So, the wonderful Serbian film director Emir Kusterica’s new opera Time of the Gypsies (based on his zany film of the same name) opened last night in Paris. Woody Allen is directing Puccini and David Cronenberg is prepping The Fly for L.A. Anthony Minghella, Michael Haneke, Zhang Yimou. What is happening here? Have we run out of opera directors? Have film directors done operas in the past? Are opera companies just hoping that a high profile director can pack the seats?
Read moreJoshua Bell tells the Korea Times that he’s working toward writing his own stuff in a few years. Could work, I suppose. His pal Edgar Myers is a decent composer and fine musician. But, you pretty much have to go back to Rachmaninoff to find someone who was “great” as both a performer and composer. (Or, I’m sure someone will remind me that you don’t have to go back that far.) Same thing for conductors. Okay, Lenny was great at both but most are not. The most excruciating half hour I ever spent in a concert hall (and this includes
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Read more[youtube]H31YzXCq0Sg[/youtube] [youtube]bfPcu_buWkg[/youtube] Performed by the Rubio String Quartet. Photography by James Archambeault
Read morePeter Maxwell Davies let loose some fightin’ words a few months ago at the annual meeting of Britain’s Incorporated Society of Musicians. Music education has been unavailable in schools for two generations; the hegemony of commercial music is unchecked; and students now graduate high school with vocabularies insufficient to express the complexity of experience. Surprised? It’s all the same trend. Let’s start teaching kids to notate music, sing Palestrina, and go to new music concerts. (So Max.) A related personal anecdote: Around the same time Davies was giving this speech, I asked the faculty of the Harvard Music Department if the
Read moreOur regular listen to and look at living, breathing composers and performers 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: Beth Custer (b. 1958 — US) Extra, extra!… Fearless woman seizes her day!… Beth was born in South Bend, Indiana, raised in western New York, but has lived in San Francisco for for the last twenty-five-and-some years. As if she wasn’t busy enough being a composer, performer, bandleader, clarinet teacher, and running a record label, she’s also a founding member
Read moreThe indispensible Alex Ross is back from a fact finding mission to gauge the state of serious music making in the provinces and his report, in this week’s New Yorker (yes, the New Yorker) finds cause for optimism. What’s the state of serious music making in your city?
Read moreJudd Greenstein and Kimball Gallagher are looking for a few good proposals for the 2007-2008 season of VIM: TRIBECA. Proposals may be submitted by performers (instrumental and vocal), composers, ensembles, or mixed-art groups that include music. VIM: TRIBECA is centered around music in the Western classical tradition, Greenstein says, but proposals may be made by any musicians whose work pushes the boundaries of genre, or whose work is affiliated with other traditions. Download a pdf file with details here. And get out there and push a genre today. Just don’t be too noisy. Our buddy Marvin Rosen will be joined by American
Read moreOkay, so nobody wants to discuss A3. How about C4, the terrific choral collective championed by S21 regular Ian Moss? The talented boys and girls are doing a concert about the always-popular subject of love tonight at 8 pm at the Norwegian Seamen’s Church, 317 East 52nd Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues). On the bill are new works by C4 members Jonathan David, David Rentz, Moss, Malina Rauschenfels and Karen Siegel, plus stuff by a bunch of other people. Lykke til! Further evidence of the deaggregation of classical music distribution; our friends at Naxos have launched an online boutique called NaxosDirect. Best film score ever. Discuss.
Read moreIt’s Daniel Gilliam’s turn to be S21er in the spotlight this weekend. If you happen to be near Louisville, Kentucky at 4 pm this Sunday, drop by Central Presbyterian Church for the world premiere of Daniel’s Song of the Universal, a cantata for soprano solo, choir and piano, based on the text by Walt Whitman. Lacey Hunter Gilliam, Daniel’s wife, will be the soloist. Also on the program will be the premiere of O for Such a Dream for choir, soloist and piano, by Daron Aric Hagen, as well as new music by Louisville composer Fred Speck, and anthems by John Leavitt and Paul Halley.
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