Hey Jerry. We would love your help getting the word out on the balance of our reading opportunities this year. What’s new is that we are now accepting them by email and also offering the ability to apply for both the Underwood New Music Readings and the New York Philharmonic EarShot Readings that will result in three of the six chosen having their works performed June 5-7 by the Phil either under Alan Gilbert or Matthias Pintscher. I’ll go ahead and say that I think this is pretty cool. Also, if you can post this opportunity on your site somewhere in addition
Read more“…Crazy is good, folks! So come on down to Crazy Marvin’s Modern Music Warehouse! We’re wheeling!! We’re dealing!! We’ll play play PLAY all day day DAY!!!…” OK, OK, maybe not quite that crazy… But once a year our good friend Marvin Rosen goes crazy in the best way over at Princeton’s radio station WPRB, (103.3 FM, or online at: www.wprb.com). For the last six years Marvin has offered up a one-man, 24-hour radio marathon of contemporary music. And by contemporary, I mean things from just the last year or two, and often recordings culled directly from the composers themselves. This year
Read moreOn Thursday November 7, Betalevel, that famously obscure underground venue in Chinatown, hosted a concert of microtonal music entitled The Things That Overpower Us. The program featured the music of Kraig Grady, in Los Angeles for the week and who brought his personal greetings from the metaphorical Island of Anaphoria. A standing-room only crowd of about 50 jammed into the small space to hear performances by Tangerine Music Lab and a string quartet consisting of Melinda Rice, Mona Tian, Andrew McIntosh and Ashley Walters. The concert began with an extended improvisation by Tangerine Music Labs that was loosely based on
Read moreWhen art promises to be revelatory, it may become something to fear. Such is the case of String Paths, the first conspectus of music by Dobrinka Tabakova. Fear, in this sense, is close to awe, for before hearing a single note one knows its details will seep into places to which few others have traveled. Fear, because the trust and intimacy required of such an act is what the composer’s life is all about: she fills staves with glyphs so that anyone with an open heart might encounter their fleeting interpretations and become part of their accretion. Indeed, many factors
Read moreOn Friday night, November 1st the Wulf in downtown Los Angeles presented a program by three outstanding improvisational musicians: Tim Feeney on percussion, Ken Ueno, vocals and Matt Ingalls, clarinet. A little over an hour of improvisational music was offered in the reclaimed second-story industrial loft that is the Wulf, and a small but dedicated group of listeners gathered comfortably in the informal space. On this occasion there were no overhead lights – just a single back light behind the performers – and this added to the unusual atmosphere. The three performers all have long experience playing experimental music using extended
Read moreIt was an evocatively strange and ambiguous experience to hear Anton Batagov play Morton Feldman’s Triadic Memories last Sunday evening in the newly restored Board of Officers Room at the Park Avenue Armory. The room is stunning, beautiful and elegant in a way that speaks not just of easy riches but of plutocracy and power. It’s the size of a studio apartment, and sitting in it is like being in the intimate quarters of the people whose riches ensure their legacy in and on buildings across the city. And there we heard Feldman, the last of three concerts to inaugurate
Read more“One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you’re into jazz.” – Lou Reed Much of my music passes the above “into jazz” marker. That said, Lou Reed taught me a great deal about productivity, creativity, and the maxim that “sometimes, less is more.” Sad tonight for Laurie Anderson, and for us, who are deprived of more “more with less.”
Read moreA funny thing happened last night during the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s performance of 200 Motels. The audience turned on itself. Before the show, the chorus warmed up the crowd with some catcalls, and that prompted the room to loosen up. The vibe was fun. The orchestra did a wave. The audience hooted and hollered like they were at the Fillmore. During an awkward silence, some brave soul chanced a “Freebird!” shout, and was lucky to get hearty laughs instead of groans. It seemed like a loose crowd, that was in the mood for a fun show. From my vantage point,
Read moreA new video (posted yesterday) of New York Polyphony live in midtown Manhattan at St. Mary’s. We have been playing the quartet’s latest BIS recording, Times go by Turns, in heavy rotation. The disc includes Renaissance masses by Tallis, Byrd, and Plummer as well as contemporary pieces by Gabriel Jackson, Andrew Smith, and one of the last works written by Sir Richard Rodney Bennett. “A Colloquy with God”, gifted by Bennett to NYP, is, simply put, a knockout. The website eClassical is sharing a bonus track from the album, Tallis’s beloved motet “If Ye Love Me,” for download here.
Read more[youtube oTnwdQbN3vY] Some of the most timeless, gripping, modern and surprising music I hear consistently are the vocal works of Renaissance Italian composers and their associated circle – Monteverdi, Gesualdo, the great Madrigalist Luca Marenzio. Saturday night at Miller Theatre I heard music from composers who were new to me – Giovanni Maria Trabaci, Il Fasolo (not Giovanni Battista Fasolo) and Marco Marazzoli – in a revelatory and affecting concert from the great early music ensemble, Le Poème Harmonique, led by Vincent Dumestre. Why Renaissance music at Sequenza21? First, Miller is as important for their early music programming as they
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