Performers include Sara Budde, clarinet; Emily Popham Gillins, violin; John Popham, cello; Kevin Sims, percussion; Bethany Pietroniro and Timo Andres, piano; and more TBA. Podgursky and Wohl will be splitting the bill alternating their way through nine works in all, featuring recent small ensemble, electronic/electro-acoustic and solo pieces. Two excellent composers, nine excellent pieces, a whole posse of excellent performers, quite the value for the small tix price.
The last thing that Alan Gilbert or the New York Philharmonic needs is another affirmation that they have done something important and memorable by producing Le Grand Macabre in May. There were three (perhaps more?) New York Times articles over 11 days (May 18th, 23rd, 28th), an nice summary over on Anne Midgette’s Washington Postblog, and from just a few days ago there was this over at Newsweek. Of course our own site added to the frenzy of press/buzz here, here, here, here, here, here, and here – and with good reason! I’m quite happy to throw my hat in the camp who counts themselves lucky to be one of the few to see this amazing production. It was everything that I had hoped it would be, and I even got a fancy collectors-edition-style booklet of the libretto with the program.
Some time has gone by since the production (I’m late on my contribution to this, as per my usual), I think it’s enough for me to say that I thought it was great, and to move on to some questions.
After reading all of the press about the production, it seems that everyone who saw it easily and quickly deemed it a huge success. But I’d love to know if the Philharmonic thought it was a success! All three nights sold-out, but we know that a sold-out show doesn’t necessarily mean success. Le Grand Macabre was without question an unusual and elaborate production and must have come with a tremendous expense – just watch this video. All the extra marketing, and YouTube videos; all the lighting and projections and costumes; (presumably) all the extra rehearsals and percussion instruments; etc, etc, etc. I think the big question is: was this a successful enough event that the Philharmonic will continue these kinds of productions in the future? Was dealing with disgruntled subscribers worth it? Was the cost of the “spectacle” worth it? Was all the marketing and rogue videos worth it?
Of course I hope that the answer to all of these questions is yes. I would love to see the New York Philharmonic continue to support contemporary music the way it has since Mr. Gilbert has arrived. It’s clear that he feels very strongly about new music: he brought in Magnus Lindberg, started the Contact! series, and made this incredible Ligeti production happen. I want to know what else he has planned and what else the Philharmonic is willing and capable of doing. But, it seems that a lot of it depends on whether or not the Philharmonic thought Macabre was a success.
There’s yet another new music series here in San Diego: Connections Chamber Music. I reported earlier this year on their concert featuring Reich, John Adams, Daugherty, and Matthew Tommasini (the series director). For their last concert, they programmed the Quartet for the End of Time. Before I went to the concert, I marvelled at how I’ve heard the Quartet more frequently than plenty of 19th century chamber works just as great such as Beethoven’s op. 132. And–well, read my thoughts and review of the concert here.
Jason Robert Brown, composer of Parade and lots of other excellent musical theater music, has a valuable post on his blog today about his attempts to persuade internet “traders” from illegally offering his sheet music for download for free. Brown joined one of the peer-to-peer communities that had a lot of his work listed and contacted about 400 users, politely asking them to stop offering his material. Most complied, some had no idea what he was talking about, and a few resisted. The issue of who benefits and who loses from the widespread distribution of his work is raised in a lengthy exchange he had with a teenage girl named Brenna…ur, Eleanor… which provides some insights into both perspectives of the copyright debate.
I know a lot of composers who are pleased to allow people to download their music free and distribute it to whomever they like because they believe doing so provides exposure to their work and grows their “brand” (to use an overused marketing term). Others believe their music is their intellectual property and they should be paid for any use. Where you stand seems to depend upon how commercially “successful” you are. If you’re relatively unknown and there is little demand for your music, giving it away is a great strategy. If there is a market demand for your work in various forms, it’s not.
I just got off the phone with a reporter from the Chicago Reader, who read our February 12th coverage of Eighth Blackbird’s Composition Competition (on Twitter, this came to be known as the “8Bb boo-boo” post).
In the initial post, I’d expressed my disappointment at finding out that Eighth Blackbird, an ensemble for whom I had a great deal of respect as new music performers, was charging a $50 entry fee for their competition. As the post’s title indicated, it seemed apparent that the competition’s prize would easily be self-funded by application fees, with plenty left over.
We had a lot of comments on the post. This discussion revealed a wide range of viewpoints on the subject, both pro and con. Some posters pointed out that instrumentalists are routinely required to pay robust fees for auditions; why should composers? Others suggested that the ensemble was right in charging a fee, as they would be spending time adjudicating the contest and deserved compensation for that time. But others agreed with me that self-funded commissions are a problematic aspect of far too many composition competitions.
