This 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 moreSunday Music: CD Samplers in the Era of Pandora Sunday Music Volume 4 Big Helium Records BHRSM004 / www.bighelium.com Unlike the album driven days of yore, today it’s all about the mix. From purchasing single tracks digitally at online stores such as Itunes and Amazon to the internet radio sensation Pandora, which tailors ‘stations’ to a listener’s preferences, music is presented as eminently accessible; instant gratification, inevitable. While all aforementioned methods of mix are exciting in their potential for discovery, surfing the impossibly commercial Itunes or using Pandora’s efficient but sometimes ham-fisted engine is unlikely to provide the enlightening swerves
Read moreIn 2002, Silas Huff moved to New York City for a girl, got a day job, and, while riding the bus into Manhattan, noticed a lot of folks getting on in Astoria carrying instrument cases. A composer and conductor himself fresh from a year in Germany, Silas started approaching these Astoria musicians, and, next thing he knew, he was holding auditions for the “Astoria Symphony.” But the symphony was actually his second ensemble. Back in 1995, as a classical guitar major at Texas State University, he wanted to put on some new music concerts. Now, new music concerts don’t get
Read moreGabriel Kahane performs Thursday, 9 October with Rob Moose at the Cornelia St. Café (8:00pm, doors; 8:30 Diane Birch, opening; 9:30 Gabe). This week, Gabriel and I exchanged some e-mail Q&A. The conversation got pretty deep. –David Salvage DS: Gabriel, I’m enjoying your album [Untitled Debut]. I’m wondering, as I listen, what non-musical sources of inspiration you might have. Like poets, artists, and so on. GK: I think that’s a great question. There are certainly some fairly explicit literary inspirations for some of the songs on the record. “The Faithful” was written as a kind of response to Claire Messud’s
Read moreAnother full house at Zipper Hall, and we enjoyed ourselves with the music of William Kraft and his “Encounters” series of works for percussion. This was the third and final program in the Kraft/Encounters retrospective given by Southwest Chamber Music, honoring Kraft for his 85th birthday. By the end of tomorrow the whole series will have been recorded, and next year a 3 CD set will be available of this important set of compositions by a man who has been such a major participant in contemporary music in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the conversations with Bill Kraft will probably not be
Read moreNew York’s NPR station WNYC has been doing a bunch of programming on Leonard Bernstein, and the other night when I was moving my car I heard a great story: Lenny was backstage in a greenroom in Vienna, and a little old lady approached him. She introduced herself as the widow of Alban Berg, and Bernstein told her how honored he was to meet her. Now Berg, as you will recall, died without completing his opera Lulu, and there was some question about who would finish it. Helene Berg, Alban’s widow, initially offered the job to Schoenberg, who accepted but
Read moreGloria Cheng opened the Piano Spheres season last night at Zipper Hall. Much of the concert comprised selections from her recent recording, Piano Music of Salonen, Stucky and Lutoslawski, and if you don’t yet have this in your library, now is a good time to correct your omission. And here’s just one of its good reviews (just scroll down). Betty Freeman commissioned a new work from Gerald Barry for Cheng to perform, and this opened the second half of the program. Le Vieux Sourd [the old deaf one], Debussy’s nickname for Beethoven, starts with quiet fragments of classical themes, as
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