New York, NY, March 29, 2007. I’ve been a fan of Evan Ziporyn’s music since six or seven years ago when I first heard his work in a concert of piano music at Dartmouth College. (I think it must have been “Pondok,” in a recital by the fabulous Sarah Cahill, but I can’t seem to find evidence to support that conclusion. Sarah, if you’re out there. . .) Ziporyn is a fixture at Bang On A Can, and a member of the Bang On A Can All Stars where he plays a mean clarinet; he’s also a member of the
Read moreIf you know this gentleman or his work and have some original thoughts about same, and you want to write (for real, now) a decent sized post about said mystery person and work, and you are not Frank J. Oteri or Samuel Vriezen, leave your reasons for wanting to write said post below with your mailing address (or if you’re squemish about the internets, send me an e-mail. Winner will get in the mail about three pounds of CDs of said person’s work.
Read moreIn 1973 my mother bought me my first toy piano at Harvey’s Department Store in Nashville. This is not quite the heartwarming tale of a little tyke that it might at first seem to be, since I was at the time a student at New England Conservatory, and she was getting it for me so I could play the Cage Suite for Toy Piano in a concert in Jordan Hall. It turned out that, completely inadvertently (only operating according to her generosity), she had got me the Steinway of toy pianos, a Schoenhut. I’ve continued to play the Cage over
Read moreNext to the Mountaineers winning the NIT (okay, so it’s the tournament of losers…we won), the most exciting news in the world today is that our lil’ buddy Ian Moss is having his second annual Capital M world premiere extravaganza at Tonic next Wednesday. The concert will feature new works by Ian Dicke, Mike Gamble, Caroline Mallonée, Ian Moss, Edward RosenBerg III, Jonathan Russell, and Kyle Sanna. Noted provocateurs and ne’er-do-wells Anti-Social Music will follow with their particular brand of “punk classical” madness.
Read more(A little early this week, as I might be out on the weekend) …Our regular listen to and look at compositions and performances that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since folks are nice enough to offer so much good listening online. Time to sit in on a few “first moments” in musical history: George Gershwin & Paul Whiteman : Rhapsody in Blue – Original 78rpm Acoustic Recording (1924) Made shortly after the premiere performance, and a year before the electric microphone came into use. The two records are on
Read moreIt’s funny how our own personal preferences can make it so difficult to review concerts objectively. Take Monday night’s American Composer’s Orchestra concert, at Zankel Hall in New York – all seven pieces were good, often impressive, sometimes subtle and complex. But the things I want to rave about were not, I suspect, the things that most of the audience would have raved about when they got home. Min Xiao-Fen’s Blue Pipa, for voice and the lute-like Chinese instrument named in the title, opened the concert effectively. Min performed the piece herself in a pool of light on an otherwise
Read moreThe nice folks at the American Music Center had a launch party for their latest cool initiative–Counterstream Radio–last night. If you haven’t checked it out yet, click on the toilet seat icon in the right column and some incredibly fine and varied music will follow you around the internets all day. Some members of the Counterstream team above, foreground: AMC president Joanne Hubbard Cossa, with Trevor Hunter, Lyn Liston, Lisa Taliano and Molly Sheridan. Sorry for the crummy picture, guys, and apologies to Frank J. Oteri and Randy Norchow whose picture didn’t work out at all.
Read moreLast night the Los Angeles Master Chorale gave the premiere of Requiem by Christopher Rouse. This is an excellent work. It is beautiful. It is emotional. It is powerful. It is dramatic, and it is peaceful. This is a Requiem that sets a standard for composers of the future while holding its own against compositions of the past. Jerry Bowles gave us the link to the video recorded by Grant Gershon as summarized the work for his Board; it’s worth hearing again, so here’s the link. David Salvage reported Thursday on his interview with Rouse, so scroll down and re-read
Read moreOn the Verge Chamber Music by Sebastian Currier Music From Copland House Koch International With last year’s magnificent New World release Quartetset and this equally outstanding recording of four fairly recent chamber pieces (including the Grawemeyer-awarding winning Static), Sebastian Currier has elbowed himself into the honorary “little music” seat at the big table where the Glasses, Adamses, and Reichs go to chew the fat. So he’s a minaturist, but would Vermeer have been Vermeer on a Frank Stella-sized canvas? Currier is something of a music jokester, with performance directions like “almost too fast,” “almost too much,” “almost too little” and “bipolar” but it is his uncanny
Read moreEverybody likes to grouse about the weather, and East Coasters, who’ve moved to California, may expect sun 24/7. And though that’s never the case here in San Francisco, the climate, and especially the cultural climate on both coasts, does have one very definite thing in common — the dearth of welcome homes for new music, plus a congenial band to spread the word. New York has the long-running American Composers Orchestra, the S.E.M. Ensemble, and Bang On A Can, and the Bay Area, the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra, which has been in operation for three years. Its March 10th
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