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: Katharine Norman (b. 1960 — UK, Canada) Katharine is a British-born composer, sound artist and writer, currently living about as far out West as you can get on Pender Island in BC, Canada. Prior to this “slightly alarming” (her words) change of direction she was Director of the Electronic Music Studios at Goldsmiths, University of London. She now supports the composing
Read moreWhy a String Quartet? What is it that has given it its exalted reputation and mystique? Why have so many composers regarded it as the perfect medium of expression, though it is perhaps the most demanding to write for? And why do distinguished artists often prefer to work as a team in a first class quartet rather than make bigger money as, say, orchestral leaders? Music means different things to different people: but for those to who music is an intellectual art, a balanced and reasoned statement of ideas, an impassioned argument, an intense but disciplined expression of emotion –
Read moreVanessa Vanessa Lann emails – Today is the world premiere of my string quartet, Landscape of a Soul’s Remembering. In this work there are six separate locations on the stage where the musicians will stand or sit throughout the performance, changing to new positions between each of the four movements. At each spot there is specific music to be played, consisting of recognizable, repeated patterns that the players will interpret in turn – on their respective instruments – during each movement. As these patterns emerge again and again in new contexts, played on different instruments by different performers, they will
Read moreSettle in for a little history… Juan Hidalgo (b.1927 –Spain), Walter Marchetti (b.1931 — Italy), and Zaj Most musicians who’ve fallen for John Cage and David Tudor, also know that offspring of the 1960s and 70s, FLUXUS. Far fewer know about the Spanish version, running parallel yet independently. It’s one thing to have gone experimental in, say, England at the time; quite another to have pursued this stuff in the fascist dictatorship of Franco’s Spain. In one you ran the risk of apathy; in the other actual persecution. In the mid-50s, Juan Hidalgo and Walter Marchetti were both young student composers.
Read moreTired of playing with yourself? Well, you don’t have to anymore. Take a look at e-jamming, a web site that lets you hook up with other musicians online to write, rehearse, record and play together in real-time. Who is Nico Mulhy and should I care?
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: Christopher Hopkins (b.1957 — US) Christopher Hopkins is an assistant professor of music composition at Iowa State University of Science and Technology, where he teaches courses in composition, music technology, sound synthesis and orchestration. He is director of the Lipa Festival of Contemporary Music. As a composer he works in both experimental and traditional forms, with special interests in electroacoustic
Read moreSebastian Currier has won the 2007 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for “Static,” a six-movement piece for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano. Currier, who teaches at Columbia University, studied at the Manhattan and Julliard schools of music. His winning work was commissioned by Copland House of Cortlandt Manor, N.Y., for its resident ensemble, Music from Copland House, with funds from Meet the Composer, a national organization supporting new works by composers. The ensemble premiered the piece at Columbia’s Miller Theatre in February 2005 and recorded it for Koch International Classics. Frank has details over at NewMusicBox. And
Read moreAny musical work which has a long. complex, and– dare I say it? –troubled history — can’t help but raise a red flag. Is the artist wrestling with something alive and kicking, or is he or she merely tinkering? Lou Harrsion’s “gay opera” Young Caesar, which began as a 1969 commission from the group Encounters, was first staged as a puppet opera for vocalists and 5 instrumentalists. A subsequent version, for 11 instrumentalists, onstage singers, and full chorus, followed, and this one, performed by the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus in 1988, was roundly criticized, though the performers, some of whom
Read moreLet’s go to the old mailbag and see what’s happening in the exciting world of new music. Ah, here’s something. Our friends at the American Music Center are launching Counterstream Radio, a showcase for new music by U.S. composers, on March 16 at 3 p.m. EST. To mark the official station launch, Counterstream Radio will broadcast an exclusive conversation between Meredith Monk and Björk. No word on who gets to wear the chicken suit. Actually, the station is streaming right now so you don’t have to wait until the 16th to try it out. Any chance of getting a popup player
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: Claus Gahrn (b. 1978 — Denmark); Gahrn Ensemble Claus is another composer I ran into on Myspace, and we’ve been corresponding for a few months now. Gahrn began his musical studies as a classical guitarist; from 2001 he studied composition and electroacoustic music at the Academy of Music in Esbjerg, Denmark, earning his MA degree with distinction in 2006. That’s
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