Contemporary Classical

Click Picks, Contemporary Classical, Recordings

The Last Word in Listening

Last.fm is a social-network/music site out of London, whose visitors play a huge part in creating their vast database on musicians, their recordings, their popularity, and music of related interest. Users contribute by providing hard information, photos, opinions, and even “tags” that end up linking like-to-like across the spectrum. But many also download a bit of software as well, that keeps track of what they listen to on their computer. This information is used to build a profile of a listener’s likes, and lets Last.fm steer them towards other new music they’re likely to enjoy. If you’re a musician with recordings out there in the world, chances are good there’s already a page at Last.fm with your name on it. (If that’s you on the page, you can create an artist account and “claim” it, adding pics, bio, info, even music to the page. There were three different pages on even little ol’ me! — that I discovered, corralled and am tidying up).

But the big news these past days is that Last.fm has worked out a deal with all the Big-4 music labels (EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner) and numerous independents, that makes it possible to go to the site, simply type in a name, a “tag” or genre, and just start listening to complete tracks by that composer, performer or musician. You can listen by individual artist or album, or you can listen to a varied “radio” stream of music in the same genre. In the current beta version, you can listen to any track freely three times; after that (or before, if you were already feeling spendy) you can purchase the MP3s to download and keep. Even completely independent artists can sign on, upload and sell their music there, being paid directly by Last.fm.

How it all plays out… who knows? But artist or listener, just head on over and give it a test-drive.

by Steve Layton
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Metropolis Ensemble, New York

The Sooner The Better

Andrew Cyr writes: 

Hi Jerry,

I just wanted to give you a heads up about a couple of things:

Avner Dorman, the composer we just cut an album with (in editing mode now), had some incredible news in Germany, which I think is potentially worthy of a post. His new percussion concerto was just premiered in Hamburg a few weeks ago, and was just added in a rare surprise programming shift, with Munich Symphony — when was the last time you heard an American symphony do something like that!  Check out the press release, which I received from his publisher, Schirmer.  You can have a look at his website, too, http://avnerdorman.com , for additional info too…

In Metropolis news, another very talented composer we’re
collaborating with, Ryan Francis (b.1981), has won a prestigious
commission from the American Composers Forum, for a piano concerto which we will premiere in April….  There’s pretty much complete info for you on that on our homepage, under NEWS (we’ve a blog post about it) http://metropolisensemble.org/ — might be worthy of a post with you at some point, if you announce these kind of things.  I think Ryan is an incredibly talented composer to be watched…

Hope all is going well in the new year, and thanks for all your
support!!!

All the best,

Andrew

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

Elmer Gantry was drunk.

Who’s going to see Elmer Gantry at Montclair later this week?  Want to write a review for us?  No money but an incredible amount of love, peace and understanding (and what’s so funny about that?) and the next 10 Mozart CDs companies send me by mistake.   

Marvin is doing the world premiere of the Alan Hovhaness concerto Shambala, for violin, sitar and orchestra, originally composed for Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar, on his Classical Discoveries radio program on January 30 during the 9 am EST hour.  As usual, you can listen to it on the web at WPRB in Princeton.

The broadcast marks the February 14th release of the OgreOgress DualDisc comprising three Hovhaness works, each featuring violinist/violist Christina Fong. Both Shambala and Janabar (1950) appear in world-premiere recordings, while the concerto Talin was last recorded in its original viola & strings format in 1957.

I had a real thing about Sinclair Lewis when I was 10 or 11 years old.  Read Arrowsmith, Dodsworth, Elmer Gantry, Babbitt, Main Street back to back.  Lewis created characters that were not so much flesh and blood as archetypes of American mendacity.  I soon moved on to Hemingway and Faulkner but Lewis–who was hardly in that league as a writer–was my first real exposure to concepts like satire and irony and skepticism and, for better or worse, far more influential in shaping my views of the world.    

by Jerry Bowles
Composers, Contemporary Classical

Michael Pisaro Interview

Despite being co-chair of composition at CalArts, Michael Pisaro stays off way too many people’s radar. Maybe this interview at the “Object Collection” blog will help get you up to speed.

