Hey, I think you and your readers at sequenza21 will like this piece we just published, by Richard Taruskin: It’s a provocative argument that the dire situation in which classical music finds itself is being made even more dire by the sentimentality and unreality of some of the music’s most ardent defenders. Here’s a link. Best, Barron YoungSmith The New Republic
Read moreSeveral good reasons to be glad you weren’t a child prodigy. Oops, forgot. Some of you probably were. Morton Subotnick. Discuss.
Read moreAfter his spectacular Spoleto Festival performance of the 16 piece Violin Futura set, Piotr Szewczyk continues to promote the series with a new video and an upcoming gig at the Santa Fe New Music Festival, February 2nd. [youtube]Ywd_mkPa8Oo[/youtube]. Check out the entire series, which was designed around short, exciting pieces for solo violin composed just for Piotr. My favorites include our own Lawrence Dillon’s Mister Blister, Piotr’s Cadenza and Carson Cooman’s The Doors in the Sky. Other composers featured include Mason Bates, John Kennedy, Marc Mellits, and myself with Puce. Piotr’s use of YouTube videos and the web in general
Read moreOur regular listen to and look at living, breathing musicians that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since they’re nice enough to offer so much good listening online: Strange and intimate places via Myspace Rather than go in-depth on one or two musicians, we’re going to play epicurean. The back-stories and other works of each of these musicians may (or sometimes, may not) be found easily enough with a few clicks around; I’ll leave that up to you. Right now, it doesn’t matter; I only want to lead you to
Read more[youtube]6J14flyMOQo[/youtube] Human behavior’s funny. The more we try to change the more we don’t seem able to. Are we cursed to repeat the same mistakes in our private lives — with lovers, friends — as well as in our public ones? Are we genetically condemned to disjunction, discord, and war, like Sisyphus trying to keep that enormous rock from crushing him each day? Philip Glass’ SF Opera commission, APPOMATTOX, which world premiered 5 October, and which I caught 16 October, seems to accept these things as givens. Its ostensible subject is Robert E. Lee’s surrender to U.S. Grant at Appomattox
Read moreNorman Lebrecht is an entertaining writer who has never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Come to think of it, he may have been the world’s first blogger–he adopted the sloppy research habit before blogs were even invented. For years, he’s been planting verbal IEDs along the classical music highway, wiping out entire convoys of evildoers and occasionally fragging some innocent bystanders in the process. So, it is with some smugness that one is able to report this morning, or the New York Times is able to report, that Stormin’ Norman has had a bit of a comeuppance. The Brtisih publisher of his
Read moreIn the interest of furthering dialog between our 12ET brethren and our more flavorful microtonalist artists I present this provocative YouTube recording of America’s favorite band, Van Halen attempting to close a set with their signature cheeseburger – Jump. The backstage sound guy accidentally plays the synth opening at 48K rather than 44.1 causing a 1.5 semitone tonal conflict to occur. Eddie and the crew attempt to roll with the microtonal noise but no… it is not meant to be. Somehow I believe new music’s brilliant microtonalist/guitarist Neil Haverstick could have done a lot better. [youtube]Mjx_GjyXCs4[/youtube]
Read moreAs many of you know, we also run a new music wiki here. It’s got lots of user-created content, links to very cool MP3 files through our Listening Room and a lot of lists of performers, and opportunities. Recently we’ve come under attack, not from SpamBots but from a new type of bot which seemingly means only to destroy wikis. We’re not the only one being attacked, but it has seemingly focussed a great deal of attention on our little homebrew music information site. If you check out the Recent Changes you’ll see auto-generated usernames and very slight random text
Read moreIt’s a pretty short list when you try to name the persons who have really affected and changed musical life in Los Angeles. There are many who brought fame to L.A., and there are several who became famous through Los Angeles. But fame is much easier than impact and change. Bill Kraft is one of that short list. He was a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 26 years, 18 of which were as Principal Timpanist. As conductors and administrators worked with the orchestra to make it a more stellar ensemble and to bring vitality to contemporary music, Bill Kraft
Read moreFrom the NYT: After Radiohead announced it would allow fans to download its album for whatever price they chose, about a third of the first million or so downloads paid nothing, according to a British survey. But many paid more than $20. The average price was about $8. That is, people paid for something they could get for free.
Read more