Since it’s opera week here at Sequenza 21 and there’s a lot of chatter in the comments about transplanting operas between cultures and Galen has raised the topic of fugues in the invisible YouTube video below, it seems somehow fitting to mention that Miller Theater and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music are presenting tonight and tomorrow night the U.S. premiere of Lost Highway by Austrian composer Olga Neuwirth, a multimedia opera based on the weird and wacky David Lynch film of the same name. Film buffs will recall that Lynch’s film involves sex, murder and a character named Fred Madison who mysteriously becomes Pete Dayton through a
Read moreSpeaking of great American operas, Tobias Picker has written two of them; Emmeline, which is an unqualified masterpiece, and An American Tragedy, which I think history will regard more dearly than its contemporary reviews might suggest. Between those two landmarks, Picker wrote a kind of “forgotten” opera called Thérèse Raquin, an epic based on the Zola novel which, like Tragedy, involves an unwanted lover being chucked overboard in favor of a more attractive alternative. Picker’s psychiatrist, if he has one, could probably make something of that. Thérèse Raquin premiered at The Dallas Opera in 2001 and is now having its New York premiere run, in a revised
Read moreI don’t know Ricky Ian Gordon personally but he e-mails me frequently with updates on his projects, never neglecting to sign off with “xxxooo” which I find endearing although I’m sure he does the same for all the guys. I know and like his music mainly from Audra McDonald and a wonderful recording of his songs called Bright-Eyed Joy but nothing I’ve heard or read prepared me for the universal praise for the Minnesota Opera’s production of Gordon’s (with libretto by Michael Korie) The Grapes of Wrath. What we have here, apparently, is a real contender for the title of the Great American Opera.
Read moreIt’s a monster week for our gaucho amigo Lawrence Dillon whose music will be showcased at the Music Now Fest 2007, February 21, 22 and 23 at Eastern Michigan University. This is EMU’s 15th biennial new music festival and it gets underway on Wednesday at 8 pm with a concert of pieces by EMU composers Whitney Prince and Anthony Iannaccone as well as works by Steve Reich, Alberto Ginastera and others. Faculty artists include David Pierce, Willard Zirk, Garik Pedersen, John Dorsey, Kimberly Cole-Luevano, Kristy Meretta, Julie Stone, Kathryn Goodson and guest Cary Kocher. On Thursday, there will a composer convocation
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: Caroline M. Breece (b.1977 — UK/US) Michael G. Breece (b. 1971 — US) Mike over at Avant Music News this week purely by chance beat me to posting about Caroline. I’d planned showing off her and her husband Michael, ever since I bumped into them on Myspace last summer. A number of married composer couples come to mind, but few
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: “New” Mexico via Myspace If your idea of contemporary Mexican art music is still Chavez and Revueltas, you’re so far out of date that it’s not even funny! I can’t catch you up on composers from the 50’s through the 90’s; Google will have to help you out there. Some names to explore might be Manuel Enríquez, Mario Lavista, Federico
Read moreMichael Rose, composer and pianist who’s normally found teaching at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, has been on a Fulbright-sponsored stay at the Kerala Kalamandalam, a performing-arts school in south India. The nice folks over at the music & audio review site La Folia are hosting Michael’s report on the highs and lows of his adventure. Not least among the lows is his current opinion of the whole Fulbright biz… The link will take you to part one of his — both entertaining and cautionary — adventure, with links there to parts two and three.
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: Cecilia Arditto (b. 1966 — Argentina / NL) Cecilia will tell you: I have always been struck by the sensuality of sound, I have always loved it. The infinite possibilities of instruments constitute a source of inspiration and research. However, the exploration of sound would just be an empty category, a cosmetic idea, if it were not tied to the
Read morePhilip Glass turns 70 today and it seems to me he is doing so without much of the hoopla that surrounded Steve Reich’s attainment of that milestone a few months back. No mention of the event in today’s New York Times and Google News turns up only a brief note about a birthday concert in Nashville. Underwhelming reaction for a man who is America’s best-known living composer and one whose music is so widely available in so many forms–CDs, films, concerts and so on. Part of the problem, it seems to me, is that Glass had written so much music that critics assume
Read moreMajor props to young Master Salvage for his outstanding work attending to the front page over the past couple of weeks while I attended to some pressing matters of commerce. Big up yourself, David. Well done. So, let’s go to the mailbag and see what’s happening. Ah, here’s something. Our regular Rob Deemer has just launched a new radio program called The Composer Next Door on Oklahoma City’s classical radio station KCSC-FM. Rob, who lives and teaches in OC, approached the general manager of the station last summer with the idea of a locally-created show that focuses on living composers and new
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