Michael PisaroMichael Pisaro was born in Buffalo in 1961. He is a composer and guitarist, a member of the Wandelweiser Composers Ensemble and founder and director of the Experimental Music Workshop. His work is frequently performed in the U.S. and in Europe, in music festivals and in many smaller venues. It has been selected twice by the ISCM jury for performance at World Music Days festivals and has also been part of festivals in Hong Kong, Vienna, Aspen and Chicago. Most of his music of the last several years is published by Timescaper Music (Germany). Several CDs of his work have been released by Edition Wandelweiser Records, most recently “transparent city, volumes 1 — 4” and “harmony series (11 — 16)”. His translation of poetry by Oswald Egger (“Room of Rumor”) was published in 2004 by Green Integer. He is Co-Chair of Music Composition at the California Institute of the Arts near Los Angeles. Before joining the composition faculty at CalArts, he taught music composition and theory at Northwestern University from 1986 to 2000.

by Steve Layton
Contemporary Classical

Dispatch from Wordless Music: Here’s Jonny!

Wordless Music packed The Church of St. Paul the Apostle last night by offering what was a surprisingly snoozy program. The chief somnambulists were Gavin Bryars and John Adams. Bryars’s The Sinking of the Titanic and Adams’s Christian Zeal and Activity both underscore pre-recorded tape tracks with autumnal, string-choir textures. Passive and reflective, both pieces are pretty; but, as sometimes happens when reflecting, the same tracks get tread over and over again, and the process, if drawn out for too long, becomes an essay in narcissism. To that end, Bryars’s Sinking lasts a lip-smacking forty minutes; Adams’s Zeal clocks in at a more sober fifteen. (Bryars’s fans can scream about “conceptual art” in the comments, but I’m not biting.)

Fortunately Jonny Greenwood had some vigor in him. By contrast with the other pieces, his Popcorn Superhet Receiver for string orchestra was a downright wild time filled with contrast and surprise. Just by boiling down a few diatonic washes into unisons, he evidenced the widest tonal pallet on the program. And for around ten minutes, Greenwood sustains a satisfying form. Things go wrong, however, with a poorly integrated up-tempo section which threatens to get incongruously poppy. But this quickly comes to a halt, the beautiful surges that define the earlier music return, and in the end Greenwood proves himself an auspicious new voice on the contemporary classical scene.

by David Salvage
Contemporary Classical

Conductor Kenneth Woods – Tips for Composers

It may be old news to some of regular music blog readers, but I think some of the tips by conductor Kenneth Woods – Oh no! More tips…. Now it’s the poor composers…. might be of interest to S21 readers.  The rehearsal tips alone are something every composer should memorize.  The notation tips, might be controversial, but they’re what I have been doing since I got our of grad school.  Always using Italian for instructions, notating as simply as possible, etc.  His story about the recent composer in residence process as seen through an arts community was also fascinating.  Thanks to Maestro Woods for sharing his expertise with the new music community!

by Jeff Harrington
Contemporary Classical

A Modest Proposal for Sequenza21 2.0

OK, here’s an idea I’ve been working on for a few days… it attempts to combine ALL the projects/ideas into one. What it attempts to do is this:

1. Empower and pay performers – get them excited to be involved
2. Be easily replicable across cities
3. Keep the concert experience short and not too much setup
4. Produce a CD in the process
5. Auto-generate a podcast when combined with interviews
6. Do NOT commission composers – pay performers well – develop some loyalty in the process
7. Combine the ‘variety show’ aspect of the miniatures concert (Miniaturist Ensemble/60×60/Analog Ensemble Micro-Happenings) – with a slightly longer time interval

Well… now here’s the idea:

1. Participating cities/regions will have one coordinator and one core standard ensemble for each concert. (Pierrot quintet, string quartet, etc). That means less setup, less coordination, easy to replicate or do again. By using a Pierrot quintet style group, we can have duos, trios, etc.
2. S21 will go through our comments and blogs and articles and find every person that left an email address. People who write articles and have blogs and/or comment more than X times here will get extra credit. This will be our pool of composers for the concerts.
3. These folks will be invited to send scores/pdf’s to the coordinator for each concert. No anonymous entry. This is about community/music/people. Pinning music to the names of the folks that ‘shoot their mouths off’ here as somebody politely put it.
4. The participating ensemble and the coordinator will pick 10 or so composers and each composer will be asked to write a 5-6 minute piece for that ensemble and for this particular concert.
5. The ensemble will go through the pieces as they arrive and decide if they want to or can play them or not.
6. A concert will take place and be recorded and these 10-12 pieces will be recorded and be in the CD. We make a podcast by adding interviews with the performers and the composers. We can do this by phone if necessary. We can even make a podcast of the concert preliminaries, interviewing the folks involved ‘in process.’

