Yannick Nézet-Séguin has been named as the Philadelphia Orchestra’s next Music Director. His seven-year contract begins immediately, with Nézet-Séguin assuming the title of Music Director Designate for two seasons and taking on the full role of Music Director in the 2012-13 season. He will come to Philadelphia this Friday, June 18, 2010, to celebrate his appointment with The Philadelphia Orchestra and the City of Philadelphia. With his appointment, Nézet-Séguin joins a distinguished history inclusive of young Music Directors of The Philadelphia Orchestra. When he assumes the Music Director title full time at the age of 37, Mr. Nézet-Séguin will join
Read moreWord of Jack Beeson’s death reached me yesterday; very, very sad news– and also shocking. Not just because I’d studied with Jack at Columbia in my last year there and he’d been my thesis advisor , but because after decades he and I had just reconnected in the last 3 weeks or so: I’d sent a note of congratulations following his award given at the AMC meeting , including in it warm memories of the effects of his comment and advice, instrumental in shaping my own approach to students over the years; the note was sent on to him
Read moreKicking off in just a matter of hours, this year’s Ojai Music Festival has a schedule sure to make a number of East-Coasties feel they picked the wrong ocean to live by. This year features a multi-part symposium, starting at 3:30pm this (10 June) afternoon with “The 21st Century Musician“. Ara Guzelimian will lead a panel of diverse and creative musicians in exploring questions such as “Where is the music industry heading?” “What are the changing roles of musicians?” “What are the opportunities?” “What are the challenges?”… Panelists will include violinist and 2009 Ojai artist Carla Kihlstedt, LA Chamber Orchestra concertmistress
Read moreEclectic in their programming and superlatively talented, the Locrian Chamber Players have a unique mandate: they are the only new music ensemble which limits their repertoire to works composed in the last decade. This has led them to give countless American and World premieres of works. LCP are giving a concert this Thursday at Riverside Church, uptown in NYC. I caught up with the group’s director, David Macdonald, who whets my appetite for what looks to be an exciting concert. CBC: How did you come to commission Malcolm Goldstein’s The Sky has Many Stories to Tell? DM: A long time
Read moreThere’s a lot of shock and sadness in the Mexican classical community just now: last week one of the finest violists in Mexico and the world, Omar Hernández-Hidalgo, was found dead in his hometown of Tijuana, four days after apparently being kidnapped. A principal violist by the age of 21, Grammy-nominated twice, the first violist in his country to recieve a PhD. (at Indiana University), praised by Pierre Boulez, Hernández-Hidalgo was a champion of contemporary music, especially the new and vital in his own country. While his technique was commanding and virtuosic, his own personality was warm, modest and endlessly generous. He was
Read moreAmerican composer Jack Beeson died of congestive heart failure on Sunday, June 6 at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City, at the age of 88. His family was with him at the time of death. Jack Beeson was born on July 15, 1921 and received his early education in Muncie, Indiana. He studied composition at the Eastman School, completing Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. Upon winning the Prix de Rome and a Fulbright Fellowship Beeson lived in Rome from 1948 through 1950 where he completed his first opera, Jonah, based on a play by Paul Goodman. Beeson then adapted a
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CDs, Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, Exhibitions, Experimental Music, Houston, Improv, Mix Tape
[Ed. — After many years in NYC but fresh to my own stomping ground of Houston, Chris Becker has offered to write some semi-regular musings on the new-music scene down thisaway. His own introduction: In its March 2010 Global Ear column, The Wire magazine described Houston as “the weirdest and wildest of (Texas) cities” with a “rich tradition of unofficial and DIY art.” Speaking as a recent transplant from New York City (where I lived for twelve years), I can confirm that our British friends were on point with their analysis of H-Town. I am in my third month as a
Read moreThis was inspired by Alvin Lucier’s classic and still awesome work I am sitting in a room.
Read moreWe covered some great shows coming up this month in the Bay Area and NYC, now it’s Seattle’s turn. For the next two weekends (June 4-6 & 11-13) On the Boards will be hosting the 2010 NW New Works Festival which features “emerging and established artists from a variety of performance disciplines” and “highlights artists who are pushing themselves to take on new challenges.” Looking over the list of showcases it seems that the festival is primarily focused on new theater and dance, but there are a few music related sets in there if you look hard. The Mint Collective,
Read moreBenjamin Lees died of heart failure on Monday, May 31 at North Shore Long Island Jewish Hospital in Glen Cove, New York at the age of 86. Lees’s work rose to prominence in 1954 when the NBC Orchestra performed his Profile for Orchestra in a national broadcast. He was later awarded Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships, allowing him to live in Europe for seven years and present his works throughout the continent. Upon his return to the United States in 1962, Lees was appointed Professor of Composition at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, where he served until 1964. He later taught
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