Miss Music Nerd (AKA composer/keyboardist Linda Kernohan) recently had an opportunity to chat with Sir Harrison Birtwistle after hearing his Violin Concerto premiered by Christian Tezlaff and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In the course of their conversation, Birtwistle discussed the impetus for writing a violin concerto, his difficulties with precompositional schemes (“I get terribly bored…by the time I’ve got 200 yards down the road”), and how he handles getting “stuck” while writing a work. The entire interview (with some interesting links to other Birtwistliana) can be found here. Ms. Hahn, if you’re looking for a new concerto to learn (hint,
Read moreHilary Hahn was supposed to be in Japan this week on a recital tour with her frequent collaborator Valentina Lisitsa but nature had other plans. The catastrophic twin disasters of a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and powerful subsequent tsunami on March 11 took the lives of thousands of Japanese citizens and have left thousands more without homes, electricity, or access to clean water. Hahn’s Japan concerts were understandably canceled so she decided to use the time to organize and play four Japan-relief benefit concerts in the United States this week. “I had been looking forward to performing in Japan: the country is unlike
Read moreIf you’re looking for a place to hang out with some pretty famous composers, polish off your latest music project and hear it played in a historic venue by professional musicians in front of a real audience, make new friends and music world connections, win a composition prize, and maybe even meet the girl or boy of your dreams (or bring them along if you already have), I have a suggestion for you: Pavia. Located a mere 35 clicks from the Milan airport, the ancient university town (pop. 70,000, 20,000 of them students) in northern Italy’s Lombardy region will host
Read moreSpring in Houston is an intensely visual experience as the grass now nourished by rain and sun turns from brown to green. Flowers are blooming in unexpected places while birds of all shades of color return to take up residence in the surrounding trees. Everything looks and smells a little…fresher. Come Spring, Houston’s bird population as well as its amphibians and yes, insects, sing or otherwise rock their antiphonal and conversational repertoire all day and all night. Which leads us to one of the many highlights of what is now the last few months of the artistic season. This Saturday,
Read moreSince I’ve been at the University of Michigan, I’ve frequently pondered the nature of the “American” sound in contemporary music. I recognize the present state of American contemporary music a melting pot of almost every style imaginable, but I wonder further about common threads, the deeper musical and intellectual ideas American composers – my generation in particular – share. I had the opportunity this past Sunday and Monday to experience a sample population – albeit it very small – of talented, ambitious student composers when I attended concerts at my undergraduate alma mater, Rice University, and my current school, the
Read more(And Gods know sanctuary is something many of us might be searching for these days…) This Monday, 21 March, at 8pm in the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall (57th Street and Seventh Avenue, NYC), the ensemble Lunatics at Large begin a series of four concerts with five premieres, of works involving the collaboration of five composers and five poets. This little bit of numerology is titled “The Sanctuary Project“; Project Director Evi Jundt says: We picked artists whose work we believed would be evocative of the theme ‘Sanctuary.’ First, the poets presented one new poem and some older works to the composers.
Read moreLast Saturday night I caught a trio of Philip Glass‘s slightly more obscure music, performed by a well-rehearsed Pacific Symphony and Pacific Chorale (based in Orange County, California) as part of their annual American Composers Festival. Although lesser-known than its Los Angeles counterpart, the symphony is staffed with many fine Southern California-based musicians and performs in the recently built and acoustically impressive Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. The opening piece, “Meetings Along the Edge” from Passages (1990), featured Glass’s collaboration with Ravi Shankar, in which both agreed to each compose a melody for each other and write a new composition around
Read moreLadies and gentlemen, for your St. Patrick’s Day dining and dancing pleasure, here is the fourth movement of Ben Johnston’s String Quartet No. 10. I think you will recognize the melody although it doesn’t become obvious until near the end. (Click the link to play) 4th Movement #10 Ben Johnston Here are Ben’s notes on why he selected this particular melody: This theme embodies certain contradictions which allow me to make a sincere, precise statement, much in the manner of a fine stand-up comedian. I am myself descended from the British Isles, and have read extensively about the pre-Christian civilization,
Read moreExploring the Metropolis administers the Con Edison Composer Residency Program, a response to the challenges musicians face finding space to work in the ever more pricey environs of New York. The organization has just announced that it is expanding the program for its Spring 2011 residencies. They’ll be finding eight composers three month residencies at four different locations throughout the city (including the boroughs of Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn). This will allow them a space to work, an opportunity to present their music in a public program at the completion of their appointment, and a small stipend (This year it
Read moreIn every field of endeavor, there are people who are famous for being unknown. Perhaps unknown is the wrong word–more like known and admired mainly by others in the same field who wonder why they aren’t better known to the public at large. Despite having published several admired novels, William Gaddis was known mainly to other writers. For many years, my friend, the sadly late Steve Lacy, was known mainly to other jazz players. Ben Johnston, born 85 years ago today in Macon, Georgia, is such a person. One of the few composers alive who can claim to have studied
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