The main things I tried to do in thinking up this process was to remove the hassles we experienced in putting on the last S21 concert. Not too many performers, pay them well, make them the stars. Shorter pieces, no setup hassles and recording as part of the thinking. Get each performer/composer to agree to the license BEFORE the concert.

The numbers can be debated… my thinking has been to develop an easily replicable process; to make S21 a concert/commissioning/performance venue. The shortness of the pieces, I recognize is problematic, but we represent a huge cross-section of composers here. How can we be inclusive and have plenty of variety?

Comments?

by Jeff Harrington
Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

Elias Tanenbaum, 1924-2008

Yet another one, via Carson Cooman:

Elias Tanenbaum, composer, teacher and long-time New Rochelle resident died on Thursday after a long illness. He composed over 140 works in all idioms, including music for concert, jazz, theater, television, ballet and electronic and computer music. His music has been performed extensively throughout this country, Europe and Japan and recordings of his music can be found on Albany, New World, MMC and other labels. Mr. Tanenbaum was the Founding Director of the Electronic Computer Music Studio at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, and he was a member of the composition faculty there for almost 30 years. Born in 1924 in Brooklyn, New York, Elias Tanenbaum studied trumpet at an early
age and played with many jazz bands. He volunteered for the U.S. Army in World War II, and lost his right leg above the knee in Southern France in 1944. After being awarded a Purple Heart, he received a Bachelor’s from the Juilliard School of Music in 1949, and an M.A. from Columbia University, all on the G.I. bill. Besides music, he loved art, movies, reading, cooking, politics and comedy. He lived in New Rochelle, New York from 1959. He is survived by his wife of 55 years, pianist Mary Tanenbaum, his brother Ray, two children, David and Jacob, and three grandchildren, Zachary, Simon and Nicky. 11 AM memorial gathering will be held on Sunday at the Funeral Home followed by a 12 PM service.

GEORGE T DAVIS FUNERAL HOME 14 Lecount Place New Rochelle, NY 914 632 0324

by Jerry Bowles
Chamber Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music

Happy Almost-Birthday, Chapel!

Steve PetersSteve Peters quietly came to Seattle in 2004, after running the non-profit performance organization Nonsequitur out of Albuquerque for 15 years. After a stint at Jackstraw he was finally ready to get back to what he does best (besides making his own wonderful music/sound-art): creating an inviting and flexible space and then filling it up with vital performances. Very soon after its inaugaration this year, the Chapel became probably the premiere initmate space in Seattle for catching new music.

An actual chapel in the beautiful, old Good Shepherd Center (a former home for young girls), tucked into a great park in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood, the Chapel accomodates performances from across the musical spectrum, with nary a miss among the bunch. A glance back at an amazing first year:

