What’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
Read morePassed on by Carson Cooman: The American composer Robert Moevs died Monday evening, December 10, 2007 at age 87. Born in La Crosse, Wisconsin on December 2, 1920, Moevs studied at Harvard University (BA, 1942). He entered the US Air Force and served as a pilot. He resumed his musical studies at the Paris Conservatoire (1947–51) and then at Harvard (MA, 1952); his principal teachers were Walter Piston and Nadia Boulanger. For the next three years he was at the American Academy in Rome as a Rome Prize Fellow. An inspiring teacher, Moevs served on the faculty at Harvard (1955–63)
Read moreOur gaucho amigo Marvin Rosen is the most innovative and knowledgeable music programmer in the universe but who knew that he aspired to become the new music world’s Jerry Lewis? Marvin is hosting a special 24-hour marathon edition of his terrific radio program Classical Discoveries titled “Viva 21st century,” which will air on WPRB out of Princeton, NJ beginning at 6:00 pm on Thursday, December 27 and will conclude at 6:00 pm on Friday, December 28. Sympathizers and fellow travelers who don’t live in the Princeton area can listen to the show online at www.wprb.com The program includes works from only
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