Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

Do Conductors and Performers Make Good Composers?

Joshua Bell tells the Korea Times that he’s working toward writing his own stuff in a few years.  Could work, I suppose.  His pal Edgar Myers is a decent composer and fine musician.  But, you pretty much have to go back to Rachmaninoff to find someone who was “great” as both a performer and composer.  (Or, I’m sure someone will remind me that you don’t have to go back that far.)

Same thing for conductors.  Okay, Lenny was great at both but most are not.  The most excruciating half hour I ever spent in a concert hall (and this includes Chinese opera) was listening to some endless percussion drivel by Michael Tilson Thomas that he had forced upon the poor kids in the New World Symphony.  I really admire Esa Pekka but I just can’t warm to his music.

So, gang, what’s the verdict? 

by Jerry Bowles
Contemporary Classical

Sir Mad Max

Peter Maxwell Davies let loose some fightin’ words a few months ago at the annual meeting of Britain’s Incorporated Society of Musicians. Music education has been unavailable in schools for two generations; the hegemony of commercial music is unchecked; and students now graduate high school with vocabularies insufficient to express the complexity of experience. Surprised? It’s all the same trend. Let’s start teaching kids to notate music, sing Palestrina, and go to new music concerts. (So Max.)

A related personal anecdote: Around the same time Davies was giving this speech, I asked the faculty of the Harvard Music Department if the declining standards of musical literacy were affecting their tasks as music educators. They didn’t seem to think so.  

by David Salvage
Click Picks, Composers, Contemporary Classical, San Francisco

Steve’s click picks #31

Our regular listen to and look at living, breathing composers and performers 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:

Beth Custer (b. 1958 — US)

Beth Custer EnsembleExtra, extra!… Fearless woman seizes her day!…

Beth was born in South Bend, Indiana, raised in western New York, but has lived in San Francisco for for the last twenty-five-and-some years.

As if she wasn’t busy enough being a composer, performer, bandleader, clarinet teacher, and running a record label, she’s also a founding member of the notorious silent film soundtrack purveyors the Club Foot Orchestra, 4th-world ambient ensemble Trance Mission, the quintet of esteemed clarinetists Clarinet Thing, the trip-hop duo Eighty Mile Beach, and the Latin-jazz-rock influenced Doña Luz 30 Besos. She now leads The Beth Custer Ensemble (including long time collaborator Jan Jackson on drums, guitarist David James, iconic pianist Graham Connah, and New Yorker transplant bassist Mark Calderon).

Beth composes for film, television, installations and the concert stage (hall or club are both fair game). Recent commissions include A Trip Down Market Street 1905/2005, a live outdoor cinema event by Melinda Stone produced by the Exploratorium; The Ballad of Pancho & Lucy musical for Campo Santo Theatre; and Bernal Heights Suite for the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble.

As the above might indicate, Beth’s music and monster clarinet chops are put in service of everything from the primal to the rarest air. Though seekers of the plain-and-pretty might have a hard time, the rest of us can enjoy a bit of all this at her extremely spiffy website, chockablock-full of MP3s, video, interviews and other info.

by Steve Layton
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, S21 Concert

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?

Judd Greenstein and Kimball Gallagher are looking for a few good proposals for the 2007-2008 season of VIM: TRIBECA.  Proposals may be submitted by performers (instrumental and vocal), composers, ensembles, or mixed-art groups that include music. VIM: TRIBECA is centered around music in the Western classical tradition, Greenstein says, but proposals may be made by any musicians whose work pushes the boundaries of genre, or whose work is affiliated with other traditions.  Download a pdf file with details here.

And get out there and push a genre today.  Just don’t be too noisy.

Our buddy Marvin Rosen will be joined by American composer Eric Ewazen this Wednesday morning, June 20 from 8:30 until 11:00 (eastern time) on the program Classical Discoveries which is celebrating 10 years on the air this summer.  The show can be heard every Wednesday morning from 6:00 until 11:00 on WPRB from Princeton, NJ.  The program is broadcast on line and can be listened  at WPRB.  

