Contemporary Classical

Composers, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Flute, Music Instruments, Performers, Resources

Glissando Headjoint for Flute

The Glissando Headjoint for flute was invented by performer, composer, improviser, and inventor Robert Dick. Essentially, it adds a carrier tube to the standard C flute headjoint. The lip plate can be moved along the carrier tube to create true glissandi. Much of Dick’s work with the headjoint is in an improvisatory style; most of my work with it has been largely through commissioning works. One of the most rewarding things about this activity as a performer is seeing the variety of sounds composers require from the headjoint in their works. The minimal repertoire for glissando flute compared to the

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by Tammy Evans Yonce
Canada, CDs, Contemporary Classical, Drone, Experimental Music, File Under?, Minimalism

Jessica Moss – “Particles” (CD Preview)

  On October 25th, Constellation Records will release Entanglement, the second solo release by Jessica Moss. A violinist and vocalist who is one of the central members of Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and co-founder of Black Ox Orchestar, Moss draws upon a prodigious range of influences: from the post-rock and avant-klezmer of the aforementioned groups, to drones and loops reminiscent of post-minimalism. Over the past year, she has honed the material of Entanglement at over eighty concerts, developing a side-long piece, “Particles,” and a suite of four “Fractals.” Impassioned, moody, and slow-burning, her compositions are some of the most compelling

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by Christian Carey
BMOP, Boston, CDs, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

BMOP: An Interview with Gil Rose

Gil Rose directs the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, or BMOP. The orchestra’s in house label, BMOP/Sound, has released a spate of vital CDs of American music. I recently interviewed Rose about recordings already released on the label and a preview of the rest of 2018’s live and recorded events.   In recent years, BMOP has released several recordings that “crossover” into pop, what some writers have described “Indie classical.” Which of these projects do you think have most effectively helped the ensemble to grow musically? Do you approach conducting differently when a groove supplied by a rhythm section or drum kit is part of

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by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical

The Proms–Coleman, Pärt, Holt, Farrin, Xenakis and INSPIRE

The Proms concert on August 14, which was presented by the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Barenboim, for inexplicable reasons added at the beginning of the concert the Polonaise from Eugene Onegin by Tschaikovsky (possibly because starting with a five minute orchestra piece was better than starting with a concerto?). In any case, the first half of the concert was the Tschaikovsky Violin Concerto, with Lisa Batiashivili, as soloist. The concert ended with The Poem of Ecstasy by Scriabin. The second half of the concert began with the first London performance of Looking for Palestine by David Robert Coleman.

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by Rodney Lister
Contemporary Classical

The Proms–Lili Boulanger et al

Lili Boulanger is a composer who is at the intersection of two of the focuses of this year’s Proms programs: women composers and the centennial of the end of the First World War, which coincided with the year of her death at age of 24. Boulanger was clearly one of the great talents in music history, the equal of, for instance, the famously precocious Mendelssohn and Shostakovitch, both of whom lived long enough to fully realize their astonishingly early promise. Works of hers are included in four concerts of this season of the Proms. Pour les funérailles d’un soldat, a

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by Rodney Lister
Contemporary Classical

The Proms–Venables: Venables Plays Bartok

Rudolph Botta, as Philip Venables wrote in his program note for his concerto Venables Plays Bartok, had a remarkable life. Born in 1918, Botta pursued, as a teenager, two passions: playing the violin and fencing. He served in the Hungarian army during the Second World War, then was a member of the anti-Soviet resistance. He was sent by the Soviets to a labor camp in 1952, and during the time that he was there, was deliberately tortured and maimed so that he could no longer play the violin. After his release from the camp (as part of an amnesty following

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by Rodney Lister
Contemporary Classical

The Proms–Musgrave, Copland, Barber, Britten–and Arcola Opera Turnage

This year’s Proms as well as commemorating the centennial of the end of the First World War is also marking the centennial of The Representation of the People Act, which gave voting rights to some women in the United Kingdom for the first time. The means of commemorating that law is the commissioning of eight female composers whose music has not been performed in the Proms before, and a pledge that half the BBC Commissions for the Proms will be, by 2020, from women composers. Coincidentally with that celebration is the celebration of the 90th birthday of Thea Musgrave, whose

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by Rodney Lister
CD Review, Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Christopher Fox: Headlong (CD Review)

  Christopher Fox Headlong Heather Roche, clarinets Métier CD MSV28573   Composer Christopher Fox has crafted an imaginative output, employing diverse approaches and many different technical resources. His latest Métier CD, Headlong, is devoted to clarinet music, for instruments of varying sizes. Heather Roche is the stalwart interpreter of these pieces. Her own versatility and facility with myriad extended techniques make Roche an ideal performer of Fox’s music. Indeed, the clarinetist’s website serves as a compendious catalog of techniques used to play contemporary works. This recording serves as an ideal accompaniment to her web-based pedagogical forays.   Several of the

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by Christian Carey
Composers, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, Experimental Music, Seattle

A year without Matt Shoemaker (1974–2017)

One year ago the Pacific Northwest’s new music community was stunned by the suicide of Matt Shoemaker: painter and musician, enthusiastic traveler, frequent performer with Gamelan Pacifica, and accomplished creator in the genre of dark ambient. Shoemaker’s “electroacoustic soundscapes” have been released in a variety of formats by Elevator Bath, Helen Scarsdale Agency and other labels, and I offer an overview of this work in the Second Inversion article Mutable Depths: Remembering Matt Shoemaker. Shoemaker was a veteran of Seattle’s formidable electronic music scene, and he often performed his music at the Chapel Performance Space, the workhorse venue for experimental music

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by Michael Schell
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Piano

James Romig – Still (CD Review)

James Romig Still Ashlee Mack, piano New World Records 80802 Composer James Romig has spent the past twenty years cultivating a body of work that embodies both rigorous structuring and a wide-ranging gestural palette. As is explained in Bruce Quaglia’s excellent liner notes for Romig’s first New World CD, Still, there is good reason for these two aspects to be so important to Romig. His training as a composer was with American modernists Charles Wuorinen and Milton Babbitt, while his background as a performer – a percussionist – included a number of works by minimalists such as Steve Reich. Extra-musical

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by Christian Carey