The variance of opinion didn’t hew to a composer vs. performer divide; one of Sequenza 21’s regular contributors, composer Lawrence Dillon, mounted a vigorous defense for the competition’s guidelines. Dennis Bathory-Kitsz, on the other hand, went even further than I did in strenuously rebutting the idea of high application fees and self-funded commissions.
Shortly after our post, and commentary elsewhere on the web, Eighth Blackbird announced that they were postponing the competition to rethink and revise its guidelines. They have recently announced a new competition. Partnering with the American Composers Forum and MakeMusic, Eighth Blackbird will undertake the Finale® National Composition Contest. You can read the competition’s guidelines here.
As I pointed out in my interview with the Reader (the article will run next Thursday, if you’d like to see what they make of it), the Finale competition improves on the previous contest in several ways. Some highlights:
-Each contestant may send up to three works, composed in the last five years, that demonstrate how they would write for Eighth Blackbird. One may include CDs, DVDs, and scores.
– There’s no more application fee; composers may pay a nominal amount ($5) if they’d like for their materials to be returned. Like all good competitions, it remains anonymous. There are no age restrictions.
– Three finalists will each receive $1000 and a $500 travel stipend. They will workshop the piece for a weekend with Eighth Blackbird. The winner will receive $2000 and a performance by 8Bb.
-None of the prizes is a king’s ransom; but paying finalists a travel stipend and giving them the opportunity to workshop their piece with the ensemble are significant opportunities not afforded by many competitions.
I think that this competition will better serve both emerging composers and the ensemble. By partnering with Finale and ACF, 8Bb has high-profile sponsors who are helping to offset some of the administrative costs that were previously passed along to composers. The affiliation with Finale will doubtless garner more attention and publicity for the competition. I’d imagine it will also help to get the word out to a wider and more diverse pool of emerging composers.
I, for one, am pleased that our discussion about composition competitions on Sequenza 21 seems to have made a positive impact. I’m also glad to be able to thank Eighth Blackbird publicly for being receptive to criticism and open to discussion. Their willingness to listen to what composers have to say – and then act on it- is another brand of advocacy that’s all too rare and greatly appreciated.
Staying in NYC this 4th of July holiday weekend? Then come partake of some musical fireworks and pan-patriotic pride as vocalist extraordinaire Phillip Cheah (his vocal range could well classify him as “soprano/baritone”) and pianist Trudy Chan serve up American Dim Sum – A celebration of the American song.
The carts will be full of dishes of American fare: beloved songs by Ned Rorem, Samuel Barber, Dominick Argento, Aaron Copland, Amy Beach, and Jack Beeson, as well as exotic delicasies by John Cage (The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs), Henry Cowell (Three Anti-Modernist Songs, written during his incarceration at San Quentin), Milton Babbitt (songs from a never-produced Broadway musical, Fabulous Voyage), and Nicolas Slonimsky (early pieces rediscovered at the Library of Congress with the help of his daughter, Electra Yourke). Topping off the festivities will be a belated, 28-years-in-the-making world premiere of songs from the nurturing river by the the friendliest iconoclastic enfant terrible around, Frank J. Oteri.
It’s all going down Saturday, July 3rd, 7:00 PM, at the Church of St Luke in the Fields (487 Hudson Street @ Grove). Only $10 to stuff yourself silly, so bring a hungry ear or two.
Amos Elkana was one of the composers I found/heard/met almost a decade ago on the original grand experiment in social music-sharing, MP3.com. With an obsidian-like hardness, sheen and edge, his compositions grabbed me then and continue to do so now. Born in the U.S. but raised in Israel, then off to Europe and back to the U.S. to study, Amos pulls together strands of all these places, looking for where the roots tangle and grow together. But the other “root” I didn’t know about then was that Amos’ musical interests had started with jazz and guitar. It was only after coming to study jazz at the Berklee College that his course got redirected into composition.
Coming over to study at the same time was Amos’ long-time friend and musical partner, drummer/pianist Yaaki Levy. Yaaki had a similar career bouncing between Israel and the U.S., and though their paths diverged a bit over the years their friendship never did. Finally last year saw them able to hook up again musically, exploring improvisation as the duoConcoct Sonance. Together their experiences create a music with a real richness, depth and poise; these may be improvisations, but there’s a strong feeling of that composerly sense of a “piece”, not simply an event or string of events.
