Jerry Hadley has apparently attempted suicide.

ANALOG arts ensemble has just announced its instant composition contest, Iron Composer Omaha.

Five finalists will be selected to compete. At noon on September 11, we’ll unveil the instrumentation that they’ll be writing for and a secret ingredient. We’ve announced that the ingredient ‘could be any kind of musical raw material, such as a chord progression or a found object’. 

If you were playing the role of the Chairman, what secret ingredient would you choose?

I’ve just finished a new piece called Elevator Music, which is intended to be performed by two people in an elevator or a similar enclosed, public space.  It consists of a set of 5 rhythmic cells which are played by slapping or knocking on the walls of the elevator.  The idea here is in the tradition of a sort of guerilla performance practice where music is brought into unexpected places, unannounced.

The premiere is up for grabs–let me know if you perform it somewhere.  Obviously, I can’t be held responsible for arrests or other legal action, and the point isn’t to be obnoxious, but rather unexpectedly interesting.  Have fun!

On July 3, the very excellent percussionist, Sam Solomon, presented a Boston University Tangelwood Institute (BUTI) faculty recital at Trinity Church in Lenox (Ma). His program included pieces by Nico Muhly, Eric Hewitt, Michael Early, David T. Little, Marcos Balter, and Judd Greenstein, two of them–Hewitt and Early–first performances. Due to the circumstances, the place was packed with attentive and enthusiatic teenagers, although that doesn’t mean that such a demographic wouldn’t necessarily show up to such a performance somewhere else, given how exciting and entertaining this one was.

Every one of the pieces was thoughtfully made and impressively and interestingly executed, and every one was snappy and enjoyable to listen to, and, I suppose, to watch, although my own sight lines weren’t all that good. Anyone of them, by itself, would have impressed me a fair amount. I found myself thinking, though, that, just as just about every piece for harp, flute, and one or two strings seems to suggest that Debussy figured out almost everything that could be done with the combination and did it a while ago, and therefore just about every piece ends up sounding a little like the Debussy sonata, every piece for percussion has a similar kind of strategy and intention. Each had its point, including the peppy beginning of the Muhly, the slightly random, water dripping in the sink, first section of the Early, and the general spashiness of the Balter. David T. Little’s Three Sams concentrated first on pitches in (—)I Am (a very engaging line with unexpected and enjoyable twists and turns, then on non pitched elements, especially cymbals and drums in the dark and angry Son of (—), and then combined them in the slow and mournful Wicked Uncle (—), with the pitched elements suggesting the ghosts of half remembered half recognizable hymns and patriotic songs. Judd Greenstein’s biblically titled We Shall Be Turned, was perhaps the most memorable for being the quietest and most meditative of the pieces, starting with a simple pattern and returning to it again as the starting point for each of its increasingly longer and most complex discourses.

Sam Solomon’s performance was elegant, eloquent, and full of pazazz. He played each of the pieces as though it was the most important thing in the world. It was wonderful to hear. The recital, at just about a hour without an intermission, was exactly the right length.