A meeting of the San Juan Island Book Club, pictured here, convened immediately upon my return from Seattle, where Alex Ross and Kyle Gann had curated a truly remarkable new music festival for the Seattle Chamber Players Icebreaker series, with SCP’s artistic director Elena Dubinets at the helm. An inspiring line-up of emerging and emerged composers were on hand this past weekend to discuss their music, Alex and Kyle presented their books, and the concerts each evening were wonderful. You can read about the terrific event here. It was particularly fun to meet people I had until now known solely
Read moreLast year, many of us saw a posting regarding the VIM:Tribeca concert series. The organizers, Judd Greenstein and Kimball Gallagher, wanted to put on concert series of mostly new works; the composers were responsible for providing performers. The concerts were to be put on in the Gallerie Icosahedron (I’m deliberately not linking to them, for reasons that will be apparent soon!). The first indication of trouble to us should have been the delays, imposed by the gallery, regarding scheduling and, we found out later, the renting of a piano. The first public sign of trouble was the sudden announcement that
Read moreSunset at Montclair by George Inness New Jersey Arts Collective and the Montclair Art Museum are sponsoring Pictures 2008, a composition competition for high school and college students residing or studying in New Jersey. The winning works will be performed on May 9th at the Montclair Art Museum by the Halcyon Trio (www.halcyontrio.com). The museum has also commissioned a piece from Christian Carey for the concert. A Composers Forum on April 4th at 3:20 PM at Westminster Choir College will feature readings and a masterclass with the Halcyon Trio for the competition winners. Last year’s Pictures jury: Frank Ezra Levy, Christian Carey
Read moreCheck out this video of Tom Cruise talking about Scientology, apparently leaked from the Scientology organization (they got it pulled from YouTube, but copies are kicking around the internet). The ideological content is pretty wierd, and it’s Tom Cruise, which make it interesting enough. But check out the Minimalist use of the “Mission Impossible” theme as underscoring.
Read moreLast.fm is a social-network/music site out of London, whose visitors play a huge part in creating their vast database on musicians, their recordings, their popularity, and music of related interest. Users contribute by providing hard information, photos, opinions, and even “tags” that end up linking like-to-like across the spectrum. But many also download a bit of software as well, that keeps track of what they listen to on their computer. This information is used to build a profile of a listener’s likes, and lets Last.fm steer them towards other new music they’re likely to enjoy. If you’re a musician with recordings out there
Read moreAndrew Cyr writes: Hi Jerry, I just wanted to give you a heads up about a couple of things: Avner Dorman, the composer we just cut an album with (in editing mode now), had some incredible news in Germany, which I think is potentially worthy of a post. His new percussion concerto was just premiered in Hamburg a few weeks ago, and was just added in a rare surprise programming shift, with Munich Symphony — when was the last time you heard an American symphony do something like that! Check out the press release, which I received from his publisher,
Read moreWho’s going to see Elmer Gantry at Montclair later this week? Want to write a review for us? No money but an incredible amount of love, peace and understanding (and what’s so funny about that?) and the next 10 Mozart CDs companies send me by mistake. Marvin is doing the world premiere of the Alan Hovhaness concerto Shambala, for violin, sitar and orchestra, originally composed for Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar, on his Classical Discoveries radio program on January 30 during the 9 am EST hour. As usual, you can listen to it on the web at WPRB in Princeton. The broadcast marks the February 14th release of the
Read moreDespite being co-chair of composition at CalArts, Michael Pisaro stays off way too many people’s radar. Maybe this interview at the “Object Collection” blog will help get you up to speed. Michael Pisaro was born in Buffalo in 1961. He is a composer and guitarist, a member of the Wandelweiser Composers Ensemble and founder and director of the Experimental Music Workshop. His work is frequently performed in the U.S. and in Europe, in music festivals and in many smaller venues. It has been selected twice by the ISCM jury for performance at World Music Days festivals and has also been
Read moreWordless Music packed The Church of St. Paul the Apostle last night by offering what was a surprisingly snoozy program. The chief somnambulists were Gavin Bryars and John Adams. Bryars’s The Sinking of the Titanic and Adams’s Christian Zeal and Activity both underscore pre-recorded tape tracks with autumnal, string-choir textures. Passive and reflective, both pieces are pretty; but, as sometimes happens when reflecting, the same tracks get tread over and over again, and the process, if drawn out for too long, becomes an essay in narcissism. To that end, Bryars’s Sinking lasts a lip-smacking forty minutes; Adams’s Zeal clocks in
Read moreIt may be old news to some of regular music blog readers, but I think some of the tips by conductor Kenneth Woods – Oh no! More tips…. Now it’s the poor composers…. might be of interest to S21 readers. The rehearsal tips alone are something every composer should memorize. The notation tips, might be controversial, but they’re what I have been doing since I got our of grad school. Always using Italian for instructions, notating as simply as possible, etc. His story about the recent composer in residence process as seen through an arts community was also fascinating. Thanks
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