The ChapelAnimist Orchestra  // Jessica Catron, cello & Johnny Chang, violin: The Microscores Project // Visual/Sound/Digital Poetry (Subtext Reading Series) // Death Posture butoh // Colin Andrew Sheffield & James Eck Rippie, Phil Hendricks, and Rebreather, electronics // Vanessa Skantze, spoken word/theater performance // Tom Baker Quartet + Sunship // Paul Hoskin, contrabass clarinet // Seattle Composers Salon // Eric Barber, sax & Tom Varner, horn // Duo Juum // Dean Moore, gongs & Bill Horist, guitar // DX ARTS group show // Doug Haire, field recordings // However, poetry + music // Byron Au Yong, voice, piano, percussion & Christopher Blaisdel, shakuhachi // Jeffrey Allport, guitar & Tim Olive, percussion + Cristin Miller, voice & Jason Anderson, electronics // Milind Raikar, Indian violin & tabla + Hell’s Bellows, accordion quartet // Dennis Rea & Stuart Dempster // Lisa Moore, piano // Francisco Lopez & Matt Shoemaker // Piano Christening: Gust Burns, Dawn Clement, Duo Juum, Wayne Horvitz, Julie Ives, Johanna Kunin, Victor Noriega, Amy Rubin, Cristina Valdes // Marathon: 40 artists in 10 hours (Nonsequitur, Jack Straw, Clear Cut Press, Subtext, Phonographers Union, DoubleSharp, WA Composers Forum, Seattle Composers Salon) // Chris Chandler, Paul Benoit, Ela Lamblin, Vishal & Ushwal Nagar // Gust Burns + Julie Ives, piano // Moraine + Snapbite // Gretta Harley, choral/spoken word performance // Duran/Schloss/Mitri Trio + Paul Rucker Quinte // Jim Haynes, sound art + Eric Lanzillotta, analog synth // Gregory Reynolds, sax & Gust Burns, piano // No West Festival of Improvised Music & Dance // Matthew Postle & Derek Terran + Michael Owcharuk Trio // Bling! + Figeater // Yann Novak & Son of Rose // Reptet + Ziggurat Ensemble // Dean Moore & Sha’ari Garfinkel, gongs // Satoko Fujii, piano & Natsuki Tamura, trumpet // Gamelan Pacifica // Diego Piñon butoh // Seattle Latin American Music Festival // Flute Force, flute quartet // Greg Sinibaldi // EQlateral Ensemble // Keith Rowe & friends, improvised guitar etc. // Andrea Parkins, accordion & electronics + Lesli Dalaba, trumpet & Rob Angus, electronics // Gino Robair, improv opera // Trevor Watts & Jamie Harris & Reuben Radding & Jane Rigler // Wally Shoup Quartet & Gust Burns Trio (Earshot) // Tom Baker Quartet // Metal Men, electronics, noise // Malcolm Goldstein, violin // Alexei Pliousnine, guitar // Iva Bittova, violin & voice // October Trio // Margaret Brink, piano + Tom Baker Quartet // Seattle Harmonic Voices // Tiffany Lin & Motoko Honda, piano // Tim Root // Philip Arnautoff, harmonic canon + Christopher Roberts, guqin // Shulamit Kleinerman & friends, medieval violins // Alison Knowles // John Butcher, sax, Torsten Mueller, bass, Dylan van der Schyff, drums // Katsura Yamauchi, sax and Arrington DeDionyso, bass clarinet // Impressions of Romania, chamber music // Paul Rucker Quintet // Sean Osborn, clarinet & Greg Sinibaldi, sax & electronics // Sunship // Wally Shoup Trio // Jhababa & Eric Lanzillotta

Whew! The Seattle scene has always been more-or-less alive-and-well, through places like the plucky Gallery 1412, but the Chapel provides a much-needed venue for new and experimental music that takes it out of the back alley and gives it a place where people can respect the space as much as they already do the music and artists. Even if you’re not a Seattlite, keep an eye on their blog for even more wonders this year (or sign up for the mailing list). Major Kudos to Steve P., and wishes for a wonderfully full year to come.

by Steve Layton
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical

Sequenza21 2.0

Given the inexplicable stature of our little S21 community, it occurred to me a couple of weeks ago that we should do something useful.  I’ve chatted with a few of the regulars and gotten some good ideas but I thought I would open up the discussion to everybody.

Here’s what we have so far: 

1) another Sequenza21 concert like the very successful one we had a couple of years ago.  We’d raise a little money from readers and I would shake down…ur, trade a few record companies some free advertising for dollars.  My feeling is that if we go the concert route, we should have somebody prominent who is not a composer curate the program to avoid the unfortunate tendency of the selection committee to be overrepresented on the program.  Ideas?

2) a Sequenza21 virtual CD or CDs.  Steve Layton has some great thoughts on this that would keep the costs down and avoid the wrath of ASCAP.  Maybe, Steve could elaborate.

3) A modest Sequenza21 commissioning fund for composers and who contribute here regularly.  (We’ll have to define what contribute here regularly means).

4) Some sort of outreach to performers and musicians who are not composers.  We’d like to get more of them involved in S21.  Maybe a Performers Forum?

5) Something we haven’t thought of yet but you have.

The floor is now open.

by Jerry Bowles