I’d read about the dastardly act a while back, but Ethelbert Nevin over at La Folia has some amusing speculation in his “Top 12 Reasons Why Somebody Broke into a Warehouse and Stole Hundreds of Luigi Nono CDs“. You’ll have to go there to read them all, but I do like “Featured orchestral musicians afraid col legno will adopt Radiohead’s business model”, “col legno’s sets of Rihm string quartets were too heavy”, and “Joyce Hatto discovered playing trautonium on Isola 3“.
Read moreLooks like Washington Post music critic Tim Page got himself into a heap of trouble for referring to crack addict Marion Berry as a “crack addict” in an e-mail message.
Read moreIf you’ve been wondering who is responsible for dumbing down American musical culture, it’s people like Ronen Givony and me. Givony, as many of you know, is the mini-Sol Hurok who is responsible for New York’s priceless Wordless Music series. Like me, Givony is not a composer or musician or even someone who reads music. But, also like me, he loves new music and wants to help nurture and promote the talented people who do. The web has given us both platforms to indulge our desire to do so. According to Andrew Keen, that makes us the worst kind of
Read moreOur regular listen to and look at living, breathing musicians that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since they’re nice enough to offer so much good listening online: Julie Harting (b. 1957 — US, NYC) The talk is always “Oh that Schoenberg, making this artificial system that nobody really gets or feels!”… Except there are a few people like Julie: When I was 7 or 8, I found a miniature violin in my father’s closet, because he played violin when he was a kid. I also found a book called
Read moreIf you haven’t read Galen’s rather lengthy piece called Imprecations and Exhortations: A Rather Lengthy Defense of Richard Taruskin over in the Composers Forum, you should do so immediately. I’ve been taking a short nap for the past couple of days and just go around to it and it’s very thoughtful and very good. (I say that because on my first day of journalism school as Horace Greeley and I were checking in, our first prof said “Never say ‘very.’ If you must, write ‘damn’ instead.”) Damned fine work, Galen.
Read moreTranslating pop music into more ambitious musical forms is a risky business that sometimes produces surprising results. Who would have guessed, for example, that Twyla Tharp’s recycling of Billy Joel’s songs to tell the central story of the Sixties generation would be such a compelling and moving theatrical experience–an effect greatly heightened by having those songs reproduced note by note on stage by the world’s best tribute band. Once you’ve seen it, you’re forced to admit that Joel (who you might have previously taken lightly, as I did) writes really intelligent songs that display a wide and deep musical versatility. It’s one of those ‘aha’ moments like seeing Fleetwood Mac and realizing
Read moreThe big news today is that NPR and 12 NPR Member stations are launching NPR Music, a free, comprehensive multimedia music discovery Web site, that features on-air and online content aggregated from NPR and the participating stations as well as original-to-NPR Music materials such as interviews, reviews, blogs and live performances. The press release goes on to note that specific sections of the site are dedicated to rock/pop/folk, classical, jazz/blues, world and urban music. In each genre, program and subject area, users can explore NPR’s and the stations’ renowned music journalism; intimate interviews and studio sessions with artists and bands;
Read moreThe versatile performing duo known as “The Kenners” played a terrific concert Saturday night at the Tenri Cultural Institute. The program featured works by Charles Wuorinen, Toru Takemitsu, and Jason Eckhardt, and premieres of one form or another by Kate Soper, David Brynjar Franzson, and Petr Bakla. The Kenners’ catch is that each musician plays more than one instrument. Saturday’s program required Eliot Gattegno to switch between alto, tenor, and soprano saxophones; Eric Wubbels alternated between piano and accordion. (Sometimes he performs live electronics as well.) Soper and Franzson provided the world premieres. I liked Soper’s I Had a Slow
Read moreThere was a terrific profile of Gil Rose, Music Director of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and of BMOP itself in Sunday’s Boston Globe. If you don’t know BMOP you’re missing out on one of the best forces for new orchestral music around. There’s a lot of good stuff in the article, which is why you should read it for yourself, but it might be of particular interest to this crowd that they’re putting together their own record label “BMOP Sound” which will be launched in January “with five new releases adding to its existing catalog of 13 commercially released
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