It 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 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: Gilbert Artman and Urban Sax (France) Urban Sax is a long-running ensemble / musical extravaganza founded by the French musician Gilbert Artman. It was was formed in 1973, when Artman organized a concert by a group of eight saxophonists at a classical music festival in the south of France. In subsequent years, the number of players grew to 12, 20,
Read moreNice piece by Anne Midgette in today’s Times about Ingram Marshall whose work I happen to like a lot. Put him down for your new “Underrated” column, Trevor.
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 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: Two pals-in-a-pod: Alex Temple (b. 1983 — US) I started composing when I was 11, on a family trip to Italy. My earliest influence was Bach, and after that, Hindemith, Prokofiev and Bartók. When I was 15 I discovered rock (by means of “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “I Am The Walrus”), and when I was 17 I discovered the experimental
Read moreThe big news out of Los Angeles this morning is that Gustavo Dudamel, the 26-year-old Venezuelan wunderkind, will replace Esa-Pekka Salonen when he leaves the LA Phil at the end of his term in 2009. Salonen plans to spend more of his time composing.
Read more(I think I’m going to switch to mid-week from here on; people seem to like it.) 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: Tom Rojo Poller (b. 1978 — Germany) Born in Osnabrück, Poller began his composition studies in 1996 at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold, continuing with Prof. Walter Zimmermann at the Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK). After an exchange year at the Royal College of
Read moreVienna born conductor and composer Peter Paul Fuchs died in Greensboro, North Carolina on March 28 aged 90. For an appreciation of his music by John McLaughlin Williams follow An Overgrown Path.
Read moreIn 1973 my mother bought me my first toy piano at Harvey’s Department Store in Nashville. This is not quite the heartwarming tale of a little tyke that it might at first seem to be, since I was at the time a student at New England Conservatory, and she was getting it for me so I could play the Cage Suite for Toy Piano in a concert in Jordan Hall. It turned out that, completely inadvertently (only operating according to her generosity), she had got me the Steinway of toy pianos, a Schoenhut. I’ve continued to play the Cage over
Read more(A little early this week, as I might be out on the weekend) …Our regular listen to and look at compositions and performances that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since folks are nice enough to offer so much good listening online. Time to sit in on a few “first moments” in musical history: George Gershwin & Paul Whiteman : Rhapsody in Blue – Original 78rpm Acoustic Recording (1924) Made shortly after the premiere performance, and a year before the electric microphone came into use. The two records are on
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