Classical Discoveries now has a brand new web address but Marvin hasn’t quite gotten all the furniture and lamps moved so older stuff is still at the old address.  

So, the S21 brain trust (yuk, yuk) has been kicking around some thoughts about doing another live concert this year and one of the ideas we had was maybe striking an alliance with a good new music ensemble.  Simple deal.  You play our concert–your schedule or as a one-off–and we put the considerable promotional and publicity resources of S21 behind your group year-round.  Kind of a play nice with us kids and we’ll make you the Emersons.  Any thoughts?  

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

The Times They Are a Changin’

Okay, so nobody wants to discuss A3.  How about C4, the terrific choral collective championed by S21 regular Ian Moss?  The talented boys and girls are doing a concert about the always-popular subject of love tonight at 8 pm at the Norwegian Seamen’s Church, 317 East 52nd Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues).  On the bill are new works by C4 members Jonathan David, David Rentz, Moss, Malina Rauschenfels and Karen Siegel, plus stuff by a bunch of other people.  Lykke til! 

Further evidence of the deaggregation of classical music distribution; our friends at Naxos have launched an online boutique called NaxosDirect.

Best film score ever.  Discuss.

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Don’t Stop Believin’

It’s Daniel Gilliam’s turn to be S21er in the spotlight this weekend.  If you happen to be near Louisville, Kentucky at 4 pm this Sunday, drop by Central Presbyterian Church for the world premiere of Daniel’s Song of the Universal, a cantata for soprano solo, choir and piano, based on the text by Walt Whitman.  Lacey Hunter Gilliam, Daniel’s wife, will be the soloist. 

Also on the program will be the premiere of O for Such a Dream for choir, soloist and piano, by Daron Aric Hagen, as well as new music by Louisville composer Fred Speck, and anthems by John Leavitt and Paul Halley.  The church is located at 318 West Kentucky Street (corner of Fourth and Kentucky), in Louisville. No admission, but there might be a donation plate.

Daniel has a terrific radio program of contemporary classical music called Brave New World on WUOL in Louisville.  Which provides an obvious segueway to David Toub whose  intentionally left blank will be programmed on Richard Friedman’s Music from Other Minds on KALW-FM, 91.7 in San Francisco. tomorrow evening, and again on Monday.  This is a recording of a  live performance of the piece, as arranged by Paul Bailey and performed on 5/9/07 by the Diverse Instrument Ensemble conducted by Lloyd Rogers.  Catch it either tomorrow (Friday, June 15th) at 11 PM PST and again on Monday at 11 PM PST on KALW-FM or, more sensibly for most of us,  you can also listen to it for one week after the Friday broadcast on the MFOM website.
Today’s topic:  Diegetic versus non-diegetic music in the Sopranos.  Discuss.
by Jerry Bowles
Contemporary Classical

Funding / Friends on the Radio

Two quick notes:

First, the American Symphony Orchestra League is reporting that the full House Appropriations Committee has approved the major arts funding increases which the Interior Subcommittee had recommended on May 23rd.  InsideHigherEd.com confirms the story, saying that

“The House Appropriations Committee approved legislation Thursday that would increase spending on the National Endowment for the Humanities to $160 million in the 2008 fiscal year, up sharply from the $141.4 million that the agency is receiving this year. The bill, which finances the Interior Department and numerous other agencies such as non gamstop casinos, would also provide $160 million to the National Endowment for the Arts, which would represent a $35 million increase over its 2007 allocation.”

Next stop is the House Floor.  As I said before, there remain many opportunities for this funding proposal to die, but so far it remains unscathed.

Second, our friends Drew McManus of Adaptastration and Frank Oteri of NewMusicBox are going to be on Sound Check on WNYC this afternoon, discussing whether blogs can fill the void left by declining arts coverage in the mainstream media.  The show airs at 2 PM, and you can catch the web stream at wnyc.org if you’re outside of the New York region.  Sound Check also posts its episodes on the website within a few hours of the air time, so you can hear the rerun there.  You tell ’em, Drew and Frank!

by Galen H. Brown