Five minutes before Elisabeth Lutyens appeared live on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Start the Week’ in 1979 she threatened to denounce Russell Harty as a ‘homosexual interviewer’ if he mentioned the phrase ‘lady composer’; thankfully Harty avoided using the words when the programme was on air. Lutyens was a larger than life personality who pioneered serial techniques in her unfairly neglected music. She was also well connected as my photo shows. For the full story, and a recommendation of a new CD of her music, click on Walking with Stravinsky.
Read moreWe’re a little late in reporting this, but last month composer George Tsontakis was awarded the Charles Ives Living by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. I had never heard of this prize before, but it’s a sweet deal. Tsontakis receives $75,000. each year for three years provided that he forgo all normal paid work. He may, however, accept commissions. The Charles Ives Living was established by Ives’s widow with royalties from her late husband’s music. This round the selection committee was chaired by none other than William Bolcom. The previous three winners were Stephen Hartke, Chen Yi, and Martin Bresnick.
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: Hidayat Inayat-Khan (b.1917 — India / Europe) Taken mostly from the 1981 Cambridge International Biographical Centre entry, I just have to give you a good taste of this very interesting bio: Hidayat Inayat-Khan’s great-grandfather, Mula Bux, founded the first Academy of Music in India in the 19th century, and also invented the music notation system carrying his name. Born in
Read moreFor those of you who were insufficiently cheered by Florida’s decisive surge over the Ohio State football factory, here’s something that should help. Our friends at Naxos will release on January 31 a DVD of fellow Mountaineer Pare Lorentz’s landmark New Deal-era documentaries “The Plow that Broke the Plains” (1936) and “The River” (1938), featuring the first complete modern recordings of the seminal Virgil Thomson soundtracks by Washington, D.C.-based Post-Classical Ensemble under Angel Gil-Ordóñez, with narration by Floyd King. “The Plow that Broke the Plains,” which examines the causes of the Dust Bowl drought and was made for $20,000, was the
Read moreBack in July, nine students associated with AAIR, the independent radio station of London’s Architectural Association School of Architecture, spent several days recording natural and man-made sounds to create an extensive sonic map of Capri, the island, not the car or the pants. The result is Radiocapri. Now they’re inviting all of us to “remix” the sounds of the island in their cleverly named “International Remix Competition A.” Here’s the best part: the winning entry will be picked by Brian Eno, Arto Lindsay and Ryuichi Sakamoto. The winner will get fame, fortune and more attractive lovers, plus a spot on an
Read moreMark Swed wrangled himself a trip to Budapest and came back with a brilliant piece on the world that shaped György Kurtág.
Read moreFrom the CBC: Toronto composer James Rolfe has won the $7,500 Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music for his contemporary work raW, the Canada Council for the Arts announced Thursday. raW, written during the buildup to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, won the award designed to encourage the creation of new Canadian chamber music. It was chosen from a field of 115 new compositions. The work “was written by filtering J. S. Bach’s Second Brandenburg Concerto through Bob Marley’s War (first movement), Burning Spear’s The Invasion (second movement), and John Philip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever (third movement),” Rolfe
Read moreOur friend Marco Antonio Mazzini is inviting all clarinetists to participate in the first “Musical Marathon – Prize for Most Creative Interpretation” contest that will take place on the web, from January 10th to August 10th, 2007. Each contestant must make and submit a recording of “Convalescencia“, a solo clarinet piece by Argentinean composer Juan María Solare. This score is available HERE. All the details are here. “The title of this event focuses on the ‘creative’ word: the piece we selected can be played (technically) by any average clarinet student, but the fun is…what to do with it,” Marco says. “Also, it can be
Read moreFor articles on every one of the contemporary composers pictured above, and more, click on Overgrown Path’s People of the Year for 2006.
Read moreYes, you read that right. 2007 brings the fiftieth anniversary of Jean Sibelius’ death, and his tone poem Finlandia was written as a protest against Russian influence in Finland at the end of the 19th century. Joan Baez sung her own a cappella version on Michael Moore’s 2004 Slacker’s Uprising Tour, and in anticipation of the composer’s anniversary year On An Overgrown Path has the full story and an audio file in Sibelius – his genius remains unrecognised.
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