An evening joining the dots between music genres and digital art forms, and exploring the worlds of electronic music, contemporary classical practice and interactive visual arts, all taking place on a Cold War air base – that’s Faster Than Sound at the Aldeburgh Festival. It took place on Saturday, see more pictures of the event here, and read the background story here.
Read moreLast night’s concert introduced us to the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Douglas Boyd. The major work was Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, transcribed for a chamber orchestra by Schoenberg in 1921 for a chamber orchestra of 14, and completed by Rainer Riehn in 1983. I didn’t like this. At over an hour in length, it wasn’t a condensation. “Listen to all of Mahler’s pretty melodies without all those messy instruments getting too emotional.” (Yes, I recognize that Schoenberg’s motivation was to try to bring a contemporary work to a local audience, even if he had to strip
Read morePierre-Laurent Aimard is music director for this year’s Ojai Music Festival, and his program for last night explored music in which the piano is used as a percussion instrument, while also continuing the use of multiple pianos begun last night. With Saturday morning set for his solo program, his work yesterday evening was as a colleague. The percussion group Nexus played in all three works of the program, as did his colleague Tamara Stefanovich on piano. For the past several months Stefanovich has been Aimard’s fellow-player of choice, having filled in for another pianist who suffered what sounds like tendon
Read moreFrom today’s NYT: Newspapers Trimming Classical Music Critics Doesn’t mean they’re giving them free haircuts either. If only Paris Hilton could play the cello. (No piccolo jokes, please.)
Read moreThe 61st Ojai Music Festival opened last night. Helena Bugallo and Amy Williams, returning after their success two years ago in their performances of Nancarrow, gave us a great survey of modern works for two pianos with works by Stravinsky, Ligeti, Sciarrino, and this season’s featured composer, Peter Eötvös. (Us amateurs have trouble coming to a decision as to the best mispronounciation of his name.) But let me start with the featured composer, glad I can write the name and not try to speak it. The second half of the program opened with his Cricketmusic (1970) a tape of cricket
Read moreI meant to flag this earlier but Mark Stryker had a terrific profile of Leon Kirchner in the Freep a few days ago. Wonderful pictures, too. Great head of hair for an 88-year-old dude. Anybody study with Kirchner? A reminder to those of you who owe us CD reviews; I have a terrific new batch and I am keeping score. Cough up or bring an excuse from your mommy.
Read moreGreetings S21ers: The OgreOgress gang has been having a swell time in Old Bohemia for the past month. Last night I had the honor of recording John Cage’s Three with the multi-talented and very humorous German-born (and Amsterdam-based) recordist Susanna Borsch at the facilities of the Prague State Opera. If you’re interested in the recorder I would encourage you to check out Borsch’s activities and be in contact. Of particular note to those in the US of A (apologies to Borat), Susanna’s eclectic new music “girl band” Electra will be in the Massachusetts area to perform Louis Andriessen in July and I am certain
Read moreFirst Jeff Harrington, then David Salvage, and now our very own Lawrence Dillon is feeling some end-of-the-season love on the concert circuit. This very evening (Thursday), at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, violinist Piotr Szewczyk will perform Lawrence’s Mister Blister and a movement from Fifteen Minutes as part of his Music in Time – Violin Futura program. Szewczyk will also perform works by Mason Bates, Moritz Eggert, Daniel Kellogg, Jennifer Wang, and others as part of this program of new, short, innovative solo violin pieces. And, on June 15 at the International Double Reed Society Conference in Ithaca, New York, bassoonist Jeffrey Keesecker will
Read moreA few picks ago I introduced you to my new Houston friend, pedal-steel guitarist Susan Alcorn. She’s off to Argentina just now, but before she left she sent me a YouTube link to her performing in her studio just a week or two ago: [youtube]4x5UEEbnVQU&NR[/youtube] Absolutely fascinating to see and hear.
Read moreThe Los Angeles Master Chorale gave the premiere of a new work by Eve Beglarian for full chorus and two Persian instruments. The work is “Sang”, Persian for “stone”, taken from a Persian parable that appealed to Beglarian; she added texts in Hebrew and Septuagint Greek from the Hebrew scriptures. Her program notes are here. An English translation of the texts was given in the program, but no attempt was made to provide surtitles; the thing to do was to relax and be absorbed into the sounds. The work was the first in a planned series of commissions for the
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