Sequenza21

In this age of Dobbsian-fueled immigration hysteria, what could be more timely than an opera about a beautiful Mexican drug smuggler who kills her lover after he betrays her and, in the process, becomes a folk heroine. ¡Unicamente la Verdad! ,  a “videoopera” with music by Gabriela Ortiz and libretto by Rubén Ortiz-Torres, is the story of the contemporary feminist heroine Camelia “la Tejana,” who has come to symbolize the idea of the strong woman in Mexican folklore and the subject of numerous   “corridos” — a form of Mexican ballad — popularized by Los Tigres del Norte?. “

George Benjamin, at age 48, is one of the grand old men of British music.  Considering a succession starting with Britten, and continuing with Oliver Knussen and Thomas Ades, and including Benjamin, one might consider that the tradition of rather young grand old men, all of them very fine performers as well as seriously talented and accomplished composers is a grand old British one.  Benjamin is a really good conductor, and the BBC Symphony orchestra clearly respected him and worked hard for and with him.  On Wednesday night the main event was one of his first big attention-getting pieces, and

I had a great time playing disc jockey on WBGO this afternoon.  The folks there were incredibly hospitable and it was fun to meet Michael Bourne (the other guy in the picture) and Rhonda Hamilton who have been fixtures around the station for many years, as well as Dorthaan Kirk, the station’s Special Events and Programs Coordinator, who has been there since 1979 when WBGO became a full-time jazz station, my “cousin” Cephus Bowles, the station’s General Manager, and Vince Bochis, who is the man to talk to talk to if you want to donate money to the best public

Thanks very much to everyone who submitted scores. All of us were very impressed by the overall quality of the submissions. The selected compositions in alphabetical order by composer are: Samuel Andreyev Passages Rusty Banks Taxonomy Galen Brown And Carthage Must Be Destroyed Alex Kotch Reduce, Ruse, Recycle Rodney Lister “The Mockingbird” from Songs from “The Bat Poet” Jeremy Podgursky Nonsense or Sorcery?#%*! David Salvage Violin Routine Samuel Vriezen 2 Suites The concerts will take place December 1st at Waltz Café, Astoria, NY, and at the Good Shepherd Church, New York, NY on December 5th. Doing the honors is the Lost

My accidental disk jockey gig on WBGO is scheduled for this Thursday at 2 pm. Live and in full color on the Internets at wbgo.org Here’s my playlist: Back Water Blues – Dinah Washington (live version, Max Roach et al) 4:42 I’ll Remember April – Concert by the Sea – Erroll Garner 4;14 Strange Meadow Lark – Dave Brubeck Quartet – 7:20 Corcovado – Getz/Gilberto 4:13 Someday My Prince Will Come – Miles 9:02 Dexter Gordon at Carnegie Hall Dexter Intro: 1:16 Blues Up and Down: 13:03 Reincarnation of a Black Bird – Gil Evans/Steve Lacy Paris Blues 7:09

Bard SummerScape is presenting the New Albion Festival, a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Foster Reed’s record label known as the “voice of West Coast new music,” at the Spiegeltent from this Friday until Sunday, August 10.   The New Albion story is a great one, told well here by Alex Ross and here by Steve Smith. The nine programs feature works by John Adams, John Cage, Henry Cowell, The Deep Listening Band, Paul Dresher, Morton Feldman, Ellen Fullman, Kyle Gann, Ge Gan-ru, Peter Garland, Erik Griswold, Lou Harrison, Erdem Helvacioglu, Daniel Lentz, Ingram Marshall, Jeffrey Roden, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski,

Trendy indie composer/performer Max Richter’s fourth album, 24 Postcards in Full Colour, won’t be released until September 23 on FatCat Records but thanks to enterprising PR person Amanda Ameer, Sequenza21 readers are getting an “exclusive” pre-listen. In Postcards, Richter explores the ringtone as a vehicle for music performance which strikes me as a bit of a mixed metaphor but, hey, the guy studied with Berio so it’s all good. The 24-brief pieces are all fragmentary by nature; the longest track just under three minutes, while most are around sixty seconds. Here are three mp3s for your dining and downloading pleasure:

Daniel Wakin at the NY Times reports on the passing of Norman Dello Joio at age 95. One of the first pieces of 20th Century choral music I sang was Dello Joio’s Jubilant Song. I still find the work, with its frequent time changes, syncopations, and pantonal harmonies to be an excellent exponent of the mid-century Americana style.  

Big Up to our friend and S21 blogger Lawrence Dillon who is one of three winners of  the Ravinia Festival of Highland Park, Illinois’ first composer competition. The competition asked composers to submit works for piano trio and narration inspired by the words of Abraham Lincoln, in honor of Lincoln’s bicentennial in 2009. Lawrence’s composition, The Better Angels of Our Nature, uses excerpts from two letters and two speeches that focus on three key aspects of Lincoln’s character: his integrity, his sense of humor, and his poetic vision.  The first movement, Integrity, uses a  letter the future president wrote in

Harris passed away this week.  He and I were in the PhD Composition program at CUNY, admitted the same year–though he decided to go to CalArts first.  I scarcely knew him or his music.  But I remember walking to the subway with him sometime in the spring of 2004.  He was explaining to me how much he liked his fold-up bike.  If I recall correctly, Harris said he had two.