Why do some extraordinarily talented people never show up on the radar? Eric Lyon is one such unsung genius. I understand he’s been impressing folks in Brooklyn the past few years, and he wowed them at the Bonk Festival of Music in Tampa for over a decade (not to say that knocking them dead at the Bonk Festival is going to boost anyone’s career). But unless you go to ICMC or SEAMUS or have had the good fortune to live somewhere that Eric regularly presented his music, you probably don’t know about him. Whatever the reason, it is a cosmic
Read moreI found one of my favorite reviews from the 1990’s (Roger Reynolds’s Dreaming and Harvey Sollberger’s Passages), and posted it here. There was a minor controversy surrounding Roger Reynolds’s commission from the San Diego Symphony (his first from the Symphony after living in San Diego for over 2 decades). Dreaming had been on the schedule for performance the season before, but the premiere was cancelled. Theories about the cancellation, many involving Symphony Board intrigue, bounced around the UC San Diego Music Dept. Several months later I interviewed Igor Gruppman, the concertmaster for the SDS. He related that the musicians have
Read moreNothing to do with music, but, hey. Who can add to the list? 1. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) Romania – Directed by Cristian Mungiu – Young woman helps friend get abortion in 1980s Romania and discovers the truth of the old saying that no good deed goes unpunished. Not a single wrong note in this tale of friendship abused. 2. Pan’s Labyrinth (2007) Spain – Directed by Guillermo del Toro – Imaginative young girl retreats into a fantasy world in order to deal with the horrors of the Spanish Civil War and a brutal facist stepfather.
Read moreThis coming Wednesday, Le Poisson Rouge is hosting a showcase for one of our favorite up and coming UK labels: Nonclassical. The concert features the music of label founder Gabriel Prokofiev. Grandson of the great Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev, Gabriel is not only a mean turntablist; he provides a fascinating viewpoint on concert music with his “non classical” compositions. The Russian pianist GéNIA (great-great-grandniece of legendary pianist Vladmir Horowitz) will present selections from his Piano Book No. 1, which she recently recorded for the imprint. The Piano Book reflects Prokofiev’s uneasy relationship with classical music. His usual penchant is for blurring
Read more…Ross Marshall, who correctly divined that the film whose title reminded me of the Paul Verlaine poem on which Varese’s 1906 piece Un Grand Sommeil Noir is based is Total Eclipse. Verlaine was played by David Thewlis and Rimbaud was played by Leonardo In Siprio. Ross also got the bonus question: Régine Wieniawski a.k.a. Poldowski was the female composer who wrote 21 pieces based on Verlaine poems. The winner of the second pair of tickets is Robert Thomas, who correctly responded that Varese’s short flute piece is called Density 21.5 because it was written for Georges Barrère’s platinum flute and
Read moreOur adorable amiga Amanda Ameer, the music publicist extraordinaire, is hosting a discussion for Chamber Music America about the ways composers and other artists are using social media to promote themselves and their work and she’d love to have your experiences be part of it. It starts at 1 pm eastern on Wednesday July 14 (today). UPDATE: The entire hour-long chat was lively and went well. It’s been archived; for a replay of the whole conversation, Click Here.
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Broadcast, CDs, Cello, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Interviews, New York, Percussion, Premieres, Radio
Heads-up, listeners! WPRB‘s Classical Discoveries host Marvin Rosen has a couple nice treats through the day this Wednesday: Wednesday, July 14, 2010 at 11:00am (EDT) Classical Discoveries Goes Avant-Garde will present the world premiere broadcast of Morton Feldman‘s 21-minute ‘lost work’ Dance Suite [For Merle Marsicano] (1963), recorded by Glenn Freeman, percussion and Debora Petrina, piano-celeste. This is ahead of its September limited-edition release on OgreOgress Records. Originally composed for the dancer and choreographer Merle Marsicano, it was the longest work Feldman had composed to date and provides insight into his upcoming 1964 solo percussion work The King of Denmark.
Read moreI’ve been uploading my old reviews on my blog. Today’s upload is a review I did for a new music festival at the University of California, San Diego in 1995: concerts by the Bang on a Can All-Stars and the Paul Dresher Ensemble. This may seem totally run of the mill to New Yorkers and younger composers, but it was heresy at the hallowed halls of modernism at the UCSD Music Dept. At the time, Paul Dresher was probably the most successful, acclaimed alumnus of the dept.–and this was the first time he had been asked to perform there since
Read moreMention of our composer pal Jeremy Podgursky a couple days ago brought this late word (but better late than never, right?): Gary Kass wrote to tell us about the inaugural Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, which starts tomorrow (Monday), July 12th, at the University of Missouri and runs the whole darn week. Quite a lot happening: five big concerts and lots of open rehearsals; two great guest composers (Martin Bresnick and Derek Bermel); eight resident composers getting world premieres (Francisco Cortés-Álvarez, Christopher Dietz, Paul Dooley, Moon Young Ha, Edie Hill, Amy Beth Kirsten, Jeremy Podgursky, Zhou Juan); stellar ensemble Alarm Will Sound, pianist Lisa
Read moreAs you know if you read Christian Carey’s earlier piece, Lincoln Center Festival’s Varèse: (R)evolution will present the composer’s entire oeuvre over two concerts on July 19 & 20. Performers include the New York Philharmonic, conductor Alan Gilbert, percussionist Steven Schick, and ICE. We have two pairs of tickets to give away for one of the performances. Because we have so many smart people who read S21 and the first answer is usually right, I’m going to take the names of all the people with the right answer, put them on a slip of paper, and have my unsuspecting next
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