Yes, we’re still planning to have a Sequenza 21/MNMP concert in 2011 and it’s going to be excellent. We’re still finalizing the details, but should have an announcement soon. Thanks for your continued patience (which is code for “entrants: stop calling and emailing us”). Speaking of synthetists, how’s about Craig Wedren and ACME performing a song from On in Love (video below)? [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SWCPDI4tKQ[/youtube]
Read moreLast Saturday night I saw a concert that paired, more closely than any before, technology with the living composer. The debut performances of the MiND (Music in Neural Dimensions) Ensemble at the University of Michigan this weekend left its audience in awe as the performers used “advanced neurofeedback technology” in conjunction with live electronics to produce an evening of music controlled – literally – by their brain activity. Propelled by its uncharted level of novelty, the concert was a dramatic exploration of music’s relationship with our mind and spirit unified but a spirit of interactivity that extended beyond the neurofeedback
Read moreMadame White Snake by Zhou Long has been awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Frank J. Oteri has the details at NewMusicBox.
Read moreThere’s something happening here. What it is has become a bit clearer (to me, at least) with the simultaneous arrival on my desk of new CDs by Todd Reynolds, the Kronos Quartet, the Now Ensemble and Build. Listened to back to back, ther family kinship is easily recognized. They have lots of cousins out there in the marketplace already and each month brings new examples. So, what’s happening here? Is it a new…sound? Impulse? Musical category? Dare we call it a “movement?” But, wait, let’s back up for a moment. There hasn’t been a major new music movement since minimalism
Read moreLife is about conflict, and so is opera. And what could be a more dramatic subject than the French Revolution when keeping your head wasn’t an abstract issue, but a life and death one. Francis Poulenc‘s 3-act grand opera Dialogues des Carmelites (1953-56) was acclaimed as a masterpiece at its 1957 La Scala premiere, and it’s easy to see why. It gets at the heart and soul of its subject through the person of a high strung girl from a rich family, Blanche de la Force, who decides to become a Carmelite nun to escape life, and her internal revolution
Read moreExploring the Metropolis, an organization that helps performing artists get workspace, administers a 3-month musicians’ residency for composers based in NYC. Composers who are selected receive three months of free workspace at a cultural or community facility and a $1,000 stipend. This year, the organization is expanding the program to 8 NYC-based composers and four facilities in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. Heading into its third year, the Con Edison Musicians’ Residency: Composition Program serves three constituencies: composers, who get consistent, long-term, private creative space; host cultural facilities, who fill underused space and also present the composer in a public program;
Read moreIt is a dangerous business to write new operas, but equally thrilling to produce them. Bernard Rands’s VINCENT, a work exploring the life and art of Vincent van Gogh, was premiered last Friday April 8 and 9 at the Musical Arts Center of Indiana University in Bloomington. Two other performances are scheduled for next April 15 and 16. The production was a major success for the university’s Jacobs School of Music, offering to the world something for which it is uniquely suited. A major center for musical performance and research, the Jacobs school has an unmatched capability for producing and
Read moreOpera Singer Misha Penton as Klytemnestra (photo by Kerry Beyer) (Houston, TX) Houston based opera singer Misha Penton opens her unique performance space Divergence Vocal Theater this Friday, April 15th. Located at Spring Street Studios, home to many of Houston’s finest visual and mixed media artists. Divergence Vocal Theater will bring together Ms. Penton’s team of singers, musicians, composers, dancers, and lighting and costume designers to present new chamber opera repertoire. Klytemnestra, a collaborative opera dance theater work featuring music by composer Dominick DiOrio, sung text by Misha Penton, spoken text by John Harvey, and choreography by Meg Brooker, is
Read moreETHEL, acclaimed as America’s premier postclassical string quartet, will be giving a great show at Le Poisson Rouge tomorrow night. The concert is part of the Meet the Composer’s 3 CITY DASH FESTIVAL, and it features music from composers from San Francisco. Below is an email Q+A with Ralph Farris, ETHEL’s magnificent violist. S21 Q + A w/ ETHEL: ETHEL focuses on the repertoire of the the past four decades. While all of that music is classified as “contemporary,” it is extremely diverse compositionally. Is there any particularly style you prefer personally or as a group and enjoy working on? We
Read moreHello Jerry Bowles, Kyle Bartlett here, I am a composer and also the New Works Administrator for the Opera Company of Philadelphia. I am hoping you may post information about our Composer In Residence search (press release attached). In short form, the selected composer will be given free access to the resources of the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Gotham Chamber Opera, and Music-Theatre Group, for the purposes of learning and experimentation, as well as a salary of $60K per year plus benefits, for three years. For real. The deadline for entries is coming up very quickly: April 22, 5PM Eastern
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