Breaking news from Cuernavaca, Mexico–Stefano Scodanibbio has passed away, a tremendous bassist, a fearless improviser, and a gifted composer. Faced with ALS, he decided to spend his last days in Mexico, a country he loved. I haven’t found any reports in English, but for those of you who speak Spanish, here’s the report. Google translation (not too bad) here.
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Composers, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, Experimental Music, Interviews, Women composers
Photo courtesy of Andre Penven for Coilhouse Magazine Zoë Keating (Wow, what can I say??) has definitely cultivated a very respectable place in the new music and indie music circles. After rethinking a classical concert career as a cellist for working a tech job, she was intervened to perform with various friends, played in the band Rasputina, eventually went solo with a gorgeously layered, rhythmic cello sound. Zoë went on to sell over 40,000 copies of her CDs without distribution, a record label or management. And she has over one million Twitter followers. The internet loves her! Besides her solo
Read moreBang on a Can is celebrating twenty-five years of music making in generous fashion. Between now and Jan. 25th, you can download their new album, Big Beautiful Dark and Scary, via bangonacan25.org. In exchange, they ask for an email address and a memory of a BoaC moment: the former is kept confidential, the latter is published in a scrapbook commemorating the album. Think this is marketing against one’s own self-interests? Probably not. The iTunes version is for sale from 1/31, and features a bonus track of the ensemble performing Philip Glass’s Closing, with Glass, live. When the physical streets on
Read moreOne of my favorite projects this past Fall was writing the program essay for American Composers Orchestra’s SONiC festival. I had the chance to interview several composers (though only a small sampling of the many fine participants) featured on SONiC, including Hannah Lash, Anthony Cheung, Keniji Bunch (an old friend – one of my classmates at Juilliard), and the National’s Bryce Dessner. All of the interview subjects proved diverting. But I was particularly glad to have a chance in the essay to spotlight Ensemble Klang, a Dutch new music group that performed Oscar Bettison’s O Death on SONiC. Their performance was critically acclaimed as one
Read more(also published on Urban Modes) ETHEL will soon be reunited with our dear friend and collaborator Ayelet Rose Gottlieb at the 2012 Winter Jazz Fest (January 7th @ Zinc Bar). Ayelet has composed a deeply heartfelt piece for ETHEL and percussionist Satoshi Takeishi entitled Shiv’a . We’ve been developing Shiv’a for over a year now, and recently recorded it. This January’s concert marks the beginning of a series of live performances of the piece. Ayelet’s style combines tuneful folk influences with moments of abstract improvisation. Her tone color choices are unusual and interesting. In this interview she discusses her music,
Read moreFor the LA Weekly, I compiled a list of what appear to be the best classical music events next year in Los Angeles. (Of course, the 2012-13 seasons haven’t been announced yet, so there will likely be events in the fall that I’ll be crazy about, and REDCAT had not published its Winter/Spring concert schedule by the time I turned my copy into my editors) Just about all my picks involve 20th/21st century music (there’s lots of pre-20th century music at Ojai, and although Mahler may not seem 20th-century to many classical music mavens, over half of his output was
Read morePlease welcome Jonathan Lakeland, a conductor and pianist making his first contribution to Sequenza 21, a review of pianist Ang Li’s Weill Hall program. Plenty of 19th century rep, but two premieres as well. The collaboration between performer and composer is one of the great joys of music. Pianist Ang Li’s recent Carnegie Hall recital (12/18 at Weill Hall) was, if nothing else, a celebration of this beautiful relationship. Ms. Li programmed music that celebrated the 200th birth-year of Franz Liszt, while also performing new works by two terrific young composers: Jérôme Blais and Jared Miller. Ms. Li began her
Read moreMy article today in Musical America reviews the NY Philharmonic’s Contact! Concert on 12/16 at the Met Museum. While I enjoyed the music – hearing HK Gruber perform Frankenstein!! was a particular treat – I took issue with the announcement at the event of Alan Gilbert being awarded Columbia University’s Ditson Prize, which recognizes a conductor for his advocacy for American composers. This season, the Contact! series includes only one American: Elliott Carter. It’s a far cry from their inaugural season just two years ago, when they featured Sean Shepherd, Nico Muhly, Arlene Sierra, and others. Perhaps Maestro Gilbert will
Read moreFor a few different takes on reality, you ought to go check out FIVE POINTS, a collaboration between PULSE Composers Collective and TAKE dance: “a true marriage of contemporary dance and music inspired by the senses and synesthesia.” Five composers, five pieces, five dances! Joseph C. Phillips Jr. founded the composer federation Pulse in 2004 with composers who shared a desire to create and perform music that has no rigid divisions or categories, and I was lucky enough to ask him a few questions about FIVE POINTS, the second collaboration between these two groups: 1) When you write for a choreographer, do you
Read moreCory Smythe and Amy X Neuburg; Photos courtesy of Glenn Cornett Amy X Neuburg/Cory Smythe Roulette Brooklyn, NY Dec. 13, 2011 It’s East Meets West…coast, that is. On the stage of the old-school charming Roulette in Brooklyn was yet another creatively edgy program, put on this time by the pairing of West-coast avant-cabaret artist Amy X Neuburg and New York’s own pianist-composer, ICE’s Cory Smythe. Presented without an intermission, the show was almost entirely electronic or electro-acoustic in nature (with the exception of a refreshing burst of Fats Waller’s “Handful of Keys” from Mr. Smythe), and most of the pieces
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