Last week, Democrats gave up their fight to block $70 billion in unrestricted war funding and on December 19, Congress sent the $556 billion omnibus spending bill to President Bush, who is expected to sign it. Included in this bill is a historic increase in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. Funding for the NEA will be increased by $20.144 million, or about 16%, to $144.706 million for FY08. This is less than the $160 million appropriation proposed in the House version of the bill, but more than the Senate proposal of $133.412 million and more than the President’s requested $128.412
Read moreI missed this little diatribe from Bernard Holland in the Times. Thanks to Carmen Tellez for bringing it to my attention: Unpleasant truths were another topic brought back forcefully by a concert at the Kitchen in September, by the fine young group Either/Or. Here was a program of 1960s arrogance and self-absorption, with people like Cornelius Cardew, Christian Wolff and Earle Brown as the main offenders. Listening to a collection of composers sharing inside jokes and private messages in music that reeked of contempt for the public made me get down on my knees and give thanks that an era
Read moreWhat’s Christmas without a little organ music? Der Engel by our own Steve Layton.
Read moreThanks, Scott. And a special thanks to all of you who come around faithfully to contribute the entertaining thoughts and comments that make this the liveliest venue for new music conversation on the web. I love you all, even the cranky ones. Note: Christian Carey’s File Under? posts now have their own page.
Read more“A Harvard Business School study looked at job satisfaction. Orchestra players came just below prison guards. Chamber musicians came in at number 1. What’s the difference? The presence of a conductor.” Boston Philharmonic Conductor Ben Zander, speaking at Leaders in London 2007
Read moreGavin Borchert, composer and the Seattle Weekly‘s classical music critic, has an interesting take in this week’s rag, on current calls for jazzing-up or otherwise “slumming” the concert experience. A couple cogent paragraphs: A couple of things puzzle me. First, the classical concert experience is, in all essentials, identical to that of dance, theater, literary events, or for that matter—barring the munching of popcorn and cheering the fireball deaths of villains—movies. Go to the performance space, buy a ticket, sit down in rows, watch and listen, try not to disturb your fellow audience members. Yet it’s only in conjunction with concerts
Read moreDon’t know what’s happening on PBS in your town tonight, but here in the center of the universe, Channel 13 is bringing us Kurt Weill’s brilliant (and somewhat depressing for the Christmas season) “The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.” Great cast includes Audra McDonald, Patti LuPone, John Doyle, and Anthony Dean Griffey. Check your local listings.
Read morePaul Dirmeikis attended Stockhausen’s funeral on December 13, and has a report. The family is already starting to slowly walk away. Some of us stay around the tomb, scattered between the neighbour tombs. Near the larger alley going down to the chapel, all members of Stockhausen’s family gathered together in a circle, holding their hands. Simon reads something. It’s around 4 pm. That’s it. One of the greatest composers of these last 50 years has just been buried. It’s a freezing afternoon in a distant German village. Fermata.
Read moreThe New York Times leads off its Sunday Arts Section tomorrow with one of those double-bylined investigative reports that spell trouble for somebody. It appears that all is not well with the Seattle Symphony. The article is not up online yet but here’s the lede: Any dictionary will tell you that a symphony orchestra trades in harmony. Anyone who has spent much time around orchestras will tell you that the harmony often stops at the music’s edge; that tensions abound in a body of 100 or so high-strung thoroughbreds as a music director seeks to impose a single vision. And
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