Benjamin Britten, composer, pianist, conductor, pacifist, humanitarian, and visionary, died on December 4th 1976. The thirtieth anniversary of his death is being celebrated with the remarkable story of how he left not just a legacy of 20th century masterpieces, but also a remarkable music vision which is about to be realised after three decades. Take An Overgrown Path to Britten celebrated with new music campus.
Read moreMartin Bresnick turned 60 last month and he’s celebrating the event with two events at Zankel Hall this week. One piece will be on the Bang on the Can All-Stars program on Tuesday night and, on Saturday, the Yale School of Music will devote an entire evening to Bresnick’s music, including choral songs, a concerto for two marimbas, and a multimedia piece for solo pianist. Steve Smith has a splendid profile of Bresnick in the Sunday New York Times which acknowledges the perhaps unfortunate fact that Bresnick is best-known for being the teacher of other composers who are more famous than he
Read moreBen Ratliff has a great review (and photo) in today’s New York Times of our amigo Darcy James Argue’s Thursday gig with his big band at the Bowery Poetry Club. Having your name mentioned in the same sentence as Charles Mingus and Bob Brookmeyer is a pretty damned inspiring head rush and we’re thrilled for Darcy and the gang. Read his postmortem and listen to samples here. The big news out of Second City this week is that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will return to weekly radio broadcasts on WFMT-FM, 98.7 (probably in March 2007) and the CSO has founded its own record
Read moreOur weekly listen and look at (mostly) living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since it’s right there waiting online. (the “click picks” category at the bottom of the post isn’t working, but you can revisit all the previous “click picks” by visiting this link: https://www.sequenza21.com/index.php/?cat=29 Elizabeth Olivia Walling (b.1981 — UK) Walling started out as a self-taught soprano and flautist. She began composing in 2001, and moved to formal composition and performance studies a year later. She’s been a member of New Music Brighton
Read moreOn the Friday before Thanksgiving, the Argento Chamber Ensemble took the audience at Symphony Space on a little transatlantic trip with an evening featuring four contemporary French composers: Fabien Levy, Gérard Pesson, Tristan Murail, and Philippe Hurel. Of course for many readers, the phrase ‘contemporary French composers’ will evoke one word (especially with Murail being one of the composers in question) – spectralism. For those of you how aren’t familiar with the term, spectralism is an approach to composition that arises from the analysis of the partials of a particular sound or sounds (its spectrum). How this information relates to
Read moreIn Ohio over Thanksgiving, I was happy to discover a small pile of mail from Manhattan School of Music: it’s about time they decided to keep in touch with their alumni. Anyway, browsing the school’s new newsletter, I was pleased to learn they’ve just established a new Masters program in Contemporary Performance. This, of course, should come as no surprise now that a composer’s in charge up there. The requirements include playing four semesters with Tactus, MSM’s increasingly hot contemporary music ensemble; lots of reading of works by student composers; and plenty of instruction in performing with electronics. All in
Read moreThe Can Banger All-Stars are playing Zankel Hall on Tuesday, December 5, beginning at 7:30 pm, in a program called American UnPop What is American UnPop? This is how Evan Ziporyn, clarinetist for the Bang on a Can All-Stars, describes it: “Vox populi, vox pop, the voice of the people, or rather the voices of many different peoples, filtered through radio, record companies, market testing and the iTunes…pop culture is today synonymous with corporate culture, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The music industry may be a nightmare, but the sound of pop music, in the broader sense, is
Read moreAs part of his residency with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Thomas Ades was given a Green Umbrella concert, his choice of music, and his choice of role. Ades chose to conduct, and for music he chose “The Triumph of Beauty and Deceit” (1995) by Gerald Barry. This was originally written for British television and broadcast by Channel 4; as artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival, Ades brought it back to open the 2002 festival, and it has began receiving performances since then, with performances scheduled for Paris and Amsterdam next year. Last night’s performance was the North American premiere. “Triumph”
Read moreIt’s awfully quiet out there. What are you folks up to? I’m off to lunch at a nice bistro called Le Singe Vert. Why don’t you talk amonst yourselves for awhile. Somebody say something controversial, like why has Derek Bermel become the kingmaker in new music in New York and should he be? I have no opinion, of course, but maybe some of you do.
Read moreThe International Society of Bassists wanted a new concerto for their favorite instrument, and they wanted orchestras to play the work rather than merely filing its name in the list of new works that they might think about some future year. With help of their members they formed a consortium of 15 orchestras to back the work, enabling each participating orchestra to list themselves as a co-commissioner, giving each a “premiere” (even if merely a local one) at a bargain price. John Harbison was commissioned to write the concerto, and yesterday the Los Angeles Philharmonic performed his “Concerto for Bass Viol
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