Philippe Kocher (b. 1973 — Switzerland) Philippe Kocher studied piano, electroacoustic music and musicology in Zurich and more recently music theory and composition with Detlev Müller-Siemens at the Musikakademie Basel, where he graduated in June 2004. He spent the academic year 2004-05 in London at the Royal Academy of Music, where he was at the same time a student and a teaching assistant for electroacoustic composition and real-time digital audio programming (Max/MSP). His work encompasses pieces for instruments and voice with or without electronics, and his interest lies both in electronic and instrumental music. As means for sound and score
Read moreHey – don’t worry if you don’t have a great date to go to the movies with tonight: just stay home and tune in to modernism’s official goofball, Mauricio Kagel. UbuWeb is featuring a bunch of his films made between 1965 and 1983 all packed onto one zany page. These films are apparently rarely screened in the US, and one doubts they’re screened much anywhere else. So get cracking: Dreamgirls can wait, gosh darnit. Have a good neo-Dada weekend.
Read moreThe picture was taken about 11 am on November 22, 1963 in the newsroom of The Parthenon, the student newspaper of Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va. The young man, barely recognizable to me today as a former version of myself, is interviewing Art Buchwald, his hero, for the paper. A half hour later Buchwald was on his way to the airport for a flight back to Washington and an hour or so later John F. Kennedy was dead. A couple of weeks after the tragic day, Buchwald wrote me a letter about the importance of not losing faith and going on despite the loss. He knew
Read moreRight now — just maybe — on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio, there might be the broadcast premiere of a string piece by Arnold Schoenberg. Is this the big moment? Find out here. (Thank Glenn Freeman.) Speaking of Arnie: yesterday I lugged a bigass score of Erwartung on the 2 train from Brooklyn College all the way to Borough Hall, then paraded it down Court Street. Crowds gathered to cheer my progress, women threw themselves at my feet, and a wine merchant presented me with a bottle of his best. Now I know how Schoenberg himself must have felt all those
Read moreThe description in the title is how Messiaen described a section of the piano part in the second movement of his great “Quartet for the End of Time” (1941). Last night’s Philharmonic chamber concert in Disney Hall came as close as I can imagine to enabling me to see sounds. It was a gorgeous performance by members of the Phil (with CalArts’ Vicki Ray as pianist). I’ve only been to one other live performance, and of course it’s one of the Messiaen tracks on my iPod, but the sound of the performance made it seem as if I was hearing
Read moreRobert Ashley’s latest opera, Concrete, deals with the secrets of ordinary people who are accompanied by Ableton Live. It opens tonight. Steve Smith had a substantive piece in the Times a few days ago. Lawrence Dillon likes the cold; go over and read some CD reviews; and I’m feeling beamy these days. Or should I? Let’s hear it for winter!
Read moreJerry sent me a box load of CDs for review under the agreement that I will choose lesser-known composers. So a new column called “Lost and Found” is born, and will (hopefully) be an every-other week installment. American Women: Modern Voices in Piano Music (self-published) Nancy Boston, piano In American Women: Modern Voices in Piano Music, Nancy Boston explores piano literature from American women composers, or less specifically American composers. The recording title could do without the introductory gender reference, despite Ms. Boston’s good intentions. The music featured here represents American composers, in the same way an all male recording
Read moreAnyone who’s dabbled even casually with the music world knows it’s full of heartbreak, exhilaration, passion, and drama. A profession overstuffed with possibilities for storytellers in all media, it’s a wonder to me why more film directors, novelists, and playwrights don’t take the plunge. But appearing today in bookstores across the fruited plain is Overture (Doubleday, $24.95), the debut novel by Yael Goldstein. Overture is about a famous violinist who also has a passion for composition. But her marriage to an acclaimed and revolutionary composer compels her to sacrifice her own composerly ambitions. (Alma Mahler, anyone?) Then to make matters
Read moreFive minutes before Elisabeth Lutyens appeared live on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Start the Week’ in 1979 she threatened to denounce Russell Harty as a ‘homosexual interviewer’ if he mentioned the phrase ‘lady composer’; thankfully Harty avoided using the words when the programme was on air. Lutyens was a larger than life personality who pioneered serial techniques in her unfairly neglected music. She was also well connected as my photo shows. For the full story, and a recommendation of a new CD of her music, click on Walking with Stravinsky.
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: Hidayat Inayat-Khan (b.1917 — India / Europe) Taken mostly from the 1981 Cambridge International Biographical Centre entry, I just have to give you a good taste of this very interesting bio: Hidayat Inayat-Khan’s great-grandfather, Mula Bux, founded the first Academy of Music in India in the 19th century, and also invented the music notation system carrying his name. Born in
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