Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten already! Also: S21 concert update: The S21 concerts in December are the 1st at Waltz–that’s a changed date, yo–and the 5th at Good Shepherd Church (152 W 66th). On the program: Samuel Andreyev, Rusty Banks, Galen Brown, Rodney Lister, Alex Kotch, Jeremy Podgursky, me, and Samuel Vriezen. (Hope I didn’t leave anyone out.) Later, er, today I’m handing in the second draft of my dissertation. It’s about Kurtag.
Read moreHi Jerry, We’re opening up a search for pianists for the Bang on a Can All Stars. Please see the ad below . We’d appreciate this if you can make a post about this on Sequenza21. Thanks! Annie Bang on a Can All-Stars Seek Pianist “The Bang on a Can All-Stars present new music the way it should be presented — with passion, precision, dynamism, stylistic authority and a welcoming informality.” – NEWSDAY “A fiercely aggressive group, combining the power and punch of a rock band with the precision and clarity of a chamber ensemble.”/- NEW YORK TIMES The
Read moreSo with all pleasures of life. All things pass with the east-flowing water. I leave you and go—when shall I return? Let the white roe feed at will among the green crags, Let me ride and visit the lovely mountains! How can I stoop obsequiously and serve the mighty ones! It stifles my soul. His Dream of the Skyland – A Farewell Poem. Li Po (Li Bai) (~701-763 CE) is universally recognized as one of the greatest Chinese poets of the Tang period, or for that matter, of the entire Chinese literary tradition. His poetry shows the influences
Read moreJacaranda Music opened its sixth season last night, but not in their usual home. Instead, they opened in Santa Monica’s lovely new Broad Stage, a 500-seat venue at the grounds of the Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center. The opening concert was given the title “Tipping the Scales” for works by Harrison, Cage, and Partch. The opening half of the concert comprised four late-period works by Lou Harrison, the period in which his core work explored use of the gamelan, implementing the sounds, textures, and scales into his music. The 12-person CalArts Gamelan Ensemble (see them in this short video
Read more[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TEWQZ5tLD0[/youtube] Some people like to think that music is always somehow about something… usually them. My bad love affair, the world will never understand me, much less remember me. And lots of music — from the troubadours with their songs of courtly love to the meditations and dramas of the romantics to the skitterings and upheavals of the New Vienna School — have been a kind of narrative of this beleaguered self, or if you will, the audience’s identification with the composer’s ups and downs. But the New York School of Earle Brown (1926-2002), Christian Wolff (1936- ), John Cage
Read moreThat famous Irishman Frank J. Oteri tells us that the Contemporary Music Centre Ireland, which is basically the Irish equivalent of the American Music Center, is producing its first-ever New York concert featuring a wide range of contemporary Irish composers at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall tomorrow night (Friday, October 17, 2008). New Music – New Ireland aims to showcase a selection of the best of today’s Irish composition played by top-level young New York- and Irish-based performers in this prestigious venue. The ConTempo String Quartet, Galway’s Ensemble-in-Residence, will be joined by New York-based clarinetist Carol McGonnell and pianist Isabelle O’Connell, both
Read moreThis Fall marks the twentieth season of provocative programming in New York City brought to you by Interpretations. Founded and curated by baritone Thomas Buckner in 1989, Interpretations focuses on the relationship between contemporary composers from both jazz and classical backgrounds and their interpreters, whether the composers themselves or performers who specialize in new music. To celebrate, Jerry Bowles has invited the artists involved in this season’s concerts to blog about their Interpretations experiences. Our second concert this season, on 16 October, features cellist Ted Mook, who has put together a program celebrating Ezra Sims’ 80th birthday on one half
Read moreWhoa! Our own Tom Myron has taken two more bold steps in Sequenza21’s irreversible march toward Complete Intergalactic Domination. This Friday the New York Pops plays two of Tom’s Bernstein arrangements (“My New Friends” and “Spring Will Come Again”) on their Lenny 90th concert at Carnegie Hall. Then on Saturday the Eastern Connecticut Symphony plays Tom’s Katahdin (“Greatest Mountain”) on a concert sponsored by the Mohegan Tribe. Very nice. You can download Katahdin over on Tom’s page.
Read moreDude! Next week those SOB’s from Lost Dog get their season off to a hooowwwling start with a program at Tenri they call “Color Wheel.” Lost Dog top dog Garth (“Arf!”) Sunderland explains: The focus of this program is instrumental color – the astonishing variety of sounds even a single instrument can produce. Each instrument in the concert (Clarinet, ‘Cello, and Piano) will be experienced individually in the first half of the program, in virtuosic solo works which explore their unique color pallete – the ‘sound-identity’ of the instrument. In the second half, all three instruments come together to explore
Read moreMy first year in college (1974-5), we were treated to an exhibition of the original score pages selected by John Cage and Alison Knowles for their highly influential 1969 book Notations (currently available as a free PDF download at UbuWeb). For young composers at the time, these bits and pieces of anything-but-standard notation were eye- and ear-opening, sent us scouring the library stacks for more, and led us all to go a little crazy trying to mimic or out-write what we saw there. Then as sequel this year, Theresa Sauer carried the idea up to our own time with Notations 21, an updated
Read more