Big Up to our friend and S21 blogger Lawrence Dillon who is one of three winners of  the Ravinia Festival of Highland Park, Illinois’ first composer competition. The competition asked composers to submit works for piano trio and narration inspired by the words of Abraham Lincoln, in honor of Lincoln’s bicentennial in 2009. Lawrence’s composition, The Better Angels of Our Nature, uses excerpts from two letters and two speeches that focus on three key aspects of Lincoln’s character: his integrity, his sense of humor, and his poetic vision.  The first movement, Integrity, uses a  letter the future president wrote in

Harris passed away this week.  He and I were in the PhD Composition program at CUNY, admitted the same year–though he decided to go to CalArts first.  I scarcely knew him or his music.  But I remember walking to the subway with him sometime in the spring of 2004.  He was explaining to me how much he liked his fold-up bike.  If I recall correctly, Harris said he had two.

Some well-to-do friends of mine purchased at a charity auction recently a chance to play disk jockey for an hour on WBGO in Newark which is, I believe, the most listened to jazz radio station in the world.  Since they aren’t that much into jazz, they promptly passed the opportunity on to me as a kind of belated 65th birthday present.  I’ve been told to expect a call soon to discuss my “playlist” which can run no longer than 52 minutes.  My problem, of course, is how to distill more than 50 years worth of listening into such a short

Hey, the new Miller Theater schedule is out.  Some great-looking programs, including the New York premiere of Iannis Xenakis’s only opera, Oresteia.  Composer Portraits are:  Peter Lieberson, Oliver Messiaen (centennial celebration), Marc-Andre Dalbavie (world premiere of his cello concerto), Jefferson Friedman (world premieres for pianist Simone Dinnerstein and indie-rocker Craig Wedren), Milton Babbit (complete string quartets—first time in one evening), Georg Friedich Haas (U.S. premiere of In Vain, his intense 75-minute tour-de-force for 24 players), Arlene Sierra (says here that ICE performs a world premiere by this intriguing young American living in London), Leon Kirchner (90 birthday celebration) and Jason

Our friends at the Metropolis Ensemble will perform a new take on Stravinsky‘s The Rite of Spring called The Rite: Remixed  tonight at Prospect Park in Brooklyn.  Composers Ryan Francis, Leo Leite, and Ricardo Romaneiro have reimagined the Rite of Spring as a piece for chamber orchestra and live electronics.   For those of you unfortunates who don’t live here in the Center of the Universe, you can hear the webcast live on NPR.org starting at 7:30 p.m. ET.   It’s part of the  Wordless Music Series, which you can find out more about in an hourlong pre-concert special beginning at 6:30. Founded in 2006 by conductor Andrew

Got four and a half minutes for a meditation on life, religion, and nature? Our friends at Aguava New Music Studio have a new video by Susanne Schwibs, music by Cary Boyce, performed by Aguava New Music Studio and the IU Contemporary Vocal Ensemble directed by Carmen Helena Tellez. A DVD will be available very soon from www.aguava.com. The score is available from G. Schirmer’s Dale Warland Choral Series. [youtube]gNn6BsXl_Sw[/youtube]

There are a handful of words that send me reflexively scurrying for the off button:  “Mozart,” “President Bush said today,” “Sandy Duncan,” “drum solo. ”  I loved it when Buddy Rich told Johnny Carson once that he never practiced “because it hurts my ears.”   Which, of course, is why I have to mention that the first of four upcoming concerts organized by Jason Kao Hwang at the Living Theater with RUCMA (Rise Up Creative Music and Arts) is called Drum Solos! and features drummers Newman Taylor Baker, Andrew Drury and Tatsuya Nakatani.   Thursday, July 17, 10:30 PM Drum Solos ! Newman Taylor Baker Andrew Drury

Few operas I have seen have left as great an impact on me as Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten which I originally saw at City Opera in the early ’90s and just saw again in its current run at the Park Avenue Armory as part of the 2008 Lincoln Center Festival. (There are only two performances left and I’ve heard that the run is practically sold out. When I was there on Wednesday night there was a posse of desperate folks hoping they could wrangle tickets, but if indeed no official tickets are left and you haven’t seen it, join