The duo has been gigging fairly regularly around Europe and Israel, and now they’ve come to NYC for a few concerts these next couple weeks: Friday July 2nd, 7:30pm they’ll be at The Tank(354 W. 45th Street between 8th and 9th); Wednesday July 7th, 9pm they’re playing Puppets Jazz Bar in Brooklyn (481 5th Ave); and Tuesday July 13th, 11:30 pm they’ll be found at Goodbye Blue Monday (1087 Broadway, Brooklyn).
I asked Amos to give a little background in his own words, and I pass them along here:
Yaaki and I both grew up in Jerusalem. We met back in high school through mutual friends and we have been making music together ever since. In 1987 we came together to the US to study at Berklee College in Boston. Yaaki as a drummer and I as a Guitar player. I later went on to study composition at NEC and in 1990 moved to Paris for a couple of years before returning to Israel in 1992. Yaaki left Boston after three years for New York and returned to Israel in 1994. About 10 years ago he moved back to New York and has been living there since.
In the past 20 years, Yaaki has been playing drums with other people while concentrating on piano playing and composing for himself. Meanwhile, I have been occupied mainly by composing music for other people and playing guitar for myself. Yaaki, being a wonderful drummer, has been touring the world with singers and bands while developing his piano playing and composition skills on his own. I on the other hand kept playing the guitar on my own while composing and traveling around the world for the premieres of my own compositions. We always wanted to find time to play together as we did in the past, when we both used to live in the same place. Then an opportunity to do so presented itself last January when I came to New York. We went into the recording studio without knowing what we are going to play. The only thing we decided is not decide about anything! We don’t compose, arrange, rehearse or even talk about what we are going to play. We don’t even decide what instruments we will play and how. Our motto is Here and Now. This is total free improvisation. In the studio we just hit the record button and started to play with the instruments that we had around us. Some of the things we played on were not even instruments but noise makers of sorts.
What was so fantastic is that we immediately started communicating as if on the same exact wave length… We didn’t even have to listen to the recording because we felt such exhilaration after the sessions. There may be several reasons why this works, among them an intimate knowledge of one another as best friends for almost 30 years, common likes and dislikes in music and life, maybe even telepathic communication. We don’t know. But the fact is that we get amazing responses to our performances from audience members. Some say they feel as if we are one. Many say that they felt it hard to resist joining us in some way. Some say our music touches them in such a deep level that they cried most of the time… (Imagine, improvised contemporary experimental music having such an effect!). At the bottom line, I think we allow ourselves to have fun and have complete freedom. Not restricting ourselves to any genre or form. This approach works anywhere. Wether we play in Tel Aviv, New York or Berlin.
Right now we have about 30 to 40 recorded pieces. It is tempting to choose some of them and put them on a CD but on the other hand documenting freely improvised music that will never repeat itself… I don’t know… Maybe the approach should be just to perform as much as we can and have people attend the concerts instead of buying CD’s… Yet in order to get more gigs we need to put out a demo at least. The three performances we just did in Tel Aviv were recorded and I am going to upload those recordings to our web site very soon. One of the performances was also videotaped. Your comment about really hearing the “composer” in our approach is very interesting. It probably comes with the territory of being composers for such a long time… In 1989 when I applied for the Jazz department in NEC, I decided, instead of sending them a tape of me playing Jazz standards, to record an improvisation with Yaaki and to send that instead. The response I got from them is that they are willing to accept me and to even give me a big scholarship too but only for the composition department and not the Jazz department… This is one of the reasons why I became a composer.
Not a short order in a Greek coffee shop but the first American open-air performance of Iannis Xenakis’ Persephassa (1969), a thunderous work for six percussionists, including founding member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars Steven Schick and former So Percussion-ist Doug Perkins. The musicians were situated around the Boating Lake in Central Park, with the audience members in the center – in rowboats. Q2, the Internet’s best new classical station, asked its audience to document the event which resulted in a slide show here and a nearly complete video from Liubo Borissov:
Jeremy Podgursky — one of the composers we liked so much that he ended being selected for our last S21 concert presentation — is throwing a joint shindig with fellow composer Daniel Wohl, this Thursday July 8th, 7:00pm at the littlefield performance/art space (622 Degraw Street, between 3rd and 4th Avenue, Brooklyn), $8.00.
Performers include Sara Budde, clarinet; Emily Popham Gillins, violin; John Popham, cello; Kevin Sims, percussion; Bethany Pietroniro and Timo Andres, piano; and more TBA. Podgursky and Wohl will be splitting the bill alternating their way through nine works in all, featuring recent small ensemble, electronic/electro-acoustic and solo pieces. Two excellent composers, nine excellent pieces, a whole posse of excellent performers, quite the value for the small tix price.
Amos Elkana
