Word has reached us that NYC’s long-running MATA new-music festival is looking for an new Artistic Director, and maybe it could just be you: The position requires a broad knowledge of contemporary musical practices and communities (local, national, and international), strong organizational and interpersonal skills, and a clear, inclusive artistic vision. Key to the AD position is the ability to maintain high visibility in the music community as both a participant and audience member. Attention will be paid most closely to applicants who are currently active in the New York music community as a composer and/or performer. Along with the
Read moreThe Los Angeles Master Chorale gave the Phil’s West Coast, Left Coast Festival the opening it deserved: a joyous statement, a vibrant concert, and a rousing end that left us wanting more and looking forward to our next event. Regrettably, last night’s concert wasn’t the opening, but the second event. The opening occurred Saturday night in a hodge-podge concert that just drained away. But more on that, later. It’s much more fun to talk about the good things. Grant Gershon and the LAMC put together a program of four works by four composers (all alive, present, and introduced at the
Read moreExperimental music impresario Matt Davignon is known all over the San Francisco Bay Area for organizing unusual music performances. In addition to being responsible for such events as the San Francisco Found Objects Festival, he’s a member of the Outsound Presents Board of Directors and the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival Steering Committee. This Thursday evening, November 19, at 8:00 PM, Matt will present one of his DroneShift concerts at the Luggage Store Gallery, where he curates regularly. The gallery is located at 1007 Market Street near 6th Street in San Francisco, near Powell Street and Civic Center BART. Admission
Read moreThis coming Saturday is the official opening concert of the L.A. Phil’s exciting new festival, West Coast, Left Coast, but performances introducing the concept have now begun. REDCAT showed a “re-interpretation” of a noted performance piece with music by Morton Subotnick and choreography by Anna Halprin, and Jacaranda Music had another full audience for its concert last night as a prelude to the festival itself. Parades & Changes, the Halprin-Subotnick performance collaboration from 1965 is coming to New York, and it provides a fascinating hour. The use of electronics in music has advanced so much in the past forty years,
Read moreSunday, November 15th, the Esprit Orchestra and conductor Alex Pauk are giving what I think will be a really wonderful concert. It happens in Toronto, at 8PM in Koerner Hall at The Royal Conservatory (273 Bloor Street West, Toronto), with a 7:15Pm pre-concert chat with a composer and guest artists. That composer would be Alexina Louie, and my guess is the guest artists are Inuit throat singers Evie Mark and Akinisie Sivuarapik. First up on the bill is Louie’s work Take the Dog Sled, for two throat singers and ensemble. Throat singing is an ancient traditional musical form/contest where two women
Read moreWolfgang Grajonca that is, who is better-known to us old hippies as Bill Graham, the late impressario of the Fillmores East and West and the man who brought the music to a thousand purple-hazed nights of our misspent youths. Graham taped and saved everything and you can stream hundreds of full concerts free (downloading costs a little money) at a site called Wolfgang’s Vault. Want to hear that dead band’s song before they were dead? You got it. Catch Steppenwolf doing “God Damn, the Pusher Man?” Stevie Ray demonstrating why no one else should ever be allowed to touch a
Read moreJust a few weeks ago over at our CD Review section, Jay Batzner wrote about the new Julia Wolfe Dark Full Ride CD: “Each piece transfixes me. I am writing my own music differently because of this disc. I am so glad that Julia Wolfe exists, is writing music, and that such talented performers play the hell out of her stuff.” It’s a really interesting Ride, each piece intensely working over some greater or lesser multiple of the same instrument. If you’re a skeptical “show me” kind of person, free as a bird tomorrow (Nov. 10th) in NYC and maybe
Read moreSo recalls Felix Heltmann of then-West Berlin, in a comment over at the BBC, “and without question I just started pounding away at the Wall. I was so excited that I got exhausted after some time and I gave the hammer to my other mate who started hammering away too. What a night…” To celebrate that night on this night, NYers might want to head to Le Poisson Rouge, where admirable pianist Heather O’Donnell will be in town — she herself has lived in Germany now for some years — to give a commemorative concert thanks to the Wordless Music
Read moreMiller Theatre at Columbia University is running a great little series of composer portrait concerts this month: Saturday, Nov. 7th, Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006) is featured, with Chicago’s Fifth House Ensemble doing the honors. The program includes Ustvolskaya’s Trio (1949), Piano Sonata No. 6 (1988), Octet (1949-1950), Composition 2 (1972-1973), Piano Sonata No. 4 (1957), Composition 3 (1974-1975). Then on Tuesday, Nov. 17th, we get a full plate of a true American “gnarly” individualist, Ralph Shapey (1921-2002). Miranda Cuckson (violin, viola, and artistic director), Charles Neidich (clarinet), William Purvis (horn), and Blair McMillen (piano) will join conductors Donato Cabrera and Michel
Read moreI’ve just been informed via press release, that our s21 blogging regular Lawrence Dillon is a “mid-career composer.” It’s nice to know that he’s only half-done making great music and not already washed-up! Said release was about the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts LINKS Commissioning Awards, and the four composers who’ll be getting premieres thanks to it, at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) in Winston-Salem — whose composer-in-residence just happens to be… yes, Lawrence Dillon. And one of which is by… yes, Lawrence Dillon. But since his is the odd man out location-wise
Read more