I wouldn’t have gone but if I had gone I wouldn’t whine about it later from the safety of my keypad.
Read more…The Seattle Times‘ forever-esconced-but-barely-there music crtic, Melinda Bargreen (reviewing Thursday’s Seattle Symphony concert): When a conductor picks up a microphone to address the audience about the music they’re going to hear, the audience can be pretty sure of one thing: They aren’t expected to like the piece. By the time guest conductor Michael Stern had finished telling Thursday’s Seattle Symphony audience about Varèse’s “Intégrales,” it’s a wonder they weren’t fleeing the hall en masse. With Stern’s every phrase (“A certain weird clarity,” “An assault on the senses”), the impending work loomed more ominously. When the downbeat finally came, and the
Read moreI’ll start: Fog Tropes – Ingram Marshall When Crows Gather – Lewis Spratlan
Read moreRemember Galen Brown’s piece “Waiting in the Tall Grass” which was premiered by Relâche last November? Sure, you do. Here it is in two parts on YouTube: [youtube]ReYbo4hByHg[/youtube] [youtube]CDWvhfBT9nI&feature=user[/youtube]
Read moreThe composer Jorge Liderman died Sunday morning after reportedly jumping in front of an oncoming BART train in the Berkeley, CA area. I had initially heard of him after coming across his name on a bulletin board in the early 80’s at the U of Chicago, and when I saw the news item about his untimely death at the age of 50, it caught my attention. Of Argentine descent, Liderman was being increasingly performed, although I regret that I actually never have heard a note of his music. The circumstances of his death are currently under investigation. (Update: a newer and
Read moreAmazingly enough, there’s still some people who have never been to New York City…and until yesterday, I could count myself as a member of that group. This weekend, however, I finally got an opportunity to leave my post in Western NY and fly down to NYC, ostensibly to attend a NYSSMA Composition Committee meeting, but also to finally see what all the noise about the music scene was about. Lucky for me, this was a good weekend for concerts – I was able to catch two top-notch ones in the span of less than 24 hours. I’ve been reading a
Read moreDAY It’s been said (probably by Robert Craft) that Stravinsky was the last composer whose work could survive a one man recital. At yesterday’s performance of the complete Sequenzas at the Rose Theater, I heard that mantle happily passed by 14 brilliant advocates to Luciano Berio. In his introductory remarks for yesterday’s performances composer & host Steven Stuckey said that when Berio wrote the Sequenza I for flute in 1958 he didn’t know that he was starting a dynasty. I wonder. By 1958 Berio was already fashioning an approach to composition consciously modeled, down to the smallest detail, on the
Read moreQuick–whodunnit? Classical music; in the twentieth century; with the… twelve-tone row? PhD? Rock music? New York Phil? Wrong!!! (The corpse he’s mistaking for classical music is in fact his idea of what classical music was. I say: Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!) And go support our pal Jeffrey Phillips tomorrow. His Cadillac Moon Ensemble is making their NYC debut at the Nicholas Roerich Museum. They will be rendering works by Berio, Christian Wolff, and some guy named Jeffrey Phillips. Hmm…
Read moreHello Jerry Bowles and Sequenza21, I am writing from the office of Bang on a Can in Brooklyn. We are currently beginning a search for a new cellist to be a member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars. In order to reach the broadest possible pool of applicants, we would love to list this job opening on the Sequenza21 website. Attached is a description of the position and the application procedure. Please reply to jeremy@bangonacan.org, or call the office at 718-852-7755 and ask to speak with me or our executive director Kenny Savelson. Best, Jeremy Thal Bang on a
Read moreUBUWEB is playing online host to an excellent hour-long WDR documentary on Mauricio Kagel. Of course it’s in German, but don’t let your lack of the lingo stop you from clicking over there and watching. Scenes of Kagel rehearsing his Divertimento with the Schönberg Ensemble & Reinbert de Leeuw at the 2006 Donaueschinger Musiktage are intercut with footage of Kagel and a number of his earlier works from the 60s and 70s. There’s plenty of Kagel’s love of theater and the absurd, careful fascination with all kinds of sound and action in music, and just plain play on show in this one.
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