Sequenza21

Gilbert Kaplan is a Wall Street billionaire who has devoted much of his idle rich time over the past 30 years to studying and conducting Mahler’s great Second Symphony.  It has become his passion, one might even say his “Rosebud” if one were unkind (as we most certainly are not).  He has led some of the world’s best symphony orchestras through its rigorous paces more than 100 times at last count and while the Resurrection itself seems to have suffered no permanent damage, the reaction to Mr. Kaplan’s conducting has been decidedly mixed.  Not bad enough to be really awful

Such is my devotion to you, dear reader, that last Wednesday in spite of a bad cold I went to the latest installment of the Music On MacDougal series at the Players Theatre in downtown Manhattan.  Music on MacDougal, as you may recall, is the concert series that S21 helped kick off with our M50 concert celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Minimalism.  Wednesday’s bill was split between Mantra Percussion and the Talea Ensemble [Talea shown above, in a recent performance of Daniel Iglesia‘s Contrapositive Antidote; how cool is it to get to wear 3D glasses while playing? -ed.]. Mantra opened

We are tardy in adding our voice to the vast chorus of congratulations that have greeted Elliott Carter’s attainment of centenarian status.  Getting old is not in itself an achievement, but what makes Mr. Carter’s milestone all the more remarkable is that he remains so amazingly productive and healthy in mind and body.  He has produced more music in the last decade than most composers do in a lifetime and his work has become deeper, richer and more complex (some would say unlistenable) with the passage of time.   We can’t top Willard Scott but we do want to do

Standing, left-to-right: Garth Sunderland, Emily Brausa, Thomas Piercy, Samuel Andreyev, Jeremy Podgursky, Alex Kotch, Rodney Lister, Rusty Banks, Samuel Vriezen. Kneeling, left-to-right: Christina Perea, Galen Brown, Miranda Cuckson, Laura Barger, David Salvage. The hall was cold; the music was hot. We hope to share the sounds with you soon.

Composer, artist, Fluxus member, Scratch Orchestra member, John Cage associate, and chemist George Brecht died in a nursing home in Cologne, Germany, on Friday, December 5th.  Brecht, who was born George MacDiarmid but took Bertolt Brecht’s name in homage,  was one of the most significant and influential avant garde artists of the 1960s.  The title of this post refers to a document (page 17 of the linked PDF file) Brecht wrote for Fluxus in 1969 in which he proposes “moving landmasses over the surface of the earth” using conveyances such as icebergs or massive amounts of styrofoam, since his made-up

Those of you who were at the first Sequenza21 concert two years ago may remember that pianist Hugh Sung played my piece Systems of Preference or Restraint.  What you may not have noticed was the technology he used to do it.  That technology is now considerably more accessible to the average performer, and I encourage you to keep reading after the cut.