When I planned to teach a course at Westminster Choir College about Benjamin Britten’s vocal music in the Fall, I knew that gender/sexuality studies would play a role in our evaluation of his works. But I certainly wasn’t planning to discuss something as topical and unsettling as the recent tragedy at Rutgers. Our campus is a half hour away from RU (my alma mater), and a number of students were understandably shaken by hearing about Tyler Clementi’s suicide. The technological tools for communication may have gotten more sophisticated; but the people using them, if they act selfishly, can be in
Read moreDear Jerry: I am extremely interested in educating myself on the trends in new “downtown” as well as much “uptown” music (e.g. the music, methods and processes of; yourself, David Lang, Meredith Monk, Nico Muhly, Toru Takemitsu, Steve Reich, Morton Feldman, Carl Ruggles, Charles Ives, Lou Harrison), and I am in search of resources online to meet this end. I want to know them the way you do, or the way a composition professor would. The online resources of which I am aware are The New Grove Dictionary, Music Theory Spectrum, The Society For Music Theory, and Sequenza21.com. I have
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Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, Experimental Music, Flute, Houston, Improv, Percussion, Performers, Sound Art, Women composers
Pyramid and Michelle Yom at Labotanica (Houston, TX) This Friday, October 1st at 7pm, Michelle Yom will present her sound performance installation Back To Imagined Spaces at Houston’s alternative arts and music venue Labotanica located at 2316 Elgin Street. This is a part of Labotanica’s ongoing Hear/Her/Ear series spotlighting women in experimental music. I got a chance to hear Michelle last month in a solo vocal set at Avant-Garden where she recorded and looped her singing in real time to additively build a series of haunting chorales. Michelle is perhaps best known as a flautist with a strong classical technique
Read moreThere are few institutions in America with a richer history than the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater and Dance and the composition department there has a particularly impressive tradition. With past and present faculty and students including Michael Daugherty, Bright Sheng, William Bolcom and George Crumb, UM composers have had a hand in much of contemporary American music history including the homegrown Once Festival and other movements such as Bang on a Can. Moreover, with alumni currently holding faculty positions at premiere music schools across the country (including UM), it seems safe to say that – despite the
Read moreMusical programs come in all shapes and sizes, just like people. But getting a program to make sense is what separates the quick from the dead. The San Francisco-based new music chamber group sfSound usually puts on provocative programs, and their latest one, on Sept 19th at our town’s Community Music Center in the Mission, presented different kinds of musical energies, and made perfect sense. It’s never wise to serve something heavy before the main course, and Swiss composer Beat Furrer’s 5 minute Ayer (1991), though not exactly lightweight, didn’t tax its audience unnecessarily. Sure, it was somewhat demanding–for the
Read more[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrhUO-m2w6s[/youtube] The first episode just went up today…Joel Puckett & DJ Sparr have some brief interviews with Christopher Rouse, Robert Beaser, Augusta Read Thomas and Oscar Bettison. Keep up with ’em online here.
Read moreOf all the press releases I received over the summer, none made me happier than the one saying that, yes, there would be another New Music Bake Sale this year. It’s happening this Saturday, September 25, at the Irondale Center (85 South Oxford Street, Brooklyn) from 5-11:30pm and will be emceed by hosts from WQXR/Q2. It looks like this year will be even more delicious than last year with more performances, more baked goods, and a silent auction. All of the ensembles with tables have been invited to offer special items for auction (with all the money going directly to
Read more2010-11 marks Houston based Musiqa’s seventh year of presenting free “loft” concerts at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Each of these informal, intimate concerts is produced in conjunction with a different exhibition. On Thursday, September 23, 2010, at 6:30 p.m., in conjunction with the museum’s exhibit Dance with Camera, Musiqa presents a collaborative “loft” concert with video artists BeJohnny that will merge live music and video. The Thursday program includes Alvin Lucier’s Queen of the South and Frederic Rzewski’s To the Earth, featuring Craig Hauschildt and Luke Hubley on percussion. I wrote about Musiqa and their May 2010 Hand +
Read moreIt is a huge day for new music new releases tomorrow, Tuesday, September 21st. Last month you might remember I interviewed Nico Muhly about his new releases before he spoke in LA about the works on the Decca label and featured an in-store performance. Tomorrow those discs will hit the stores as well as two major works by another composer, Jennifer Higdon. What is astounding about Higdon’s cds are that they are by two different labels (Telarc & DG) and by two different violinists (Jennifer Koh and Hilary Hahn) of two different violin concertos, written closely together: The Singing Rooms
Read moreNo, not that Clinton woman and the iconic, dark (& sadly now dead) singer… Hilary Hahn managed to virtually catch up with a very busy Nico Muhly, and they chat on subjects far and wide in this two-part interview: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W81Pp0huONc[/youtube] Part 2 is here. Both Hilary and Nico have CDs dropping officially tomorrow (Tuesday Sep 21); Nico’s A Good Understanding is a compilation of choral works, while Hilary’s couples the Tchaikovsky concerto with Jennifer Higdon’s 2010 Pulitzer-Prize-winner. (For the early-birds, follow that last link and see that Hilary also just happens to be doing a live web-chat today (Monday) at 12PM ET. Hop
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