You can only keep a secret society secret so long, and with our old S21 pal Darcy James Argue‘s new CD release that time has come. Infernal Machines is out now on New Amsterdam Records, and to celebrate the kick-off DJA’s Secret Society will be performing the music from the CD Friday at Galapagos Arts Space (16 Main St. @ Water St., Brooklyn / Door – 9pm, Show – 10pm, $10). Troy Collins advance-reviewed it at AllAboutJazz.com: Drawing inspiration from classic stalwarts like the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra as well as pioneering post-rock bands like Explosions In The Sky and
Read moreWhen I was an undergrad at San Francisco State University in the late 1980s, we didn’t have a new music ensemble-in-residence. Like many music majors then and now, we relied on our fellow students to perform our pieces, and didn’t have a professional-level new music group serving as role models on campus. All that has since changed, and the SFSU School of Music and Dance has the ADORNO Ensemble to take this challenge on. The group has spent the last few years impressing local audiences and getting cordial reviews, including this one from San Jose Mercury News music critic Richard
Read moreBeing an all-volunteer gig, Sequenza 21 has always relied on a cast of characters — almost all musicians themselves — that lend a hand as they can, but often end up caught in a whirl of other demands. And because based in NYC, there are times when it gets just a little too easy to report on all the events happening around the city, and get a little sidetracked about keeping tabs on so many wonderful musicians and concerts elsewhere in this country and beyond. So every once in a while the call goes out to some of the many
Read moreAs stated in Oberlin College’s ‘Oberwiki’: “…to enter you needed to take a sugar pill with a dot on it…and you rolled the dice, cause 1/3 of the dots were LSD…” Yep, that’s our (currently) eldest composition teacher speaking of Oberlin’s glory days when he was but a wee lad out of grad school. Randy Coleman is many things, best summed up as “a real post-modern feminist old-time patriarch from Virginia.” He is most feared for his red pen marks on freshperson’s melody assignments and for the fabled “piece-per-day” routine with private students. His music contains much variety, with each
Read moreTwo weeks ago at the First Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn Heights, 25 different organizations in New York’s new music scene assembled for a the first annual New Music Bake Sale; an event that was a cross between a music festival and a the vendor fair at a conference. I mean that second part in only the best possible sense–in fact the sense of community created by the setup was the best part of the whole event. Each of the ten ensembles that performed, and fifteen other groups, all had tables lining the main room and the entry area, where they
Read moreTHE AUSTRIAN CULTURAL FORUM NEW YORK CONCERTS ENSEMBLE ON_LINE MONDAY MAY 4, 7:30 PM Austrian Cultural Forum NY, 11 East 52nd Street, New York, NY 10022 Also touring to Philadelphia, Washington and Chicago, this program is curated by Karlheinz Essl and Reinhard Fuchs, in cooperation with Soundfield and the Slought Foundation. PROGRAM Gene Coleman | Subaugusta (2009) for bassflute, bassclarinet, violin, cello and piano Karlheinz Essl | Sequitur II (2008/09) for bass clarinet and live-electronics Simeon Pironkoff | Spiel(t)räume (2006) for piano solo Gerard Grisey | Talea (1985/86) for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano Leah Muir | i frammenti di desiderio,
Read moreAs promised, during the month of May I’ll be talking exclusively with violists, beginning with Elizabeth Weisser of the iO Quartet. I swear it’s a total coincidence that, two weeks in a row, I’ve talked with musicians who had great experiences with Helmut Lachenmann (and I already know there will be one more mention this month). Elizabeth does have lots of other things for us to think about, though, for instance: when a composer brings material to a musician, the musician improvises, and the composer notates the improvisation, then whose music is it? She also asks, “What’s the core of
Read moreAlmost everyone in and around the New Amsterdam Records scene has been written up by us. Many are good and long-time visitors, contributors and pals of S21. But screw that; the real reason we follow this crew is that they’re an awesome bunch of composers and performers, with a fresh, open and energetic approach to this whole art-music thingy-ma-jingy. They’re proving it again this May, with… Aww, just let the poster tell you: Makes a nice prelude to the BOAC “oldsters” Marathon, dontcha think?
Read moreTo paraphrase a comment I spotted once on Myspace, “We would have got you a card or something but we spent all of our money on booze, speed, and hookers”… So let’s just do with this shout-out to NewMusicBox, the American Music Center, the whole unsung crew and of course the one-and-only Frank J. Oteri, for seeing this most vital and consistently important modern classical site through its first decade. Before appearing May 1st, 1999 there had never, ever been such a resource for living composers, performers and their music-hungry audience. Ten years on, there’s still no equal. It’s our
Read moreChristopher O’Riley performs his final recital in the 2+2=5 Series tomorrow night at Miller Theatre. Each of the programs has featured a pairing of a classical composer and O’Riley’s transcriptions of songs by a pop musician. Thus far, the recitals have featured Shostakovich / Radiohead & Debussy / Nick Drake. Tomorrow’s program pairs Schumann and Elliott Smith. Yesterday, O’Riley released a digital single on iTunes of his interpretation of Kurt Cobain’s Heart Shaped Box. It’s featured on the iTunes’ “Rock” page! On May 5th the digital single will be widely released to other music download sites. A Heart Shaped Box ring tone can
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