A couple of years ago, I touched off a full-blown shitstorm in these pages by asking what I thought was a fairly innocent question, which was: Is Nico overrated? I had not listened to much of his music at the time and the little I had heard was pleasant enough but not, to my taste, particularly interesting or distinctive. It was competent, but not something I would bother to listen to again. I was aware, however, that young Nico was much beloved in some quarters of our small and incestuous little new music demimonde and not so much in
Read moreThe US premiere of James Dillon’s Nine Rivers, a three evening long contemporary classical epic, will open Miller Theatre’s 2011-’12 season (details below). I’ll be writing about the first evening of the piece for Musical America. That said, I’ve been assured by those in the know that you probably shouldn’t take this Gesamtkunstwerk as if it’s three separate evenings of music: it’s kind of like having your Siegfried without your Götterdämmerung. Is Nine Rivers a postmodern retort to the Ring? Perhaps not in terms of narrative, but in terms of its ambitious scope and extended genesis, its not an inapt
Read more[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHnpLbMWo7c[/youtube] Video shot and edited by Jonathan Jindra. Music by George Heathco.
Read moreOn August 22, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Barry Douglas, conducted by Thomas Dausgaard, presented the first performance of Kevin Volans’s Piano Concerto No. 3, which was a BBC Commission. Volans is quite proud of his method of composition, which he refers to as ‘anti-conceptual.’ What he means by this is that he does not think about what a piece will do until he starts it, and every day he starts at the point he stopped the day before, without reordering anything; he doesn’t say whether or not he revises. One assumes not. This is a little like a practice
Read more[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/28274561[/vimeo]On September 11, 2011 the United States marks a decade since the deadliest terrorist attack on our soil, one that has left an indelible mark on the nation’s psyche as a whole. A number of musical tributes, from modest concerts to widely publicized record releases, will be taking place. One of the most unique and interesting is the marathon concert being curated/organized by composers Eleonor Sandresky and Daniel Felsenfeld at Joyce Soho, 155 Mercer Street in Manhattan. Music After, as the event is called, will begin at 8:46 a.m. on Sunday, September 11, 2011 and extend till just after midnight
Read moreHurricane Irene approaches. We’ve got two extra guests this weekend: my Mom and Humphrey, her labrador retriever. They were evacuated from Long Island and are spending the weekend with us. Waiting out a storm can be angst-producing and, eventually, boredom provoking – particularly without music. So, File Under ? readers (the comments section is open and so are email, Twitter, Facebook, and G+), send us your “hurricane” listening lists – either in old-fashioned typewritten format or via the usual suspects (Spotify, Last.fm, etc.). The guidelines are wide open. It can be a themed list or simply musical “comfort food.” Stay
Read moreAfter a terrific concert – including pieces by Eve Beglarian, David MacDonald, Dan Visconti, Colin Holter, and Julia Wolfe, we had a lovely party to celebrate the Locrian Chamber Players concert this past Thursday. Those pictured include composers Eve Beglarian, Scott Johnson, Don Hagar, and David MacDonald. Alan Kozinn seemed to enjoy himself at the concert too.
Read moreOn the August 21 Prom concert The City of London Sinfonia, with Ian Bostridge, tenor, and Roderick Williams, baritone, conducted by Stephen Layton, presented he first performance of Colin Matthews’s No Man’s Land, which had been commissioned by the Boltini (Family) Trust to commemorate the group’s fortieth anniversary. The commission was offered to Matthews by the founder of the Sinfonia, Richard Hickock, three days before his sudden death in November, 2008, and the work is dedicated to his memory. In planning what to write Matthews’s thoughts turned toward the First World War. He has been obsessed with the war for
Read moreFor the students in Aspen’s Composition Individual Studies Program, the last week of the festival culminated the final student composers’ concert last Friday, August 19th. This evening of music not only featured large works by the six students of George Tsontakis, but also featured the Aspen-first: an Exquisite Corpse composition created by all 12 of this half-session’s composition students. My review of the August 12th composers’ concert presaged the strength of Friday’s program and – despite offering an unconventional lineup of ensembles – the featured works did not disappoint my auguring. Patrick O’Malley’s Five Scales for Brass Quintet – the
Read moreOn Four Saturdays in August and September, the BBC Proms has been presenting Saturday matinee concerts in Cadogan Hall in Sloane Square. On August 20, The London Sinfonietta, the BBC Singers, soloists Andrew Watts, Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts, and Nicolas Hodges, conducted by David Atherton, performed works of Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle, along with the first performance of a work commissioned by the BBC from Georges Aperghis. Davies’s Il rozzo martello (The Crude Hammer), written for the BBC Singers in 1997sets a sonnet by Michaelangelo, preceded by a stanza from Dante’s Paradiso (II-127-132) and followed by an prose annotation of
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