Five minutes before Elisabeth Lutyens appeared live on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Start the Week’ in 1979 she threatened to denounce Russell Harty as a ‘homosexual interviewer’ if he mentioned the phrase ‘lady composer’; thankfully Harty avoided using the words when the programme was on air. Lutyens was a larger than life personality who pioneered serial techniques in her unfairly neglected music. She was also well connected as my photo shows. For the full story, and a recommendation of a new CD of her music, click on Walking with Stravinsky.
Read moreWe’re a little late in reporting this, but last month composer George Tsontakis was awarded the Charles Ives Living by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. I had never heard of this prize before, but it’s a sweet deal. Tsontakis receives $75,000. each year for three years provided that he forgo all normal paid work. He may, however, accept commissions. The Charles Ives Living was established by Ives’s widow with royalties from her late husband’s music. This round the selection committee was chaired by none other than William Bolcom. The previous three winners were Stephen Hartke, Chen Yi, and Martin Bresnick.
Read moreMark Turner said it best, as reported by Do the Math: Fuck those motherfuckers who don’t give it up for Michael Brecker. [youtube]GRFMG5C2PPA[/youtube]
Read moreOur 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: Hidayat Inayat-Khan (b.1917 — India / Europe) Taken mostly from the 1981 Cambridge International Biographical Centre entry, I just have to give you a good taste of this very interesting bio: Hidayat Inayat-Khan’s great-grandfather, Mula Bux, founded the first Academy of Music in India in the 19th century, and also invented the music notation system carrying his name. Born in
Read moreIt seems that conceptual artist Jonathon Keats has created a cell-phone ringtone based on John Cage’s 4’33” called My Cage (Silence for Cellphone), which is exactly what it sounds like: “a continuous stream of silence produced on a computer, and compressed to standard ringtone format.” It’s both hilarious and brilliant. (Thanks to Kyle Gann for bringing it to my attention.) The point of Cage’s original piece is that during the time period the audience is forced to think about silence (and the lack thereof) and music’s relationship to silence in a new way. Ambient environmental sounds are recontextualized and turned
Read moreThere hasn’t been much contemporary music in Los Angeles over the past month. (Does music over the holidays have to be so traditional? Isn’t there much festive contemporary music?) But we’re off to a decent start in January. The first Philharmonic concert in 2007 had the hot, bright, young (25!) conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, conducting a program of Kodaly, Rachmaninoff (the 3rd, with Bronfman), and the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra. Dudamel got great reviews when he first appeared at Hollywood Bowl, and his reviews of these concerts were raves. The program was recorded and will be available next week on iTunes. Mark
Read moreBecause I find myself suddenly and inexplicably old I will not be attending the great two-band, no waiting show at the Bowery Poetry Club this Sunday night, featuring Industrial Jazz Group and Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society. Well, the first episode of the new season of Rome on HBO is this Sunday so I probably wouldn’t be able to make it anyway. But, if I were not suddenly and inexplicably old and if the new season of Rome were not beginning on Sunday night, I would definitely be there. The festivities commence at 8 pm with Industrial Jazz Group, followed at 9:30 by Secret
Read moreFor those of you who were insufficiently cheered by Florida’s decisive surge over the Ohio State football factory, here’s something that should help. Our friends at Naxos will release on January 31 a DVD of fellow Mountaineer Pare Lorentz’s landmark New Deal-era documentaries “The Plow that Broke the Plains” (1936) and “The River” (1938), featuring the first complete modern recordings of the seminal Virgil Thomson soundtracks by Washington, D.C.-based Post-Classical Ensemble under Angel Gil-Ordóñez, with narration by Floyd King. “The Plow that Broke the Plains,” which examines the causes of the Dust Bowl drought and was made for $20,000, was the
Read moreWell, I see Chamber Music America is having its annual conference in the Center of the Universe this week, beginning on Thursday. I wasn’t invited this year. Last year, Alex Shapiro and Drew McManus and I did a dynamite panel on blogging to an SRO room. Alex and Drew were wonderful and, frankly, I thought I was pretty damned clever but three or four people complained on their evaluation sheets that I had said rude things about our esteemed President. Or, maybe, it was the part where I took a picture of the room and said I had been asked
Read moreBack in July, nine students associated with AAIR, the independent radio station of London’s Architectural Association School of Architecture, spent several days recording natural and man-made sounds to create an extensive sonic map of Capri, the island, not the car or the pants. The result is Radiocapri. Now they’re inviting all of us to “remix” the sounds of the island in their cleverly named “International Remix Competition A.” Here’s the best part: the winning entry will be picked by Brian Eno, Arto Lindsay and Ryuichi Sakamoto. The winner will get fame, fortune and more attractive lovers, plus a spot on an
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