Though our decade technically has another year to go, the marketing appeal of “Hits of the XXs” type formulations tends to overwhelm such semantic niceties. So as we leave the 2010s behind, there’s more than a little Web-based generalization to be found regarding their musical character and trajectory. I’ll try to keep things in perspective as I review some of the highlights of 2019 that embody the breadth and caliber of contemporary Western art music. All of the following selections are available via fixed media or on demand, and many have been featured on Radio Eclectus. A different kind of
Read moreOn Sunday night, October 20, 2019 Equal Sound presented a double album CD release concert featuring experimental performer/composer Sarah Belle Reid and Berlin-based thereminist extraordinary Carolina Eyck. The Civic Center Studios in downtown Los Angeles was the venue, and included a potent surround sound system, a balcony and ample room for the hundred or so new music concert goers in attendance. The first set of the evening was by Sarah Belle Reid. According to the program notes, she is a “Canadian performer-composer, specializing in trumpet and electronics, modular synthesis, and alternate forms of graphical notation for composition and improvisation.” Ms.
Read moreOn September 6, 2019 People Inside Electronics presented Aperplicity, a concert of performance art and music performed by two Los Angeles-based duos. Aperture Duo with Adrianne Pope, violin and Linnea Powell, viola, joined forces with Autoduplicity, Rachel Beetz, flute and Jennifer Bewerse, cello, to present five pieces, including a world premiere. The spacious Throop Unitarian Church Hall in Pasadena filled up with a fine new music audience on a warm Friday night. Time With People, Op. 1 (2013) by Tim Parkinson began the program with two performers sitting at a table holding a few snacks and cans of soda. This
Read moreOn Saturday, August 10, 2019 wasteLAnd presented its first Summer Academy for Composition Concert at Art Share in downtown Los Angeles. The work of eight emerging composers was performed at this event with each having participated in an intensive course of study in contemporary music during the previous week. Their pieces were work-shopped with the musicians of the wasteLAnd ensemble and reviewed by the Academy faculty of Michelle Lou, Michael Pisaro, and Brian Griffeath-Loeb. A fine crowd filled the Art Share performance hall on a warm Los Angeles summer evening in the lively downtown Los Angeles Arts District. The first
Read moreThe 15th annual Dog Star Orchestra series of concerts concluded with Civil Twilight, held at the CalArts Wild Beast and environs, presenting four pieces of experimental music. Three of the pieces were heard outdoors in the mild evening air, on this the second day of summer. Two of the pieces were keyed to local astronomical events – the setting of the sun and the positions of the stars occurring at exactly 8:00 PM on June 22, 2019. The entire concert was devoted to music that was both understated and sophisticated, inviting the audience to listen closely and carefully. The first
Read moreOn June 14, 2019 the Southland Ensemble presented Land Images, an evening of experimental music at Automata Arts in Chinatown. The concert was part of the 15th annual Dog Star Orchestra series, presenting a dozen different new music concerts at various locations around Los Angeles through June 22. A full house packed the cozy spaces of Automata anticipating works by Christian Wolff as well as pieces by three contemporary composers. The first piece on the program was Groundspace or Large Groundspace, by Christian Wolff and was performed outside Automata in Chung King Court. About a dozen performers carrying various instruments
Read moreBarre Phillips Zürcher Gallery By Christian Carey Sequenza 21 May 20, 2019 NEW YORK – ECM Records has released a number of great solo bass recordings. The label’s producer, Manfred Eicher, was himself a bassist, and he has invited a number of fellow low string players to record for ECM. Barre Phillips is a pathfinder in the genre, releasing one of the first solo bass recordings, Journal Violone, on Opus One in 1968. Eicher and he have been keen collaborators for many years, beginning in 1971 with a duo recording of Phillips with Dave Holland, Music from Two Basses, the first of its
Read moreThe latest installment of the Soundwaves Concert Series was heard in the Martin Luther King, Jr. auditorium at the main branch of the public library in Santa Monica on Wednesday, April 17, 2019. Flutist Nicole Mitchell, a regular winner of the Downbeat Critic’s Poll, and sound artist Alex Lough were on hand for an evening of improvisation featuring several flutes and an impressive array of electronic circuitry. Ms. Mitchell came equipped with two flutes, a piccolo and a microphone with some distortion and looping capabilities. Across the stage, Lough presided over two tables covered with circuit boards, control panels, patch
Read moreOn March 27, 2019, People Inside Electronics presented Wired Wednesday, a concert featuring a set by Amy Advocat and Matt Sharrock, the Transient Canvas duo – as well as a sound installation premiere and a new piece for augmented trumpet. All of this was at Live Arts LA, a dance studio whose spacious performance floor was ideal for the occasion. According to my friend, who’s blogged for a list of online poker sites that range from unknown to the biggest ones – the first piece on the concert program was the world premiere of bzbowls (2019), a sound installation by
Read moreDestruction and reclamation, gimmick and avant-garde One of the odder fads bequeathed to us by the 1960s is the ritual destruction of musical instruments. It’s a custom most famously associated with the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townshend. But what bursts out in popular culture often has precedents in the avant-garde, and the origins of this particular brand of onstage iconoclasm can be traced to the Fluxus movement, specifically its founder George Maciunas. In a nod to classical tradition Maciunas chose the piano, rather than the upstart electric guitar, as the foil for his aggression, directing performers of his
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