With news that Apple is suing the manufacturers of the iGasm it occurred to me last night that this perhaps was a possible new venue for contemporary music. I brought up the subject with a few friends over beers and the debate began, ‘What piece of avant garde music would be the ideal iGasm driver?’ Steve Reich? Philip Glass? Xenakis? Ferneyhough? The winner at the table seemed to be the genre of noize punk. Driving 200 BMP noise. But who knows? Maybe your music could be a hit at this latest of new music venues extended! What piece of music
Read moreComposers, painters, writers, the whole motley lot–have always depended upon the kindness of strangers. Timely financial interventions of the Lorenzo de’ Medici here, the Nadezda von Meck there, the Paul Sacher over there have greased the skids for the makers of many of the world’s great masterpieces. Alas, those sort of patrons aren’t that plentiful nowadays and so a new “community” model of patronage has sprung up in which arts organizations pool their resources to commission new works. I call it the “Biegel” method after S21 blogger and pianist Jeffrey Biegel. I suspect he wasn’t the first to do it but
Read moreAccording to the American Symphony Orchestra League, which has been coordinating an advocacy campaign on the subject, the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee in the House of Representatives passed yesterday a $35 Million increase in the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts. According to ASOL, “This increase is significantly higher than the modest $4 million increase proposed by the President and represents a much more substantial restoration of NEA funds than has been proposed by the House committee since the NEA sustained a 40% budget cut more than a decade ago.” I don’t see any confirmation of this on the committe’s website
Read moreJacob ter Veldhuis might be the best composer you’ve never heard of. Let me explain. Start with his 1999 piece “Heartbreakers,” which takes recordings of American daytime television talk shows like Jerry Springer, Ricki Lake, and Oprah, and sets them within the context of a Jazz ensemble. Ter Veldhuis uses the technique, pioneered by Steve Reich in pieces like “Different Trains,” of playing fragments of speech and doubling the melodic patterns with the instruments. Musically, the result is a sort of post-minimalist jazz jam-fest, complete with improvised solos and speech clips sliced and diced and repeated until the meanings of
Read moreScott Spiegelberg of Musical Perceptions is a very brave man who obviously doesn’t have enough abuse going on in his life. (By the way, we should have been number four, not number five. Scott’s methodology in adding two numbers is whacked–he should have averaged the two numbers for Opera Chic, not added them together.) And, hey, Teachout doesn’t write that much about music so let’s throw him out of mix, too. So, let’s see; that makes us number 3. Not that we’re competitive or anything.
Read moreThis week’s Los Angeles Philharmonic program honored 1960, with three works composed in that year, a composer of a fourth (and major) work who was born that year, and performed by a soloist born that year. I’ll start with the last point. The soloist was Dawn Upshaw. Adjectives are inadequate. Looking up quotations to find some marvelous comment on “dawn” wasn’t useful. I simply cannot imagine another singer performing the two works at any level approaching her artistry. The program was constructed around two works for singer with orchestra. First, before intermission, was Time Cycle (1960) by Lukas Foss. A good
Read moreJerry’s recent semi-dismissal of our good friend Accordion prompts me to share a couple things, less well known than the usual Pauline Oliveros / Guy Klucevsek suspects: Stefan Hussong (b. 1962 — Germany) Stefan is one of the top contemporary accordionists working today, playing everything from Bach to the more than 80 new works specifically dedicated to him. His website is here, but the link on his name above is where I want to send you. It’s a recording of a March 2004 Other Minds concert, where Hussong essays wonderful performances of works by Cage, Harada and Höelszky, as well
Read moreOkay, sports fans, here’s something you’ll like. Today, beginning at 6 pm PST and running through midnight (That would be 9 pm to 3 am {thanks, Andrea for straightening me out} here in the Center of the Universe), KFJC radio in Los Altos Hills, CA is doing a 6-hour special focusing on Berio’s Sequenzas. Cujo, a dj on KFJC and Sequenza21 peruser, has lined up some stellar color commentary for this one. In addition to a live performance on flute, you’ll hear from from David Osmond-Smith, author of the only existing English Berio book (with more to come), Janet Halfyard, editor of the
Read moreThe Composers Concordance is having a concert tomorrow night at 8PM at the Greenwich House Music School Renee Weiler Concert Hall, 46 Barrow Street which will star our very own Jeff Harrington. Okay, there are some other composers on the program, too, but none as adventuresome or all-round lovable as our favorite geek-composer. Paul Hoffmann will perform the New York premiere of Jeff’s brilliant Big Easy mashup, Blue Strider. You’ll find the full schedule for the program here.
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