have to go back that far.) Same thing for conductors. Okay, Lenny was great at both but most are not. The most excruciating half hour I ever spent in a concert hall (and this includes
Read more[youtube]H31YzXCq0Sg[/youtube] [youtube]bfPcu_buWkg[/youtube] Performed by the Rubio String Quartet. Photography by James Archambeault
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: Beth Custer (b. 1958 — US) Extra, extra!… Fearless woman seizes her day!… Beth was born in South Bend, Indiana, raised in western New York, but has lived in San Francisco for for the last twenty-five-and-some years. As if she wasn’t busy enough being a composer, performer, bandleader, clarinet teacher, and running a record label, she’s also a founding member
Read moreIt’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.
Read moreThe Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas concert at Rose Hall last night was one of those rare “what’s not to love” events that only occasionally grace New York stages. Take a program of thinking man’s bon bons (Gershwin’s Cuban Overture, Silvestre Revueltas’ Sensemayá, Ginastera’s barnburning Estancia), add a star turn by Latin music legend Paquito D’Rivera, and throw in an energetic and talented young orchestra led by a drop dead gorgeous conductor and you have a surefire receipe for fun. Many of the audience members came dressed for a post-concert gala which gave the evening a particularly elegant flair and provided a refreshing contrast
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